Just bought a translated Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Let's talk about it and other great literary works from China that we've all read.
What are some Chinese books you have read? Did you read a translation or in the original? What were your general thoughts on it?
More specific question and related to another one of the four great works of Chinese Literature, what are your thoughts on Dream of the Red Chamber and how there's supposedly an entire academic field dedicated to just studying that single work (redology)?
I've read Fortress Besieged and The True Story of Ah Q in translation.
Fortress Besieged was interesting. It starts out as a romantic comedy, then it suddenly takes a dark turn as the Fang Hung-chien travels across mainland China with some other teachers during the Second Sino-Japanese War to go to his teaching job. His group runs out of money and is close to starving, but Fang Hung-chien literally can't stop himself from making jokes and philosophizing on their situation. Then it goes back to being a romantic comedy after he gets married.
Jaxon Martinez
>Chinese Literature
Colton Moore
Reading this right now. Somewhere between the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Plutarch. Salright.
Jason Carter
Chinese "classics" are DBZ tier powerlevel wank minus the introspection and mindfuckery of Indian DBZ powerlevel wank
Ayden Moore
So Chinese classics are unadulterated, unpretentious fun? Sign me up
Justin Edwards
favorite part so far
Lincoln Powell
I've read the 4 Chinese great literature and some others. Not in the mood to discuss shit I just want to recommend some other less known works that you may enjoy:
Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms (Dongzhou lie Guo Zhi)
Records of the Grand Historial (Shiji)
Nolan Thompson
Confucius is great Lao Tzu is great The book of Odes is great. Lin Yutang is a pretty good writer. RoTK gets better the more I read it.(I am at Chapter eight of the Moss Roberts translation)
Which translation did you get OP?
Eli Wilson
Top tier shit right here
Juan Parker
Moss Roberts as well. On chapter 3
Ian Howard
Are you taking notes?(Writing thing down in a notebook and sticky notes on the book?)
Xavier Parker
Oh so many.
Lao Tzu - Dao De Jing
A description of a perfect natural life. Beautiful, poetic and incredibly difficult to understand.
Chuang Tzu - The Chuang Tzu
A wise and witty description of real life in the real world. Moments of existentialism, peppered with searing wit and thought provoking, heartwarming stories.
Confucius - Analects Worth reading as a counterpoint, a lot of interesting teachings, but some very obsolete.
Art of War - Sun Tzu Interesting, needs a lot of thought to relate and put into practice.
Fortress Beseiged - Qian Zhongshu Witty and tragic in equal measure, the sad life of a sad man is told by an author who can't help showing off how clever he is, and not in a bad way.
Mr. Ma and Son - Lao Tse Another book that's a comic tragedy. The Son is smart, Mr. Ma is a bumbling fucking idiot. Tells a tale that shows how hard life was for the Chinese who moved abroad and also how stupid and insular they were. Highly recommended.
Cat Country - Lao She Satirical novel about a Chinese man on Mars that is critical of China. Interesting, but read Mr. Ma and Son first. Red Sorghum - Mo Yan I remember little. Overrated
Flowers of War - Yan GeLing Moving, if sentimental story set during the Nanjing Massacre.
The Rape of Nanjing - Iris Chang Powerful, horrifying book. Must read for any history buffs
Wild Swans - Jung Chang Epic history of 20th century China told through the eyes of three generations of women in the same family. Interesting read.
Wyatt Lee
Can some chiense lit fan please post some of the best chinese poems of all time?
Hunter Price
A very accurate review. There were times I wanted to slap Fang Hung-Chien so hard
If you liked Lao Tzu and Confucius, do your self a favour and read Chuang-Tzu - you'll love it
David Rogers
Using google docs. I already have over six page worth of notes. Probably could tone down on the notetaking and focus more on the reading, but fuck, so many names.
Zachary Gray
this please
Landon Ramirez
He was on my reading list along with Mencius but an english copy is expensive and a hungarian is hard to find. I have two books of Zhuangzi,neither of them are complete.
Luke Hughes
I'm not so heavy on noting names. Most of my notes are recaps of chapters and the sticky notes indicate where something important happens.(Battle bewteen X and Y or Cao does something wrong again pt.10)
Hudson Gonzalez
Can you not just download an ebook or something?
Noah Scott
I don't really like those. And I have so many chinese stuff that I would feel stupid if I couldn't just pick it up from the shelf like the rest. Not to mention I don't feel safe with an E-reader walking around in the city.(Not that it's a bad area,quite the opposite,it's nice.Only pensioners)
I know it's fucking retarded but also I just like physical media too much. It's a fucking addiction.
Dylan Roberts
I'm the same - but needs must sometimes...
Justin Rivera
Nah. I have plenty of chinese shit to read already. Like "A moment in Peking" or "Mulberry and Peach" or even "Jin Ping Mei".
Owen Miller
would you guys recommend dream of the red chamber?
Adam Collins
枯藤老树昏鸦 小桥流水人家 古道西风瘦马 夕阳西下 断肠人在天涯
Easton Thomas
昨夜扁舟雨一蓑 满江风浪夜如何 今朝试卷孤篷看 依旧青山绿树多
Andrew Adams
I haven't read it completely,but it's often called a "family novel" as in it follows the story of two families.(My edition is shit btw) It's also a good insight into the chinese family.(in my opinion)
But the first hundred pages are pretty good in my opinion.At least based on the translation of the german abridged edition.
Ian Martin
Chinese romances are complete trash.
Classical Chinese poetry is the greatest canon of literature in the world.
Xavier Stewart
please, translations? It can be either in English or in Portuguese
Michael Ortiz
Drinking alone with the moon, Li Bai?
btw, I am this user:
David King
thanks, I'll give it a try.
Levi Jenkins
Thanks for posting this, user.
>Li Bo himself was particularly attractive to many of the Chinese readers of his time, because he seized upon the essential idea of Chinese poetics — the idea that Chinese poem was a spontaneous expression of the self — and elaborated on it, until he created an extremely overbearing, powerful persona for himself, quite unlike any sort of persona that had existed in Chinese poetry up to that point.
Sounds like Nietzsche...
Angel Martin
>can unfold protons into multidimensional supercomputers powered by infinite energy >can manipulate the strong force to create unbreakable space probe that runs on bullshittium >can do all kinds of ludicrous shit that makes humanity's loss inevitable >still can't figure out a way for their shitty planet to avoid falling into one of their suns Are the Trisolarans the dumbest ayyliums in all of sci-fi?
Kevin Howard
Chinese Scifi? Is that a big genre? What makes it different from western scifi?
Unrelated, the only notable regional scifi I can think of is russian scifi.