Reading 鬼吹灯 - pulpy supernatural fiction

[laurenth]

I'm continuing my own solitary Grand Translation Project in the hope I can entice other unsuspecting souls to embark on the fascinating journey to the world of Chinese tomb raiding.

 

Another fun moment: Our two buddies 胖子 and 老胡, led by an old Uyghur guide,  are accompanying a party of archaeologists in the middle of the Taklimakan desert, in search of a lost city. At one point, predictably, they're lost, they haven't much water left, and one young archaeologist (叶亦心) is a in very bad shape. So what will they do? Make a U-turn, eat their camels to survive and try to get back to their starting point? Or trudge along in the hope they will find the legendary city - and its no less legendary well - before they all die of thirst? Time to vote: exactly half of the party wants to go on, and the other half wants to go back. But the old guide, 安力满, as not voted yet.

 

Here's how a decision is made. Or not.

 

--

 

我对安力满老汉说道：“老爷子你可得想好了再说，你的话关系到叶亦心的性命，你觉得咱们现在该怎么办？”

 

安力满老汉叼着烟袋，眯起眼睛望了望天上的太阳，开口说道：“我嘛，当然是听胡大的旨意嘛，天上只有一个太阳，世界上也只有一位全能的真神，胡大会指引咱们的嘛。”

 

我指了指天空：“那您倒是赶紧问问啊，胡大他老人家怎么说的？”

 

安力满把老烟袋敲了敲，插回到腰间，取来那块破毯子，一脸虔诚地开始祈祷，把双手掌心向内，对着自己的脸，念诵经文，脸上的表情虔诚而庄严，浑不似平日里那副市侩狡猾的样子。

 

他口中念念有词，我们听不懂他念的什么意思，越等他越念不完，胖子等得焦躁，便问道：“我说老爷子，还有完没完啊？”

 

安力满睁开眼睛，笑道：“胡大嘛，已经给了咱们启示了嘛。”说罢取出一枚五分钱硬币，给大伙看了看，字的一面就是继续前进，画的一面则按原路返回，请这里年纪最长的陈教授抛到天上去，落下来的结果，便是胡大的旨意。

 

众人哭笑不得，面面相觑。陈教授接过硬币高高地抛到半空，所有的人都抬头看那枚硬币，阳光耀眼夺目，但见硬币从空中落下，立着插进了沙中。

 

便是抛十万次也未必有这么凑巧，安力满连连摇头，满脸尽是沮丧的神色，忘记了这里是被胡大抛弃的黑沙漠了，胡大怎么可能给咱们指点路途呢。

 

--

 

My translation:

 

"An Liman, old chap, I said, you must think hard and then tell us. Ye Yixin's life depends on your decision. What should we do?" The old man was sucking his pipe. He squinted and looked at the sun in the sky. Then he opened his mouth: "Well, I for one will certainly respect Allah's will. Just as there's only one sun in the sky, there's only one true and almighty God in the universe. Let Allah lead us!"

 

I pointed to the sky: "Now, hurry up and ask, ok? What does old Allah say?"

 

　　

An Liman flicked his old pipe, put it back in his pocket and took that worn mat. He started to pray reverently: he put his joined hands before his face and started reciting verses.  He wore a pious and solemn expression on his face, unlike  (*) his usual unscrupulous, sly look.

 

He was mumbling and mumbling  and we couldn't understand a word of what he was saying. The longer  we were waiting, the more he was reciting.  Finally, Fatty ran out of patience: "I say, old man, have you finished yet?"

 

An Liman opened his eyes and smiled. "Ah, well, Allah has given us  a revelation." Then, he took a 5 cent coin and showed it around. "If it's heads, we go forward. If it's tails, we go back. Professor Chen, you're the eldest among us, please toss the coin. The side on which it falls, that's the decree of Allah."

 

We all had to look at each other with a bitter smile. Professor Chen took the coin and threw it high in the air. Everybody looked at it as it was flying in the dazzling sunshine - when it fell, it stood erected, inserted in the sand.

 

You could toss the coin a million times and this wouldn't happen. An Liman was shaking his head in frustration. He had forgotten that, in such a God-forsaken desert, how could Allah possibly show us the way?

