/lit/ - Literature

>>11948820
Tao Lin

>>11948820
Murakami

>>11949013
based

>>11948820
Start with the Zhou

(The Book of Songs, specifically)

Is Romance of the Three Kingdoms worth reading in translation? I liked the television adaptation.

I've only ever read short stories and extracts from works in a Chinese textbook, but of those the best were Lu Xun (painfully obvious choice, but what can you do), Eileen Chang, and Qian Zhongshu.

I recommend Cat Country by Lao She.

here you go OP, you're welcome

>>11948820
I just read this and liked it. It is a pulpy romance novel, but the fact that it's based on real events (british mimbo goes to be a professor in central china, starts banging the dean's hot wife, who teaches him daoist love making) and the historical context (three way war between chinese communists, chinese nationalists, and japs) made it interesting.

>>11949685
also, reading the book above inspired me to get a book by the woman whose love affair that book is based on, which is Ancient Melodies by Su Hu Chen or whatever her name is. Haven't read it yet.

Other books: Three body problem, i liked
Eileen chang I read one story it was okay
Yu Hua the seventh day is garbage, I guess he makes some good points but its annoying to read
Candy by Mian Mian, also garbage, memoirs of an NPC roastie

>>11949358
There are like 30+ TV adaptations. Which one you mean?

Dad's friend was a fanatic, collected the things from 70-80s, died if old age without having watched all of it.

Chinese are fixated on it as a nationalidentity literature, like the Hellenes with Homer and tragic plays.

>>11948820
nice thread, also interested

>>11948820
Confucius and Mao Tse Tung

>>11948820
Don’t, Chinese translates terribly into Indo-European languages

Fortress Besieged

>>11948820
outlaws of the marsh is great fun and a brainfuck when some of the good guys start doing things like cutting through half a village of people with 2 axes because he was bored and needed to take out his rage somehow

>>11951364
also the cucking story where the wife ends up with her head cut off if i remember properly when the Chad brother of the cucked man comes back to town

>>11951364
>>11951370
also when they randomly decide on a plan to kill all the family and friends of some strong guy, and then ruin his reputation, so that he will be forced to join their band of bandits, and it actually works

>>11948820
woah i've actually never read any chinese literature besides tao lin which is taiwanese-american

how much was lost in the cultural revolution?

>>11951379
-_- success is not measured by losses -_-

>>11951364
>>11951370
>>11951375
Those "good" guys seem to be scum. Truly outlaws.

>>11949685
Sounds pretty cool.

>>11948820
Start with the tao te ching

Wang Shuo.

>>11951391
yeah, i don't understand chineses

>>11948820
this qt

>>11951399
This

>>11951379
Hard to say, by definition. I don't imagine it was a huge amount, though I guess some persecuted writers might have had manuscripts burned, and some very rare (as in literally a handful of copies) works might have disappeared for good.

I think people tend to have exaggerated ideas about the Cultural Revolution though- I've seen weird claims like 'it wiped out all of China's culture', which makes absolutely zero sense.

Also it inspired a lot of subsequent writing (about how shit it was).

>>11952312
Truly based

>>11951364
There's a 20th century update of Outlaws of the Marsh which uses the actions and (IIRC) original dialogue, but adds in descriptions of the characters' thoughts to highlight how completely psychotic they are.

>>11952312
where do i start with mr yutang?

>>11952851
If you're in need of life advice/elegant, charming philosophising/Chinese Culture 101, read The Importance of Living and My Country And My People.

Moment in Peking is his big novel but I haven't read it.

>>11948820
I-Ching
Confucius
Mencius
Tao Te Ching
Chuang Tzu
Lieh Tzu
Yang Tzu

Start here. Then read the 5 classics.

>>11952845
is this written by actual chinks? any link with info about it?

>>11952845
i unironically love the original, it's really funny too with all fucked up shit going on, i've read it twice and will probably do it again once i get it in paper

>>11952896
who are the greeks of the chinks?

>>11949695

Wow - had no idea Candy was a well-known book. I randomly picked it up in the Chink section of my university library, read it in one sitting, and concluded that I was right all along when I said that Chinks are really, genuinely NPCs far beyond what the usual targets of NPC memes could ever be capable of.

