Luo GuanzhongRezensionen

ISBN: 3-107111-7-11

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a 15th-century novelization of the events of China's 3rd-century Three Kingdoms period. The novel revolves around Liu "Xuande" Bei and his chief minister Zhuge "Kongming" Liang as they combat Cao Cao, a Chinese prime minister who has made the Imperial family his puppet rulers. Mixed into this is the sometimes-ally sometimes-enemy Sun clan, whose Southland has declared independence from the declining Imperial court. While much of the book revolves around military tactics (which here is often outright trickery), the later stages of the book pit Xuande's loyalty to his two oath-brothers against his desire for good strategy and administration (the latter of which is almost always backed by Kongming). As historical novelizations do, this account attributes conversations and emotions to characters that could not possibly be known, but the author stays pretty true to historical events and timelines. Unlike in many modern novels, all of the main characters in this story grow feeble and die--not just in physical stature, but also in mental acuity, which is a little heartbreaking to read. While I generally gravitate toward more modern works, I definitely appreciated this book in its context as one of the great works of Chinese literature.½

only read 50 pages...o my.. maybe a classic ... but too many names to follow and so forth. I need a structure - a little bit please!

see Part 2

The epic adventure novel, The Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong was an excellent read for me. I have long had a knowledge of the characters of the book, picked up by years of playing both Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Kingdom Strategy games which were based on this traditional Chinese epic. Set in the years of 220 to 280 AD, China was, at that time, divided into three separate states, that of Wei, Shu and Wu. This era signified the crumbling of the Han Dynasty, and the book exposes the rivalry, intrigues and wars that were fought during the turbulent years that the three states were jostling for position.

I admit to feeling rather overwhelmed at first as the story opened up with the appearance of dozens of warlords and generals that were hard to keep track of. Thank heavens I persevered as what brings this book to life are these exciting and varied characters that the reader meets throughout the journey. Eventually a pattern emerges and the story narrows to follow certain characters which makes it much easier to absorb the story. The names of Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, and Cao Cao may have little or no meaning to westerners, but these are just a few of the heroes that through their loyalty or treachery live on and have become cultural icons in China.

Other than having to keep track of a multitude of characters, the book was very easy to read and I quickly became absorbed in the adventure, culture and geography of the story. This is a book that I have long wanted to read and now, I am happy to say that I have completed this massive volume and was very satisfied with the historical and mythical aspects of this story that truly does romanticize the lives of these feudal Chinese warlords.

I liked how the good and the bad guys are ambiguous but in the end the 'good' guys fail, cause most books like to have the good guys always win

Much manga/anime refer to or use stories and characters from this epic. Besides, this epic is the well-known throughout Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other east and southeast asian countries.

I'm not sure if the term "epic fantasy" applies to this work, since the standard line is that it's "70% history, 30% fiction", but whether it's shelved in "epic fantasy", "historical fiction", or even "magical realism", it's undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of literature. It's almost overwhelming in how full of everything it is: the whirlwind of characters, the unyielding pace of the action, and the seamless integration of so many little human details and emotions that give the many side-plots and minor characters a resonance far out of proportion to their brief page time. Like with all great literature, even those diversions are pure pleasure thanks to clever storytelling. Every chapter ends on a cliffhanger, each analeptic or proleptic excursion adds valuable depth and context to the main narrative, and the consistent treatment of the ways that individual honor, personal loyalty, and political duty overlap and conflict continuously give each and every decision by the main characters a real weight. Luo's account of the struggle to build a new world out of the decay of the old is as powerful as any modern work I can think of.

