What are you reading?

[muirm]

Finished the first book of 圈子圈套 today. Imron's been recommending it a lot, so naturally it's 非读不可. It was a good read and kept my interest all the way through. It was fun being inside the head of someone who is really good at reading/manipulating people.

I haven't decided what is next. Maybe more 金庸 or maybe another non-武侠 since just the one book of 圈子圈套 was pretty short.

[老爷子]

I just started reading 厚黑学。

[imron]

After losing interest in《想象中的动物》(it was more a reference book about imaginary creatures rather than a novel, and I was hoping more for a story), I started reading 《蛙》by 莫言, which I've now finished. While reading that though, I also got distracted by a whole bunch of English novels - "Ready Player One", "Soulless", "Pandora's Star", "Judas Unchained", "Warm Bodies", plus a bunch of Robert Heinlein fiction, which kind of curtailed my Chinese reading to some degree, until I got back to it recently, finally finishing《蛙》.

《蛙》starts off really well. It tells the story of a young midwife (the narrator's 姑姑), who is from a small village and is the daughter of a revolutionary hero and doctor. Her career starts off as a midwife for the entire region, but as China's population policies start to come in to play, expands into enforcing these policies first through forced (or highly pressured/coerced) sterilisation of men who already have multiple children, and then later when the one-child policy is implemented, for forced/highly pressured/coerced abortions for anyone who gets pregnant when they already have a child/children.

As a dyed-in-the-wool, daughter of a revolutionary hero, communist party member, 姑姑 enforces these policies religiously with little sympathy for those who try to cheat the system, whether they be friend, family or foe (though later on she becomes wracked with guilt over her actions). The book provides quite a neutral view of the situation and is more 'this is how it was, and these were the social factors involved that led to it being that way', and if anything is actually quite sympathetic to the cause, rather than critical of it.

About halfway through however, the book fast forwards to modern day China, loses its seriousness and descends almost into farce. The last third of the book in my opinion is even worse, and continues the story as a play written by the narrator of the main story (who happens to be a playwright), which makes an already strained story even more straining.

In short, the book starts really well, but then loses the plot and doesn't ever manage to recover it. I think the first part is definitely worth a read for people interested in reading about what rural China under a one-child policy was like, but it would completely understandable if you stopped reading when it switched to modern day China, or when it switched to being a play.

Next on the list is 《飞狐外传》

[gougou]

Interesting, I was thinking about reading that depending on how I like 生死疲劳。 Do you know why it is called 蛙?

[imron]

Yep, because of all the frogs :-)

[Lu]

Now reading 'Twilight in the Forbidden City', the account by Pu Yi's English tutor. The tutor is not a great writer, but his story is interesting and I always like reading contemporary accounts, the narrator not yet knowing what will happen next makes for an interesting perspective.

[OneEye]

袁枚 《子不語》

We read a fun story from that a while back in the Grand 文言文 Reading Project. I've been meaning to pick up a copy to read at night, but haven't yet.

I'm currently reading a few 漫畫, namely One Piece, BABY, and 幻境少女Alice (the latter two thanks to Insula Formosa's recommendations here). On the more serious side, I'm reading 《古音之旅》 by 竺家寧, a fairly enjoyable read on Chinese historical phonology (if you're into that kind of stuff).

[joshuawbb]

I'm currently nearing the end of the first volume of 大逃杀 (Battle Royale) by Koushun Takami; a traditional character version I bought in Hong Kong since it was never published in the Mainland. I read the English translation and watched the film adaptation when I was much younger, and its macabre reputation aside I found the book an enjoyable social commentary with characters who each react believably to the psychological stress of their situation. Takami's detailed, drawn-out descriptions of violence may be too much for some, but on the other hand violence is never the focus of the story; Takami is mostly fleshing out his characters through their thoughts and speech as well as adding background to the story's setting.

The novel is a doorstop at almost 1000 pages and the version published in Taiwan has been split into two volumes. I'm near the end of volume 1, though at only 370 pages it's the far shorter one. Despite the length I've never found the story long-winded or repetitive, especially with over 42 characters' points of view to get through.

After this I'll take a break before the second volume and start reading the Chinese version of Murakami's Norwegian Wood again, which I got half way through last year before dropping it to focus on exam revision. I read the English translation when I was younger and enjoyed it immensely.