 

 

--

 

(*) I have no idea what "浑不似" means. According to this site, it's some sort of musical instrument (?)

[Lu]

Perhaps you didn't intend to, but 'old Allah' looks rather less respectful than 胡大他老人家. I'd perhaps translate it to 'the great Allah' or 'the revered Allah' or something along that line. Incidentally, I'd never seen 胡大 for Allah before.

[laurenth]

You're certainly right, Lu. Of course, there was no disrespect intended, it's just that I don't have a feel for such nuances -yet, hopefully. I just thought  胡大他老人家 was - how would I put it? - slightly less formal than just 胡大, in the mouth of a character who, obviously, is not a believer.

 

For the meaning, I just read the first line of this text.

[imron]

胡大他老人家 was - how would I put it? - slightly less formal than just 胡大, in the mouth of a character who, obviously, is not a believer.

To me, generally speaking, adding 他老人家 makes something more formal/respectful.  Note however that it's entirely possible to use this sort of respectful term to add snark rather than respect, see for example how Han Solo is always calling Princess Leia 'Your Highness' or 'Your Worship' - terms that are normally meant as a terms of respect, but can be used in a way that shows the user obviously doesn't intend any sort of meaningful respect - despite the words being outwardly polite.

 

I think this latter meaning is what comes across in the text you've quoted above - especially due to the usage of 您 in that sentence.  Compare how outwardly polite the surface level meaning of that sentence is compared to the way he's talking to that person normally.  It comes across very much as being overly polite out of snark, e.g. as if the character had said something like:

 

"Well, if you could be so kind as to hurry up and ask almighty Allah, that would be very much appreciated.."

 

Note that with the English, you need to embellish the sentence with a few more words so a similar level of mock politeness comes through, rather than simply relying on the honorifics like Chinese does.

[laurenth]

Imron, thanks, your explanation is clear and convincing. Now I remember that, not three weeks ago, I heard someone explain (in a podcast?) that you wouldn't call an old person "老人" because it would be rude, but you should say ”老人家“, which is more polite.

 

The sentence you suggest as a translation conveys that overly polite nuance perfectly. Oh, and I loved the comparison with Han Solo - the main character 老胡 definitely has a Han Solo-esque dimension. 

[Kamille]

I checked chapter 1 with the preview function of Amazon and, yes, the ghost story disappears (quite fittingly?) in the printed version.

 

I'm presently reading the Traditional Chinese version of the book and there are ghosts apparitions. Would it mean that Taiwanese printed the book according to its original content (as they didn't have to care about what an advanced socialist society thought about ghosts) or that the book version actually neglects only some references to ghosts but not all of them?

 

I mean in my version of the book, in the first chapter the hero's grandfather comes across a ghost controlling his paper-made girlfriend and meets the real ghost later on in a cemetary, which eats his heart and does stuff that ghost usually do.

That's a ghost story to me. 

 

I'm reading chapter 19 at the moment (the hero has just found the map of the military base) and he came across a banquet held by ghosts in a mountain, insects capable of burning a human alive, huge salamanders from a lost age, a red-haired zombie, and I think that's it. 

 

It looks like I'm reading the original version, or is there supposed to be more spooky stuff?

[laurenth]

@Kamille in private: Camile, si vos estoz dedja emacralé dins li ranteule, vos alez seurmint esse emacralé pa cisse novele la! 

 

The likelihood that anybody would know what your "location" means are slim. The likelihood that I would know and we would be reading the same novel is as slim as that of a coin standing erected after it has been tossed. Yet it happened.

 

@Kamille in general: I've often found that online Chinese novels are a bit elusive: they appear and disappear, when you come across strange stuff, you don't know if you're not understanding or if it's a scanning glitch, there are several versions, etc.

[Kamille]

It's a small world. But 鬼吹燈 is a popular novel. Finding Walloon-speakers on the internet somehow feels less likely  

 

Anyways now I understand why my friend (a Chinese from Chengdu) told me that there were no ghosts in 鬼吹燈 (I told him that I liked ghost stories, you see, but he was insisting that 鬼吹燈 was worth it anyway). Because of it I was expecting a twist at some point that everything spooky would actually have been an illusion or something. Honestly I was a bit scared of it. I'm feeling better now.

