Talk:The Story of the Stone (Hughart novel)

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Devious humor[edit]

"... master of the p'o-mo (魄莫) style." – No chance at all that Hughart's making a pun on the English abbreviation "Po-Mo" for "post-modernist," is there? No, of course not. Sorry to have even brought it up. Silly me. ... But if so, does it express his opinion of Po-Mo that 魄莫 might convey roughly "vigorless" or even "bodyless"?
(Trivia point. The Chinese Text Project Dictionary, when queried on this phrase, answered only on the separate characters: 魄 pò: vigor; body; dark part of moon. 莫 mò: do not, is not, can not; negative. And this is a site that will show you the seal script characters....) – _•Raven^.talk 19:02, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Three Incomparables, master of the p'o-mo (魄莫) style" (Gu Kaizhi) — a rather paradoxical character in himself, and no wonder Hughart has fun with him. (Recall Hughart's comments about Confucianism vs Daoism as the background of Bridge of Birds.) As Britannica notes, his painting "Nymph of the Luo River" illustrates a Daoist poem, and his essay "On Painting the Cloud Terrace Mountain" is also Daoist; yet "The Admonitions of the Court Instructress" illustrates a didactic Confucian poem on proper behavior for court ladies. Ooh. The Wikipedia article on Gu Kaizhi offers one resolution, calling "Admonitions" a satire.* But Britannica's bio notes that "Admonitions" is not originally recorded as having been painted by Gu Kaizhi — though it bears his signature. Which should we doubt? The authorship, or the sincerity? What would Master Li advise us? – _•Raven^.talk 22:05, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(* Specifically, "a political satire about Empress Jia Nanfeng written by Zhang Hua".... Now, Zhang Hua did write satires about people's manners as, say, birds' manners. But he was one of the imperial ministers, and ultimately Jia made him Duke of Zhuangwu. He depended utterly on her good will. When she was overthrown, he was killed. Do I really, really need to explain the unlikeliness of even this satirist writing a political satire about his imperial patroness in the open form of discussing court behavior, versus giving sincere and serious courtly advice in a way the Empress would not disapprove?) – _•Raven^.talk 22:27, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]