What are you reading?

[ouyangjun]

I just finished 《1988：我想和这个世界谈谈》over a cup of coffee this afternoon - really good book.

I'm looking through my girlfriends books and she has suggested I read 《圈子圈套》. I looked up some reviews of it on this website, but my only concern is the book is about work/or in a work setting. I'm worried that if I read it at night, it will make me stay up at night thinking of my own work... One of the reasons I like reading is to stop thinking of work... I'm going to give it a shot tonight, let's see what happens, may be switching books if this makes me think of work.

[imron]

Finished 《裸婚》 and am about to start on 《想象中的动物》.

Aside from an ending which probably belongs better in a Disney movie, overall I thought 《裸婚》was a pretty good read. It tells the story of a young women from a relatively well off family who marries into a not so well off family, and all the things that this entails. If you compare the time it took me to read 《杜拉拉3》 vs the time it took me to read 《裸婚》it's not hard to see which one I thought was the better book

[simplet]

I've started to read "棋王" (thanks for the suggeston Gato), and so far it's ok. The premise sounds so much like that of Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game", I wanted to compare the two. I wonder if 阿城 knew about the Zweig book (my guess is yes). Right now though I have this sentence that I can't understand for the life of me, maybe it's because I don't play chinese chess? It goes like this :

"老头儿棋路猛听头几步，没什么，可着子真阴真狠，打闪一般，网得开，收得又紧又快。"

It's at the time when the chess player meets the old guy that collects garbage. I'm guessing it's a description of the old guy's chess tactics but I can't make head or tail of any of it. Could any of you 高手 lend a helping hand?

[skylee]

I have not read the book. Consider - The old guy had a very aggresive style of chess-playing. Although the first few steps he described did not seem very special, the strategy was dark and merciless. Like a lightning, he surrounded a wide area, then very quickly tightened it up.

Proper punctuation will be helpful. There should be a comma before 聽.

[simplet]

Oh thanks a lot Skylee, I'm starting to see it better now. So "网" here is a verb? Meaning "to cast a wide net" or something like that? And "收" means "to close the net" (seems like "收" is the idiomatic verb to use for someone pulling a net?).

And indeed, that comma would make a lot of sense. A lot of sense. Thanks again for the help!

[skylee]

Has anyone read Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss? Or the manga "Ayako" (奇子) by Tezuka Osamu (手塚治虫)? I find these books interesting and I think I will read them, though I might not be able to finish them. Both of them are pretty dark stories about incest, according to info on the internet.

There is a copy of the Kiss in our libraries and I am going to borrow it. The Chinese version of Ayako can be found online here.

[feihong]

@skylee:

I read Ayako not long ago. Although the subject matter is quite shocking, I don't really recommend it. Of Tezuka's classic stories, I think both Adolf and Ode to Kirihito are stronger. I suspect both of these are also available in Chinese.

[skylee]

Why not? You think it is not good / strong enough? Or is the subject too shocking / hideous? I read the first 65 pages last night (my screen size made it difficult to read faster) and I think it is quite a good story. I felt like reading a classic story and watching a classic film at the same time.

I haven't read many of Tezuka's works but people say he was a great master.

[simplet]

Phew I've finished "棋王", and then I read "活着" which I thought was great. Thanks a lot for that recommendation Imron.

I think I might take a little break, "活着" seemed so easy that I kept reading and reading, but now I feel a bit burned out (the book itself, chinese or not, is kind of exhausting I think. I was pretty desensitized by the end).

I think it's the first time I could appreciate some form of chinese media without worrying at all about the language, I was just checking a few words per page and adding them to my word lists, it felt really great to read chinese at this speed. Going back to 王小波 feels a little bit like work now. I should probably try to find something just a little bit harder than "活着" to try to progressively ramp up the difficulty.

[Steingletscher]

I recently finished Henry James' The Ambassadors, which took me 4 months to read. I started last week Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf, and hope to finish it later this week--mostly because I want to read The Sounds of Chinese (it's a linguistic analysis of Chinese phonology) before I leave in two weeks. I don't know what I'll read after this, though I'll probably be too focused on learning the language for the first couple of months before I pick up another book.

The majority of my luggage that I'm taking with me is books, lots and lots of books.

