Project for 2011: 水浒传

[renzhe]

Hah!

I was going to report when I was half-way through -- which should take me another week or two -- but you stole my thunder Yeah, I'm still plowing through it. Choo-choo!

I still think that this is the most interesting classic for me to read, and I'm enjoying it very much. 三国 would be my next choice too, but whoah, I'll need to finish this first, and then I'll need a loooong break...

[ZhangKaiRong]

Man, you're really awesome! I just started to read 水浒传, but I'm reading the 少儿彩图版. I read the first two chapters, but I think even this children's edition is hard as hell, every sentence has 3 or 4 成语, and they're not the easy ones. Man, after the first chapter I was pissed like hell. But your project motivates me, so I also try to finish the children's edition

How is your progress now?

[renzhe]

It's slow, but I don't want to look for excuses. I guess it was a bad idea to start this right before the busiest part of my life. I'll finish it this year, in any case. The problem is that I can't do this 15 minutes at a time, I really need 2-3 hours per sitting to make sense of it.

Go for it, the book is awesome. The further I get, the better it becomes.

Actually, the awesome one is rob07. He started learning Chinese long after me, and he's finished two classics already!

[roddy]

Renzhe, you've maybe posted this elsewhere (Aims and objectives) but I thought we might all like to hear how this went...

[renzhe]

It won't be long now, I'm approaching the end.

The main problem is that periods of reading alternate with long periods of not reading, because it requires a considerable and regular time committment (2-3 hours per day, over prolonged periods of time).

Although I can understand the novel and enjoy reading it, the sheer length of it made it a poor choice for me at my current level. I'll post more about the book and the process once I'm finished. I will definitely concentrate on easier stuff for a while after finishing this.

[Pingfa]

I'm sixteen chapters into this. I already read through the English translation twice years ago so the characters and story aren't new to me. Easily my favourite of the four classics (I've read all but 红楼梦 in English, which I read about a third into and then got bored with).

 

I've also read a few chapters into 西游记 and 三国演义. I can tell you 三国演义 is much heavier on the 文言文 than 水浒传, but there are less poems and they are easier to understand than 水浒传 (I don't recall having much trouble with the poems in 三国, whereas the poems in 水浒传 are largely lost on me).

 

I've been told that 西游记 is the easiest of the classics and is usually the first Chinese people read. I recall it starts off hard, though, and can be heavy on the prose - there's a long chapter or two that has a fisherman and a woodcutter sharing poems throughout the whole chapter; I stopped reading at that point.

 

Anyhow, I'm reading this more casually than Renzhe as I'm not bothering to decipher the poems - sorry, you're on your own there. ;-) This book was actually one of the reasons I wanted to learn Chinese, along with 三国 (even though I find 三国 rather boring before 诸葛亮 comes into it). I hope Li Kui comes into it within the next few chapters, he's the most memorable character for me, he's even crazier than Lu Da. =-p

[renzhe]

So. Finally done.

Fact is that I have had very little time for Chinese study during the past few years, and this book had turned into something of a personal nemesis of mine, blocking any and all Chinese-related study, looming over my guilty conscience from the night table every evening. Despite its undeniable difficulty, it should have been a one year project, and it took me almost four. Because of this, I ask all posters to downvote this post to make a clear statement against slackery!

Perhaps I'll have time later for more in-depth comments, here are just a few observations shot from the hip:

- It is really that hard. A merciless, unrelenting grind.

- imron was right, reading more books would have been a better option. I was not fully ready for this.

- gato was right, you should go for an annotatated version, there's plenty of stuff here that natives struggle with.

- it will not improve your Chinese one bit.

- it is an awesome book, and everyone should read it. Loved every sweat-soaked page of it.

- I'm going to watch this as a TV show now

[roddy]

Where would you like the champagne sent? 

[renzhe]

To somebody who slacks less.

You pressed the wrong button, btw. It should have been the red one

[roddy]

Yeah, I just upvote your posts before reading them. Or instead of reading them, sometimes. 

[imron]

imron was right

 

it will not improve your Chinese one bit.

I disagree with this.  I'm sure your Chinese improved at least one bit - if only by dint of the fact that you now have an understanding of an important cultural work and are familiar with names and stories that many Chinese will know.