My edition of the Moss Roberts translation is split into 4 volumes for ease of reading. This volume begins with the immortal incipit "Here begins our tale. The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." and the oath in the peach orchard between Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, and ends with Cao Cao's defeat of Yuan Shao at the battle of Jizhou (chapter 32 out of 120). You could spend a long, long time exegizing every aspect of the novel - its elastic grounding in the historical record and subsequent authorial "improvements"; its biases of heroism and colorations of personality that turn these real people into Homeric archetypes; the slight supernatural touches like the summoning of convenient storms, fatal hauntings of vengeful ghosts, or complex portents and astrological divinations; the way the actions of individuals recapitulate the recurrent patterns of imperiogenesis and imperiopathosis in Chinese history - but a few specific observations came most readily to mind as I finished the first quarter of the tale.

First, imperial power is a fascinating contradiction here. As the saying goes, "civilizations die from suicide, not by murder", and the slow disintegration of the Han dynasty amid the famines and religious fervor of the Yellow Scarves movement (interestingly, this colored clothing rebellion will be echoed several times more at similarly turbulent junctures in Chinese history) is reminiscent of a hollow, gradually rotting tree. While the Emperor's authority is nominally unlimited and he commands (nearly) universal respect, in practice the various warlords, rogue generals, and aristocrats seem to rule with complete independence, and the actual personage of the Emperor is treated somewhat like the puppet Roman Emperors after the Crisis of the Third Century (which by historical happenstance took place only a few decades after the events here), meaning that control of the military is paramount, and to be a successful general is almost synonymous with being a potential imperial claimant yourself. Many years later during the Yuan dynasty, in fact just as Luo was writing the collection of plays that this novel was compiled out of, someone coined the saying that "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away" as a way of highlighting how notional autocracy and practical independence can coexist simultaneously in the vastness of the Chinese landscape when a failing dynasty surrenders power to the court bureaucracy and a succession of generals.

Military strategy is also pretty thought-provoking, both for its realism and for its more whimsical moments. Many novels, even ones that make real efforts at military realism, often skimp on mundane details, like the importance of supply line logistics, the need to post sentries at night, how important the disposition of your troops are in pitched battles, or the finer points of besieging cities. Often lazy authors will describe their heroes as strategic geniuses, but leave the actual demonstrations of their acuity up to the reader's imagination. Not here! All the ingredients of military prowess are on full display, with Cao Cao in particular shown as a true mastermind of deception and consistently able to turn seemingly any setback into an opportunity thanks to his cleverness and willingness to listen to sound advice. The sheer quantity of his cunning feints and countermoves would be truly impressive even if they weren't (mostly) based on real history; both his wit and his opponents' foolishness are very convincingly rendered, as Luo also faithfully depicts the many ways that superior forces can be defeated by a leader's ill-timed vacillation, inconvenient bouts of drunkenness, stubbornness and inflexibility, or by just plain better tactics and superior hustle.

The flip side is that all of the major characters are all invincible superheroes with plot armor that would make the most hack fanfiction writers blush. Take a drink every time one of the protagonists kills an opponent with a single mighty blow, or fights through a crowd of enemies miraculously unscathed, or gets out of a jam by the impossibly convenient arrival of reinforcements just in the nick of time, and in just a few chapters you will be drunker than Zhang Fei himself! It's one of the fictional scenes, but when Guan Yu slays a series of six generals on a single journey to reunite with Liu Bei, it feels like you're reading a novelization of the Dynasty Warriors video games, which are based on this material, and not the other way around. Even when a main character finally dies, it's invariably in a protracted, grandiose boss battle. And yet somehow the comic book-like action sequences, or the occasional appearances of magic, never feel out of place or untrue to the broader story, as malefactors like Dong Zhou appear and then are vanquished according to the inscrutable dictates of the heavens as well as the familiar laws of villainous peril and heroic resolution.

