The Resume

(circa 1720-circa 1763)
Born in Nanjing, China
Birth name was Cao Zhao
Wrote the novel 'Dream of the Red Chamber' (published posthumously, 1791)

Why he might be annoying:

Guesses for his year of birth spread out over a decade (1715-24).
He was a tutor until he was fired for knocking up one of the household's maids.
He wrote that he had 'made an utter failure of my life.'
The earliest manuscripts of 'Dream of the Red Chamber' end after 80 chapters, fueling suspicions that the last 40 chapters of the 1791 version were written by the publishers.
Three researchers using data analysis of the writing styles concluded that the first 80 chapters and the last 40 were indeed the work of different authors (2004).
His mixing of colloquialisms, literary language, and classical poetry make 'Dream...' a bitch to translate into other languages. (The first complete English translation was published in five volumes over thirteen years [1973-86].)

Why he might not be annoying:

He was a talented enough artist to support himself by selling his paintings.
He was said to have died of grief after the death of his only son.
'Dream of the Red Chamber' was named one of the Four Great Novels of classic Chinese literature.
Critic Anthony West wrote that 'Dream...' was 'to the Chinese as Proust is to the French or Karamazov to the Russians.'
'Dream...' inspired more than thirty published sequels. (And you probably though fanfic was a modern development.)

Credit: C. Fishel

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 80]
• I Outlived My Child
• Life Magazine's Top 100 People of the Millennium [2000] (Ranked: 67)
• Look at Me, My Picture Is Art
• Painters
• Pre-Renaissance Painters
• Profiles 51056-51250 (Ranked: 51060)
• Teachers

Year In Review:

In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 24 Votes: 58.33% Annoying