[roddy]

I'm glad you two have found each other! Kamille, please do stick around - any questions about this book or anything else, laurenth and the rest of us will help out. 

[laurenth]

I'm answering in this thread to a message posted here, as I think it's more relevant here.

 

 

Most of Chinese teachers think the books of 鬼吹灯 and 盗墓笔记 are not so good, they don’t suggest students to read them

 

I can understand why a parent or a teacher would not recommend this book to a younger child: there's harsh language, corpses, monsters, vicious animals, etc. However, as an adult learner, I've found that this book was exactly what I needed at the most adequate moment.

 

I'm learning tons of interesting and, yes, useful stuff in this book, for instance about:

 

- the geography and peoples of China. Learning place names from lists or maps is boring. Learning them in a vivid description of what they look like (at least in the author's  eyes) is easy. On the top of my head, in the chapter I'm currently reading, I learnt  新疆, 塔克拉玛干沙漠, 塔里木盆地, 维族, etc.

 

- the history of China: I've learnt stuff about the  中越战争,  the 大跃进, the  改革开放, the 红卫兵, Japan's 关东军 or, in a more remote past, some dynasty names. After all, our heroes had better identify accurately whatever it is they find in the tombs they plunder.

 

- non-formal language. The author takes care to make each character speak in their own way, so I've learnt some of the words that no textbook will teach to a foreign learner and that Chinese kids probably pick up in the streets, while watching TV or eavesdropping on the grand-parents. Not only profanities, but also 俺 for 我, 干啥呀？, 整 for 干, etc.

 

On top of that, in my opinion, children book are often quite boring for adults - but I'd love to be proven wrong. In fact, I intend to read more children books this year (as you know, Elina :-), and I'll definitely try those you mention in your post.  On the other hand, I've found that I was so engrossed in  鬼吹灯 that, after about 200 pages, I'm still impatient to know what happens next!

 

So yes, Elina, you're right, it's certainly not for kids, probably not great literature, but it's definitely been enjoyable and useful for me!

[elina]

The thoughts about these books differ from person to person. Because of too many homework, the free time of Chinese students is not quite enough, so maybe most of Chinese teachers and parents are examination-trended, that means if one thing is useful and helpful for the examination in the future, then one should take some time to do, otherwise it’s better not waste the time. But I know a mother encourages her son to read these books for their good imagination. I myself have not read these 2 books, but for my son, I don’t think reading must be so 严肃的/grave and purposeful, it can be just for fun, he can choose whatever books he’s interested in, as long as they’re no harm. I think happiness is indispensable to life.

 

Your points of reading involved with the geography and peoples of China, the history of China and non-formal language are interesting and useful, I agree. As a native Chinese, I myself like watching different short programs for fun and study, and this year I have been thinking of picking up some of them centralized to one article on my blog for Chinese learners, they will include the aspects you said, the style like my articles for children and adults.

[Kamille]

俺 for 我, 干啥呀？, 整 for 干

 

I think all of these derive from dialects I'd say. Thus they have a limited field of usefulness, but of course understanding them is always a plus. 啥 is very Beijing-like if I'm not mistaken (though you can find the same character with the same meaning in Hokkien, but surprisingly no Hokkien-speaker would use it when speaking mandarin). 

I learned the two other expressions by reading this book too. Along with 咋 and some others. Thus I find its reading mostly enlightening in many ways, as laurenth said.

 

(@Rody: thanks for the reception )

[laurenth]

As I'm slowly approaching the end of 鬼吹灯and as, in the future, someone might consider reading that novel too and seek information from this thread, I'd like to point out some difficulties I've had while reading the book.

 

 

First, the author loves chengyus, idioms, set phrases, etc. Sometimes there are several in a single sentence. I don't know if that is a way of mimicking popular speech, if that's some sort of mannerism or if that's just the way it is in Chinese fiction.

 

 

I learn these expressions as if there were words, i.e. I add them to my Pleco word lists, preferably when I see them more than once, but I have to say that the author must know a huge number of them, because few are actually repeated.

