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Outlaws of the Marsh
China's great classic novel Outlaws of the Marsh, written in the fourteenth century, is a fictional account of twelfth-century events during the Song Dynasty. One by one, over a hundred men and women are forced by the harsh feudal officialdom to take to the hills. They band together and defeat every attempt of the government troops to crush them. Within this framework we find intrigue, adventure, murder, warfare, romance ... in a connected series of fascinating individual tales, told in the suspenseful manner of the traditional storyteller.
2149 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1370
About the author
Shi Nai'an
333 books47 followersShi Nai'an (Chinese: 施耐庵; pinyin: Shī Nài'ān, ca. 1296–1372), was a Chinese writer from Suzhou. He was attributed as the first compiler of the Water Margin, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.
Library of Congress Authorities: Shi, Nai’an, approximately 1290-approximately 1365
Not much biographical information is known about him. Traditionally it was believed that he was a teacher of Luo Guanzhong, who was attributed as a main compiler of Romance of Three Kingdoms, another of the Four Great Classical Novels. Some modern scholars doubt that Shi actually existed, but was merely a pseudonym for Luo himself.
Library of Congress Authorities: Shi, Nai’an, approximately 1290-approximately 1365
Not much biographical information is known about him. Traditionally it was believed that he was a teacher of Luo Guanzhong, who was attributed as a main compiler of Romance of Three Kingdoms, another of the Four Great Classical Novels. Some modern scholars doubt that Shi actually existed, but was merely a pseudonym for Luo himself.
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August 31, 2013
Outlaws of the Marsh, a/k/a The Water Margin and other titles, is an epic Chinese novel about rebels, resistance, war, and friendship. It concerns 108 people who, for various reasons, defy local authorities and join a bandit force hiding out on a marsh-surrounded mountain.
The first three of four volumes describe how and why these rebels come to Mount Lianshan. These books also detail how local, then regional, then imperial forces attack the outlaws, and how the outlaws cleverly defend themselves. By the fourth book the emperor grants the bandits an amnesty, then sends them on grueling military campaigns against enemies foreign and domestic.
I came to Outlaws of the Marsh with some knowledge of Chinese literature and history , if not the language, and found the book delightful and ultimately moving.
At times it challenges readers with repetition and too many names. It's hard to keep track of so many chieftains and generals, and the middle campaigns become somewhat repetitious. But the novel uses copia for good purposes. It teaches as a great deal about tactics, strategy, management, and infighting, using many examples and situations. And while the total amount of Lianshan chieftains is hard to keep track of, especially in their tactical dispositions, that number gives us a rich and realistic sense of the scale of events. Ultimately, too, the swarm of bandits becomes emotionally charged, as
Some characters stand out. Song Jiang ("The Timely Rain") emerges as the bandits' leader, and is very different from them. He rarely fights, but organizes and strategizes. He becomes a tragic character given his abilities, humility, and deep empathy with the other bandits. Li Kui ("The Black Whirlwind") is a manic murderer, comically quick to anger and kill someone, always ready to flip out and go berserk. Others are memorable due to persistent nicknames and repeated actions, like Bao Xu the God of Death, "Cut Your Heart Out" Wang, Lin Chong Panther Head, the Blue-Faced Demon, Ugly Son-in-Law, Oily Mudfish Sun the Fifth (!), or Kick a Sheep to Death. There's Mu Hong the Unrestrained and his younger brother Mu Chung the Slightly Restrained (770).
It's not a book focused on inner states, although it does a good job of tracking the bandits' main leader and his shifting moods. Instead Outlaws focuses on actions as expressions of thought and feeling. Indeed, the book is wildly action-oriented. Just about every chapter features battles, kidnapping, assassination, murders for revenge, torture, unlikely escapes, and nearly continuous single combat. This helps explain the novel's popularity. (A fellow air traveler saw me reading one volume, recognized the book, and said that his martial arts instructor recommended it to his class. I can see why.)
The violence level can be daunting, in fact, nearly reaching the level of horror. While there are a great many encounters without either explicit or implicit carnage, we do read of some very gory events. Cannibalism appears during the middle volumes, such as with an anthropophagic innkeeper and wife (who ultimately work for the heroes). Even Li Kui helps himself to freshly killed human when peckish (903). One misbehaving character gets cut into, disemboweled, and her guts hung from a tree (980). A sympathetic character and eventual leader deals with problem people like so: "[Lu] carved out their hearts, cut off their limbs, and cast their bodies on the ground" (1420). An unnamed character dies from horror at her husband's ugliness (1353). Prisoners are routinely killed.
The bandits aren't above using blackmail and murder to nudge people into joining them; they may be heroes, but are certainly medieval. They do tend to avoid wanton slaughter, frequently issuing "don't kill everyone" notices after taking a town. Revenge motivates the rebels, and others, to gory acts:
I placed Outlaws on my anarchism shelf, and think we should consider this an anarchist classic. Obviously a book with outlaws as its main characters should incline us towards that assessment, but it's really quite a programmatic part of the novel. Governments are generally bad things, showing themselves to be evil and/or dangerously incompetent throughout. The rebels almost universally have excellent cause to exit the rule of law, as their rulers are usually despicable. The few good officials we see (the emperor, one of his generals) either go over to the rebels fairly quickly, or, remaining in government, see themselves outflanked by the typical, vile functionaries.
In contrast, Mount Lianshan is supercharged with good stuff. It's where individual outlaws find fellowship and support. Each character rises in personal development, becoming more effective and satisfied in life. This anarchist mob is clever, learning new tactics and technologies, always smarter and more resourceful than the governments contending with it.
When the bandits finally go over to the government, the results are mixed. They continue to be resourceful and energetic, winning battles against enormous odds, and succeeding where governments failed. And at every step forces in government suborn them. The final campaign against a rebel suggests the anarchists have wholly changed sides, but the picture is more ironic than that. The rebel king is an authoritarian, despoiling the people among whom he based his movement, rather than working with them. Worse yet, The last page focuses on the people, seeing them as a repository for goodness and hope. We see a glimpse of an alternate path when some new characters refuse the offer of government rank:
I also added this to my fantasy shelf because of the novel's steady reliance on the supernatural. Magicians join some armies to conjure up demons, weather, fogs, and distractions. Several characters have supernatural abilities, like a man with the power to walk very fast (like the American legend of Ten League Boots). Ghosts appear and have real effects, even possessing the bodies of living people. Various supernatural being intervene, often to help the bandits: numinous support for anarchism, I say. Indeed, all of the 108 rebel heroes are actually "heavenly spirits and earthly fiends" (also "stars of destiny) accidentally set free by a bumbling marshal during the novel's first chapter, who terrorizes some monks then lies about it. Their opponents can be magically fierce:
In short, I recommend this to most readers. You'll need some patience or stamina during the first two volumes as the novel gradually assembles the bandit force. You might want to explore Chinese history and culture to better understand some details of formal speech, food, government, and daily life. You may also decide to take up martial arts, or open a friendly inn.
The first three of four volumes describe how and why these rebels come to Mount Lianshan. These books also detail how local, then regional, then imperial forces attack the outlaws, and how the outlaws cleverly defend themselves. By the fourth book the emperor grants the bandits an amnesty, then sends them on grueling military campaigns against enemies foreign and domestic.
I came to Outlaws of the Marsh with some knowledge of Chinese literature and history , if not the language, and found the book delightful and ultimately moving.
At times it challenges readers with repetition and too many names. It's hard to keep track of so many chieftains and generals, and the middle campaigns become somewhat repetitious. But the novel uses copia for good purposes. It teaches as a great deal about tactics, strategy, management, and infighting, using many examples and situations. And while the total amount of Lianshan chieftains is hard to keep track of, especially in their tactical dispositions, that number gives us a rich and realistic sense of the scale of events. Ultimately, too, the swarm of bandits becomes emotionally charged, as
Some characters stand out. Song Jiang ("The Timely Rain") emerges as the bandits' leader, and is very different from them. He rarely fights, but organizes and strategizes. He becomes a tragic character given his abilities, humility, and deep empathy with the other bandits. Li Kui ("The Black Whirlwind") is a manic murderer, comically quick to anger and kill someone, always ready to flip out and go berserk. Others are memorable due to persistent nicknames and repeated actions, like Bao Xu the God of Death, "Cut Your Heart Out" Wang, Lin Chong Panther Head, the Blue-Faced Demon, Ugly Son-in-Law, Oily Mudfish Sun the Fifth (!), or Kick a Sheep to Death. There's Mu Hong the Unrestrained and his younger brother Mu Chung the Slightly Restrained (770).
It's not a book focused on inner states, although it does a good job of tracking the bandits' main leader and his shifting moods. Instead Outlaws focuses on actions as expressions of thought and feeling. Indeed, the book is wildly action-oriented. Just about every chapter features battles, kidnapping, assassination, murders for revenge, torture, unlikely escapes, and nearly continuous single combat. This helps explain the novel's popularity. (A fellow air traveler saw me reading one volume, recognized the book, and said that his martial arts instructor recommended it to his class. I can see why.)
The violence level can be daunting, in fact, nearly reaching the level of horror. While there are a great many encounters without either explicit or implicit carnage, we do read of some very gory events. Cannibalism appears during the middle volumes, such as with an anthropophagic innkeeper and wife (who ultimately work for the heroes). Even Li Kui helps himself to freshly killed human when peckish (903). One misbehaving character gets cut into, disemboweled, and her guts hung from a tree (980). A sympathetic character and eventual leader deals with problem people like so: "[Lu] carved out their hearts, cut off their limbs, and cast their bodies on the ground" (1420). An unnamed character dies from horror at her husband's ugliness (1353). Prisoners are routinely killed.
The bandits aren't above using blackmail and murder to nudge people into joining them; they may be heroes, but are certainly medieval. They do tend to avoid wanton slaughter, frequently issuing "don't kill everyone" notices after taking a town. Revenge motivates the rebels, and others, to gory acts:
...Song Jiang sent [defeated general] Zhang Jian to the Governor in Suzhou to be executed and his head hung up on display. [Defeated general] Zhange Tao was disemboweled in front of the camp and his heart raised towards Heaven in a sacrifice to [several dead fellow heroes]. (2009)
Cai Qing cut out Du Wei's heart and offered it, dripping blood, in sacrifice to the chieftains who died in the Clear Stream battle. Song Jiang officiated personally at the ceremony. (2087)
I placed Outlaws on my anarchism shelf, and think we should consider this an anarchist classic. Obviously a book with outlaws as its main characters should incline us towards that assessment, but it's really quite a programmatic part of the novel. Governments are generally bad things, showing themselves to be evil and/or dangerously incompetent throughout. The rebels almost universally have excellent cause to exit the rule of law, as their rulers are usually despicable. The few good officials we see (the emperor, one of his generals) either go over to the rebels fairly quickly, or, remaining in government, see themselves outflanked by the typical, vile functionaries.
In contrast, Mount Lianshan is supercharged with good stuff. It's where individual outlaws find fellowship and support. Each character rises in personal development, becoming more effective and satisfied in life. This anarchist mob is clever, learning new tactics and technologies, always smarter and more resourceful than the governments contending with it.
When the bandits finally go over to the government, the results are mixed. They continue to be resourceful and energetic, winning battles against enormous odds, and succeeding where governments failed. And at every step forces in government suborn them. The final campaign against a rebel suggests the anarchists have wholly changed sides, but the picture is more ironic than that. The rebel king is an authoritarian, despoiling the people among whom he based his movement, rather than working with them. Worse yet, The last page focuses on the people, seeing them as a repository for goodness and hope. We see a glimpse of an alternate path when some new characters refuse the offer of government rank:
"If we wanted positions, we could have become commanders under Fang La long ago... But we seek only a free like, not rank. We'll go through fire and water if you need our help. But if you want to make us officials, we're not interested." (1967)
I also added this to my fantasy shelf because of the novel's steady reliance on the supernatural. Magicians join some armies to conjure up demons, weather, fogs, and distractions. Several characters have supernatural abilities, like a man with the power to walk very fast (like the American legend of Ten League Boots). Ghosts appear and have real effects, even possessing the bodies of living people. Various supernatural being intervene, often to help the bandits: numinous support for anarchism, I say. Indeed, all of the 108 rebel heroes are actually "heavenly spirits and earthly fiends" (also "stars of destiny) accidentally set free by a bumbling marshal during the novel's first chapter, who terrorizes some monks then lies about it. Their opponents can be magically fierce:
[Bao Daoyi] studied the unorthodox school of Taoism... [and] used his magic to harm others. He had a precious sword called the Occult Universe which would fly a hundred paces and kill a man. (2050)
In short, I recommend this to most readers. You'll need some patience or stamina during the first two volumes as the novel gradually assembles the bandit force. You might want to explore Chinese history and culture to better understand some details of formal speech, food, government, and daily life. You may also decide to take up martial arts, or open a friendly inn.