And thanks to Luo's consistent editorializing to let you know who's good and who's bad, the main characters are all memorable and sympathetic to the point where you can't help but get emotionally invested in their fates like the worst kind of nerd fanboy. Luo's obvious cheerleading for Liu Bei and his oath-brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei comes off as almost charming, even though I can't be the only person who got a bit sick over how exaggeratedly noble and virtuous Luo makes him appear at every opportunity. And by the same token, Cao Cao really doesn't seem like as bad a guy as Luo tries to paint him; not only is he the smartest guy around and sincerely reluctant to seize the throne illegitimately, he consistently tries to persuade his enemies over to his side and forgive their past enmities whenever possible. His occasional ruthlessness is of the "it's all in the game" variety, and his "big transgression" of honestly taking credit for killing the deer on the royal hunt when the Emperor missed it is so laughably petty that, when the rest of the imperial court flipped out, I wanted him to just take power right then and there. We're reminded that the Han dynasty is rotten and corrupt every single chapter; might as well let someone with some talent take the reins. I'm firmly on Team Cao Cao, for now at least.

I can't imagine anyone reading this far and not continuing to the next volume as quickly as humanly possible.

This second volume of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, covering chapters 33 to 63, was just as awesome as the first. The breathless pace of the action seems to move faster than the story, as each chapter is still crammed with detail, and so it's often hard to judge how much time is passing within or between scenes, but the expansion of the storyline to include the real beginnings of the infamous division into three kingdoms unfolds in a logical and seemingly inevitable way, one stratagem, double-cross, and blood oath at a time. Despite the inclusion of the most epic battles yet, it's a study in decision and indecision as well, as more powerful warlords like Liu Biao and Sun Quan risk repeating the fate of Yuan Shao in the face of Cao Cao's relentless ambition. It starts off with Cao Cao consolidating the north, his son Cao Pi marrying Yuan Shao's widow Lady Zhen, and ends with Liu Bei riding off west into the Riverlands to found his own kingdom, but there's seemingly entire books in between.

This volume made me think more about the problem of leadership, specifically of how the characters attempt to enforce or encourage loyalty. This has been one of the underlying themes of the book from the very beginning, of course, but it's in this stretch of the story that the Emperor fades into the background and the three kingdoms begin to solidify, and loyalty is no less important in the destruction of one regime than in the creation of another. In an environment like the collapse of the Han dynasty, where there's a nominally all-powerful Emperor but in practice a nearly unlimited amount of autonomy for essentially independent petty warlords, individuals are confronted by an extra layer of moral choice that informs their actions. How should one balance allegiance to the sovereign with filial duties, and obedience to liege lords against an oath sworn to brothers? Watching the many characters grapple with their moral compasses in the face of all the momentous decisions they make in life-or-death situations each chapter is a real pleasure, even if they're unsure of the right course themselves, and even through Luo's determined editorializing between the Big Two. Liu Bei, the hero who, we're continually told, draws men to him through his virtuous nature and noble deeds, has the same problem of winning his own place in the world as his duplicitous antagonist Cao Cao, who's universally derided as a crafty yet corrosive force, yet it's often difficult to see a principled difference between them.

For example, towards the end of the volume, at a crucial moment in the balance of power between the north and the south, Zhang Song travels to Cao Cao near the end to offer him the vitally strategic area of the Riverlands, but he gives up because they're each too stubborn and prideful, and he simply offers the territory to Liu Bei instead. This momentous decision is presented as right and proper, a result of the magnetic attraction of Liu Bei and repulsion of Cao Cao, yet it's not so different than Pang Tong's disagreement and reconciliation with Zhang Fei, and in fact it's also quite similar to the many minor instances where a governor will surrender a town, or a general will defect at the end of a battle, and the decision to reward or execute them for their shift in fealty seems arbitrary rather than appropriate. There's probably literature out there on how Confucianist or Legalist ethics, or prestige and dominance leadership styles, could be formulated in game-theoretic terms, and how each individual conundrum of whether to keep an oath or do the most expedient thing fits into a coherent framework of morality; ultimately I decided to just sit back and enjoy my suspense and outrage cycles as the two decided whether the latest hapless provincial commander would be rewarded for switching sides or beheaded for his treachery as the circumstances above and beyond him shifted.