 

 

As an aside, when confronted with a difficult sentence, I've found more often than not that, if I take the time to analyse that sentence carefully, I will notice that I can understand about everything before and after a set of 4 (or more) characters. That's the first sign there's a chengyu or an idiom there. Sometimes, after that potential idiom, there's a particle (often 地, 着) indicating that that set of characters acts as a lexical group. Also, if I can randomly replace that group of characters with something simpler, or nothing, that's yet another indication  I should look up that group as a whole.

 

 

Second, the speech of one of the characters (胖子) is more difficult, sometimes I don't get what he says. Here's an example of a dialogue that is rather obscure for me:

 

 

“你有这觉悟就好，我真怕你找个这样的媳妇儿，她这种人仗着有俩臭钱就牛皮烘烘地谁也瞧不起，他妈的，以前那句话怎么说的来着？小皮鞋咯咯响，资产阶级臭思想。你可千万要顶住糖衣炮弹的攻势啊。”

 

 

Third, there are parts with some jargon related to 风水 or to tomb raiding. See this interesting dialogue:

 

 

Shirley:“定盘子挂千金，海子卦响。勾抓踢杆子倒斗灌大顶元良，月招子远彩包不上。”

 

Lao Hu: “无有元良，山上搬柴山下烧火，敢问这位顶上元良，在何方分过山甲，拆解得几道丘门？"

 

Shirley “一江水有两岸景，同是山上搬柴山下烧火，鹧鸪分山甲，鹞子解丘门，多曾登宝殿，无处觅龙楼。”

 

 

Thankfully, the author often provides some explanations, which suggests that such dialogues are opaque even to Chinese speakers.

 

 

Anyway, such occasional difficulties should not deter anybody from reading this book. I just thought I'd mention them, though.

[adbase]

Some part of his book is also hard for Chinese speakers. Zhang created a lot of jargon by his imagination, and also, reader need some culture background about modern China. You are really good at Chinese!  

[adbase]

“你有这觉悟就好，我真怕你找个这样的媳妇儿，她这种人仗着有俩臭钱就牛皮烘烘地谁也瞧不起，他妈的，以前那句话怎么说的来着？小皮鞋咯咯响，资产阶级臭思想。你可千万要顶住糖衣炮弹的攻势啊。”

I can give you some explanations about this dialogue.(Although, my English is poor  ).

"你有这觉悟就好"=="That 's great if you have such a understanding."  This "觉悟" means "political understanding"(政治觉悟). 

我真怕你找个这样的媳妇儿==I'm really worry about you if you found such a wife.  "媳妇儿"means "wife". This is a idiom word. 

"她这种人仗着有俩臭钱就牛皮烘烘地谁也瞧不起"=="Her kind who has some stinking money looks down everyone scornfully. " I maybe give a bad translation. But I can explain some idioms in the sentence.  "她这种人" means her kind. I think this is a impolite word. When you want to mention someone that you want to  give him/her a negative evaluation, you can use these words. "臭钱" means stinking money. “臭”means bad smelling. Ancient  Chinese coins were made by brass. So when coins oxidize in the air, they give off smelling. It's also a negative word to say "money".

 

This three sentence must analysis together for understanding the context meaning. 胖子 wanted Lao Hu can have "political understanding", that Shirley is a person of the capitalist class. At that time, Chinese still believed capitalist always exploit proletarian, and public think American people must be capitalists. So 胖子 was worried about that if Lao Hu turned into a capitalist, he would break off their friendship and therefore,  胖子 always used negative words to describe Shirley because he thoughtLao hu was tron away by her.

