I read and finished Dream of Red Mansions/Story of the Stone in translation when I took a Chinese lit class.
IMO, it was like reading a Shakespearean play in novel format except one had to keep track of many more characters as even relatively minor ones were important in understanding what was going on in the story.
Incidentally, some academics in my extended family are a bit amused at how an entire large subfield of literature has arisen from this very novel within Chinese, East Asian, and to some extent World Literature. That’s not to say they disliked it.
Rather that back when the novel was first released to the public in the 18th century, it was regarded among the educated elite as a “guilty pleasure”* one would not want to be caught in public with as it was regarded as exceedingly lowbrow literature. Part of this perception was the fact the novel was written in vernacular Chinese in an era when mid and highbrow literature** and official documents were written in literary Chinese.
This attitude was similar to ones held among some educated elites in Medieval and Renaissance Europe regarding religious materials and literature written in Latin versus the vernacular languages of each of the respective societies.
- Probably almost on the level of say...catching someone who is renowned for having a highbrow intellectual reputation and demeanor being caught reading the National Enquirer tabloid.
** The Romance of Three Kingdoms is considered more “high brow” not only because the subject matter is on military and political maneuverings and strategy during a notable historical period in Chinese history, but also because it was originally written in literary Chinese.