[Lu]

Chugging away at one too-difficult project for four years is something like the opposite of slacking. Congratulations on finishing it! I have a copy somewhere but will take your advice and find an annotated (or translated) version instead.

[renzhe]

The last thing I want is to discourage people from reading it! It is an insanely rewarding experience, and despite being quite a gruelling task, I've been beaming ever since finishing it. It's a 1000 page behemoth written in 500 year old Chinese vernacular, and finishing it feels awesome. Like imron says, I can now put a face to Lin Chong, Wu Song, Lu Zhishen and others, and that's priceless.

I should have been a bit more realistic when starting, that's all. Reading 5000 pages of regular Chinese over 2 years would have put me in a much better position to tackle this, as would an annotated version and a good time plan. Doing it while learning a completely different language, like I did, is not a good plan. Taking years to finish a book simply means that I didn't go about doing it in the best way. My Chinese level was basically not good enough for this -- I could read it, but with too much effort, making the whole process longer than it should be. Your Chinese is (considerably) better than mine, so with some extra reading (including old-fashioned prose like Jin Yong), you should be better prepared for it than I was.

I won't tackle another classic before reading at least 5000 pages of easier stuff and having a firm grasp of at least 4000 characters.

[Lu]

I may or may not have better Chinese, but you certainly have more patience. I wouldn't want to spend four years on a book. Four months is already a bit too long.

[renzhe]

Stubbornness is more like it.

Rob7 finished Three Kingdoms in about a month, IIRC. So it's doable, as long as your Chinese is up to it and you approach it seriously.

EDIT: Three months, not one month, my mistake.

[renzhe]

OK, here are a few thoughts after finishing. Overall, I really liked the book. I generally prefer classical literature (which has stood the test of time) and often tend to find popular modern books (e.g. Paolo Coelho stuff, The Millenium trilogy etc.) somewhat underwhelming. This book left a really strong impression on me, the way great books do.

For those who are not familiar with the story and don't fear spoilers, here is a reasonable summary which also explains some of the philosophy behind the story, which is hard to grasp from today's perspective. Some of what I write below (reincarnation, war customs, etc.) was cannibalised from a similar page I found on the internet and which I can't find again, so apologies for not crediting it. I will have minor spoilers in this post; nothing that most people would not be aware, but beware.

Style

When I started this, I wrote that it was "not much harder than Jin Yong". Actually, although the style is similar, it is much harder. The main reason is that it is written in really dense prose, like a chronicle, and a lot of meaning is packed into few characters. This leads to repetitive sentence structures which appear to make it easier on the surface, but so much happens that you have to concentrate all the way through. Oscar Wilde can write 20 pages of banter in beautiful language; Water Margin will pack a whole two-month siege into a single, detailed paragraph. You are afraid to skip a line, because you might miss the death of a major character.

It is additionally complicated by the density of less common characters and words -- those you know, but which take a split second (or some thinking) to remember. When they are dispersed within modern, easy language, it's easy, but Water Margin will through 6 character clusters at you, all outside the top 2000, all using some older, alternative meaning, and which you've never seen in such a configuration before. And an alternative reading too, so you have to spend a week trying to find them in your dictionary. This kind of reading is slow and tiring. Honestly, when I aimed at full understanding and tried to look up every word that seemed important, I could average about 3 pages an hour. After two hours, my mind would wander, making it difficult to make significant progress. At such a rate, a year is a reasonable timeframe, but any break from reading is deadly, because it's hard to get back into it.

It doesn't get much easier either. With Ba Jin and Jin Yong, the first 100 pages were slow, but then I got into the groove. With Water Margin, I got slower. All the words are rare enough that you're running into strange language on every single page. And with hundreds of named characters, you are expected to remember everyone's back story. So it's a constant, slow plow from page one to page 1040.

Wikipedia notes that the novel is famous for mastery of style and mood. It goes without saying that I'm not capable of fully appreciating this. However, there are several places in the novel where this is clearly felt, for example when 时迁 goes stealing chickens and it turns from hilarious to terrifying in a sentence.

Characters

There is something really cool about this book, compared to the other classics, which explains why so many characters remain popular today. The stories of the outlaws are extremely memorable, and some fifty of the main guys are incredibly well portrayed, despite the terse style of the novel.