>>11948820
possibly one of the worst languages to read translated into English.

>>11952965
Literally these:
>>11952896

Li Yu, Silent Operas is a good laugh. His Carnal Prayer Mat is also a good romp.

>>11953409
i know about this guy because of teresa teng

>>11953685
Really? What an odd coincidence. I quite like some of her songs actually. Tell me more anon.

>>11953930
she used a couple of his poems for the lyrics for some of her songs

Mao

>>11952896
>I-Ching
>then read the Five Classics
wut

>>11952949
It was Shi Zhecun, and only a short story apparently, not the whole thing. There's a bit about it here:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ina6yBbHlaQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=shi+zhecun+water+margin&source=bl&ots=uvQ7hnBDxo&sig=JqIM8Ecd-JUon80IF6y4JvoA7_Y&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjVrN2FgZHeAhUIDcAKHdJbDRYQ6AEwBXoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=shi%20zhecun%20water%20margin&f=false

>>11948820

Don't neglect 20th and 21st century Chinese literature because there's a lot of great novels, but also keep in mind that the best post-1949 Chinese literature is written by dissidents and exiles. I would actually recommend this as a starting point because you're probably not going to get through the four 1500+ page "great classical novels" anytime soon, although I'm in the middle of Outlaws of the Marsh and it's awesome.

Fortress Besieged is a fucking hilarious novel about a professor who forges his credentials in the middle of the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Cat Country is a dystopian sci-fi about cat people on Mars as an allegory for the opium crisis.

Soul Mountain is a postmodern novel that alternates between first and second person, is incredibly meandering and features meta chapters calling out the author's own pretentiousness, and is heavily inspired by the author's own experiences being misdiagnosed with lung cancer.

The Dark Road is a novel about the wife of one of the last descendants of Confucius. They have a daughter, but the husband wants a male heir because it's extremely important in Confucianism, so they have to flee the government due to the one child policy.

Read To Live by Yu Hua

You won't regret it, fantastic read.

>>11948824
fpbp

>>11955735
I really liked the film so I'll definitely give the book a go

I just started reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it's pretty good so far. I'm completely ignorant of any other Chinese literature.

>>11954434
thanks, sounds interesting, may get this book

who are the best taiwanese authors who aren't tao lin?

>>11957786
Mostly womxn; mostly lesbos; mostly heroed.

>>11957786

The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi
Notes of a Desolate Man by Chu T'ien-wen
Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

>>11959225
>Chu T'ien-wen
i know about her because hou hsiao hsien is my favourite director. it never occurred to me to actually read some of her novels. thanks

>>11948820
>7
Gao Xingjian

>>11957786
Tao Lin's relatives.

The one that is exiled in France.

>>11948820
I haven't read anything Chinese yet - I need to investigate it thoroughly

>>11949438
I laughed, thank you

>>11961729
How's the investigation going detective?

>>11961729
they only wrote 4 books, so you won't take too long.

Unironically, I'd say to skip the cod classical crap being mentioned here, and to take a look at writers such as Liao Yiwu (non-fiction, but you couldn't make that shit up), or Liu Yichang (novelist, The Cockroach and other random bits online). https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/16171873/liu-yichang-intersection-translated-by-nancy-li

>>11952837
you have a purely quantitative view of culture, and ought to singled out for a bloody good struggle session, you philistine you. If it is true that a lot of or even most Chinese literature managed to avoid complete and utter destruction during the cultural revolution, the same cannot be said for Tibetan literature (as in, written texts, they weren't so keen on fiction as opposed to religious writings), of which some 70-80% or so was destroyed forever.

To be sure, the Chinese literary corpus, religious or secular, remains, but it might as well be a head cut off from its body, lifeless and disconnected from the tradition it sprang from. That is what was lost: the millennial continuity of China's much vaunted culture; no more, no less. And that was the greatest crime of the communists and their demonic hordes.

>>11950755
The 2010 one, the only I've seen discussed in this site.

>>11949344
>Not starting with the Shang oracle bones

>>11963240
actually yes
>pic related

>>11963121
>They only wrote 4 books

>>11948820
Mr Ching chong rice noodles

>>11964270
Holy shit what an original witty comment!

