Suggestions for BOTM April

[roddy]

Let's get a head start . . .

Personally I'm inclining towards something with pace and action. Something thrilling, if not actually a thriller. Something with good guys and bad guys, and you know which is which. Something not too long.

However, I don't have any ideas for an actual book . . .

[skylee]

Consider 誘僧 aka 破戒.

Link 1 -> http://www.readnovel.com/partlist/1230/

Link 2 -> http://www.shuku.net/novels/dangdai/libihuawx/youseng/youseng.html

Link 3 -> http://wmp.cityu.edu.hk/ctlcaesar/2004/ctl3134/006/story/read_monks01.htm

[imron]

I was thinking maybe a 武侠 novel?

[roddy]

Actually I was just sniffing around Jin Yong's Wikipedia page to see where might be good to start.

Description of Skylee's recommendation culled from Douban.com:

[ADSO]《诱僧》写的是唐代初年李世民为争夺王位炮制血腥惨案，深知内情的将军石彦生被红萼公主救出，削发为僧，却无法割断情缘，于是衍生一段令人肝肠寸断的爱情故事。作者在古今两个时空中自由穿插，想象狂放，文字张驰有度，流逸华彩，风格妖艳妩媚，暖睐却不落俗，笔冷情浓，火花魅惑，渲染出极为诡秘艳丽的画面感。[/ADSO]

Got to confess to doubts about the 于是衍生一段令人肝肠寸断的爱情故事 bit . . .

[skylee]

Well even if you guys don't like the book you could still watch the film -> http://www.youku.com/playlist_show/id_690060.html (The first 3 mins or so of part 1 is a trailer or something)

Jack MacKelly seemed to be fairly interested in this film (see post #54 here).

[imron]

What were those Jin Yong books from the 3 pictures you posted a few days ago? And which one of those (or others) would you recommend reading?

[skylee]

If you are interested in Jin Yong, you could read 射鵰英雄傳 first (the second and third pictures). It should be relatively easy I suppose. And shorter too (4 parts). 天龍八部 (first picture) is 5 parts long and with 3 protagonists plus many subplots.

There are of course other shorter ones, like 飛狐外傳 and 雪山飛狐.

[roddy]

That's the one I was thinking of - know very little about it to be honest, but it's the one that stands out as most recognizable when I'm looking at a list of his works. However if I'm doing my maths right it's not short - I looked at a few chapters and each is 25,000 characters. If that's the average for each of the forty chapters, it's five times as long as 围城 and there's not much chance of me getting through that in a month.

Or maybe I should just read more, and quicker.

[zhwj]

The problem with reading shorter Jin Yong is that it's not really his strongest work. 《侠客行》 is fun some of the time, but the slow-witted main character and the somewhat repetitive action gets in the way of the story. 《连城决》 is a great revenge story (and in one volume, too!), but it's not really representative of his general style. I guess it would work as a botm, though. Short summary: basically a wuxia version of Count of Monte Cristo, with a secret, ultra-powerful sword style the catalyst for betrayal, factional fighting, and a main character who takes revenge on his rivals after they get him stuck in prison. Good pacing.

[wai ming]

Has anyone read any 古龍?

I caught a bit of 《決戰紫禁之巔》on SBS television last night, my boyfriend said it's based on 古龍's 《決戰前後》. He recommended that I read 《絕代雙嬌》or 《劍神一笑》.

I found a traditional-character copy of 《絕代雙嬌》 here, it doesn't look too bad (much less scary than when I first tried to read 《射鵰英雄傳》)

[Sam Addington]

Surely "getting through" a book is not the point of this forum, is it? I think that sharing the adventure of reading a book in a lanuguage that is not your own is much more exciting. Undoubtedly all of us are at different levels and we have much to share as a result. I find I can learn as much from a struggling beginner as from a more advanced learner. And let's not be constrained by the title of the thread, either. If a novel is too long it may be worth stretching the reading experience out a bit -- to say, COTM -- Chapter of the Month club. Or even COTW club.

[skylee]

I agree with Sam Addington. But instead of reading part of a book in one month, I would suggest reading a whole book in, say, two months. The 2-volume ones are good. You could choose from, like, 飛狐外傳, or 書劍恩仇錄, or 碧血劍. They are equally well-known in Chinese communities, and there are TV dramas or films based on them (some, like 書劍, have more than one version).

Here is the theme song of the very first TV drama of 書劍恩仇錄 -> http://www.souyy.com/s/?mimetype=&q=%CA%E9%BD%A3%B6%F7%B3%F0%C2%BC+%D6%A3%C9%D9%C7%EF

[Sam Addington]

Tomorrow it's April!

[heifeng]

Has the book for April been picked yet?

Here's a suggestion: 狼图腾, the English translation has also been released, so when in doubt, readers can just reference the English version too:mrgreen:

Have I read it the book? Technically, no, but started to long ago...

Although, I would also just recommend making this month's book an easy crime thriller with zero literary value...because that's the only type of book I can actually get through in one month(sh)

[imron]

Re 狼图腾, I was thinking of suggesting this at a later date. It's quite long, and I don't think I'd have any hope of finishing the rest of 围城 plus 狼图腾 this month.

[heifeng]

Gotcha!

Maybe it will be a good summer read.

[rob07]

Clearly the BOTM cannot be a tour de force of staggering depth, scope and complexity every month. But if months are skipped the whole thing may die. I seem to remember that the first BOTM was a short story. How about a short story this month?

Recently Slowsonic posted a review of the novel 米 (Rice) by 苏童. I really like 苏童 a lot and it made me think I should go and look up his short story 舒家兄弟. I read the English translation before I started learning Chinese and it is just excellent. At 12 pages it would also be a very manageable BOTM (however, if you are looking for something to cheer you up after 围城, it is not going to do that). Is anyone interested in reading 舒家兄弟?

If 12 pages is too short, then the other thing worth noting is that while Western writers tend to write either very short or very long stories, Chinese writers seem much more inclined to write stories of a medium length; there is a lot of stuff out there in the 50-100 pages range. So a "short" story doesn't have to mean all that short. Staying with 苏童, I remember reading a book of his that had three novellas which were all about 50 pages long; 红粉, 离婚指南 and 妻妾成群. They were great fun. Reading one could be fitted fairly comfortably into a weekend, but they were long enough to have some depth to them. 妻妾成群 was made into the movie 大红灯笼高高挂 (Raise the Red Lantern) by 张艺谋 (Zhang Yimou).

[Lu]

Re 狼图腾, I was thinking of suggesting this at a later date. It's quite long, and I don't think I'd have any hope of finishing the rest of 围城 plus 狼图腾 this month.

If you're going to pick 狼图腾 for a later date I might join in. (I'll make sure I'll have 活著 finished by that time -- I keep getting distracted by English books.)

[imron]

Yeah definitely put 狼图腾 off until at least next month.

[Sam Addington]

Is there somebody in charge of making this decision?