October 21, 2019
I have long wanted to reread this established classic. The most complete edition I could find in print was the Chinese Classics 4-volume Edition from Foreign Language Press, weighing in at a slim 2,149 pages. Nonetheless, I would call this an un-put-downable page-turner. One of the original Proto-Wuxia novels from Ancient China, which was rich in both history and literary mystique.
Far superior, in my opinion to the other lengthy "Great Works" of Classical Chinese, namely The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber), Golden Lotus, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Journey to the West, although everyone seems to have their personal favorite. The mixture of historical narratives with myths and legends is a phenomenon seen the world over, but hardly ever do we find a personal and epic masterpiece to rival this one. Sure, you can find any number of recountings of legends and mysteries, ghost stories and battles throughout Asian and European literature, but not until you fast forward to Lord of the Rings, will you find such a magical, and intimate journey of struggles, and tales within tales, and influential themes, seamlessly woven throughout the breathless adventure.
I imagine listening to these tales in their original language on a street corner, in the fourteenth century, as people once might have listened to Homer and Virgil recite their own vast creations, and the long-lost world comes more alive. Within a modest 100 chapters, averaging 20 pages in length, with constant cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, you follow the story of heroes and villains, conquerors and families, and brothers-in-arms and murderers, for lack of a better term. The violence and torture is often cruel and brutal, but I assume, perfectly accurate for the time it depicted (12th century). The purported author Shi Nai'an (with a credit to the master Luo Guanzhong) was telling these tales at a remove of a few centuries, while at the same time clearly passing comment on his own corrupt and traditional society mores.
The richness of invention and superb and often humorous character detail is priceless beyond words, and I was enraptured throughout the entire book, which took me only 2 weeks to read. Granted, the print is not as small as some paperbacks and the pages almost turn themselves during many of the riveting chapters. The fact that I am seriously considering rereading it after a few years, and remember many of the events it describes (except for the impossible-to-remember-for-a-Westerner names) is an indication of its staying power. Not to mention that the approach and conflicts have been reworked into literature, Chinese and otherwise, countless times. We got a Christianized translation from Peal S. Buck, at least one manga/ anime based on it, and arguably, several scenes/ themes from the films of Akira Kurosawa.
Also translated as Water Margin, with some translations available online, I would recommend buying this 4-volume edition before it disappears completely. You cannot seriously read Chinese literature without running into references to this epic. It would be like diving into Italian literature and trying to avoid Dante and Boccaccio.
Put down Game of Thrones and pick up this book which has endured for 7 centuries.
Far superior, in my opinion to the other lengthy "Great Works" of Classical Chinese, namely The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber), Golden Lotus, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Journey to the West, although everyone seems to have their personal favorite. The mixture of historical narratives with myths and legends is a phenomenon seen the world over, but hardly ever do we find a personal and epic masterpiece to rival this one. Sure, you can find any number of recountings of legends and mysteries, ghost stories and battles throughout Asian and European literature, but not until you fast forward to Lord of the Rings, will you find such a magical, and intimate journey of struggles, and tales within tales, and influential themes, seamlessly woven throughout the breathless adventure.
I imagine listening to these tales in their original language on a street corner, in the fourteenth century, as people once might have listened to Homer and Virgil recite their own vast creations, and the long-lost world comes more alive. Within a modest 100 chapters, averaging 20 pages in length, with constant cliffhangers at the end of each chapter, you follow the story of heroes and villains, conquerors and families, and brothers-in-arms and murderers, for lack of a better term. The violence and torture is often cruel and brutal, but I assume, perfectly accurate for the time it depicted (12th century). The purported author Shi Nai'an (with a credit to the master Luo Guanzhong) was telling these tales at a remove of a few centuries, while at the same time clearly passing comment on his own corrupt and traditional society mores.
The richness of invention and superb and often humorous character detail is priceless beyond words, and I was enraptured throughout the entire book, which took me only 2 weeks to read. Granted, the print is not as small as some paperbacks and the pages almost turn themselves during many of the riveting chapters. The fact that I am seriously considering rereading it after a few years, and remember many of the events it describes (except for the impossible-to-remember-for-a-Westerner names) is an indication of its staying power. Not to mention that the approach and conflicts have been reworked into literature, Chinese and otherwise, countless times. We got a Christianized translation from Peal S. Buck, at least one manga/ anime based on it, and arguably, several scenes/ themes from the films of Akira Kurosawa.
Also translated as Water Margin, with some translations available online, I would recommend buying this 4-volume edition before it disappears completely. You cannot seriously read Chinese literature without running into references to this epic. It would be like diving into Italian literature and trying to avoid Dante and Boccaccio.
Put down Game of Thrones and pick up this book which has endured for 7 centuries.
October 27, 2019
Introduction, by Shi Changyu
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume I
Notes
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume II
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume III
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume IV
Notes
Translator's Note
About the Translator
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume I
Notes
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume II
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume III
--Outlaws of the Marsh, Volume IV
Notes
Translator's Note
About the Translator
April 21, 2021
China's great Robin Hood saga, featuring over 100 brazen outlaws whose loyalty to each other is, frankly, their only moral value. The great hymn to rebels who screw a criminally abusive world, and a legend that is both an inspiration and a nightmare of the People's Republic.
Read
October 10, 2018The Outlaws of the Marsh (Shui Hu Zhuan) is the third of the Six Classic Chinese novels I have read so far, and the earliest one: it was written in the 14th century, but like
The Scholars
and
The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei
, it is set several centuries before that time, specifically in the 12th century during the Song dynasty – there does seem to be a distinct pattern here, with each of the three novels referring to their particular present only by way of writing about the ostensible past; which is all the more remarkable as the novels are otherwise quite different from each other. (Not in all respects, however, as one thing I have learned from this reading project is that the ancient Chinese liked their novels not only very long but also with lots and lots of characters – The Outlaws of the Marsh may not be quite as sprawling in that regard as The Scholars, but again we get a veritable host of protagonists which make War and Peace look like an intimate drama in comparison.)
There appears to still be a debate about the authorship of The Outlaws of the Marsh – while the author is not (like it was the case with The Plum in the Golden Vase) anonymous, there are several candidates to chose from. The most common ones are to ascribe it either to Shi Nai’an (ca. 1296–1372) or to Luo Guanzhong (ca. 1330–1400, who also wrote Romance of the Three Kingdoms, another once of the Big Six) or, in fact, to both of them, with Shi Nai’an responsible for most of the novel and Luo Guanzhong for its last twenty chapters or possibly just for editing it (which is the theory I’m going with, for no particular reason at all). Everyone agrees, however, that the novel is based on an earlier collection of stories, the written version of a series of oral tales around the bandits from Liangshang Marsh – a point which, I think, is of particular importance for understanding the novel (and to which I’ll return later). And to make textual matters even more complicated, there are three versions of the novel, a 70, 100 and 120 chapters version respectively. Because there is currently no Kindle version available in Germany (or rather, and somewhat bizarrely, only of the final two volumes) of what is the most complete (120 chapters) and apparently also best English translation by Alex and John Dent-Young, I went with the translation by Sidney Shapiro which is based on the 100 chapter version and supposedly also very good. It certainly read very fluently and without the pseudo-Oriental floweriness with which many translators like to garnish their efforts. In fact, I was surprised at quite how entertaining a read this was – one wouldn’t really expect a 14th-century novel to be a fun romp, but this is exactly what The Outlaws of the Marsh turned out to be.
Basically, this is an adventure story describing the multiple and varied ways in which the protagonists find themselves outlawed after falling prey to the corruption of the Song dynasty empire and finally end up as part of a huge gang of bandits residing in Liangshang Marsh, their various deeds and misdeeds and how they finally seek and find pardon with the emperor and go to war for him. It is full of memorable characters, all of which are much larger than life – this being a marked difference to The Plum in the Golden Vase and The Scholars, both of which are realistic at heart, while The Outlaws of the Marsh reads like an odd mixture of the picaresque and the heroic and is also full of explicitly supernatural elements and occurrences.
One reason why the author of The Plum in the Golden Vase may have chosen to take a story from The Outlaws of the Marsh as the starting point of her novel is that we find a similar degree of total corruption here – with the difference however, that most characters here still feel the urge to justify their deeds. The novel is often considered as a kind of Chinese Robin Hood variant, and on the surface this seems certainly plausible; but one only needs to scratch lightly for the veneer of benevolence to come off. The outlaws keep insisting that they never harm civilians or people who did not deserve it – which is not keeping them, however, from slaughtering whole families of people who have opposed them, or killing a child for the sole purpose of persuading someone to join their band. Granted, ethics in 14th century China probably were not quite the same as in 21st century Europe, but I do doubt that the cold-blooded murder of a child was any more acceptable there and then than it is here and now. Another example of the prevailing hypocrisy is how the initial crime of one of the novel’s main protagonists, Song Jiang, (he killed his concubine) seems less and less grievous every time it is mentioned, until the original murder has transformed into nothing but a “judicial mishap.”
In the second half of the novel there is a marked shift from adventures of individual characters towards large-scale troop movements, a shift that is completed when the bandits give up their criminal careers and start to work in the service of the emperor – the rest of the novel then is taken up by the description of two military campaigns, one repelling invaders from the Liao empire and one putting down a revolt. There is no change in the behaviour of our heroes however who not only continue merrily to slaughter innocents, but also have no scruples to pretend to surrender to their opponents, only to then stab them in the back – again, I doubt there ever was a culture or a time when this would have been considered chivalrous, and yet both the former bandits and the narrative keep touting their presumed nobility of character.
Something, then, is decidedly off here – or is it? I mentioned before that The Outlaws of the Marsh is a retelling of an earlier collection of tales, and for my part, I am convinced that the author of the novel is giving his source material a subversive spin. When one looks closer one notices that the bandits’ leader, Song Jiang, is almost the only one that is interested in getting a pardon from the emperor and that he pulls it through only by circumventing or going against the outright opposition of his fellow chiefs. And things do start to go wrong for the Lianghsang Marsh bandits from the moment they change sides; during the first campaign it is merely lack of official acknowledgement and court intrigues Song Jiang and his men have to struggle with, but once they start fighting Fang La and his fellow rebels – who clearly is an image of what the outlaws of the marsh may have become had they not courted the emperor’s favour instead – the death toll rises, and I was getting a strong impression that the author felt a grim satisfaction in killing off his protagonists one after the other.
There seems to be second narrative running along the “official” one, or rather a second, alternative interpretation of events which sees the story of the outlawed bandits becoming a part of the established order not as a triumph and rise to glory, but rather as a decline and ultimately a tragic downfall. This is nowhere clearly stated, in fact it goes completely against what the narrative states explicitly, and yet there is such a large amounts of irritations, off-kilter moments and general inconsistencies between what is claimed and what the reader sees actually happening, that their cumulative effect is to topple the “official” interpretation in favour of a subversive one which strongly insinuates maybe lawlessness is the better state of things. Emblematic of this is the character of Li Kui, the Black Whirlwind who is almost the exact opposite of Song Jiang. He is loud, boisterous and extremely violent, almost a force of nature – and possibly the most likable character in the novel. As an embodiment of anarchy, he seems to stand against every virtue The Outlaws of the March claims to advocate, but ultimately it is not restrained, reasonable Song Jiang who represents this novel best, but it is Li Kui’s untamed, irresponsible utterly over-the-top nature which captures the true spirit of The Outlaws of the Marsh.
