Trashy book recommendation please

[rose~]

I have spent a lot of time reading (for want of a better description) higher-end novels by Lu Xun, Ba Jin etc. Now I would like to read something which will be less of a strain on my vocabulary and basically something relaxing and easy. So I would like a recommendation of some trashy novels please! =) An equivalent in English would be something like Agatha Christie: a good read and very popular but at the same time very simple and non-intellectual.

Thanks!

[carlo]

Right now I'm reading a collection of SF short stories by 刘慈欣, I wouldn't call it 'trash' (at least what I've read so far is quite good), but it's fun (kind of a space opera feel).

[student]

How about some 阿加莎·克里斯蒂?

http://christie.diy.myrice.com/main/index.htm

English originals at

http://christie.diy.myrice.com/english/index.htm

and Chinese translations at

http://christie.diy.myrice.com/novel/long.htm

etc.

[zhwj]

If you're looking for stuff from the same era, then you could do worse than to condsider the "kings of popular fiction" - Zhang Henshui, Zhang Ailing, and Zhang Ziping （张恨水、张爱玲、张资平).

Ba Jin's early Love trilogy is not exactly high-art.

For slightly more recent stuff, Qiong Yao 琼瑶 practically defined the modern Chinese formulaic romance genre - her Outside the Window 窗外 from the sixties is her first, but she's written scores of them since then. That's probably what you want. Chang Manchuan (张曼娟) is another popular novelist, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call her trashy.

Crime fiction can also be pretty trashy. The Wrath of Heaven 天怒 by Fang Wen 方文 jump-started the anti-corruption department genre - it got banned for hitting too close to home in its portrayal of the Beijing government, but it's just a potboiler story at heart.

Some of the reworked classics might be fun to read. 悟空传 by 今何在 punches up the Monkey King story, as does 沙僧日记 by 林长治 (that author's Q版文学 and 6友记 are funny books aimed at a middle-school-aged audience).

Most of these can be found online. I wouldn't count on finding Q版文学 or 天怒 in the bookstores, though.

[student]

Is the author of The Wrath of Heaven 天怒 Fang Wen 方文 or Chen Fang 陈放?

[zhwj]

Is the author of The Wrath of Heaven 天怒 Fang Wen 方文 or Chen Fang 陈放?

One and the same. It was first published under the pseudonym 方文 (splitting his given name) because of the sensitivity of the material. There was a reworked version called 都市危情 that came out under his own name - I think it was supposed to be a TV tie-in novelization, but I don't remember any TV show. The "sequel" 海努 about Chinese gangs in Japan came out with the author listed as 陈放.