I don't agree with the view that they are too idealised. Most of them are portrayed as erring and human, and some of them were no-good bandits and murderers before joining. The book certainly doesn't try to portray 李逵 or 王英 as virtuous people, though they do have redeeming qualities and are later reigned in by 宋江, 林沖 and others. It helps to think of them as outlaws, not saints. After adjusting for the morality of the time when the novel was written, I see them as well-meaning bandits who sometimes mess up, but generally have good intentions, and are far better than the corrupt court they are fighting. You really root for them.

Overall, my favourite characters were 吴用, 林沖, 花荣, 鲁智深, 朱仝, 戴宗, 一丈青, 时迁. The most interesting of all is certainly 李逵 who is, for me, the heart of the story. The most terrifying character in the history of literature, both loyal and vicious, both dependable and unpredictable, he is the constant reminder that these are not choir kids singing kumbaya. The sort of character you hate, but are glad to have on your side when things get nasty. 宋江, the most central character in the novel, is really hard to like.

Fate

A webpage I cannot find now explained how the fates of the heroes were sealed at the moment they were born. As reincarnations of the 108 demons from the first chapter, they had little choice in the matter. I found this was helpful in understanding the story. Although some of the members are recruited through unusual means, they were always going to join the rebellion and play their part, one way or the other. So when the protagonists' trickery goes terribly wrong (e.g. when recruiting 秦明) it was partly the role of fate.

It is also interesting to note that the choice of 宋江 as the leader was odd. With 吴用, 林沖 or 卢俊义 in charge, they would have conquered the known world, but were eventually brought down by 宋江's weakness. That was also fate. He was the only one who could assemble them and command everybody's respect due to his proverbial sense of justice and loyalty, and it was exactly this that led to their demise. There is something very poetic and fateful about this idea.

Versions

This leads me to the different versions of the novel. The 100 chapter version is apparently "the original" and includes both their time as outlaws, their amnesty, and final demise. There is also an extended version with 120 chapters, which adds a few more campaigns which are not bad, but not terribly important. The 70 chapter version ends before they are granted amnesty, ending on a high note.

My girlfriend told me to stop reading there, because she hated the ending. I don't agree, I think you should read the whole thing (100 or 120 chapters), because it brilliantly closes the story, making a full circle. You do not truly care for the characters while they are invincible. Later chapters, when things start going horribly wrong, are among the most powerful and most interesting ones.

I loved the fact that 鲁智深 goes the full way from a violent policeman, to a bandit, to a monk, to end up saving the entire campaign and finding enlightenment as a Buddha. Or that 宋江 dies after being betrayed by the empire he followed blindly. Or that 李逵 blindly follows him, the way he followed him into battle. That 一丈青 dies avenging a husband who didn't deserve her and was forced upon her against her wish, but whom she turned into a decent person as a result. That 燕青, the most faithful of servants, would leave his master, sensing what was about to happen. A lot of really nice stories in there.

Zeitgeist

One thing that still needs to be mentioned is that during the time of the novel, moral norms were very different. Killing a corrupt or unjust person was considered just and (unlike today) this included his entire family, because his sin extended to them too. This explains much of the carnage. On the other hand, the outlaws always tried to aid innocent bystanders. It should also be noted that some of them started off as plain old bandits and that this "code of honour" was something that only became prevalent with the arrival of the more "noble" characters such as 宋江, 林沖, 柴进 and the like.

OK, those were some of my ramblings. I thought that a 4-year project deserved at least some thoughts.

[laurenth]

renzhe, what a feat. As I wrote in some other thread, reading a (French) translation of 水浒传 was what finally convinced me to start the whole Chinese adventure. And even reading it in my own language took quite some time. Seeing how you managed to read the original version, the whole 1000 pages of it, is very inspiring. I have two abridged versions on my shelf. Last time I tried, even *that* was too hard. But now, I want to emulate your stubborness (starting with the abridged versions, of course).

[renzhe]

Don't rush it. Make sure you are really comfortable reading easier stuff. Finish some Jin Yong novels first.

[tooironic]

What an incredible effort Renzhe, and thanks for posting that interesting and very useful write-up. If you are ever inspired to write more about your experiences reading the novel, please don't hesitate to post them. You are probably among a mere handful of non-native speakers who have read the text in the original Chinese.

 

[anonymoose]

Now that you've had so much exposure to old Chinese, do you find any of this has rubbed off on your Chinese and end up using weird vocabulary or sentence constructions in your speaking?