The real breakout star of this volume isn't Liu Bei or Cao Cao, however, but Kongming. The legends of his sagacity are so great that Liu Bei travels three times to convince him to come work for him, to the consternation of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, whose jealousy at Kongming seeming to supplant them in Liu Bei's heart is a nice bit of character development. And the legends are true! If ever there was a character calculated to delight and entertain audiences, it would be the Sleeping Dragon, an impossibly clever advisor who can concoct ruses subtle enough to fool even Cao Cao and has a handy ability to summon up powerful winds to aid in battle. My favorite example of his ridiculous skill was the scene where Sun Quan's henchman Zhou Yu wants to offer Liu Bei a sham marriage to Lady Sun in order to take him hostage and force him to surrender the strategic province of Jingzhou, which Liu Bei was dragging his heels on relinquishing after the death of his kinsman Liu Biao. This is a dangerous trip for Liu Bei, but no worry: Kongming not only arranges matters so that Liu Bei keeps Jingzhou, but that he successfully marries Lady Sun for real, via the hilarious mechanism of literally giving general Zhao Zilong three sacks with instructions to open each one at the right time to get Liu Bei out of each of Zhou Yu's traps. The buddy comedy friendship between Kongming and fellow wizard Pang Tong is also a real highlight, as each occasionally drops in to make fun of the other before revealing their latest scheme.

Of course, Kongming is far more famous for his deceptive prowess at the Battle of Red Cliffs, which takes up a substantial portion of this volume. Once again I was left marveling at the skillful pacing and ingenious plotting: almost more space is devoted to the feints, deceptions, and betrayals leading up to the battle than to the action itself, and yet as Cao Cao's ill-fated expedition to conquer the south is left routed and shattered, thanks to Kongming's wheels-within-wheels ploys and last-minute conjuration of an east wind, you are never lacking for excitement. You're almost spoiled, too, since right before that is an equally-exciting chapters-long running fight as Liu Bei's retreating army and mass of villagers try to cross the Yangtze for safety in the south, and Cao Cao's forces are only barely held off in the Battle of Changban, where the (in my opinion underrated) Zhang Zilong makes one of his many clutch saves by rescuing Liu Bei's son against great odds (and not for the last time). The heroism and dramatic tension don't let up for a bit, and while there are many points where the ratio of clearly fictional "how could he have known?" strokes of impossible genius against more plausible Nth dimensional chess moves that real people might make gets a bit much, it's all so much fun you don't mind for a minute.

Now's no time to stop reading.

This is a translation from the Chinese made by a missionary, although the idea that a church man performed this translation may seem strange when you look at the plot and the several themes that occur and reoccur in along the novel. Calling the text a novel is also misleading, as this is more a collection of stories which all end up at the marsh. The marsh is an appropriate place for all of these bandits who are escaping from the law, a law which in some cases they were serving, but which, through bad luck and fate has made them turn into highwaymen. We don’t know exactly how many, but from the thousands that are mentioned, probably more than can comfortably find shelter in a desolate place in the countryside. The accommodation for all of these people are a mystery not easily solved; the intake is forever growing --it seems China is a very dangerous place to live.

The story has different variations: a man who works for the government falls out of grace through bad luck or fate, or drunkenness, and commits a crime that makes him leave his town, city, regiment, and start a life of banditry. Before he is accepted he has to fight some of the bandit heroes; after proving his worth and mettle, he becomes one of the leaders. This happens all the time, so I’m not spoiling the plot. After reading two chapters you can work it out for yourself. Ah, don’t go to an inn, or be very careful in them, as some of them make dumplings out of customers, in a never-ending cycle of guest-dumpling-dumpling eaten by a guest who becomes a dumpling and so forth. Luckily for our heroes, they are saved by the bell when someone recognizes them.