There appears to still be a debate about the authorship of The Outlaws of the Marsh – while the author is not (like it was the case with The Plum in the Golden Vase) anonymous, there are several candidates to chose from. The most common ones are to ascribe it either to Shi Nai’an (ca. 1296–1372) or to Luo Guanzhong (ca. 1330–1400, who also wrote Romance of the Three Kingdoms, another once of the Big Six) or, in fact, to both of them, with Shi Nai’an responsible for most of the novel and Luo Guanzhong for its last twenty chapters or possibly just for editing it (which is the theory I’m going with, for no particular reason at all). Everyone agrees, however, that the novel is based on an earlier collection of stories, the written version of a series of oral tales around the bandits from Liangshang Marsh – a point which, I think, is of particular importance for understanding the novel (and to which I’ll return later). And to make textual matters even more complicated, there are three versions of the novel, a 70, 100 and 120 chapters version respectively. Because there is currently no Kindle version available in Germany (or rather, and somewhat bizarrely, only of the final two volumes) of what is the most complete (120 chapters) and apparently also best English translation by Alex and John Dent-Young, I went with the translation by Sidney Shapiro which is based on the 100 chapter version and supposedly also very good. It certainly read very fluently and without the pseudo-Oriental floweriness with which many translators like to garnish their efforts. In fact, I was surprised at quite how entertaining a read this was – one wouldn’t really expect a 14th-century novel to be a fun romp, but this is exactly what The Outlaws of the Marsh turned out to be.
Basically, this is an adventure story describing the multiple and varied ways in which the protagonists find themselves outlawed after falling prey to the corruption of the Song dynasty empire and finally end up as part of a huge gang of bandits residing in Liangshang Marsh, their various deeds and misdeeds and how they finally seek and find pardon with the emperor and go to war for him. It is full of memorable characters, all of which are much larger than life – this being a marked difference to The Plum in the Golden Vase and The Scholars, both of which are realistic at heart, while The Outlaws of the Marsh reads like an odd mixture of the picaresque and the heroic and is also full of explicitly supernatural elements and occurrences.
One reason why the author of The Plum in the Golden Vase may have chosen to take a story from The Outlaws of the Marsh as the starting point of her novel is that we find a similar degree of total corruption here – with the difference however, that most characters here still feel the urge to justify their deeds. The novel is often considered as a kind of Chinese Robin Hood variant, and on the surface this seems certainly plausible; but one only needs to scratch lightly for the veneer of benevolence to come off. The outlaws keep insisting that they never harm civilians or people who did not deserve it – which is not keeping them, however, from slaughtering whole families of people who have opposed them, or killing a child for the sole purpose of persuading someone to join their band. Granted, ethics in 14th century China probably were not quite the same as in 21st century Europe, but I do doubt that the cold-blooded murder of a child was any more acceptable there and then than it is here and now. Another example of the prevailing hypocrisy is how the initial crime of one of the novel’s main protagonists, Song Jiang, (he killed his concubine) seems less and less grievous every time it is mentioned, until the original murder has transformed into nothing but a “judicial mishap.”
In the second half of the novel there is a marked shift from adventures of individual characters towards large-scale troop movements, a shift that is completed when the bandits give up their criminal careers and start to work in the service of the emperor – the rest of the novel then is taken up by the description of two military campaigns, one repelling invaders from the Liao empire and one putting down a revolt. There is no change in the behaviour of our heroes however who not only continue merrily to slaughter innocents, but also have no scruples to pretend to surrender to their opponents, only to then stab them in the back – again, I doubt there ever was a culture or a time when this would have been considered chivalrous, and yet both the former bandits and the narrative keep touting their presumed nobility of character.
Something, then, is decidedly off here – or is it? I mentioned before that The Outlaws of the Marsh is a retelling of an earlier collection of tales, and for my part, I am convinced that the author of the novel is giving his source material a subversive spin. When one looks closer one notices that the bandits’ leader, Song Jiang, is almost the only one that is interested in getting a pardon from the emperor and that he pulls it through only by circumventing or going against the outright opposition of his fellow chiefs. And things do start to go wrong for the Lianghsang Marsh bandits from the moment they change sides; during the first campaign it is merely lack of official acknowledgement and court intrigues Song Jiang and his men have to struggle with, but once they start fighting Fang La and his fellow rebels – who clearly is an image of what the outlaws of the marsh may have become had they not courted the emperor’s favour instead – the death toll rises, and I was getting a strong impression that the author felt a grim satisfaction in killing off his protagonists one after the other.
There seems to be second narrative running along the “official” one, or rather a second, alternative interpretation of events which sees the story of the outlawed bandits becoming a part of the established order not as a triumph and rise to glory, but rather as a decline and ultimately a tragic downfall. This is nowhere clearly stated, in fact it goes completely against what the narrative states explicitly, and yet there is such a large amounts of irritations, off-kilter moments and general inconsistencies between what is claimed and what the reader sees actually happening, that their cumulative effect is to topple the “official” interpretation in favour of a subversive one which strongly insinuates maybe lawlessness is the better state of things. Emblematic of this is the character of Li Kui, the Black Whirlwind who is almost the exact opposite of Song Jiang. He is loud, boisterous and extremely violent, almost a force of nature – and possibly the most likable character in the novel. As an embodiment of anarchy, he seems to stand against every virtue The Outlaws of the March claims to advocate, but ultimately it is not restrained, reasonable Song Jiang who represents this novel best, but it is Li Kui’s untamed, irresponsible utterly over-the-top nature which captures the true spirit of The Outlaws of the Marsh.
Want to read
February 9, 2014I had read two different versions of comic based on Outlaws of the Marsh, all I can say is that the stories of the Outlaws are filled with actions and excitement. It's an engaging read although the author seems to hate beautiful, slutty women a great deal and think all of them deserve to die.
So maybe one day I should read the original text...maybe one day...
So maybe one day I should read the original text...maybe one day...
December 8, 2020
Đọc Thủy Hử thấy cái rõ nhất chính là văn hóa kim tiền của Trung Quốc. Các nhân vật trong truyện gặp nhau một chút là mang tiền ra biếu; quan lại thì dùng xe chở kim ngân châu báu để mừng thọ phụ mẫu; người tù tội thì phải lo đút lót hết cấp này đến cấp nọ.
Thế mới thấy Tống Giang có thể dùng vài đồng bạc lẻ mà mua được cả thiên hạ, làm cho ai cũng phải biết đến tiếng tăm của mình là một người trọng nghĩa khinh tài, là "cập thời vũ" (nghĩa là cơn mưa đúng lúc). Nói về trí tuệ, tài năng thì Tống Giang không bằng ai, nhưng sự giả nhân giả nghĩa thì không ai bằng.
Cái tài của tác giả là không chỉ khiến Tống Giang lừa được các nhân vật trong truyện, mà còn lừa được người đọc bao nhiêu thế kỷ nay. Ban đầu đọc lời bình của Kim Thánh Thán còn ngờ vực, nhưng sau càng thấy sự hợp lý. Tống Giang đúng là một kẻ gian hùng, khi bản chất giả dối lộ dần qua từng hồi.
Ngày xưa coi phim biết Lâm Xung, Võ Tòng, thấy ai ai cũng ca ngợi là 108 anh hùng Lương Sơn Bạc. Đọc qua sách rồi mới thấy, họ có xứng đáng với danh hiệu anh hùng không? Thực tế thì họ toàn là đám đầu trộm đuôi cướp, vì trốn tránh tù tội mà phải tụ lại để chống trả triều đình, thế mà suốt ngày cho rằng mình "tụ nghĩa". Trong 70 hồi này, không thấy các vị "anh hùng" làm được điều tốt gì cho dân chúng, trái lại còn giết hại bao nhiêu dân vô tội trong các cuộc chiến.
Lại nói thủ đoạn của đám Lương Sơn rất bẩn thỉu và man rợ. Khi muốn kéo một người gia nhập, họ thấy kh��ng dùng cách mời mọc được thì sẽ dồn người đó vào đường cùng, hại người ta khuynh gia bại sản, gia đình tan nát, tù tội không còn đất dung thân. Như truyện của Chu Đồng, Lý Quỳ sẵn sàng giết hại một đứa trẻ vô tội để khiến Chu Đồng không dám trở về. Hay thảm hơn là truyện Lư Tuấn Nghĩa, bị Ngô Dụng bày mưu hại chết đi sống lại, tan cửa nát nhà. Tất cả cuối cùng chỉ còn biết ngậm ngùi về Lương Sơn. Thế mà đám Lương Sơn tự coi mình nhân nghĩa là thế, lẽ nào tiêu chuẩn nhân nghĩa thời đó bị hạ thấp đến cùng cực như vậy.
Nói về Lư Tuấn Nghĩa là người vào Lương Sơn Bạc cuối cùng. Người này trí tuệ non nớt, tính tình háo thắng bồng bột, bị bọn Lương Sơn lừa tan nhà nát cửa mà vẫn đi theo một lòng trung thành. Dù bất tài là thế nhưng Lư Tuấn Nghĩa lại dường như là một nhân kiệt không thể thiếu, đến nỗi Lương Sơn Bạc hao tổn bao tâm trí, nhân lực để mời gia nhập và muốn cho ông làm trại chủ. Cuối cùng ông cũng được xếp đến hàng thứ 2 trong 108 người, đúng là khó mà hiểu nổi.
Thế mới thấy Tống Giang có thể dùng vài đồng bạc lẻ mà mua được cả thiên hạ, làm cho ai cũng phải biết đến tiếng tăm của mình là một người trọng nghĩa khinh tài, là "cập thời vũ" (nghĩa là cơn mưa đúng lúc). Nói về trí tuệ, tài năng thì Tống Giang không bằng ai, nhưng sự giả nhân giả nghĩa thì không ai bằng.
Cái tài của tác giả là không chỉ khiến Tống Giang lừa được các nhân vật trong truyện, mà còn lừa được người đọc bao nhiêu thế kỷ nay. Ban đầu đọc lời bình của Kim Thánh Thán còn ngờ vực, nhưng sau càng thấy sự hợp lý. Tống Giang đúng là một kẻ gian hùng, khi bản chất giả dối lộ dần qua từng hồi.
Ngày xưa coi phim biết Lâm Xung, Võ Tòng, thấy ai ai cũng ca ngợi là 108 anh hùng Lương Sơn Bạc. Đọc qua sách rồi mới thấy, họ có xứng đáng với danh hiệu anh hùng không? Thực tế thì họ toàn là đám đầu trộm đuôi cướp, vì trốn tránh tù tội mà phải tụ lại để chống trả triều đình, thế mà suốt ngày cho rằng mình "tụ nghĩa". Trong 70 hồi này, không thấy các vị "anh hùng" làm được điều tốt gì cho dân chúng, trái lại còn giết hại bao nhiêu dân vô tội trong các cuộc chiến.
Lại nói thủ đoạn của đám Lương Sơn rất bẩn thỉu và man rợ. Khi muốn kéo một người gia nhập, họ thấy kh��ng dùng cách mời mọc được thì sẽ dồn người đó vào đường cùng, hại người ta khuynh gia bại sản, gia đình tan nát, tù tội không còn đất dung thân. Như truyện của Chu Đồng, Lý Quỳ sẵn sàng giết hại một đứa trẻ vô tội để khiến Chu Đồng không dám trở về. Hay thảm hơn là truyện Lư Tuấn Nghĩa, bị Ngô Dụng bày mưu hại chết đi sống lại, tan cửa nát nhà. Tất cả cuối cùng chỉ còn biết ngậm ngùi về Lương Sơn. Thế mà đám Lương Sơn tự coi mình nhân nghĩa là thế, lẽ nào tiêu chuẩn nhân nghĩa thời đó bị hạ thấp đến cùng cực như vậy.
Nói về Lư Tuấn Nghĩa là người vào Lương Sơn Bạc cuối cùng. Người này trí tuệ non nớt, tính tình háo thắng bồng bột, bị bọn Lương Sơn lừa tan nhà nát cửa mà vẫn đi theo một lòng trung thành. Dù bất tài là thế nhưng Lư Tuấn Nghĩa lại dường như là một nhân kiệt không thể thiếu, đến nỗi Lương Sơn Bạc hao tổn bao tâm trí, nhân lực để mời gia nhập và muốn cho ông làm trại chủ. Cuối cùng ông cũng được xếp đến hàng thứ 2 trong 108 người, đúng là khó mà hiểu nổi.
July 7, 2024
Was I surprised to find out that this much loved Chinese classical novel written in the 14th century is actually a WUXIA EPIC INFUSED WITH MYTHICAL ELEMENTS! (If you're not familiar with the wuxia genre of literature and are curious to find out, please read my blog post re:
Historical Tidbits Re: Wuxia Fantasy Genre
It's a fact that Jin Yong did confess that his earlier works had been influenced by Water Margin. Having already read most of Jin Yong's earlier novels, which were written some six centuries later, I was naturally excited to see the similarity in certain plot points, descriptions of superhuman martial skills and magical feats. Above all, this timeless classic and Jin Yong's novels have one obvious thing in common, and that is, these stories are all premised on the theme of resistance to oppression--a theme that still resonates with us today.
