Book of the Month - December 2011, 圈子圈套

[BertR]

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and actually enjoyed it more than I expected (my expectations where really low :-) ).

I however have to warn against using the link Imron provided: http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/index_39593.html

For the last chapters large portions of the text are missing. The weird thing is, I didn't notice it while reading. Everything still made sense to me, but I found it very strange that some events happened in the audio which I couldn't recall having read. I then checked the website and other websites and noticed large sections were missing.

[imron]

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago

Well done. What's next on your reading list?

[BertR]

hehe, thanks.

I'm currently reading 《空镜子》, written by 万方.

[变形金刚]

Is that book related to the 《空镜子》 tv series?

[BertR]

Yes, it is. The TV series is based on the book, but in the TV series the sisters 孙燕 en 孙丽 have an equal role, while the book completely concentrates on 孙燕, her feelings and her love life. Other people (such as her sister) are on mentioned when they are relevant for 孙燕's feelings and love life. To give an example, 马黎明 (the next-door neighbor and 孙丽's lover) doesn't exist in the book.

[edelweis]

I finished the book too.

Somehow the combination of the book, plus watching all 24 episodes of 和空姐一起的日子, plus Kenny's thread and the mianzi/drinking thread produced some confusion in my head. The Chinese mentality/culture/behaviours seem at once extremely foreign and extremely close. Bah. I'll sort that out later. (The worrying thing is, when I got to that point with the Arabic/Islamic culture, I quit studying Arabic. But other circumstances were different, including the availability of interesting and/or non-culturally-disorienting reading material, so probably I'll keep studying Chinese.)

Well this book was certainly not as moving 余华's 活着, and yes there were some boring parts. I definitely don't regret reading it as it reinforced lots of HSK4 words and increased my reading speed (although I didn't really measure that). Some questions did pop up sometimes, like what was the issue about the karaoke ladies wearing pants or skirts and so on. But nothing that I really really need to be explained.

What next? I tried that 星际浪子 Sci-Fi book that I bought nearly 3 years ago, but I think it is still too difficult for me and the vocabulary won't help with my HSK4 prep. So I'll just start reading the 2nd volume of 圈子圈套, at least until the HSK test in June.

[BertR]

I've almost finished chapter 14 of《圈子圈套2》. I was originally readying on http://vip.book.sina...ndex_40736.html, but it only has for the first 12 chapters the complete text. I've found chapter 13 and 14 on the blog of the author, but according to online book stores it contains 18 chapters.

The chapter 14 I found ends with:

几个人都站起来，又是一通热烈的握手话别，轮到洪钧和范宇宙握手的时候，两人不约而同地都暗自加了些力量。(see http://blog.voc.com...._37871_p_3.html ) And many other sites also end like this.

On the site http://www.ty-book.c...quanziquantao2/ they however have 17 chapters, but according to google it doesn't have the sentence "两人不约而同地都暗自加了些力量". Chapter 12 however has the same ending on Sina, Ty-book, and the author's blog, so I'm really puzzled which version is "correct", and where I should continue reading...

[edelweis]

I borrowed the book from the library. Chapter 14 does end with 两人不约而同地都暗自加了些力量. And there are 18 chapters.

As to the ty-book link, their chapters 16 and 17 seem to match part of chapter 18, but the text in earlier chapters does not seem complete since the sentence you quoted does not appear...

[imron]

My book has 18 chapters, and chapter 14 doesn't end like that. It ends: 也只有他知道这顿饭有多么大的价值。

The first line of the chapters from 14 onwards are:

14：洪钧在柳荫街的路口下了出租车

15：洪钧一行四个人刚从普发回到维西尔公司

16：刮了一夜的风在第二天早晨停了

17：凌晨四点多钟，所有的标书都已经完全做好

18：俞威也是一夜没睡

[BertR]

Imron and Edelweis, thank you for the replies!

Imron, I was talking about the second book. It seems that your sentences are coming from the first book.

[imron]

Don't know how I missed the 2.

