The Carnal Prayer Mat (Rou Putuan)

CRITIQUE

After reading the chapter in which they met at the temple, one expected that Flora's pleasure would precede Lucky Pearl's and Lucky Jade's, and that Vesperus's comments on Flora would be the thread that strung the pearls together, the tile that drew the jade in response. Who would ever have imagined that the author's mind would so resemble the Creator's in disposing independently of people and events and confounding all our expectations? The author has taken the woman easiest to seduce and placed her after the ones hardest to seduce, which is remarkable and fantastic in the extreme! He has made the thread that was to have strung the pearls together and the tile that would have drawn the jade in response into the very reasons Pearl and Jade are cast aside. The tempest in the bedchamber originates in a scene of noisy argument, which again is remarkable and fantastic in the extreme! How unpredictable is the authorial mind!