One thing about Water Margin that may pose a challenge to Western readers is the unwieldy cast of characters and the labyrinthine weaving of subplots. I would say that Jin Yong's novels are a lot easier to follow.
March 31, 2015
A staggering achievement, and a very odd book from cover to cover. It's greatly cynical, and one can perhaps read it on an infinite number of different levels. The book never makes its intent overt. It can be read as a grand adventure story and a tale of loyalty, as I believe many young readers enjoy the book (or retellings of some of the stories from within the book), but there is certainly an odd mix of sincerity and irony throughout. Facts contradict statements, ethics and loyalties are ever-shifting, actions defy expectations, stated beliefs are routinely undermined. The most overt paradox is that of the emperor himself, who is routinely praised throughout the book (only once that I remember was an honest criticism of him spoken) yet he never seems to deserve the praise, and it is hinted that he is complicit in some of the most wicked betrayals even while the author and the characters who suffer injustice never dare claim that the emperor was wrong in anything.
But, as I say, that's only one overt example. We are constantly forced to evaluate, and reevaluate, and re-reevaluate all 108 of the major heroes, the countless "villains," and the various actors big and small who occupy an ever-shifting moral terrain defined mainly by violence and corruption. There are some heart-breaking moments, and I'd say there are an infinite number of challenges to the thoughtful reader.
Among other themes, I perceive the structure as a sort of massive game of repetition with variation, the permutations of hundreds of figures revisiting familiar situations, yet reaching surprising outcomes. Every time the book threatens to get tedious, it throws something odd and unexpected at us, and then when it seems chaotic, anarchic, absurd, it "surprises" us again by settling into an even, regular flow.
There are different phases of the book, so there's certainly narrative progress, it's just not a clear, straight-forward progress, but rather a meandering, winding flow. Only when you've completed reading the text and can see the overarching structure does it seem "straightforward," but when you get close to it and you're immersed in the details it's quite complex and even ornate. And so much of what is great about this book is in the details, not the grand scheme.
I've said elsewhere that I perceived a sort of taoist subtext in the early phase of the book, which deals with more of the individual stories. Here we see an acting out of what the Tao Te Ching describes as the progress from benevolence, through several intermediary stages, to corruption... quite an ironic and puzzling concept that what we usually regard as a positive quality--benevolence--could be the first step towards corruption! But it seems quite clear as we see it played out by human actors within the corrupt world. I particularly felt that the story of Panther Head Lin Chong illustrated this progress well.
I could probably ramble forever, but that's all I've got to say for now. Happy reading.
But, as I say, that's only one overt example. We are constantly forced to evaluate, and reevaluate, and re-reevaluate all 108 of the major heroes, the countless "villains," and the various actors big and small who occupy an ever-shifting moral terrain defined mainly by violence and corruption. There are some heart-breaking moments, and I'd say there are an infinite number of challenges to the thoughtful reader.
Among other themes, I perceive the structure as a sort of massive game of repetition with variation, the permutations of hundreds of figures revisiting familiar situations, yet reaching surprising outcomes. Every time the book threatens to get tedious, it throws something odd and unexpected at us, and then when it seems chaotic, anarchic, absurd, it "surprises" us again by settling into an even, regular flow.
There are different phases of the book, so there's certainly narrative progress, it's just not a clear, straight-forward progress, but rather a meandering, winding flow. Only when you've completed reading the text and can see the overarching structure does it seem "straightforward," but when you get close to it and you're immersed in the details it's quite complex and even ornate. And so much of what is great about this book is in the details, not the grand scheme.
I've said elsewhere that I perceived a sort of taoist subtext in the early phase of the book, which deals with more of the individual stories. Here we see an acting out of what the Tao Te Ching describes as the progress from benevolence, through several intermediary stages, to corruption... quite an ironic and puzzling concept that what we usually regard as a positive quality--benevolence--could be the first step towards corruption! But it seems quite clear as we see it played out by human actors within the corrupt world. I particularly felt that the story of Panther Head Lin Chong illustrated this progress well.
I could probably ramble forever, but that's all I've got to say for now. Happy reading.
Want to read
October 28, 2011There are Four Great Classical Chinese Novels? Why don't I know anything about anything?
Okay...yes, and they are: this one;
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
- Monkey: The Journey to the West
and Dream of the Red Chamber
Obviously I'm going to have to read one per year starting next year. Awesome, man, awesome.
Also, I'm gonna want to return to Maija's shelves at some point to look more closely at her non-Western choices. She seems to have thought this out well.
Meghan says Shapiro is well-considered; Dent-Young is also respected (but longer). My research backs that up: Shapiro is hands-down the winner. However, Jackson (a 1937 translation that's been updated recently) is also respected...and it's much shorter, and guyyyyyys, 2150 pages! That seems like a lot of pages! If we're talking about 2150 pages, I kinda wanna finish Proust first!
Also, Jackson is available for Kindle.
Shapiro does seem to have an out-of-print Outlaws of the Marsh: An Abridged Version abridged translation, which might be fine for my needs.
Okay...yes, and they are: this one;
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms
- Monkey: The Journey to the West
and Dream of the Red Chamber
Obviously I'm going to have to read one per year starting next year. Awesome, man, awesome.
Also, I'm gonna want to return to Maija's shelves at some point to look more closely at her non-Western choices. She seems to have thought this out well.
Meghan says Shapiro is well-considered; Dent-Young is also respected (but longer). My research backs that up: Shapiro is hands-down the winner. However, Jackson (a 1937 translation that's been updated recently) is also respected...and it's much shorter, and guyyyyyys, 2150 pages! That seems like a lot of pages! If we're talking about 2150 pages, I kinda wanna finish Proust first!
Also, Jackson is available for Kindle.
Shapiro does seem to have an out-of-print Outlaws of the Marsh: An Abridged Version abridged translation, which might be fine for my needs.
Read
March 15, 2021Finally finished this four volume story. Typical of many early Chinese novels, there is debate about who the author really is, and there are differing versions of the text floating around. It does mention, once, the equally famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which I thought was an earlier work, but instead may have been written by the editor of this one.
The two have certain characteristics in common (I'm halfway through the first of three thick volumes of the Romance), but then all the Chinese novels I've read so far in translation are structured very differently than Western novels. Generalizing with leaps and bounds, Aristotelean structure is seeped into Western bones, whether Westerners have actually read any Aristotle or not. It's that three act form, with its attendant arcs, and built-in assumptions about what makes drama.
Spoiler Alert! The Chinese never read Aristotle. The novels I've read are structured like a flowing river, incident leading to incident, like streams feeding a river until it reaches its end. I imagine I can see the street storyteller experience underlying these novels, especially when the narrator abruptly appears to comment, and then recedes behind the characters again. Chapters end with foreshadowing, often a question, followed by, "Turn the page and you shall see."
This is a wuxi/xianxia novel in that it's about outlaws living on the margins of society--and, as in so many Jianghu tales, literally on the margin of a marsh. The generally accepted title means "on the edge of a marsh." The outlaws are assumed. Jianghu tales are far older than this one, which was written somewhere in the 1300s, about some actual incidents (rebellions) that happened a couple centuries earlier, about which many stories had become popular. One source I came across quoted a Chinese writer of a few centuries B.C. who complained bitterly about the popularity of Jianghu tales--how trite they were in his time!
The heirs of the Jianghu tale are the Hong Kong action movies, and the bones of some of the great series now, like Nirvana in Fire rely on these traditions. Think of them as the martial arts tradition, the wandering fighter who uses his weapon in defense of ordinary people--a Robin Hood.
Their persistent popularity has its own reflection in different types of tales in the West--at least, it seems to me, they rise out of that tension between the craving for order, which leads to a highly stratified society, which China tried to be in spite of its many internal struggles, and the stifling effect of the imposing of order, especially when distorted by greed and ambition. Deeply steeped in Confucian, Daoist, and also Buddhist thinking, Chinese government through the various dynasties strove to be orderly and benign, but we're talking about human beings here. (There are some who maintain that China is still an empire, despite the crashing end of the Qing in 1905: that Mao was an emperor, and Xi Jinping is one now, in spite of the Western suit and tie, and the various uses of "secretary" in Communist Party elite circles. The roots of these modest titles go straight back to the court titles in empire days.)
Anyway! What we have here is a scattershot narrative through the early volumes especially as the 108 outlaws of Song Jiang's group begin to accrete. Just about all of them are wronged by government officials or nobles (often the two combined into one), take to the outlaw life, and end up swearing allegiance to Song Jiang, who everyone has heard about as being righteous and loyal.
Song Jiang is an interesting figure. He actually doesn't fight all that much, in a four-volume novel that is 95% fighting. He doesn't even do most of his strategizing once the outlaws are forgiven and sent against enemies of the state, especially the tough and cruel criminal Fang La (who apparently really lived, and led a peasant rebellion--declaring himself a king). Song Jiang is praised for the fact that he never kills the innocent, and he respects men who are good to their mothers and fathers, yet when he goes after someone or other who kills or threatens his followers he is not satisfied to kill that man, but the narrative assures us that everyone in the enemy's household is slaughtered as well, "young and old," including servants and slaves, who had no say in anything. I'm guessing that this is the outlaw reflection of the imperial order to kill high level malefactors to the ninth generation.
Kinship is integral to Chinese society. Ancestor worship was, and is now, I gather, in spite of the cultural revolution, deeply embedded in its society. The names for different kin connections are complicated, part of one's identity. And in the Jianghu world, the outlaws address one another as brother, and Song Jiang as Big Brother. To the outlaws, staying true to one another is an admirable quality.
One of the interesting aspects of the story is the shifting loyalties--who switches sides and why. Song Jiang stays loyal to his band until the very end; when he is poisoned at the last by evil officials, he poisons his most faithful follower, the horrible yet somehow entertaining killer Black Whirlwind Li, knowing that the man would go on a killing spree following his death. And he tells him, and Li thanks him, loyal to the last. In spite of the fact that a goodly portion of the slaughtering in all four volumes was done by the whirling of his two axes.
Another aspect that I've observed in the older Chinese novels I've read in translation so far is that no one criticizes the emperor. If he does something stupid or evil, it was because he was led astray by evil ministers. When speaking to him, everyone assures him that any good deed or triumph is due directly to the emperor's personal good fortune or . . . we don't really have a word for it in English, but it seems integral to the shared agreement between subject and ruler that said ruler is chosen by Heaven.
There aren't many women in these books. And those few are, for the most part, negligible, or evil--especially the pretty ones. And yet not all. Ten Feet of Steel is a total badass, who Song Jiang rescues from the otherwise total slaughter of her family when they go against Song Jiang. One of Song Jiang's cruder outlaws, Stumpy Tiger, wanted a wife, so Song Jiang gives her to him. And apparently she stays loyal to him all the way through, fighting by his side, when she isn't in command of her own forces. I wish we could have seen her point of view even briefly, about all these events.
These brief glimpses of women, even the evil ones, furnish an idea of how women coped in such a society. Their lives are so easily disposed of by the men around them. It took machinations just to survive, much less to find happiness of their own. The author doesn't quite understand that, but he does feel, as Western knights did, that staying loyal to your brethren was good, and getting involved with women was a sure road to hell. Maybe it was the sure road to emotional hell? Or it split loyalties--you don't want to go out fighting when you are happy at home.
It took me a long time to read all four volumes, partly because of the scattered nature, but also the casual cannibalism. And the occasional vividly described torture. As we can get in Western medieval writings.
Overall it's entertaining, and many of the characters stick in the mind. There's also that sense of bonded brotherhood in the long, desperate campaign against Fang La, when roughly three-quarters of the band die by violence. The aftermath is interesting; so is the interweaving of magic into the fabric of the story, the ghosts. At one point one of the outlaws, having been killed, possesses his brother's body in order to finish off a foe.
The two have certain characteristics in common (I'm halfway through the first of three thick volumes of the Romance), but then all the Chinese novels I've read so far in translation are structured very differently than Western novels. Generalizing with leaps and bounds, Aristotelean structure is seeped into Western bones, whether Westerners have actually read any Aristotle or not. It's that three act form, with its attendant arcs, and built-in assumptions about what makes drama.
Spoiler Alert! The Chinese never read Aristotle. The novels I've read are structured like a flowing river, incident leading to incident, like streams feeding a river until it reaches its end. I imagine I can see the street storyteller experience underlying these novels, especially when the narrator abruptly appears to comment, and then recedes behind the characters again. Chapters end with foreshadowing, often a question, followed by, "Turn the page and you shall see."