>>11964258
newfag好

>>11964308
Typical newfag calling other people newfags.

>>11964502
you don't seem to have been around here long enough to realise that a) the Chinese themselves call their 4 classic novels "the 4 classic novels" and that b) this in itself is something of a meme around here. So yeah, fuck back off to reddit.

>>11962997
Not very well - I think I may have lost my Way of Truth

Just read Yu Hua's Chronicle of a Blood Merchant. It's decent.

>>11964533
I assumed it was a reference to the Four Books tbphwy

>>11948820
Wu Ming

>>11949013

Anyone here know/learning Chinese?
Is it worth it if from a literary standpoint or should I just learn Japanese instead

>>11967105
depends on what you'd like to read. Classical Chinese is quite patrician, and not as hard as you'd think. If you like poetry, start with Archie Barnes' Chinese Through Poetry, otherwise start with Rouzer or Fuller's books and Pulleyblank's grammar, and Kroll's dictionary.

>>11961683
Mo Yan?

>>11967105
>>11967468
How much is lost in translation with Chinese? From what I'm aware the grammar and sentence structure in mandarin is very basic and not wildly different from English in some ways, which leads me to believe that English translations of mandarin don't alter the original meaning as much as English translations of a language such as Japanese, where the sentence structures are relatively more different to English than mandarin. However this may not be the case at all I really am just talking from assumptions here I'm not particularly knowledgeable on languages at all

>>11969077
Yeah him.

>>11969077
>>11970465
pls be joking

>>11969128
a lot is lost in translation, you can browse around this site and see how it might work: http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?lang=en
look at various english or french translations alongside the chinese, and you can even hover over the characters to get a definition. that will give you an idea.

>>11971308
50 cents have been deposited into your account.

>>11971822
eh, no you.
Mo Yan is a collaborationist wanker.

I have yellow fever
Books for this feel?

>>11972266
hollaback

>>11972266
pic related

>>11972270
not a bad couple desu

Yiyun Li is modern era and Chinese-American but worth mentioning. Her short story collection ‘A Thousand Years of Good Prayers’ is excellent.

Butterfly Blue.

>>11967105
I do. Chinese poetry is vastly superior to anything I've read in my own Muttersprache or English, but keep in mind that classical Chinese is essentially a language on its own, so it'll be a while before you can start properly enjoying Chinese classics/poetry.
>>11969128
I'd imagine the hardest part of translating Chinese is its succintness. Word forming in Chinese is fairly easy compared to other languages, so, alas, Chinese has a mind numbingly large of very specific vocabulary which can only be translated as long-ish noun phrases in English.
>>11963173
Nonsense. Chinese culture is alive and well, minus some (very) unsavory bits that gradually died out starting with the Xinhai revolution and finally did so with Mao.

>>11972837
>Nonsense. Chinese culture is alive and well,
no. Footbinding and opium smoking aside, they've only kept the worst bits alive, the sheer yellow cuntishness and shallow disregard for human life. Communism is therefore only the logical self-destructive extension of the chinese mentality.

>>11972837
>it'll be a while before you can start properly enjoying Chinese classics/poetry.
as I recommended before, start with Chinese Through Poetry and you'll be flying through poems pretty quickly. Stop propagating the myth of classical Chinese being impenetrable. Just like the Great Wall (tm), it's not. It looks intimidating, but it's made in China so it can't be too hard.

>>11967105
I'm taking chinese language courses right now. I've got all the tones as well as initals down but I'm having difficulty with finals. I also know piecemeal words and phrases and learning stroke order has really helped

>>11971822
???

>>11971822
>>11971842
What?

Journey to the West

idk but their foot fetish porn is top-tier

>>11974635
>>11973876
The dude is a shill for the PRC, every time they post pro communist propaganda they get 50分块钱 deposited into their account.

>>11975544
Any good Anti-communist/Anti-PRC Chinese authors, either from China, Taiwan, or elsewhere?

>>11975551
Yeah, Jung Chang. She has written both fiction and nonfiction. I never read Wild Swans but it had a good reception. I personally recommend Mao: The Unknown Story.

>>11953942
>>11953930

I've listened to her songs on you tube some years back. She had such an amazing voice. Teresa Teng was one of a kind for the NPC's that's for sure.