[imron]

the book itself, chinese or not, is kind of exhausting I think.

Perhaps consider《圈子圈套》for your next book. It's much lighter material, and probably at a good level of difficulty (it's not much harder than 活着, but it's a completely different setting so there's plenty of vocab that will be different).

[radek143]

Everyone who love story full of adventure and great worths (maybe like Lord of the Rings? ) should read 5 books about Witcher named Geralt. Books of polish writer Sapkowski was also archetype for game The Witcher, which I sure You have heard about. The Witcher ( in polish "Wiedzmin") is also apeared in chinese language! Translated by Wei-Yun Lin-Gorecka, first book is available since last year. I don't know chinese title of Witcher yet, but maybe someone heard and tell us:)

[muirm]

I didn't read for a while after moving back to the US (it's so easy to fall back into old habits), but I've finally picked it up again, selecting 金庸's next in line 射雕英雄传. I'm about half way through and I'm enjoying it a lot. 郭靖 is a very interesting protagonist; Fairly dimwitted and far from a natural-born kungfu genius, his character is in stark contrast to 袁承志 from 碧血剑, who was basically unstoppable as soon as he descended from 华山. Unfortunately for 郭靖 (and the readers), this means 郭靖 must almost fully rely on luck (happening upon kind-hearted 高人) to advance his kungfu, whereas 袁承志 was figuring out a lot of stuff on his own. I'm also not excited about another stuck-between-multiple-girls plot thread (书剑恩仇录 and 碧血剑 both had something similar), but maybe that is just a young hero's lot in life.

[skylee]

I've just finished book 2 of Ayako 奇子. The story is quite depressing. And reading it on my laptop has considerably slowed me down.

I have read part of the Kiss but I don't think I will/can finish it. I don't like it.

[skylee]

I have just finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey. It is such a poorly written book. Take away the erotic parts and there is nothing left. It is repetitive and tedious. I am not against erotic stories but this is simply a very badly written book. Such a waste of time (luckily I have not spent any money on it).

[Meng Lelan]

Finished 張系國 《香蕉船》, good short story, would like to read "The Amateur Cameraman" but can't find the Chinese title and can't find that and other 張系國 short stories online.

[Lu]

Reading short stories by 西西 (not sure if that should be Xi Xi or Sai Sai). The stories are mostly very short, only 3-4 pages or so, wonderfully detailed and subtle, and 西西 has a nice sense of humour. Would be nice to translate some of this...

[muirm]

I finally finished 射雕英雄传! It was quite the adventure tale with many likable/memorable characters.

I have bad news, though. I just got around to unpacking my 金庸 complete set I shipped to myself from China as I moved back to the US only to find that I'm missing a few books! I don't know how it happened, but now I'm going to have to repurchase a couple books once I get to them.

I also had a cool idea for a tee-shirt. You take all the Kung Fu styles from Jin Yong novels (破玉拳，降龙十八掌等) and make them into a tag cloud. You use frequency of occurrence in the text of the books to determine their relative prominence within the cloud (so, for example, 降龙十八掌 would be larger font size than 阴白骨爪 since it is mentioned more often in the book). Or maybe it would be better to size them based on their relative 厉害ness (but that's obviously hard to judge).

[rob07]

Congratulations muirm!

I also had a cool idea for a tee-shirt. ... Or maybe it would be better to size them based on their relative 厉害ness (but that's obviously hard to judge).

Interesting. A lot of discussion/analysis on this online, even some in English. Problem is that a lot of the top google searches are very short forum posts with just a few replies.

Disturbingly high level of support for 葵花宝典 as overall most 厉害 kung fu. Personally I was most impressed by what 乔峰 could do in 天龙八部, so maybe 降龙十八掌. Even among the sword styles, if one looks purely at the strength of the style, I would like to think that 独孤九剑 is better than 葵花宝典.

[zhuangzidisciple]

Right now working on 聊齋誌異, thought I saw someone reading it previously in the thread. also 李漁 《肉蒲團》, lots of fun and much easier than other qing dynasty novels of the period. also 袁枚 《子不語》 is good for 文言文 practice, whereas the 聊齋 is more eclectic or idiomatic classical.