Anyway, my book 2 has 18 chapters and chapter 14 finishes with the exact same text you mentioned above:

几个人都站起来，又是一通热烈的握手话别，轮到洪钧和范宇宙握手的时候，两人不约而同地都暗自加了些力量

Chapter 15 then begins:

星期五的晚上，准确地说应该已是星期六的凌晨

[imron]

Note: a google search for that text shows that Sina's Taiwan site has the book available on their site:

http://news.sina.com...rticle/182.html

However it's in Traditional characters. If you do a google search though, it also has the option to convert the site to Simplified.

Edit: I can also confirm that the start/end text for chapters 15-18 matches what is in my book.

[BertR]

Thanks Imron! After your second post I also found the website your posted in your third post. It's a relatively popular book so it's weird that Baidu doesn't have any hits, and Google only that Taiwanese website. Let's hope that Google's conversion tool is any good

[BertR]

Hehe, they have adapted the text to a Taiwanese audience. For example they use 软体 for software and 计程车 for taxi.

[BertR]

Just for the annals...

Last weekend I finished 圈子圈套2 and actually quite enjoyed it. I'm not sure whether it is because 空镜子 (which I read after having finished 圈子圈套) was so boring or the second book is really much better than the first one. The audio books of the second book are definitely much better for me. Although there isn't as much variation in them as in the first book, but at least we don't have the weird foreign accents.

Currently I'm in the second chapter of 圈子圈套3.

[edelweis]

I too find the 2nd book more interesting. Also more difficult to read. That's probably a good combination

[BertR]

I'm getting to the last chapters of the third book. Well at least according to http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/index_44354.html these should be the last chapters, however I have my doubts.

I found another website that is also quite confusing. The website has 12 webpages for the book. Chapter 13 starts in the middle op page 12, and the end of chapter 12 seems to correspond with Sina's website. See: http://lz.book118.com/readonline-50348-50020-12.aspx

On page 13 of this site: http://lz.book118.com/readonline-50348-50020-13.aspx there is chapter 15 and 16, but I can't find chapter 14.

Imron, sorry to trouble you, but can you help me again with this? How many chapters do you have and how do the last chapters start and end?

Since I will probably finish this book in the coming week(s), I have to start thinking about the next one. Does somebody have any advice? This series contains a huge amount of New HSK 6 words (which for example can't be said about 活着 or 家). I'm looking for something similar to 圈子圈套 in this sense. Anyone any ideas?

[imron]

Unfortunately I've actually just arrived in China for a month-long stay, and my hardcopy of this is sitting back at home on my bookshelf. I do plan on visiting a few bookstores while here, so will try to look it up for you, but it might be a few days before I can get back to you on this.

Regarding next books, if you're comfortable reading 活着, 家 and this series, you might consider tackling a 金庸 novel. 《雪山飞狐》is probably a short one to start with.

[BertR]

Thanks for your reply Imron. I think this website is complete: http://book.kanunu.org/files/chinese/201106/2936.html

I'll do some research on 《雪山飞狐》

[edelweis]

@BertR: today was my "library run" (I can only extend the 3-week loan twice on-line, so every two month or so I need to go to the library and return my books and borrow again those I have not finished reading...)

So here are the first and last lines of the last few chapters of 圈子圈套3 (hope there are no typos...):

10 小谭深刻体会到了做媒人的不易...

... "Larry,你一定要给我拿下华北和江苏！“

11 又是一个闷热的早晨，”凉爽“、”宜人“...

洪钧笑着说，“我会尽快去找郑总。”

12 小薛在杭州香格里拉饭店门口...

...松散合作你们不会不欢迎吧？

13 邓汶站在首都机场国际到港厅内接机的人丛中...

... 邓汶气呼呼地说。

14 时间过得真快，廖晓萍眼看就要带女儿...

... 不要自找麻烦。“

15 宫总升了，成了名副其实的宫总。

... 小谭眼睛里放出一种异样的光芒。

16 科克从硅谷回到新加坡之后...

... 自己考虑得太远了。

17 "Shirley?" 洪钧一时对不上号...

便不置可否地笑了笑。

18 俞威的身体日见康复...

我的英文名字就叫‘Jim’，J-I-M！“