Women are very unlucky in this novel, as only one -with some female partners- appears in a fighting role. The others die because they have deprecated a hero, or because they have an extra-marital affair.

Also, if you are a servant in the house of someone who has a dispute with the hero, tough luck: you’ll be part of a massacre. Sometimes, if you are an innocent bystander you may also become involved -that is: killed violently.

Clothes play an important role in the text, I presume, but I don’t know which. Many passages are devoted to the way someone is dressed; I guess this was very meaningful to the readers at the time.

The heroes, after defeating the Emperor’s troops, would be very happy if the Emperor (who is not guilty of the corruption of the court, no sir), pardoned them, and made them soldiers. This is not such a bad idea, because they always defeat the Imperial armies, and their strategy and morale is better.

There are some issues with the translation: cash is treated as a countable noun, as in one cash. Some verbs have been forgotten by the proofreader and have no -d at the end when one is expecting a past tense. Commas are used loosely in the text.

The Water Margin is a novel attributed to Shi Nai’an and is considered one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. I started this book early in February and been reading a chapter or two a day since. This is an epic story about rebels, resistance, war, friendship and revenge. It concerns the gathering together of 108 people who, for various reasons, defy local authorities and join a bandit force hiding out on a march-surrounded mountain. While it is an absolute door-stopper of a book at over 2,100 pages, it is not a difficult read and is full of adventure, humor and traditions of 14th century China.

The book lends itself well to reading in chapters, each one contained a story and each ended with phrasing to the effect that if you wanted to find out what or why something happened then read the next chapter. I was charmed by the story and it took me back to the 1990s when I played a series of RPGs called Sukoden which was loosely based on this book, and in many ways my game playing helped me understand what was happening in this book. The challenge to this read was keeping all the characters straight, and understanding the various military campaigns. There is a lot o information included that concerns tactics, strategy, and military maneuvers on a large scale.

The characters were fascinating and many had very colourful names such as The Jade Unicorn, Du Xing the Demon Face, “Cut Your Heart Out” Wang, and Oily Mudfish which certainly helped to identify them. One of my personal favourites was the drunken monk, Sagacious Lu. Although the book is mostly about action and features battles, kidnappings, assassinations, torture and single combat, one character does do a fair amount of reflection. This is Song Jiang, who emerges as the leader. Also called The Timely Rain, it is he who handles the organization and strategy and has the most empathy of all the characters.

The Water Margin is truly a grand adventure story and is a work of stunning achievement. I enjoyed my read of this book and feel it was well worth the time invested.½

"The Water Margin" is the first of the 'great Chinese novels' that I've read and I generally enjoyed it. The story is an action filled romp with a band of loosely associated outlaws who take the countryside by storm in a variety of ways that generally end with a sword fight, sling of arrows or other violent means of dying.

The book started to drag a bit for me in the middle -- the stories about the outlaws started feeling a bit to similar. It picked up again by the end though and made the long months of reading worth it.½

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.

Easily the most over rated series of books I've read in the couple of years. The greatness of this work is entirely lost on me.½

This review is for both volumes, since I read this about 20 years ago and don't recall the differences between the two.

I read this book in 1994 or so, when I lived in Japan after college. The oldest son of a family with whom I was close (he was also about 23) loved this book and emphasized how important this epic had been to East Asian culture. He wasn't an anthropologist or cultural historian, but he was a well-read history buff and I trusted his judgment. Just in pop culture over the past 30 years, there have been a hugely successful manga adaptation in Japan which I read, a five-hour film adaptation made by John Woo and a video game that is apparently very popular. And that's just what I am aware of, and I no longer am clued in to East Asian pop culture at all.

Of the epics from various cultures that I have read (e.g., the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid), this was the most pure fun for me. I loved the stories of the military exploits and strategems of the great generals and wise officials seeking to unite China after the fall of the Han Empire. I hesitate to comment about its literary merits, because many have complained about the translation and that's not what I remember most. I think that cultural historians will also say that the book has also had a significant impact on the portrayal of various virtues in Chinese culture -- e.g., loyalty, the importance of a united Chinese state, etc. But I am a bit out of my depth there.

