/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17921426]

Besides the four great novels, how is their literature?

[Anonymous No.17921593]

>>17921426
The classic poetry is pretty stellar, the form, script, and poetical grammar is unlike anything in the West, so anyone interested in poetry could do much worse than learn Chinese.

[Anonymous No.17921665]

>>17921593
Their poems are weird. Below is a peon name on the lake

On the Lake

Mountain monks facing chess sit
Board on bamboo dark quiet
Shine bamboo no person see
Sometimes hear down chess piece sound

[Anonymous No.17921726]

Literary Chinese is actually based off of Chinese used two thousand years ago. As such, reading it is both very concise and very complicated for even the native speaker.

[Anonymous No.17921740]

>>17921665
It's similar to a lot of other Classical Chinese quotes in philosophy. Most of them use four character idioms which means translating them sounds retarded but if you know the language it becomes more of an abstract thing rather than an English sentence that can drag it out all the way.

[Anonymous No.17921778]

>>17921665
Wow, even in the form of this horrible translation, this is a fantastically good poem. The image is both serene and striking. Where do I get more of these?

[Anonymous No.17921784]

>>17921593
>so anyone interested in poetry could do much worse than learn Chinese.
Isnt Chinese notoriously hard to learn? I was always under the impression that it is an archaic clusterfuck of a language

[Anonymous No.17921838]

I've enjoyed all the Chinese books and poetry that I've read, but I assume that only the best stuff gets translated into English.
But yes, they produce a lot of serious writers whose collective output is staggering. Over the last year I've been reading the works of the Tiananmen survivors and it's all great.

[Anonymous No.17921844]

>>17921426
Chinese can't into literature because it requires a soul and chinks don't have souls.
A Chinese isn't really a "person" in the full sense of the word. They don't have their own thoughts and emotions. When you talk to a Chinese you aren't talking to a person you're communicating with a device that is plugged into a network.

[Anonymous No.17921947]

>>17921844
>>>/pol/

[Anonymous No.17921973]

>>17921844
You think you're being anti-China but actually this is exactly the outlook that the CCP tries to shill both at home and abroad. You watch videos of babies getting run over by uncaring strangers, you perhaps justifiably come to the conclusion that they are devoid of souls. But in so doing you absolve those individuals of culpability for the crime. If you allow them souls you recognize each Chinese atrocity as a conscious moral decision. In fact there's a lot of complex decision-making going inside the mind of a van driver as he smears a child's skull across the asphalt. I invite you to dive down the China rabbit hole and understand why. Your understanding will be anathema to the real Chinese injustices.

[Anonymous No.17921987]

>>17921426
The Zhuangzi is easily the greatest thing from that land.

[Anonymous No.17921991]

>>17921593
Thank you, Ezra.

[Anonymous No.17922100]

>>17921784
Only the writing system. The grammar is pretty straightforward I think.

>>17921973
Could you elaborate Anon? I would really like to understand what motivates people to act in ways that are so obviously unethical and terrible. I have a feeling it has something to do with the threat of being arbitrarily punished by a corrupt system, so it's best to just lay low, or something like that.

[Anonymous No.17922277]

>>17922100
Yes, if you challenge a Chinese to explain that behavior, he will cite one of several widely-publicized court cases in which good samaritans are screwed, most notoriously the 2006 Peng Yu case where the judge ruled that a samaritan who helped an injured old woman, and was subsequently sued, "must have been guilty of injuring her, otherwise why would he have helped a stranger in the first place?"
This outraged everyone in China, but is often cited as the reason why people are afraid to step in. And that is consistent with typical Chinese behavior throughout the 20th century. Read the books of banned Chinese authors and you see how easy it was for people to turn a blind eye to atrocity in order to save themselves. That's as commonplace today as it was in the tragic hellscape which was China in the 1950s. If the rewards of immorality are material, then moral corruption becomes a self-fueling fire. That all makes sense but personally I think the reasons run much deeper. Poet Liu Xiaobo blames what he called this specific brand of moral sickness on post-Tiananmen fear, but I think it goes deeper still, back to the terror of the Cultural Revolution if not before. The individual morality of the Chinese people has been actively suppressed for centuries. What's the real answer? I have the ghost of an idea which I can't put into words, but it terrifies me because I know my own culture isn't immune.
I think if you understand Zizek's "Big Other", Hobbes' Leviathan, and the insidious nature of totalitarianism, you can begin to understand why these people choose to behave like insects.