>>11975556
Thanks. She and her husband look promising. If you can think of any other recommendations it'd be appreciated.

>>11948820
Eileen Chang’s short stories are interesting (that anglicised name sounds so stupid though) - Lust, Caution is a must read

is the pillow book good?

>>11948820
Why would I want to read books by soulless people?

>>11975086
where do i find some of it

>>11975813
jap

>>11959311
>Gao
What's he like?
i've got Soul Mountain somewhere in my library

>>11975899
not as good as Ma Jian's Red Dust

>>11975899
Soul Mountain is really comfy read, makes you all nostalgic for your days as a kiddo. It has many stories going at once and not all of them are as good as the others (ofc). Because of that parts of it feels like a chore. Would recommend tho.

>>11975827
Japanese*

Did my realise how flat their faces really were until I gave this Chinese girl a facial

Gobineau on Chinese lit: telling it like is: "puerile"

Ping Pong

>>11975556
>I personally recommend Mao: The Unknown Story
kek, that book is pretty universally hated by the actual professional historians of China. It's only a couple of rungs above Gavin Fucking Menzies

>>11977621
Not him but what do you have then? Her husband was an Historian of Asia.

bump

>>11952988
I agree.
Every translation I have read has been incredibly unmusical and unsubtle. Between my lacking Chinese cultural nous and the fundamental diffences in language texture everything has been awful except from an anthropological angle since the concept of face is genuinely fascinating as an elevation of sycophantism to an artform.

>>11979703
get yourself some cultural nous mate

>>11979703
Take a gawk at Wang Xiaofang's The Civil Servant's Notebook.

>>11977621
I'll give it a shot

>>11948820
What about Mao?

>>11982780
what about the cunt?

>>11978655
There are tons of Mao biographies by respected scholars. Stuart Schram, Jonathan Spence, Rebecca Karl, Pantsov and Levine, the list could go on

>>11982947
boring. read the one by his personal doctor.

>>11982780
Ask myself this question every day.

>>11983003
Probably the fun option, I can't deny

>>11982780
Surprisingly good poet considering how busy his day job kept him, apparently

>>11982780
Good, you can eat the paper he is printed on!

>>11972837
Why are they all white?

Haha

>>11948820
Francis fukuyama

>>11985324
Ayyy lmao.

>>11984819
Because it is right?

>>11986631
that's japanese and he's also the worst place to start with anything

What's the best translation if the tao Te ching?

>>11948820
not a cinese, but a karatechink is almost the same

>>11989972
get a bunch, it's short and worth looking at multiple translations. I'd suggest Red Pine for starters.

The Golden Lotus, pic related

>>11990681
lewd

>>11951370
>>11990681

The Golden Lotus is this story except the slutwife marries the Chad and pumps him full of ancient Chinese Viagra till he ODs

Recent translation is very thorough:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/books/david-tod-roy-completes-his-translation-of-chin-ping-mei.html

This thread is going to stay in the first page of the index forever, isn't it

>>11991279
yes and it's all thanks to the cute girl in the op

>>11975816
Because soul is a meme.

>>11991329
Sounds like something a soulless NPC would say.

>>11948820
God I wish that were me.

>>11948820
who's the chink

>>11972837
> Chinese poetry is vastly superior to anything I've read in my own Muttersprache or English
>This poetry written by literal non-human, buzzing hivedwellers is superior to anything written in my language
Maybe you should read more poetry written in your language

>>11993278
Does it really matter? Is she, in ANY FUCKING WAY different from millions of other chink women. Does she have any defining characteristic?

>>11993316
no I was just curious if she was actually Chinese
looks like a Jap to me

>>11993332
Japanese* shesh!