The battles did blend into one another a little bit, but I remember plowing through all 1200 pages in not much longer than a week or so. I got out of work every day around dinner time, and I think that all I did that week after dinner was read _Romance of the Three Kingdoms _until late.

If you have an interest in China, epics of various cultures or just great yarns about heroes, I can heartily recommend _Romance of the Three Kingdoms _.

Review by Megan Wallens, July, 2019. Full review in book.

This is a surprisingly readable book, full of adventure and bandits and battles. I truly enjoyed reading this book. Some of the things in this book that made me wonder were the heroes who kept getting into trouble with the government and becoming bandits, the death count, and the women who were all sleeping around under their husbands' noses. The guy who wrote this must have had quite the wife.

The long-lived Han dynasty is finally succumbing to effects of a weak Emperor and corrupt government that is cause injustice throughout China resulting peasant revolts while nobles strive to reform the court. Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, probably, dramatizes the 112-year history of the end of the Han dynasty as the empire divided into the titular three kingdoms before being reunified under the Jin while being true to history for nearly the entire text.

The weakness of the Emperor Ling and his corrupt court results in the Yellow Turban Rebellion and the Emperor asks all loyal subjects to come to arms to fight the rebels. Among that answering the call is Liu Bei, a scion of the Imperial clan, who befriends and joins in a sworn brotherhood Lord Guan and Zhang Fei, Cao Cao a member of a long servicing Han bureaucratic family, and Sun Jian an accomplished general. The numerous warlords crush the rebellion but remain in charge of various districts when the Emperor dies thus setting the stage for the warlords vying for power by controlling the child Emperor and then his young brother when Ling’s immediate successor is deposed (then murdered). Sun Jian heads to the Southlands and founds a dynasty that is cemented by his son Ce that eventually becomes the Kingdom of Wu. Cao Cao’s Machiavellian political acumen and military success results in him getting control of the last Han Emperor, Xian, and control of the northern heartland that eventually becomes the Kingdom of Cao-Wei. Liu Bei and his sworn brothers bouncing from district and district trying to restore the independence and good governance of the Han but the warlords that they serve under continue to fight for their own power. Then the brotherhood is joined by a military-political advisor Kongming that uses Bei’s connection to the Imperial house to establish power in the Riverlands, in the west of the empire, to establish the kingdom of Shu-Han. Yet if not for the alliance between the Riverlands and Southland against Cao Cao in the battle of Red Cliffs, the three-fold division of the empire would not have happened. After the death of Liu Bei and his sworn brothers, Kongming becomes takes up their cause by his six campaigns against Cao-Wei are not successful in conquering the whole of the Northern Heartland. Upon Kongming’s death, the Sima family rises within the ranks of the Cao-Wei that they eventually usurp and reunify the Empire as the Jin dynasty.

Though Luo Guanzhong wrote his masterpiece roughly 1200 years after the events of the novel, he used extensive historical records plus numerous legends and popular stories from the period to enhance Three Kingdoms. The resulting novel is considered seven parts history and three parts fiction, the later portions surround the adventures and actions of Lord Guan and Kongming respectfully whose impact on history was either enlarger or their effectiveness increased. On top of that Luo Guanzhong, along with Mao Gonggang who edited the text a century later, had a political agenda to favor Liu Bei over Cao Cao that giving the former great virtue while the latter is considered a usurper. The four-volume 2339-page novel is an engaging piece of historical fiction with a lot of annotation, by Mao Guanzhong and translator Moss Roberts, though it isn’t perfect. From the text itself, there are hundreds of named characters though most of them are minor characters that are hard to keep straight through the major and secondary characters are easy to keep straight. The Chinese name convention of surname given name is followed throughout and after a while it’s easy to get use to; however one of Luo Guanzhong’s decisions was to have some individuals have multiple names, most notably Liu Bei (Xuande) and Kongming (Zhuge Liang) that at times confuses the reader. The majority problem with the novel is unfortunately the Foreign Language Press edition that I read had grammatical and spelling errors on almost every page that too be fair was easy to read through but was a tad annoying.