[Anonymous No.17922304]

>>17921987
The only good post in the thread. I don't see how such a masterpiece, such as this, is underlooked. This man was redeemed by history. Look how tyrannical the state is these days, especially the Confucian CCP.

[Anonymous No.17922328]

>>17921991
What would Fascist Ezra Pound think of today's China?

[Anonymous No.17922346]

>>17921426
Modern Chinese literary fiction is good, but doesn't get translated often. Not enough cultural crossover for publishers to want to take the risk. The Invisibility Cloak by Gei Fei is a personal favorite of mine. You can get it on Amazon. Translation is good enough.

[Anonymous No.17922348]

[Anonymous No.17922376]

Anybody else read this? Thoughts? I'm halfway through; I found the first few stories really well-written and illuminating, but now I'm at the story of Ah-Q and I'm not sure what to think of it. Social satire is hard to enjoy when the subject is so alien.

I fucking love Chinese literature. I don't want to recommend any specifics though because for every great book I've read there are a hundred better ones I've never heard of.

[Anonymous No.17922514]

>>17922376
I read Diary of a Madman in a world it course I took for uni and thought it was pretty good, but that is the only Lu Xun I am familiar with

[Anonymous No.17922544]

>>17921593
How’d you learn Classical Chinese?

[Anonymous No.17923794]

>>17921784

Chinese is the easiest language I learned. If you have a decent memory you can remember the characters. The grammar is the simplest you will find in the world. No conjugations, no weird rules, pronunciation is predictable even characters are predictable becuse they contain other simpler characters within them.

Also remember that these days you do't have to learn to write. It's enough to recognize the character from the suggetions that pop up. That saves you a ton of time.

To compare, Japanese is probably about 5 times harder to learn.

European languages with the million conjugations, the subjunctive tenses, genders and all that crap are also much, much harder.

Start the duolingo Chinese course and you'll be surprised at how fast you get through it.

[Anonymous No.17923808]

>>17923794
>European languages with the million conjugations, the subjunctive tenses, genders and all that crap are also much, much harder.
That's complete nonsense of course, but I'll take your word that Chinese isn't as hard as it looks.

[Anonymous No.17923816]

>ywn read Chinese poetry in Chinese

[Anonymous No.17923817]

- John Keay : China : A History

- Confucianism : An Introduction (I.B.Tauris Introductions to Religion)

- Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung: The Highest Order of Cultivation AND On the Practice of the Mean (Penguin Classics)
- Analects: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett Classics Series)
- Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett Classics)

- The Book of Songs ( Arthur Waley )
- The Book of Documents ( Shang Shu )
- The Book of Rites (Li Ji): English-Chinese Version
- The Classic of Changes : A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (Translations from the Asian Classic)
- Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan: Commentary on the "Spring and Autumn Annals" (Classics of Chinese Thought): Commentary on the "Spring and Autumn Annals": Three Volumes ( ! )

- Xunzi: The Complete Text ( Eric L. Hutton )
- Daoism : An Introduction (I.B. Tauris Introductions to Religion)

- Tao Te Ching (D.C. Lau)
- Lao-Tzu's Taoteching ( Red Pine )

- The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (Translations from the Asian Classics)
- Zhuangzi (Brook Ziporyn edition)

- The Book of Lieh-Tzu: A Classic of the Tao (Translations from the Oriental Classics)
- The Mozi: A Complete Translation (Translations from the Asian Classics)
- The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China (Translations From the Asian Classics)
- Han Feizi: Basic Writings (TRANSLATIONS FROM THE ASIAN CLASSICS)
- The Art of War (Everyman's Library Classics)

- Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty (Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies)
- Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty I (Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies)
- Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty II (Records of Civilization, Sources and Studies)

- How to Read Chinese Poetry: A Guided Anthology (How to Read Chinese Literature)

- Poems of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of t'Ang and Sung Dynasty Verse ( Red Pine )

- The Classic of Mountains And Seas (Penguin Classics S.)