An author I greatly recommend is Guo Xiaolu (郭小橹), my favourites being A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (恋人版-中英词典）and 饕餮青春的20个瞬间 (20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth); the former about a young girl travelling abroad for the first time to study English in London, and the latter about a rural girl travelling to Beijing with dreams of finding a better life. Dictionary is both funny and touching, originally written in English which starts out broken; gradually improving as the girl continues to study and mature. The Chinese version contains both the original English and the Chinese translation alongside it.

饕餮青春的20个瞬间 contains some of my favourite narrative of just about any Chinese book I've read so far - through dry humour and frank expression the narrator fights with herself over broken expectations, the contradictions of city life as a rural immigrant and just how many training certificates she needs to collect before becoming worthy of a step further up the job ladder. Both books are partly autobiographical and it really shows in her writing. Guo Xiaolu's books are getting hard to find in bookstores, but Amazon.cn still stocks the above two and others can be found on Taobao.

[eslang]

Wow! There is a Chinese translated version of Battle Royale (大逃杀) by Koushun Takami.

I wonder if there is a Chinese translated version of The Hunger Games?

I am reading the 鬼吹灯 series along with the audio files. The narrator is one of the best I've ever heard.

[OneEye]

There is a Chinese translation of The Hunger Games, called 《飢餓遊戲》. I don't know about a simplified version.

[Meng Lelan]

Currently nearing the end of 《十個詞彙裡的中國》by 余華, yes, this is the trad character edition I got from a bookseller in Taiwan. Yu Hua seems to me so endlessly aggressive and violent for no reason whatsover, if he walked in here into my house right now I likely would be after him with my serious collection of kungfu weapons.

Now I think I will calm myself down with a good collection of Bai Juyi poems that a good friend sent me a long time ago before I go on to anything else.

[eslang]

Thank you OneEye. Hopefully my friend can find this book 飢餓遊戲 in simplified Chinese during their end-year visit back home.

[eslang]

@ Meng Lelan,

Isn't Bai Juyi and Po Chu-i the same person, refering to 白居易? (Seems like it to me from the wikipedia) His poems were often quoted in The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. I like listening to poems but I'm poor at understanding it.

[aroberts42]

I just started reading "My Splendid Concubine" by Lloyd Lofthouse. While I find the real-life person of Robert Hart really fascinating, so far I'm not impressed with Lofthouse's characterization. I'll wait until the end to make a firm judgement, but so far there is not enough actual character development to explain Hart's outlook (an Irishman in the 1850's believing women are equal to men? Come on.)

[Meng Lelan]

Isn't Bai Juyi and Po Chu-i the same person, refering to 白居易?

That's the man. Bai Juyi is the pinyin way to write the name, Po Chu-i is the Wades-Giles or something other way to write it. To read and understand his poems in the original Chinese, a short course in classical Chinese would be a tremendous assist, that would be my recommendation.

[skylee]

Bai Juyi is so easy to understand just grab a collection of his poems with explanations and you can start reading. Or start with the 300 Tang Poems. Great poems. Much better than reading Yu Hua IMHO.

[Guest realmayo]

... or click here http://chinese-poems.com/bo.html!

Vaguely remember a story that he would read his poems out to an uneducated woman worker and any bits that she didn't understand, he'd make simpler.

Edit: but yeah, knowing more about old Chinese poetry would make them even more enjoyable to read.

[Meng Lelan]

Bai Juyi is so easy to understand just grab a collection of his poems with explanations and you can start reading. Or start with the 300 Tang Poems. Great poems. Much better than reading Yu Hua IMHO.

You are right about that, skylee. Actually I was throwing the Yu Hua into a heap in the back of my closet in disgust and somehow discovered a volume of Bai Juyi given to me as a farewell gift from a friend about twenty years ago. This is the kind with all the explanations in modern Chinese along with footnotes which I had some difficulty twenty years ago but now I think I can do this. A nice thing about middle age I guess.

I guess in the mainland Yu Hua is alright in general but I really wonder what the folks in Hong Kong and Taiwan think of Yu Hua. What ghastly writing.

[skylee]

I guess in the mainland Yu Hua is alright in general but I really wonder what the folks in Hong Kong and Taiwan think of Yu Hua. What ghastly writing.

I was about to say I agree, but remembered that I had only read pages of 兄弟 in a bookstore and realised that I did not want to read his books (or at least that book). Any ways, Bai Juyi is great. Yay.

[Actually I spend considerable time in bookstores "sampling" books ... ]

[roddy]

Would be interesting if you filled us in on the reasons for your dislike of the book here. Can't quite see how you managed to get disgusted by it.