>>11993332
no she's a cute chinese girl

>>11967105
have studied for 4 years and have finally gotten to the point where i can read old poetry and modern novels

10/10 pretty patrician literary language

That's IT. I've had it with this thread.
At first, it was easy to look past it. I've witnessed Jezebels in my time, surely, and I've learned well enough to avoid their temptations by holding His words close to my heart, but this is a whole other case.
But as time passed, she didn't vanish like the others. This one stayed. After a few days, I grew more fretful, more worried. Sometimes, as I would scroll through the page, I found myself LOOKING for her, in her yellow top, her cute green shift beneath. I found myself seeking her legs, just a glance, at other times marveling at her white skin, MARVELING at the legs of a JEZEBEL. O, I prayed for forgiveness but a week hence I've begun to lose hope. I catch myself wondering what she's looking at, what has caught her attention. I catch myself wondering if PERHAPS I COULD catch her attention, and then I tighten my tourniquet and try to instill His words back into my sodding mind, that this painted woman is nothing but a temptation.
Now, ten days since the posting, I beg you, all of you, please, under His tutelage, as a holy man, I beg, do not sustain her, give not a glance to her and instead allow this thread to die, to free yourself and the others from her blasphemous grasp! O, to be free!

>>11954484
>although I'm in the middle of Outlaws of the Marsh and it's awesome.
Which translation are you reading?

>>11976838
>>11994307
>>>/r/eddit

>>11948820
Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem series is fucking sublime

Are there any good books or /lit/ approved movies about the cultural revolutions?

>>11996589
阳光灿烂的日子
活着

>>11996653
>阳光灿烂的日子
I agree

>>11996776
That, Devils on the Doorstep and The Sun Also Rises. Not such a fan of his poppier later stuff (Let the Bullets Fly is fun though I guess), but Jiang Wen is damned impressive tbph

>>11996025

>>11948820
The only Chinese author I know is Mo Yan. I read 'Red Sorghum Clan', 'The Republic of Wine' and 'Big Breasts & Wide Hips'. Thinking about the latter give mi chills. Good read

bump

>>11949386
I read Qian Zhongshu and it was good. The translation at least.

>>11959239
I saw excerpts of Notes of Desolated Man. Good translation.

>>11963135
Read one essay and interview by Liao. Interesting but don't know what to say.

I-I am just a pleb and my favorites are Three Body Problem and Legend of Condor Heroes

bump

>>11998039

Any good charts or guides for China? Taiwan maybe? Hong Kong even?

>>12002912
found this in the archive

>>12004015
Thanks. I remember that one, it is pretty good. Like I said would be interested in other areas though outside of mainland China, like Taiwan or Hong Kong, or even regionally like Tibet or the Uighur area.

>>11999675
read this then: https://pen.org/the-public-toilet-manager/

Why are you ming-mongs keeping this thread alive?

>>12005475
Why not? ;)

>>12005475
Jealous?

reminder that Ma Jian is based as fuck and bangs his translator

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9IwEZXau7A

bump

Wolf Totem was surprisingly good.

anons...jin yong just died. this is the worst day ever.

>>12009620
oh no
i love wuxia films but i've never actually read any wuxia books :l

>>12009620

:(

>>12010655
legend of condor is out in english now and in progress

>>12012179
thanks looks interesting

>>12005475

HOW IS THIS SHIT STAYING ALIVE WITH SO FEW COMMENTS?!?!?!

>>12009620
f

>>12009620
I just came here to see if he was being talked about.
It's big news here in China.

>>12014190
>It's big news here in China.
that's because they are not allowed real news.

>>12013322
Why not?

>>12013322
the comments are laced with vitality-enhancing rhino horn extract.

>>12015880
this

TWO WEEKS WOOO

FUCKING FAGGOTS

this thread is just like Chinese civilisation, long-lived, sterile, repetitive and pointless.

>>12018782
don't be so rude

>>12018661
NO U

>muh million years of culture
>invent the book and write loads of them
>spend a decade burning all their books and killing their teachers and writers
>muh million years of culture

OK

>>12021983
Based Cultural Revolution poster.

>>12023014
To be quite honest, I also detest the Taipings and their muh Christian pre-CR orgy of destruction, as well as the early nationalist b/s attempt at modernisation by the destruction of traditional culture (New Life horseshit and all that). The nly reason CKS is even held in any sort of esteem is that he managed to capitalise on the CR and position himself as a defender of traditional China - the one he sought to destroy previously. See Ku Hung-ming for incisive critiques of "demo-crazy" in the early Republic.

>>12023067
Ok not so based.