This is a wuxi/xianxia novel in that it's about outlaws living on the margins of society--and, as in so many Jianghu tales, literally on the margin of a marsh. The generally accepted title means "on the edge of a marsh." The outlaws are assumed. Jianghu tales are far older than this one, which was written somewhere in the 1300s, about some actual incidents (rebellions) that happened a couple centuries earlier, about which many stories had become popular. One source I came across quoted a Chinese writer of a few centuries B.C. who complained bitterly about the popularity of Jianghu tales--how trite they were in his time!
The heirs of the Jianghu tale are the Hong Kong action movies, and the bones of some of the great series now, like Nirvana in Fire rely on these traditions. Think of them as the martial arts tradition, the wandering fighter who uses his weapon in defense of ordinary people--a Robin Hood.
Their persistent popularity has its own reflection in different types of tales in the West--at least, it seems to me, they rise out of that tension between the craving for order, which leads to a highly stratified society, which China tried to be in spite of its many internal struggles, and the stifling effect of the imposing of order, especially when distorted by greed and ambition. Deeply steeped in Confucian, Daoist, and also Buddhist thinking, Chinese government through the various dynasties strove to be orderly and benign, but we're talking about human beings here. (There are some who maintain that China is still an empire, despite the crashing end of the Qing in 1905: that Mao was an emperor, and Xi Jinping is one now, in spite of the Western suit and tie, and the various uses of "secretary" in Communist Party elite circles. The roots of these modest titles go straight back to the court titles in empire days.)
Anyway! What we have here is a scattershot narrative through the early volumes especially as the 108 outlaws of Song Jiang's group begin to accrete. Just about all of them are wronged by government officials or nobles (often the two combined into one), take to the outlaw life, and end up swearing allegiance to Song Jiang, who everyone has heard about as being righteous and loyal.
Song Jiang is an interesting figure. He actually doesn't fight all that much, in a four-volume novel that is 95% fighting. He doesn't even do most of his strategizing once the outlaws are forgiven and sent against enemies of the state, especially the tough and cruel criminal Fang La (who apparently really lived, and led a peasant rebellion--declaring himself a king). Song Jiang is praised for the fact that he never kills the innocent, and he respects men who are good to their mothers and fathers, yet when he goes after someone or other who kills or threatens his followers he is not satisfied to kill that man, but the narrative assures us that everyone in the enemy's household is slaughtered as well, "young and old," including servants and slaves, who had no say in anything. I'm guessing that this is the outlaw reflection of the imperial order to kill high level malefactors to the ninth generation.
Kinship is integral to Chinese society. Ancestor worship was, and is now, I gather, in spite of the cultural revolution, deeply embedded in its society. The names for different kin connections are complicated, part of one's identity. And in the Jianghu world, the outlaws address one another as brother, and Song Jiang as Big Brother. To the outlaws, staying true to one another is an admirable quality.
One of the interesting aspects of the story is the shifting loyalties--who switches sides and why. Song Jiang stays loyal to his band until the very end; when he is poisoned at the last by evil officials, he poisons his most faithful follower, the horrible yet somehow entertaining killer Black Whirlwind Li, knowing that the man would go on a killing spree following his death. And he tells him, and Li thanks him, loyal to the last. In spite of the fact that a goodly portion of the slaughtering in all four volumes was done by the whirling of his two axes.
Another aspect that I've observed in the older Chinese novels I've read in translation so far is that no one criticizes the emperor. If he does something stupid or evil, it was because he was led astray by evil ministers. When speaking to him, everyone assures him that any good deed or triumph is due directly to the emperor's personal good fortune or . . . we don't really have a word for it in English, but it seems integral to the shared agreement between subject and ruler that said ruler is chosen by Heaven.
There aren't many women in these books. And those few are, for the most part, negligible, or evil--especially the pretty ones. And yet not all. Ten Feet of Steel is a total badass, who Song Jiang rescues from the otherwise total slaughter of her family when they go against Song Jiang. One of Song Jiang's cruder outlaws, Stumpy Tiger, wanted a wife, so Song Jiang gives her to him. And apparently she stays loyal to him all the way through, fighting by his side, when she isn't in command of her own forces. I wish we could have seen her point of view even briefly, about all these events.
These brief glimpses of women, even the evil ones, furnish an idea of how women coped in such a society. Their lives are so easily disposed of by the men around them. It took machinations just to survive, much less to find happiness of their own. The author doesn't quite understand that, but he does feel, as Western knights did, that staying loyal to your brethren was good, and getting involved with women was a sure road to hell. Maybe it was the sure road to emotional hell? Or it split loyalties--you don't want to go out fighting when you are happy at home.
It took me a long time to read all four volumes, partly because of the scattered nature, but also the casual cannibalism. And the occasional vividly described torture. As we can get in Western medieval writings.
Overall it's entertaining, and many of the characters stick in the mind. There's also that sense of bonded brotherhood in the long, desperate campaign against Fang La, when roughly three-quarters of the band die by violence. The aftermath is interesting; so is the interweaving of magic into the fabric of the story, the ghosts. At one point one of the outlaws, having been killed, possesses his brother's body in order to finish off a foe.
November 23, 2016
"The earliest components of the Water Margin (in manuscript copies) were from the late 14th century. The earliest extant complete printed edition of Water Margin is a 100-chapter book dating from the late-16th century in 1589.[15] Another edition, with 120 chapters by Yang Dingjian (楊定見), has been preserved from the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1573–1620) in the Ming dynasty. Yet other editions were published since this era to the earlyQing dynasty , including a 70-chapter edition by Jin Shengtan.
"100 chapters edition: Includes the outlaws' campaigns against the Liao dynasty and Fang La after they have been granted amnesty. 120 chapters edition: An extended version of the 100 chapters edition, includes the outlaws' campaigns against Tian Hu and Wang Qing . 70 chapters edition: Edited by Jin Shengtan in the late Ming dynasty , this edition uses Chapter 1 as a prologue and ends at Chapter 71 of the original version, and does not include the stories about the outlaws being granted amnesty and their campaigns."
The book relates the story of Song Jian and his comrades, their origins, how they congregate together and form a bandit army which they use to attack evildoers and corrupt government officials. Even though there are many characters (108 main heroes + misc), most of them receive enough time so that they develop their own personalities and traits, some of them are expert swordsmen, others are bowmen, spearmen, magicians, tacticians, etc.
My edition, being based on the 70 chapter version of the book ended just when it started getting really interesting... I need to find a complete one.
"100 chapters edition: Includes the outlaws' campaigns against the Liao dynasty and Fang La after they have been granted amnesty. 120 chapters edition: An extended version of the 100 chapters edition, includes the outlaws' campaigns against Tian Hu and Wang Qing . 70 chapters edition: Edited by Jin Shengtan in the late Ming dynasty , this edition uses Chapter 1 as a prologue and ends at Chapter 71 of the original version, and does not include the stories about the outlaws being granted amnesty and their campaigns."
The book relates the story of Song Jian and his comrades, their origins, how they congregate together and form a bandit army which they use to attack evildoers and corrupt government officials. Even though there are many characters (108 main heroes + misc), most of them receive enough time so that they develop their own personalities and traits, some of them are expert swordsmen, others are bowmen, spearmen, magicians, tacticians, etc.
My edition, being based on the 70 chapter version of the book ended just when it started getting really interesting... I need to find a complete one.
July 13, 2022
a marvelous look into what was important in Chinese literature ... concepts I will use in my new novel in progress comparing freedom in the U.S. and China
March 14, 2023
Song Jiang is no Robin Hood
There are four widely-recognized classic Chinese novels. Seriously, do a web search for "classic Chinese novels" and you will find dozens of pages referring to "The Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature". (Wikipedia lists six on its Classic Chinese Novels page" -- these include the usual four, plus two others.) The phrase "Four classic Chinese novels" also appears frequently in commentary on Chinese literature. The four are
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Water Margin
Journey to the West
Dream of the Red Chamber
I begin by clarifying that in this review of Water Margin I am trying only to answer the question, "If an educated American who understands no Chinese and has only the most cursory knowledge of Chinese culture (that would be me) reads Water Margin, will they find it entertaining/rewarding?" I make no attempt to judge its literary merit or its place in the historical canon of Chinese literature -- I am not qualified. I am not even answering the question, "Should you read this?" One may have many reasons for reading a book, of which entertainment is only one. For instance, Mao Zedong enjoyed Water Margin and took it as a model for his revolution, in some degree. To my mind, that itself is a pretty good reason to read it.
As you have already guessed from my two-star rating, my answer to the entertainment question is "Probably not." The plot of Water Margin consists mostly of big dumb men wandering around China whacking each other with sticks. OK, that is not entirely accurate, but let me be more specific. Under sticks, of course, I understand cudgels, spears, swords, halberds, hooked poles, and even occasionally arrows. Not all the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh are big -- some are rather small, including Song Jiang, the Robin Hood of this band of Merry Men. About the "dumb" part, well, some of the heroes are intelligent. I know this because I was told by other heroes that these ones are intelligent. I don't know it from their own actions or words. For instance, I kept a careful tally of all the times when one of the heroes said something that made me think to myself, "Very clever!" or "Yeah, that's wise." Let me add them up: the grand total is 0. Yeah, that never happened. As for the "men" part, that regrettably, is almost entirely accurate. Of the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh, three are women. The portrayal of every other woman than these three is, in two words, "wildly offensive". I haven't the stomach to go into details, so I'll just leave it at that.
Song Jiang views himself as succoring the common people who oppose the officials of a corrupt and illegitimate empire. He frequently makes speeches proclaiming his virtue and the virtue of the heroes. So, he really is portrayed as the Robin Hood of China. But he is not Robin Hood. His actions don't conform to his words. Let me give an example. This example concerns the recruitment to the band of Zhu Tong, nicknamed "Beautiful Whiskers".
As our story begins, Zhu Tong has just arrived at Cangzhou Prefecture. The Prefect's Son (who admires Zhu Tong's beard) becomes friends with him, and the Prefect asks Zhu Tong to "look after his son and to play with him in future." One day two men from Liangshan Marsh show up and distract Zhu Tong. After they leave, the boy is no longer where Zhu Tong left him. Zhu Tong finds him dead with his skull cleft in two. The men from Liangshan explain this as follows:
Finally, a word on this edition. The editor is Edwin H. Lowe of Macquarie University. He is careful to specify that this is not a new translation -- it is merely a polish and modernization of an earlier translation by J. H. Jackson. Lowe has prepended to the book an introduction that is truly fascinating -- much more interesting than the novel itself, in my opinion, describing the textual history and historical significance. I will quote here his dedication, which I found most interesting, to (I am guessing) his son
Blog review.
There are four widely-recognized classic Chinese novels. Seriously, do a web search for "classic Chinese novels" and you will find dozens of pages referring to "The Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature". (Wikipedia lists six on its Classic Chinese Novels page" -- these include the usual four, plus two others.) The phrase "Four classic Chinese novels" also appears frequently in commentary on Chinese literature. The four are
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
The Water Margin
Journey to the West
Dream of the Red Chamber
I begin by clarifying that in this review of Water Margin I am trying only to answer the question, "If an educated American who understands no Chinese and has only the most cursory knowledge of Chinese culture (that would be me) reads Water Margin, will they find it entertaining/rewarding?" I make no attempt to judge its literary merit or its place in the historical canon of Chinese literature -- I am not qualified. I am not even answering the question, "Should you read this?" One may have many reasons for reading a book, of which entertainment is only one. For instance, Mao Zedong enjoyed Water Margin and took it as a model for his revolution, in some degree. To my mind, that itself is a pretty good reason to read it.
As you have already guessed from my two-star rating, my answer to the entertainment question is "Probably not." The plot of Water Margin consists mostly of big dumb men wandering around China whacking each other with sticks. OK, that is not entirely accurate, but let me be more specific. Under sticks, of course, I understand cudgels, spears, swords, halberds, hooked poles, and even occasionally arrows. Not all the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh are big -- some are rather small, including Song Jiang, the Robin Hood of this band of Merry Men. About the "dumb" part, well, some of the heroes are intelligent. I know this because I was told by other heroes that these ones are intelligent. I don't know it from their own actions or words. For instance, I kept a careful tally of all the times when one of the heroes said something that made me think to myself, "Very clever!" or "Yeah, that's wise." Let me add them up: the grand total is 0. Yeah, that never happened. As for the "men" part, that regrettably, is almost entirely accurate. Of the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh, three are women. The portrayal of every other woman than these three is, in two words, "wildly offensive". I haven't the stomach to go into details, so I'll just leave it at that.
