Book of the year 2024: 射鵰英雄傳 by 金庸

[honglam]

On 7/6/2024 at 4:21 PM, honglam said:

回首look behind妖氛the atmosphere of monsters(i.d. the invaders from 金國)未掃be not defeated，問ask人間this world，英雄hereo何處where？奇謀wonderful strategies報國serve my country，可憐wretched無用not being used，塵dirts昏stain白羽white feather(諸葛亮, a legendary militarists and statesman who often held a fan made of white feather in his hand. here the poet compared him self to 諸葛亮, implying that himself is a good militarist and statesman like 諸葛亮)。

Looking behind, the invaders are not yet defeated. Thus I ask this world: "where are the heroes?" I have wonderful strategies to serve my country, yet so wretched am I not being elected by the emperor, and my fan of white feather has already been stained by dust and dirt!

This sentence used the allusion of 諸葛亮(famous statesman of 季漢) to express his suffering of not getting the attention by the emperor and not being able to fulfill his ambition.

BTW it occurs to me that there may be a mistake here. At that time the allusion of 白羽 means 周瑜 rather than 諸葛亮. Thus all the metaphors used here are from the 吳 of 三國.

[lordsuso]

I can't thank you enough @honglam, that was so cool! First time I can understand a poem haha And your explanation was perfect, the most difficult part of poems (to me at least) is to know where every word starts and ends.

[Guest realmayo]

Cool to see the comments keep flowing on this thread. Next best thing to buying a cool book and not reading it (but of course I will one day....) is reading chinese-forums folk reading a cool book that I'm not reading (but of course I will one day....)

[lordsuso]

I really enjoyed the second half of book 2, imo it's much better than the first half @杰娃娃. Again, the book ends at the worst possible time, so I'll go straight into book 3 before taking a break. 

[Lu]

I'm alllllmost finished with book one. Feels like Guo Jing and Huang Rong have been inside the Wanyan compound for half the book by now, but that's probably partly because I've been reading very slowly lately. But also because it Just. Keeps. Going. Jin Yong is really dragging that scene out. At some point it seems Guo Jing is finally out of enemies and the road to the McGuffin he needs is free, and then suddenly there is an enourmous snake. Sure, why not! This is not a book to read for plot resolution, it's really about the twists, turns and fights along the way.

 

Now he's ran into 梅超風 again and I do admire how Jin Yong just put her story in the middle of the scene, giving her a lot of space to expand on her life, her background, everything that happened.

[lordsuso]

On 7/30/2024 at 9:02 AM, Lu said:

This is not a book to read for plot resolution, it's really about the twists, turns and fights along the way.

I agree. Also, everything seems to happen for a reason. I was complaining about "filler" chapters in the first half of book 2, but they do end up mattering at some point.

[Lu]

I have finally finished book 1. The last chapter took me too long, for a variety of factors both in and outside my control.

 

I really enjoyed this book in the beginning, but somehow I gradually lost interest along the way. I liked the plotting and the smart ways to evade fights better than the fights itself, but reading Jin Yong for not-the-fights seems a bit like reading Playboy for the interviews. I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more as a teenager or in my early twenties, but I could not read it yet at that point. I consider that a small tragedy.

 

I'm not really encouraged by knowing that in the next book 1) they are still fighting the same set of people in the Wanyan compound, and 2) it starts with chapters that feel like filler. Also I should read other books that are contemporary literature, and Jin Yong eats time. So not sure if I'll go on past this point. On the other hand, if I don't continue now I'll have lost track of who's who and who did what to whom too much, and I'll likely never get back into it, which would also be a small tragedy.

 

Anyway I don't have volume 2 at home and it'll be a while before I'm at the library that has it again. I'll see, and read something else first.

[lordsuso]

@Lu not too far into book 2 (not even one chapter) you get a much better ending that wraps up multiple sub-plots. If you tolerate reading digitally, I think it's worth finding an online version and continue to that point.

On 8/1/2024 at 9:43 AM, Lu said:

I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more as a teenager or in my early twenties

haha I definitely agree with this. But I did enjoy the fights more in book 2, not because they were better but because I was finally able to understand them. Also, Jin Yong clearly enjoys and puts a lot of effort into making up fighting techniques, so rather than ignoring them I tried to lean in and invest myself into them.

[Lu]

On 8/1/2024 at 10:12 AM, lordsuso said:

If you tolerate reading digitally, I think it's worth finding an online version and continue to that point.

If you have it digitally handy, would you mind posting the first full sentence? I think I'll be able to find it online with that. Would be nice to have some story closure.

[lordsuso]

第十一回

通天见师弟危殆,跃起急格,挡开了梅超风这一抓,两人手腕相交,都感臂酸心惊。

 

And I advise you read until right before this sentence:

 

众人把马钰和...

[lordsuso]

If any future reader wants to complement their reading, I recommend the tv show 成吉思汗 (2004), I enjoyed it and it was nice to recognize many characters from the book.

[lordsuso]

I just finished the last book. What a journey that was!

 

The biggest compliment I can give to the book is that it took me 9 months to finish it, and for the most part I was always looking forward my reading session, I can definitely understand why it is so beloved. The pace, the lore and the dialogue were my favorite parts, I also became fond of the action with time. My two favorite characters were Yang Kang and Zhou Botong, interesting things happened when they were around.

 

I would say it was a bit harder to read than the novella 白馬嘯西風. I have the impression that the vocabulary was simpler in that book, while here he uses more archaic and literary structures. Here is what worries me a bit: it took me 60 hours to read book 1, 50h for book 2, 40h for book 3, and 40h for book 4. So no progress from book 3 to 4 (althought I did take a pretty long break in-between), and the fastest I read was 80CPM, which is abysmal.

 

Here are my two biggest gripes with the book:

 

- The main characters are pretty flat. After a while Guo Jing became a bit boring and Huang Rong a bit annoying. In the afterword section of the final book, Jin Yong says this about the characters being a bit shallow: 这是中国传统小说和戏剧的特征，但不免缺乏人物内心世界的复杂性。大概由于人物性格单纯而情节热闹，所以《射雕》比较得到欢迎。但我自己，却觉得我后期的某几部小说似乎写得比《射雕》有了些进步。

 

- Jin Yong's attention to detail is a double-edged sword. He explains pretty much everything, he clearly wants the story to have zero plot-wholes (which is probably why he kept revising his books). Sometimes that's good, like in the action scenes where he always explains why someone is able to beat someone (which gives the reader an understanding of how the power system and the training works). Sometimes it's unnecessary, he often interrumpts the flow of the story to explain some very minor plot points. And sometimes it's bad, because he takes away the fun of trying to draw your own conclusions and make your own interpretations regarding character choices and motivations, since he explicitly tells you right away.

 

I think I will finish the Condor trilogy before switching to another wuxia author, so I'll move onto 神鵰俠侶 after a break. Gu Long is the only other wuxia author I've read so far, and if I had to compare the two I would say that they are very very different, Jin Yong reads more like fantasy, while Gu Long reads more like westerns. I prefer the latter so far, but I have high hopes for Jin Yong's later works.