>>12023067
>attempt at modernisation by the destruction of traditional culture (New Life horseshit and all that)
Interesting perspective. The standard view of the New Life Movement is that it was a conservative turn away from 'destruction'- hence 礼义廉耻 being the core values with lots of classical quotes, plus it coincided with national commemorations of Confucius. What's your view? I can see arguments for it, but I'd be interested to hear where you got it.

>>12023067
>>12024441
...it just occurred to me that you might have meant to say New Culture instead of New Life- that would explain it.

>>12021983
>spend a decade burning all their books and killing their teachers and writers


Name a single nation which hasn't done this either explicitly (Eastern Bloc) or implicitly (every liberal democracy). It seems the former just voids out into apathetic utilitarianism with hints of old ethics whereas the latter literally supports the displacement of ethnic majorities.

>>12024460
yes, you may be right. Bear in mind the overwhelmingly Christian, pro-American, modern-Japan-inspired - and also Freemasonic - composition of the leaders of the early Republic, and it begins to get clearer.
The grotesque image of Sun Yat-sen "worshipping" at the Ming tombs, declaring the end of the Qing dynasty, dressed in a top hat and frock coat (sic!) springs to mind.
As to Chiang, I do think his later attempt to promote Chinese culture in the wake of the CR was sincere, but that like everything else he did, it smacked of opportunism - both in terms of the PRC, and "at home", to shore up his paternalist grip on power in confucian terms - as an enlightened despot.

>>12024362
Ku Hung-ming is very much the original based Chinaman.
In fact, there are reasons why his works are so popular these past few years in the mainland (but not Taiwan) despite the fact he would have detested the communists even more than the nationalists. Think about that.

>>12024529
I like CKS myself.

>>12024489
Just seems odd to single out the New Life Movement (among other things the KMT did) seeing as it was consiously traditionalist- although I can certainly see the argument that it was fake and opportunist. Of course there was a 'new' element to it as well, as the name implies, and there were some radical fascists involved- but they were a minority.

CKS was declaring affinity for 'traditional culture' long before the Cultural Revolution, though (as did Sun Yatsen, though much less convincingly because of his much more 'westernised' upbringing and life).

>>12025882
you are focusing too narrowly on an ephemeral political movement/campaign, rather than on the overall enforced trend to "westernise", modernise, and to repress and abandon former cultural norms.

>>12025911
Overall I agree, for sure. But you focused first on the New Life Movement, and that's what I found odd.

>>12025960
Yes, because there some parallels with the CR, being a concerted group effort to consciously do away with specific cultural elements.

>>12025969
Ah, I see. Yeah, it was ironic in that way- professing loyalty to core civilisational values while completely reinterpreting them, in practice trying to transform actual lived patterns of behaviour.

Good books on khs, China, and Taiwan?

>>12026716
On China: McGregor's The Party is not a bad read.
On Taiwan: Formosa Betrayed is something of a classic.
What is KHS? Knights of the Holy Sepulchre or the Kentucky Historical Society?

>>11983034
Actually, this

>>12027214
CKS, my bad lol.

>>12027214
I've heard of both of these. Wouldn't have to have a lengthy list or could come up with something more could you?

>>12028918
Are you literally asking for 'good books on China'? That's kind of a broad request tbph

>>12028947
Primarily the Chinese Civil War, China as it relates to WWII, and I also wouldn't mind stuff on contemporary China.

>>12028973
Rana Mitter- China's War Against Japan
Best English-language biography of Chiang Kiashek is probably Jay Taylor's recent one, but sadly it's not nearly as good as Bastid-Brugere's one on Sun Yatsen (which it might make sense to start with, because this stuff gets confusing and a biography is a good entry point). The most thorough scholarship on Chiang himself is by Yang Tianshi, but I don't think any of his books have been translated.
The most prolific historian on the KMT up to the end of WW2 is Lloyd Eastman, but his books are pretty dry reading. The much earlier, more journalistic ones by Martin Wilbur and Harold Isaacs are more fun reads but obviously liable to have been superseded by later research.
Keith Schoppa's Blood Road is a great study of a relatively minor KMT figure, much more 'novelistic' and fun to read than most history.

>>12029030
Thanks. Why such the interest?

bump

>>12029164
??

Not sure what you mean, old chap

>>12030168
I think he means how come you have such good expertise.