Shenlou zhi

According to translator Patrick Hanan, the anonymous author of Shenlou zhi, which he classifies as a Bildungsroman, was inspired by Dream of the Red Chamber.^[7] Keith McMahon similarly describes the protagonist Su Jishi as a "reformed Ximen Qing"^[10] as well as a "benevolent polygamist".^[5] He further argues that the novel reuses many common tropes found in "previous vernacular fiction", for instance "the lone Tibetan monk with his potent aphrodisiacs and retractable penis" and "the corrupt and lecherous official and his sycophants".^[11]

Shenlou zhi has received mixed reviews from literary critics. Nineteenth-century commentator Dai Bufan claimed that "no novel surpassed it" for a hundred years after its publication.^[12] Zheng Zhenduo, writing in 1927, praised the novel for its "realism and fluid style". Lin Chen likewise noted the realism in Shenlou zhi, but criticized its "imitativeness and idealization of polygamy". Cai Guoliang, in a 1985 treatise on Ming and Qing dynasty literature, found it one of the better "second or third rate" novels of the era but inferior to the likes of Dream of a Red Chamber and Rulin waishi.^[13]

Choice reviewer P. F. Williams praised the translation work on Mirage, calling it "superb", and the efforts taken to give notes and other information to explain allusions specific to the Chinese culture and language.^[14] Dylan Suher, in an article on Hanan for the magazine Asymptote, called Mirage "historically significant" and noted Hanan's particular style of translation that is "relentlessly attentive to the elegant touches that animated works of fiction like Mirage". While considering the original source material work to only be "OK" due to its heavy use of tropes and slow, almost episodic plot, Suher wrote that the work "has its charms". He especially liked the sensitive treatment of its protagonist and the subject of "tawdry commerce", preserving a part of people's lives that would not be covered in more official literature.^[15]

While discussing the translation's plot and allusions in an article for the Asian Review of Books, writer Jonathan Chatwin pointed out that the novel is "more than simply the sum of its allusions" and that it was able to combine the usage of tropes to form a "compelling portrait of a society on the cusp of a destabilising modernity" over its multi-chapter epic. It reflects the style of longer and more popular epics, including with its having hundreds of named characters, but Hanan's translation helps make the text more readable and a book that is to be "enjoyed" with its "clear, vernacular English".^[16] Keith McMahon reviewed the 2014 translated work of Mirage in the journal Nan Nü and heavily celebrated the "erudition and stamina" of Hanan completing the translation before his death. McMahon stated his doubts that the translation would be surpassed by another in "skill and accuracy" for "a long time" to come.^[12]