An abridged version would be losing what makes this novel so important to Chinese culture. The story of 红楼梦 is not the most important point (though it is important). It’s whose eyes the story is told through, his interactions with the people around him, and the daily life that reveals it that matters.

If you have ever read any kind of “fall of a family” style of story you already have read A Dream of Red Mansions. You might as well not bother with an abridged edition. The value of the novel lies precisely in the stuff that would be elided away by an abridgement.

This is a very big, very heavy, very deep novel. (How deep? You can get university degrees in just this novel in China.) And you’ll be reading it through the haze of translation and of cultural confusion. It will not be an easy read even if you get an excellent translation that’s stuffed to the gills with explanatory footnotes. (Like, for example, the poetry won’t resonate … and there is a lot of poetry in the story!) I can’t tell you if it’s worth reading because I’m not you. I can warn you, though, that reading it will be work, not light passing fancy.

I’m sorry, but it’s been too long, and I don’t really remember it well enough to confidently say.