 

"他妈的，以前那句话怎么说的来着？小皮鞋咯咯响，资产阶级臭思想。"=Shit!   What is the old saying that " (anyone hanker his)little shoes squeaking,(he has) bad bourgeois ideas". This "小皮鞋咯咯响，资产阶级臭思想" is actually a doggerel. In this doggerel, 胖子 abridged subjects and verbs. This against the rule of grammar. Rarely, in the informal speaking, if we want to point out a thing that  can happened to anyone, we can abridge subject and verbs. For example:

"有钱，没意思"="(Anyone is) wealthy, (he is) meaningless" 

 

"你可千万要顶住糖衣炮弹的攻势啊。" ="You must bear up offensives of  Sugar-coated bullets". The words "Sugar-coated bullets"(糖衣炮弹) is from a report of MaoZedong（毛泽东）In 1949, Mao gave a report about the cold war. He thought pro-western thinking this was a big threaten. He compared this thinking to "a sugar-coated bullet". It means "the advantage of pro-western thinking is just merely external, the inside of it is very dangerous." 

With this sentence, 胖子 still continuously asked Lao Hu do not "turn into a capitalist and don't forget his buddy".

[michaelS]

I'd like to give this book a shot, laurenth has made it sound great. I'd also prefer to read a paper version if possible, I take it I can find this in any bookshop?

 

Will I miss out on too much due to the cuts? Should I read the beginning online (and if so how much) and then switch to paper?

[laurenth]

Adbase, wow, thanks a lot for your explanations, I would never have guessed the cultural background of an apparently simple word like "觉悟" or of the expression, "糖衣炮弹". I knew that that pulpy novel was worth a history book!

 

Also, I should have understood the logical link between "皮鞋咯咯响" and "资产阶级臭思想" . But it's an incredibly compact way of saying complicated stuff, with 皮鞋 as a metonymy for  wealth, no logical connector expressed, no "subject" expressed - and the second part of the sentence is itself very dense "资产阶级臭思想".  张牧野 may not be a potential Nobel prize winner but he has that knack of writing catchy dialogues, among other things.

 

胖子's language is often extremely  compact, and the triangle with Lao Hu and Shirley makes for interesting and often funny relationships.

 

Your helpful comment makes me realise that there are probably many many things that I've read without understanding them for good, though. I could have drawn even more for that book.

[adbase]

laurenth. Thank you very much for reading my poor English comment  . "鬼吹灯" is a very popular novel in China, and a foreigner who can read this means his Chinese is very very good, because this book including a lot of idioms, very close to northern spoken language. 

 

张牧野 serialized this fiction on the biggest web fiction website in China:"www.qidian.com", and got a great success of income with publishing his books.  We call these kind of books are "Web Fiction". These fictions are all similar as “鬼吹灯”. They are full of spoken language, because most writers of them don't have abilities to write literary works.

 

Actually, China have some very ingenious writers. The history of literature, we separate Chinese literature into classic literature and modernistic literature. The most outstanding of classic literature is a novel named "红楼梦", which is written by "曹雪芹" in middle of the 18th century during the Qing Dynasty. This novel not only including a love tragedy, also including a lot of  ancient poetry. "曹雪芹" even can write different style of poetry which seems like are accurately written by different authors for actors in the novel. Today, China even has a special academic of studying of book calls "Redology"("红学").

 

After 19th century, with the influence of  western literature, China created the Chinese modernistic literature. "鬼吹灯" also can be seen as a modernistic literature. Today, the most famous author is "莫言", he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Litterateur Prize in 2012.

[Kamille]

Can you read traditional characters, michaelS? If you can, I advise you to look for the Taiwanese issue of the book.

 

It would truly be a pity to miss the spooky stuff if you ask me. It also belongs to the story. During my reading I always tried to imagine what would have been the story if there where no ghosts and clearly it would lose much of its point. Except if they were replaced with other consistent stuff, of course.

[laurenth]

Hello, michaelS, it's not the first time I'm confronted with different versions of the "same" Chinese novel. I had the same surprise with 圈子圈套. In this case, 鬼吹灯, in fact, I have already finished reading the electronic version, but I discovered that the Android app version has an additional episode which I'm reading for the moment. Unfortunately, I don't own the paper version, so I can't tell you where it's different.  I had used the preview function of Amazon to check part of the paper version and had discovered that a ghost episode was missing in the beginning, but it seems I was wrong. Could there be *several different* paper versions? This is becoming scary...

 

Hello again adbase, my extremely long term objective, provided I live long enough, is to read those classics you allude to. I've already read some of them in translation, but I would love, one (remote) day, to try the real stuff!