Song Jiang views himself as succoring the common people who oppose the officials of a corrupt and illegitimate empire. He frequently makes speeches proclaiming his virtue and the virtue of the heroes. So, he really is portrayed as the Robin Hood of China. But he is not Robin Hood. His actions don't conform to his words. Let me give an example. This example concerns the recruitment to the band of Zhu Tong, nicknamed "Beautiful Whiskers".
As our story begins, Zhu Tong has just arrived at Cangzhou Prefecture. The Prefect's Son (who admires Zhu Tong's beard) becomes friends with him, and the Prefect asks Zhu Tong to "look after his son and to play with him in future." One day two men from Liangshan Marsh show up and distract Zhu Tong. After they leave, the boy is no longer where Zhu Tong left him. Zhu Tong finds him dead with his skull cleft in two. The men from Liangshan explain this as follows:
They were on their way to request you to join them at Liangshan Marsh. As you refused to join them, Li Kui kidnapped the boy, and killed him, so that you could not return to the yamen and face his father.”Yeah, "exceedingly cruel" hardly covers it. Even by his own standards, Song Jiang is not an admirable character.
Just then Lei Heng and Wu Yong entered the room, and after saluting Zhu Tong they said, “Please forgive us for the crime committed. We did it only by order of our chief, Song Jiang. If you come with us to Liangshan Marsh all will be explained to you.”
“Your asking me to go to Liangshan Marsh was all right,” replied Zhu Tong, “but your method of inducing me to go was exceedingly cruel. I will go with you now, but I must first see Li Kui.”
Finally, a word on this edition. The editor is Edwin H. Lowe of Macquarie University. He is careful to specify that this is not a new translation -- it is merely a polish and modernization of an earlier translation by J. H. Jackson. Lowe has prepended to the book an introduction that is truly fascinating -- much more interesting than the novel itself, in my opinion, describing the textual history and historical significance. I will quote here his dedication, which I found most interesting, to (I am guessing) his son
To little Harry,I was reminded by this of Abraham Lincoln's words
25th Generation of the Liu clan of Zhongshan, Guangdong;
5th Generation of the Lowe family of Sydney, Australia;
67th generation descendant of Liu Bang,
The leader of the bandit rebellion who slew the snake near Mount Mangdan and who became Gaozu, the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty in 202 BCE;
with love.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.The contrast between Chinese and American cultures could hardly be greater.
Blog review.
May 27, 2022
I actually listened to the podcast version of this book, where the classic story is told in a conversational style with added historical context.
The podcast gets 5 stars! This was a really fun listen for Goodreads’ Chinese Book Club, and helpful in that the narrator identified and discussed the problematic messaging re: women, honor, murder, and cannibalism… which is why I’m giving the book itself 3 stars.
Strongly disagree with some of the comparisons of this book to Robin Hood… since Song Jiang steals from and murders both rich and poor, despite a heavy marketing campaign that he’s operating on heaven’s behalf.
Here’s the podcast: http://www.outlawsofthemarsh.com/
The podcast gets 5 stars! This was a really fun listen for Goodreads’ Chinese Book Club, and helpful in that the narrator identified and discussed the problematic messaging re: women, honor, murder, and cannibalism… which is why I’m giving the book itself 3 stars.
Strongly disagree with some of the comparisons of this book to Robin Hood… since Song Jiang steals from and murders both rich and poor, despite a heavy marketing campaign that he’s operating on heaven’s behalf.
Here’s the podcast: http://www.outlawsofthemarsh.com/
July 25, 2020
Two things you notice about this novel are: first, you get four volumes totalling over 2100 pages in a slip case; second, each volume is perfectly sized for a laptop case or pocket or handbag. So, the formatting would have been perfect if I had still been commuting. As it was, I read all four volumes during the Co-vid lock down and semi-lock down, and had a wonderful sense of escapism, as I spent several weeks in 12th century China.
Older readers might remember the TV series The Water Margin, which feels as if it was shot soon after Outlaws of the Marsh was written in the 14th century. The book is far longer and more complicated than the series, although this edition might still not give you the full monty. In the introduction, a professor of Chinese literature, Shi Changyu, explains that the novel exists in several different versions, varying between 70 and 124 chapters. This edition has 100 chapters, which might be a good compromise. At the end the translator, Sidney Shapiro, explains how he put this edition together, selecting bits from the short and long editions, and excluding some ridiculous poems that give away the plot. Shapiro himself was an American who lived in China for many years, married a Chinese woman and became a Chinese citizen in 1963, just in time for the Cultural Revolution. I wonder what Mao thought of this novel. The translation itself was made in the 1970s, and gives us a lively, colloquial read which “zips along” – just like a recent Booker Prize judge said novels ought to do. The text itself is an odd mixture of American and British grammar and spelling, with lots of typos, but that don’t detract from the enjoyment of the read.
So, what’s it all about? The novel was written in the 14th century and is based on real events that occurred in the 12th century. In some ways it’s a kind of Robin Hood story. 108 men and women (if memory serves, 105 men and three women) are obliged, through a combination of injustice and misfortune, to betake themselves to Liangshan Marsh where they join a growing robber band that robs the rich and either gives to the poor or leaves the poor alone. The 108 chieftains (there are thousands of foot soldiers in the band) are all distinct characters, and along with their given name, they each have a moniker that reflects some feature of their history, physique or chosen weaponry. For instance, one of the female chieftains is called Ten Feet of Steel because she wields two swords, both five feet long, to deadly effect.
The first couple of volumes tell the story of each of the chieftains and how they came to join the robber band. They spend a lot of time consuming vast quantities of wine (presumably rice wine) and meat in taverns that seem to be strewn around the countryside. It’s so easy to walk into a tavern and demand a bowl of wine and a platter of meat, but do you always know what you’re getting? There are a lot of rascally inn-keepers who drug their guests and then take them to an abattoir round the back of the tavern where they chop them up and cook them in pies which they serve the next set of guests. No food safety standards in 12th century China.
Eventually the emperor realises that the bandits are a potential force for good and after a couple of attempts to offer them an amnesty are thwarted by evil, envious officials, they go mainstream and are used to fight against neighbouring kingdoms. Warning: there is a lot of violence throughout the novel, but it often feels like cartoon violence. Lots of heads are chopped off and bodies salami-sliced, but there is little graphic description and most of the victims are nasty people who deserve a bit of rough justice. There is enough moral philosophy around to raise this novel above a mere adventure yarn, with frequent references to Buddhism, Taoism, filial piety and the sanctity of friendship and oaths. Another warning, which is stated in the introduction, is that women do not get a good press here. Apart from the female chieftains (and they’re not really central characters) most of the female characters are grasping wives who cheat on their husbands, bawds who facilitate adultery or ale-wives who drug their guests and bake them in pies.
I won’t spoil the ending. Suffice to say that years pass, the heroes age and you have a growing sense that the good times will come to an end. You might think that after 2000 pages you’d be glad to reach the end, but in fact you do feel a sense of loss when you finally reach it.
Older readers might remember the TV series The Water Margin, which feels as if it was shot soon after Outlaws of the Marsh was written in the 14th century. The book is far longer and more complicated than the series, although this edition might still not give you the full monty. In the introduction, a professor of Chinese literature, Shi Changyu, explains that the novel exists in several different versions, varying between 70 and 124 chapters. This edition has 100 chapters, which might be a good compromise. At the end the translator, Sidney Shapiro, explains how he put this edition together, selecting bits from the short and long editions, and excluding some ridiculous poems that give away the plot. Shapiro himself was an American who lived in China for many years, married a Chinese woman and became a Chinese citizen in 1963, just in time for the Cultural Revolution. I wonder what Mao thought of this novel. The translation itself was made in the 1970s, and gives us a lively, colloquial read which “zips along” – just like a recent Booker Prize judge said novels ought to do. The text itself is an odd mixture of American and British grammar and spelling, with lots of typos, but that don’t detract from the enjoyment of the read.
So, what’s it all about? The novel was written in the 14th century and is based on real events that occurred in the 12th century. In some ways it’s a kind of Robin Hood story. 108 men and women (if memory serves, 105 men and three women) are obliged, through a combination of injustice and misfortune, to betake themselves to Liangshan Marsh where they join a growing robber band that robs the rich and either gives to the poor or leaves the poor alone. The 108 chieftains (there are thousands of foot soldiers in the band) are all distinct characters, and along with their given name, they each have a moniker that reflects some feature of their history, physique or chosen weaponry. For instance, one of the female chieftains is called Ten Feet of Steel because she wields two swords, both five feet long, to deadly effect.
The first couple of volumes tell the story of each of the chieftains and how they came to join the robber band. They spend a lot of time consuming vast quantities of wine (presumably rice wine) and meat in taverns that seem to be strewn around the countryside. It’s so easy to walk into a tavern and demand a bowl of wine and a platter of meat, but do you always know what you’re getting? There are a lot of rascally inn-keepers who drug their guests and then take them to an abattoir round the back of the tavern where they chop them up and cook them in pies which they serve the next set of guests. No food safety standards in 12th century China.
Eventually the emperor realises that the bandits are a potential force for good and after a couple of attempts to offer them an amnesty are thwarted by evil, envious officials, they go mainstream and are used to fight against neighbouring kingdoms. Warning: there is a lot of violence throughout the novel, but it often feels like cartoon violence. Lots of heads are chopped off and bodies salami-sliced, but there is little graphic description and most of the victims are nasty people who deserve a bit of rough justice. There is enough moral philosophy around to raise this novel above a mere adventure yarn, with frequent references to Buddhism, Taoism, filial piety and the sanctity of friendship and oaths. Another warning, which is stated in the introduction, is that women do not get a good press here. Apart from the female chieftains (and they’re not really central characters) most of the female characters are grasping wives who cheat on their husbands, bawds who facilitate adultery or ale-wives who drug their guests and bake them in pies.
I won’t spoil the ending. Suffice to say that years pass, the heroes age and you have a growing sense that the good times will come to an end. You might think that after 2000 pages you’d be glad to reach the end, but in fact you do feel a sense of loss when you finally reach it.
February 25, 2013
Abenteuer im alten China
Das erste, was ich bei dieser Rezension erwähnen möchte, ist, dass es sich bei diesem Werk nicht um eine Übersetzung handelt, sondern um eine recht freie, stark kürzende Nachdichtung. Geschätzt die Hälfte des Originalwerks fehlt, wie das bei Kuhn-Übertragungen üblich ist.
Die für das Verständnis des Romans wichtige Einleitung, in der Marschall Hong die gefangenen Dämonenprinzen freilässt, fehlt komplett. Die gesamte Shi-Jin-Episode wurde zu einem Zusammenfassungsdialog gekürzt. Die Wu-Song-Episode, mit die beste des ganzen Romans, wurde praktisch wegrationalisiert (da Kuhn sie ja schon in seiner Übersetzung des Jin Ping Mei übersetzte - was für eine Begründung!). Das sind nur die Beispiele aus dem ersten Drittel des Romans.
Insgesamt liest sich der Roman völlig anders als im Original und auch allen englischen Übersetzungen. Kuhn hat einen sehr eigenen Stil, den er auf alle seine Übersetzungen transportiert, und damit Sprache und Stimmung des Originalwerks spektakulär plattmacht. Er exotisiert einerseits den Text durch Nichtübertragung von Phrasen, andererseits übersetzt er Personen- und Ortsnamen. Viele Begriffe ("Weinstube", "Junker", "Vogt", "Batzen", "Magister") sind schlichtweg unpassend übersetzt, da diese Begriffe zutiefst deutsch belegt sind. Und wenn eine so zentrale Begrifflichkeit wie "lulin" (dem Vorläufer des "jianghu", der Alternativwelt der herumreisenden Helden) mit "Busch" gleichgesetzt wird, sträuben sich mir die Nackenhaare - man merkt an solchen Beispielen, die es zuhauf gibt, dass Kuhn überhaupt nicht interessiert daran war, das Weltbild, das diesem Roman zugrundeliegt, mit zu übertragen, sondern einfach für westliche Leser leichter verständliche Schubladen anlegt. Ein Positivpunkt trotzdem - die Namensübersetzung der Ehrennamen der Banditen (Tiefgeist, Pantherschädel, Trommelfloh) ist sehr gelungen und nah am Original.