- The Songs of the South : An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems By Qu Yuan And Other Poets

- Three Hundred Tang Poems ( Everyman )

- The Selected Poems of Li Po
- The Selected Poems of Tu Fu: Expanded and Newly Translated by David Hinton
- The Selected Poems of Wang Wei (New Directions Paperbook)
- In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ying-Wu ( Red Pine )
- Po Chu-i: Selected Poems (Translations from the Asian Classics)
- The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain ( Red Pine )
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
- Water Margin
- Journey to the West
- Dream of the Red Chamber
- The Plum in the Golden Vase
- Unofficial History of the Scholars

- Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Penguin Classics)

- Shen Fu : Six Records of a Life Adrift (Hackett Classics

[Anonymous No.17923826]

>>17923816
Thank god for that.

[Anonymous No.17923833]

>>17921665
You can't really translate it into English because much of the poetic merit is in how terse it is.

It's not easy to decipher even for someone who's fluent in chinese but not trained in classical poetry. But when translated into english any pleb could understand it because it suddenly becomes mundane and prosaic, but you've literally just lost 90% of the poem

[Anonymous No.17923835]

>>17921426

A lot of Yan Lianke's work is very interesting and so is his life story. Take a look at Explosion Chronicles.

He's already won the Kafka award. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins the Nobel some day.

[Anonymous No.17923910]

>>17921778

Ezra Pound did some beautiful translations of poems by Li Bo (Li Bai)

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
BY EZRA POUND
After Li Po
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47692/the-river-merchants-wife-a-letter-56d22853677f9
The two famous poets are Li Bo (Li Bai) and Du Fu. Li Bo is famous in the west but it seems like Du Fu is preferred in China.
When She Was Here, Li Bo, She Was Like Cold Summer Lager
by Peter Williams

Her presence was a roomful of flowers,
Her absence is an empty bed.
– Li Bo (701 -762)

When she was here, Li Bo, she was like cold summer lager,
Like hot pastrami at Katz’s on Houston Street,
Like a bright nickname on my downtown express,
Like every custardy honey from the old art books:
She was quadraphonic Mahler
And the perfect little gymnast.

Now she’s gone, it’s like flat Coke on Sunday morning,
Like a melted Velveeta on white, eaten
Listening to Bobby Vinton –
Like the Philadelphia Eagles.

[Anonymous No.17923952]

>>17923835
Probably not after what happened to the last Chinese Nobel laureate.

[Anonymous No.17925353]

>>17921426
Le Guin doesn't speak any Chinese, but reading her rendition of the Tao Te Ching was a mind-altering experience for me. It's like excellent English poetry about each chapter, with exceedingly insightful footnotes.

[Anonymous No.17925633]

>>17921426
Depends on if you count pre 1990s Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are genuinely good authors on the mainland too, but they aren't allowed the full creative potential because of the stringent censorship. This started to relax with Den Xiaoping and continued until the current administration under Xi. Now it's creeping into Maoist China 2: Market Economics Boogaloo

[Anonymous No.17926915]

>>17921426
I wish there were some good history books that outlined their whole culture and everything. As is, I have next to no idea how they developed at all. Very frustrating.

[Anonymous No.17926925]

>>17926915
Sorry, anon. no history books have ever been written about China.

[Anonymous No.17927005]

>>17923794
Muh inflections mean language is hard is so dumb when he's talking about alien poetry of yesteryear from an alien people. European languages are all easy to learn if you know one already.

[Anonymous No.17927010]

>>17921426
Tang era poetry is the best poetry from East Asia, and that's final

[Anonymous No.17927158]

How come chinese philosophy is so comfy bros

[Anonymous No.17927169]

>>17926915
You're out of luck my guy, Chinese history makes no sense at all.

[Anonymous No.17927625]

>>17922348
If anyone here has read this, care to give me your thoughts? I'm really considering it, especially since i really like Zhuangzi.

[Anonymous No.17927862]

>>17927169
It can be summed up by this famous opening line from Romance of the Three kingdoms

話說天下大勢,分久必合,合久必分。

The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.

[Anonymous No.17928113]

>>17927625
I read the first half of it a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's very...strange. I started having strange encounters with foxes afterwards.

[Anonymous No.17928121]

>>17928113
also, the illustrations included in the Penguin edition are really neat