User Comments - anli1520
anli1520
Posted on: Romance of the Three Kingdoms
April 26, 2012 at 2:19 PMOf the several classical Chinese novels which I have read (regrettably all
in English translation), my favorite is the 三国演义 more so than the gargantuan 红楼梦 or 金瓶梅 of slightly golden hue. As far as I know, the best English translation is by Moss Roberts who uses clear and concise English, Pinyin romanization , and provides copious footnotes and explanations. Though out the work, so many fascinating stories can be found, such as the time when Zhuge Liang (Kongming) cleverly manages to collect thousands of arrows within a couple of days to foil the plot of Zhou Yu to have him executed. There are so many subplots and characters that as time passes, I forget much of it. Does anyone remember the name of the famous horse of exceptional strength and courage given to Guan Yu by Cao Cao? The horse remained faithful only to Lord Guan. When Lord Guan died, the horse refused to eat and died shortly there after. Is it 赤兔马?
Posted on: Buying a Book
May 7, 2012 at 10:19 PMI would really like to read the 明朝那些事儿, but seven volumes in Chinese
is just too much for me. So far I have not been able to find an English
translation, but so popular a work will not remain untranslated for long.
If anyone knows of an English edition, please let me know. In our dialog
the work is described as 红。红，indeed! In China it has been one of the
30 best-selling books since 1949 and the best selling history book ever.
Many copycat editions have appeared written by history professors and others hoping to ride the wave of popularity. The author 当年明月(his real name is石悦) is also quite interesting. You might think that he would be university professor, but at the time of the writing he was a young customs official. He began writing the history at 26 finished it at 30. He clams to have begun reading the 24 histories (二十四史) at he age of 7. Reading only a fraction of the 3213 volumes containing about 40 million words is no small feat. Even more so, I find it difficult to understand why a book dealing with
the history of Ming dynasty would so completely capture the imagination
of the 老百姓。This certainly would be a topic worthy of more discussion.