Gewiss ist diese "Übersetzung" für Leser, die sich mit einer Nachdichtung des umfangreichen Originalwerks zufrieden geben können, durchaus geeignet - alle Stellen, die im Original den in chinesischer Literatur ungeübten Leser stören könnten, wurden herausgeschnitten, der Rest meist sehr frei umformuliert, um einen flüssigen Erzählfluss trotzdem zu gewährleisten. Kuhn liefert auch eine lebendige, unterhaltsame und witzige Sprache ab, das muss man ihm zugestehen, und zwar eine, die trotz der inzwischen 80 Jahre auch heute noch gut lesbar ist. Die Folge alldessen ist eine leichtere, aber auch deutlich weniger gehaltvolle und befriedigende Lektüre. Stattdessen sollte ein wirklich interessierter Leser die englischen Übersetzungen von Shapiro (Outlaws of the Marsh) oder noch besser den Dent-Youngs (The Broken Seals) in Betracht ziehen. Es gibt auch eine vollständigere deutschsprachige Übersetzung von Johanna Herzfeldt, zu der ich aber noch nichts sagen kann.
Von der Präsentation her gibt es dagegen nichts zu meckern: Angenehmes Papier, schöner Druck, gute Reproduktion von sehr hübschen Holzsschnitten zur Illustration.
Wahrscheinlich die beste und unterhaltsamste Kurzfassung des Shuihuzhuans, die es gibt. Wenn einem das klar ist, steht dem Vergnügen, dieses für mich persönlich begeisterndste Meisterwerk der Weltliteratur zumindest annähernd kennenzulernen, nichts mehr im Weg. Und vielleicht verleitet diese Kurzfassung dann auch den einen oder anderen dazu, sich das Werk in einer besseren, ehrlicheren Übersetzung anzuschauen: er wird es nicht bereuen und der olle Kuhn hätte trotz seiner Mängel was gutes getan.
Das erste, was ich bei dieser Rezension erwähnen möchte, ist, dass es sich bei diesem Werk nicht um eine Übersetzung handelt, sondern um eine recht freie, stark kürzende Nachdichtung. Geschätzt die Hälfte des Originalwerks fehlt, wie das bei Kuhn-Übertragungen üblich ist.
Die für das Verständnis des Romans wichtige Einleitung, in der Marschall Hong die gefangenen Dämonenprinzen freilässt, fehlt komplett. Die gesamte Shi-Jin-Episode wurde zu einem Zusammenfassungsdialog gekürzt. Die Wu-Song-Episode, mit die beste des ganzen Romans, wurde praktisch wegrationalisiert (da Kuhn sie ja schon in seiner Übersetzung des Jin Ping Mei übersetzte - was für eine Begründung!). Das sind nur die Beispiele aus dem ersten Drittel des Romans.
Insgesamt liest sich der Roman völlig anders als im Original und auch allen englischen Übersetzungen. Kuhn hat einen sehr eigenen Stil, den er auf alle seine Übersetzungen transportiert, und damit Sprache und Stimmung des Originalwerks spektakulär plattmacht. Er exotisiert einerseits den Text durch Nichtübertragung von Phrasen, andererseits übersetzt er Personen- und Ortsnamen. Viele Begriffe ("Weinstube", "Junker", "Vogt", "Batzen", "Magister") sind schlichtweg unpassend übersetzt, da diese Begriffe zutiefst deutsch belegt sind. Und wenn eine so zentrale Begrifflichkeit wie "lulin" (dem Vorläufer des "jianghu", der Alternativwelt der herumreisenden Helden) mit "Busch" gleichgesetzt wird, sträuben sich mir die Nackenhaare - man merkt an solchen Beispielen, die es zuhauf gibt, dass Kuhn überhaupt nicht interessiert daran war, das Weltbild, das diesem Roman zugrundeliegt, mit zu übertragen, sondern einfach für westliche Leser leichter verständliche Schubladen anlegt. Ein Positivpunkt trotzdem - die Namensübersetzung der Ehrennamen der Banditen (Tiefgeist, Pantherschädel, Trommelfloh) ist sehr gelungen und nah am Original.
Gewiss ist diese "Übersetzung" für Leser, die sich mit einer Nachdichtung des umfangreichen Originalwerks zufrieden geben können, durchaus geeignet - alle Stellen, die im Original den in chinesischer Literatur ungeübten Leser stören könnten, wurden herausgeschnitten, der Rest meist sehr frei umformuliert, um einen flüssigen Erzählfluss trotzdem zu gewährleisten. Kuhn liefert auch eine lebendige, unterhaltsame und witzige Sprache ab, das muss man ihm zugestehen, und zwar eine, die trotz der inzwischen 80 Jahre auch heute noch gut lesbar ist. Die Folge alldessen ist eine leichtere, aber auch deutlich weniger gehaltvolle und befriedigende Lektüre. Stattdessen sollte ein wirklich interessierter Leser die englischen Übersetzungen von Shapiro (Outlaws of the Marsh) oder noch besser den Dent-Youngs (The Broken Seals) in Betracht ziehen. Es gibt auch eine vollständigere deutschsprachige Übersetzung von Johanna Herzfeldt, zu der ich aber noch nichts sagen kann.
Von der Präsentation her gibt es dagegen nichts zu meckern: Angenehmes Papier, schöner Druck, gute Reproduktion von sehr hübschen Holzsschnitten zur Illustration.
Wahrscheinlich die beste und unterhaltsamste Kurzfassung des Shuihuzhuans, die es gibt. Wenn einem das klar ist, steht dem Vergnügen, dieses für mich persönlich begeisterndste Meisterwerk der Weltliteratur zumindest annähernd kennenzulernen, nichts mehr im Weg. Und vielleicht verleitet diese Kurzfassung dann auch den einen oder anderen dazu, sich das Werk in einer besseren, ehrlicheren Übersetzung anzuschauen: er wird es nicht bereuen und der olle Kuhn hätte trotz seiner Mängel was gutes getan.
June 8, 2011
Volume 1: pp. 1-538
Volume 2: pp. 539-1072
Volume 3: pp. 1073-1603
Volume 4: pp. 1604-2149
This book is a tremendous saga of outlaws that are loyal to the emperor and seek an amnesty. The book is considered a classic in Chinese literature. Written in the thirteenth century roughly, the story tells of a group of outlaws that despise corrupt officials and feel they have blinded the emperor to whom they are loyal. It would be too simple to compare this story with Robin Hood.
Set in the twelfth century Northern Song Dynasty and based on actual people and events, the first two volumes document various conditions under which individuals commit crimes and are forced to become outlaws. The stories at first seem unconnected aside being linked by common characters. The sheer number of characters introduced begins to be discouraging. However, towards the end of the second volume many of the characters have come together to the same place and formed a huge group of outlaws. The third volume documents the addition of more outlaws and subsequent attempts from the capital to destroy the band of outlaws. Also, the outlaws are anxious for an amnesty and seek to serve the emperor. The fourth volume opens with their amnesty in the first few chapters. Afterwards, in order to prove their loyalty, they lead a military campaign against northern invaders. Afterwards, they are asked to put down a rebellion in the south. During this massive campaign many of the characters are killed and leads up to the final chapters of the successful campaign and subsequent departure of the characters to their various ways.
This book is rich in Chinese culture and tradition. A person familiar with Chinese culture will greatly appreciate the many customs presented and adhered to throughout the book. Those who have studied Chinese language will recognize awkward English phrases that are direct translations of Chinese idioms throughout the book. In any case, this book gives a rich depiction of ancient Chinese culture.
As with many old classics, the book is written in a different style and readers should be open to the straight-forward style this book is written in. There is a lot of violence in the book. Wars, fights, beheadings, etc. were part of ancient cultures and should be looked upon as normal for that period of writing.
A long book, a great story, lots of characters that can be a challenge to keep track of, but a great read.
Volume 2: pp. 539-1072
Volume 3: pp. 1073-1603
Volume 4: pp. 1604-2149
This book is a tremendous saga of outlaws that are loyal to the emperor and seek an amnesty. The book is considered a classic in Chinese literature. Written in the thirteenth century roughly, the story tells of a group of outlaws that despise corrupt officials and feel they have blinded the emperor to whom they are loyal. It would be too simple to compare this story with Robin Hood.
Set in the twelfth century Northern Song Dynasty and based on actual people and events, the first two volumes document various conditions under which individuals commit crimes and are forced to become outlaws. The stories at first seem unconnected aside being linked by common characters. The sheer number of characters introduced begins to be discouraging. However, towards the end of the second volume many of the characters have come together to the same place and formed a huge group of outlaws. The third volume documents the addition of more outlaws and subsequent attempts from the capital to destroy the band of outlaws. Also, the outlaws are anxious for an amnesty and seek to serve the emperor. The fourth volume opens with their amnesty in the first few chapters. Afterwards, in order to prove their loyalty, they lead a military campaign against northern invaders. Afterwards, they are asked to put down a rebellion in the south. During this massive campaign many of the characters are killed and leads up to the final chapters of the successful campaign and subsequent departure of the characters to their various ways.
This book is rich in Chinese culture and tradition. A person familiar with Chinese culture will greatly appreciate the many customs presented and adhered to throughout the book. Those who have studied Chinese language will recognize awkward English phrases that are direct translations of Chinese idioms throughout the book. In any case, this book gives a rich depiction of ancient Chinese culture.
As with many old classics, the book is written in a different style and readers should be open to the straight-forward style this book is written in. There is a lot of violence in the book. Wars, fights, beheadings, etc. were part of ancient cultures and should be looked upon as normal for that period of writing.
A long book, a great story, lots of characters that can be a challenge to keep track of, but a great read.
August 11, 2016
I was disappointed with this series. After reading Three Kingdoms, I was excited to read, what some consider, the spiritual successor. However, whatever Three Kingdoms did right, I got the feeling that this series dropped the ball.
I never got the feeling that more than 4 or 5 of the characters actually had any depth to them. That is a problem when your story is suppose to be about every one of the 109 protagonists, not to mention the countless of antagonists. Furthermore, the author had a poor sense of timing with killing characters, which gave me an impression that the author had no grasp of the flow of a novel. While other series of fiction utilize the ebb and flow of dramatic tides, this one simply sputters along until you are sick of it and gives you a tsunami of a muddled together ending.
Considering that this series is considered a "must read" in Chinese fiction, I am left assuming that part of the fault lies in the translation. However, to be fair, no translator could fix the overall flow of the story.
The one thing that I appreciated from the books was the sense of charity that was present among some of these men. Although, blind charity would not always be a good thing, I believe that it is something important to read about. If not for that aspect of the books, I would not have given it the few stars that I did.
I never got the feeling that more than 4 or 5 of the characters actually had any depth to them. That is a problem when your story is suppose to be about every one of the 109 protagonists, not to mention the countless of antagonists. Furthermore, the author had a poor sense of timing with killing characters, which gave me an impression that the author had no grasp of the flow of a novel. While other series of fiction utilize the ebb and flow of dramatic tides, this one simply sputters along until you are sick of it and gives you a tsunami of a muddled together ending.
Considering that this series is considered a "must read" in Chinese fiction, I am left assuming that part of the fault lies in the translation. However, to be fair, no translator could fix the overall flow of the story.
The one thing that I appreciated from the books was the sense of charity that was present among some of these men. Although, blind charity would not always be a good thing, I believe that it is something important to read about. If not for that aspect of the books, I would not have given it the few stars that I did.
August 21, 2014
Outlaws of the Marsh, written in the vernacular, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.It's set in the Song dynasty and tells of how a group outlaws gather at Liangshan Marsh to form an army before they are eventually granted amnesty by the government and sent on campaigns to resist foreign invaders and suppress rebel forces.
What's striking about the book and this particular translation is the sense of modernity. You quickly get used to the the many names and feel a certain, almost dungeons and dragons familiarity, with the visits to the pub, the licentious behaviour and the good and evil characters, It's robin hood without a christian element and at times shocks with its ready acceptance of brutal robbery, deceit and of all things, cannibalism. It's an epic, full of humor, deep iconic characters and fun. Love it.
What's striking about the book and this particular translation is the sense of modernity. You quickly get used to the the many names and feel a certain, almost dungeons and dragons familiarity, with the visits to the pub, the licentious behaviour and the good and evil characters, It's robin hood without a christian element and at times shocks with its ready acceptance of brutal robbery, deceit and of all things, cannibalism. It's an epic, full of humor, deep iconic characters and fun. Love it.
March 24, 2024
Very readable for a 450+ year old book, if you enjoy martial arts with a touch of magic, this can be a fun read. This translation is much earthier than others and I suspect closer to the original. You will find such heroes as drunken Sagacious Lu, who has a tendency to smash things up. and slimy Pecker Head. It's one of those books that young scholars would sneak into their rooms, it wasn't considered fit material for reading. Think feudal pulp fiction.
With 108 heroes, that start to blend together and over 2,000 pages, it's worthy of a Sanderson. Sold as a serial, each chapter ends with, "...if you want to find out, read the next chapter".
One down side, typical of all old literature is that there are very few female heroes or decent female characters.
I've only read the first volume, need to login to Link+ for more.
With 108 heroes, that start to blend together and over 2,000 pages, it's worthy of a Sanderson. Sold as a serial, each chapter ends with, "...if you want to find out, read the next chapter".
One down side, typical of all old literature is that there are very few female heroes or decent female characters.
I've only read the first volume, need to login to Link+ for more.
June 19, 2013
Unlike any text I've read, except The Old Testament. It has the feel of ancient oral stories transcribed into a narrative written form. The story slowly unfolds, there are hundreds of characters and many of the main characters have two or three names. Somehow all characters are inter-twined and related through the telling of the tale. The grand theme is a slow rebellion by ordinary people in response and reaction to the increasingly self-important, over-wealthy, and isolated and dependent ruling class arbitrarily over reaching their bounds of human and governmental authority.
November 4, 2011
I read this because it is one of the four great novels of traditional Chinese literature and because Buck's translation is considered quite good though she was not an academic. But the stories repeat themselves seemingly endlessly. How much, after all, of Robin Hood can one take? (In one movie, Maid Marion had the good sense to poison him.)
April 25, 2011
It was a tough book to get through. I enjoyed the story, but was troubled by the cruelty displayed by the bandits of Liangshan Marsh. The cruelty wasn't the work of individuals overcome by passion, but that displayed by the leaders in their tactics to get people they wanted to join them.
May 24, 2022
WHAAAT A RIDE
Read
October 6, 2022„Oficjalna legenda głosiła, że potomkowie jednego z domniemanych autorów „Opowieści znad brzegów rzek” przez trzy pokolenia byli głusi i niemi, pokutując za zgorszenie, jakie wywołał ich przodek”.
Zabrzmiało groźnie :)
„Opowieści znad brzegów rzek” to kolejna przeczytana przeze mnie chińska powieść historyczna, wydana po raz pierwszy najprawdopodobniej w XIV wieku.
Jak się dowiedziałam ze wstępu opisuje ona historię „Drużyny Sprawiedliwych Zbójców” grasującej w okolicy jeziora Liangszanpo. Pierwowzorem historycznym jest historia Sung Cianga, który wraz ze swoimi trzydziestoma sześcioma towarzyszami pustoszył prowincje Tsi i Wei, co działo się za czasów panowania dynastii Sung. Sung Ciang był człowiekiem uczciwym (jako sekretarz nigdy nie przyjmował łapówek), walczył tylko wtedy, kiedy było to konieczne, pomagał potrzebującym i nigdy nie nadużywał władzy. Krótko mówiąc był to wódz idealny, niezbędny element powstania ludowego.
Przeczytałam jako ciekawostkę. Nadmiar bohaterów był momentami przytłaczający!
Zabrzmiało groźnie :)
„Opowieści znad brzegów rzek” to kolejna przeczytana przeze mnie chińska powieść historyczna, wydana po raz pierwszy najprawdopodobniej w XIV wieku.
Jak się dowiedziałam ze wstępu opisuje ona historię „Drużyny Sprawiedliwych Zbójców” grasującej w okolicy jeziora Liangszanpo. Pierwowzorem historycznym jest historia Sung Cianga, który wraz ze swoimi trzydziestoma sześcioma towarzyszami pustoszył prowincje Tsi i Wei, co działo się za czasów panowania dynastii Sung. Sung Ciang był człowiekiem uczciwym (jako sekretarz nigdy nie przyjmował łapówek), walczył tylko wtedy, kiedy było to konieczne, pomagał potrzebującym i nigdy nie nadużywał władzy. Krótko mówiąc był to wódz idealny, niezbędny element powstania ludowego.
Przeczytałam jako ciekawostkę. Nadmiar bohaterów był momentami przytłaczający!
Want to read
October 6, 2023Reading this after talking with my chinese bff and her insightful comments about history and gender.
October 4, 2013
The story, one of the four great Chinese classical novels, describes events from the 12th century Song Dynasty. The plot, written during the 16th century Ming Dynasty is fiction, though it is based on historical characters.
I would separate the book into two sections. Roughly the first half describes various criminals, evildoers, and misfits, all of whom tend to gravitate toward an outlaw post at Liangshan Marsh. These chapters are full of violent actions such as killing tigers, poisoning people, murders, countless decapitations, cutting hearts out, eating human flesh, and the like. The ease and matter of triviality with which people, frequently with their whole families, households, and sometimes even their entire villages are exterminated, are horrifying viewed from today's perspectives--until the horrors of modern war come to mind such as the 60 million souls lost in WWII.
- Possible spoiler alert in the next paragraph! -
The second section of the book seems to shift the emphasis from the earlier blind aggression to more selective confrontations. After the death of Chao Gai, a righteous man turned outlaw dies in a battle, an emerging new leader, Song Jiang takes over at Liangshan Marsh. From this point on the outlaws' activity becomes more and more focused on punishing corrupt officials though a lot of innocent lives are still lost due to their actions. Song is an unflinching loyal supporter of the Emperor, but he knows that the imperial court is full of corrupt, murderous ministers. Song's ultimate goal is to achieve amnesty from the Emperor so that he can put his outlaw army in the service of the country. Song Jiang builds up his corps of chieftains to 108 fearless warriors. Using his exceptional diplomatic sense he frequently recruits powerful imperial officers captured in battles. One thing I personally could not forgive of Song Jiang despite all his later gallant and noble actions is a murder he ordered. In order to recruit one of his chieftains, Zhu Tong, he had a child killed. (I guess with today's terminology the little boy would be referenced as a "mushroom," or with a more upgraded term, a "civilian casualty of a drone strike").
From here on, the focus of the story shifts to Song Jiang's personal journey with his army. Indeed, his character development became one of the strongest attractions of the book for me. Eventually he is granted the desired amnesty from the Emperor and is sent to fight the Liao people at the northern border of the empire and later to beat down a rebellion in the southern part of the empire, led by Fang La. This second expedition comes at the extremely high price of the ex-outlaw army leaving only a fraction of its chieftains alive. The surviving members of Song's officers are properly rewarded by the benevolent, though mostly clueless Emperor however the conspiring ministers, led by Marshal Gao Qiu, have more murderous schemes up in their sleeves.
As I alluded to above, the portrayal of the multidimensional Song Jiang is superb. He is a righteous wise man with unmatched loyalty to the Emperor who displays respectable poetic skills as well. At times he appears merciless and abrupt although he also has a strong melancholic streak.
A number of other characters are masterfully depicted. Every single one of the 108 chieftains has a unique personality, talent, and life story. Although I can't do justice to all of them, here are some names that stand out after having finished the book: Sagacious Lu, the Buddhist monk with tremendous strength who fulfills his prophecy; Li Kui, the bloodthirsty psychopath who gets into killing frenzies yet somehow becomes the funniest and most entertaining character of the story; Wu Song, who kills a tiger with his bare hands; and the unusually fast walking Dai Zong who serves as the outlaws' courier. Countless other life-like personalities make the book enjoyable, including some of the conniving ministers (Gao Qui, Cai Jing, Marshal Tong Guan) and the Emperor himself along with his favorite concubine, Li Shishi.
Besides its length (2200+ pages), I see two potential difficulties in the book for today's Western readers. Although the depiction of violence may not be as graphic as in some modern books, it still could keep a few potential readers away. As with the three other great classic Chinese novels (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West, and The Dreams of the Red Mansions), the sheer number of characters makes it hard to keep them straight. The similarity of the short Chinese names adds further complexity to this problem. I frequently had to go back to earlier parts of the story for clarification of who is who although many times I simply accepted a certain degree of ambiguity about a character's exact identity.
That being said, I think that this is a fascinating book with countless interesting subplots neatly fitted together. By the end the reader will be rewarded with a giant mosaic in the center of which stands a larger than life character seeking to "Delivering justice on Heaven's Behalf:" Song Jiang.
I would separate the book into two sections. Roughly the first half describes various criminals, evildoers, and misfits, all of whom tend to gravitate toward an outlaw post at Liangshan Marsh. These chapters are full of violent actions such as killing tigers, poisoning people, murders, countless decapitations, cutting hearts out, eating human flesh, and the like. The ease and matter of triviality with which people, frequently with their whole families, households, and sometimes even their entire villages are exterminated, are horrifying viewed from today's perspectives--until the horrors of modern war come to mind such as the 60 million souls lost in WWII.
- Possible spoiler alert in the next paragraph! -
The second section of the book seems to shift the emphasis from the earlier blind aggression to more selective confrontations. After the death of Chao Gai, a righteous man turned outlaw dies in a battle, an emerging new leader, Song Jiang takes over at Liangshan Marsh. From this point on the outlaws' activity becomes more and more focused on punishing corrupt officials though a lot of innocent lives are still lost due to their actions. Song is an unflinching loyal supporter of the Emperor, but he knows that the imperial court is full of corrupt, murderous ministers. Song's ultimate goal is to achieve amnesty from the Emperor so that he can put his outlaw army in the service of the country. Song Jiang builds up his corps of chieftains to 108 fearless warriors. Using his exceptional diplomatic sense he frequently recruits powerful imperial officers captured in battles. One thing I personally could not forgive of Song Jiang despite all his later gallant and noble actions is a murder he ordered. In order to recruit one of his chieftains, Zhu Tong, he had a child killed. (I guess with today's terminology the little boy would be referenced as a "mushroom," or with a more upgraded term, a "civilian casualty of a drone strike").
From here on, the focus of the story shifts to Song Jiang's personal journey with his army. Indeed, his character development became one of the strongest attractions of the book for me. Eventually he is granted the desired amnesty from the Emperor and is sent to fight the Liao people at the northern border of the empire and later to beat down a rebellion in the southern part of the empire, led by Fang La. This second expedition comes at the extremely high price of the ex-outlaw army leaving only a fraction of its chieftains alive. The surviving members of Song's officers are properly rewarded by the benevolent, though mostly clueless Emperor however the conspiring ministers, led by Marshal Gao Qiu, have more murderous schemes up in their sleeves.
As I alluded to above, the portrayal of the multidimensional Song Jiang is superb. He is a righteous wise man with unmatched loyalty to the Emperor who displays respectable poetic skills as well. At times he appears merciless and abrupt although he also has a strong melancholic streak.
A number of other characters are masterfully depicted. Every single one of the 108 chieftains has a unique personality, talent, and life story. Although I can't do justice to all of them, here are some names that stand out after having finished the book: Sagacious Lu, the Buddhist monk with tremendous strength who fulfills his prophecy; Li Kui, the bloodthirsty psychopath who gets into killing frenzies yet somehow becomes the funniest and most entertaining character of the story; Wu Song, who kills a tiger with his bare hands; and the unusually fast walking Dai Zong who serves as the outlaws' courier. Countless other life-like personalities make the book enjoyable, including some of the conniving ministers (Gao Qui, Cai Jing, Marshal Tong Guan) and the Emperor himself along with his favorite concubine, Li Shishi.
Besides its length (2200+ pages), I see two potential difficulties in the book for today's Western readers. Although the depiction of violence may not be as graphic as in some modern books, it still could keep a few potential readers away. As with the three other great classic Chinese novels (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West, and The Dreams of the Red Mansions), the sheer number of characters makes it hard to keep them straight. The similarity of the short Chinese names adds further complexity to this problem. I frequently had to go back to earlier parts of the story for clarification of who is who although many times I simply accepted a certain degree of ambiguity about a character's exact identity.
That being said, I think that this is a fascinating book with countless interesting subplots neatly fitted together. By the end the reader will be rewarded with a giant mosaic in the center of which stands a larger than life character seeking to "Delivering justice on Heaven's Behalf:" Song Jiang.
November 15, 2022
A true classic. It can feel rather disjointed at this with the large cast of characters but the themes of Hao Han and what it means to be a righteous man shines true in each and every one of the chapters.
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