Three Kingdoms is a Chinese historical classic novel that I found to be a very readable novel thanks to the true to original translation approach of Moss Roberts that gave Luo Guanzhong’s masterpiece it’s full meaning. Though most of my issues are due to the publisher’s grammatical and spelling errors, they didn’t takeaway from the great historical story that was presented and gives the reader an insight into Chinese history and cultural thought.½

This is an epic Chinese classic about a group of Outlaws who are disillusioned with the rampant corruption in government. They have all experienced incredible injustice and gather one at a time to live a life as an Outlaw in Liangshan Marsh. Although, they're outlaws, they still have honor and integrity and live a Robin Hood type of life taking from the wealthy and corrupt and distributing to the poor (with some for themselves).

This is an epic -- 800 pages worth of epic, and although it was plot-driven, it was a long slog. I found it hard to keep straight the different characters. Was it Li Gun, the Flying Great Sage King Monkey, or Li Jun, the Muddy Water Dragon. But after awhile, I just enjoyed the book for it's general story. It is famous as one of the first Chinese books written that used vernacular Chinese instead of classical Chinese. And for a book written in the 1300s, it was surprisingly readable. In conversations, rather than challenging someone's lie with a 'surely you jest' comment, the language was very colorful, using phrases like 'you're just farting words'. And definitely an interesting view of the Chinese honor code in ancient times.

Liu Bei replied, I am near my fifth decade and have so far failed to rid the state of evil. I greatly regret my failure. Now I have been accepted by the Dowager as her son-in-law, and this is a critical moment in my life. So I implored of Heaven a portent that I might destroy Cao Cao as I would that boulder and restore the dynasty."

Zhuge Liang has made a crucial difference in this epic novel. (note: the typesetting has improved, compared to the first volume but is still subpar. We shan't waste any time on the deplorable maps either.) Much like one Sam Weller in Dickens, the sage advisor Zhuge makes this narrative modern. However, Zhuge similar to GoT's Arya Stark, the reader soon becomes a bit wary around Zhuge, despite his military and metaphysical acumen.

So the cut finger and the blood written decree are all forgotten, eh?

Gentle Reader, I implore you -- if you desire to read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to please avoid the budget edition offered by Amazon. Printed on demand, the edition is clumsily formatted and the type-setting is clunky. The paper is cheap. There are but a handful of notes on a text detailing events which occurred in China some 1800 years ago. How could anyone expect the text to be self-understood? Well, Amazon simply doesn't care. They lead you to a wikipedia page and thank you for your purchase.

My two stars refer to the edition not the work per se.

The opening volume of the volume is rather repetitive with forces from similar sounding names routinely routing one another. The periphery of the text harbors the monstrous. It is the instability of the Yellow Turbans which upends the tranquility of the time. What are these riotous forces? Well, such were a series of peasant rebellions. You won't know that from the text and I'm not referring to the author Luo Guanzhong. Famine is also lurking in every chapter. I am fairly livid by this cheap product and I have about 1800 pages to go.

To complete this, I had to read 3 versions - the version depicted, an e-book translated by C. H. Brewitt Taylor, and Vol III by Ronald C. Iverson (Editor) and Yu Sumei (Translator). Every version had typos and grammar errors. The print books lacked maps while the ebook had a rough map. With so many places mentioned, I had to print a map I found online to better orient myself.

This story is a universe of stories. For the first half of this volume, it seemed that 5 new characters were introduced and 3 killed off for every turn of the page. The 2nd half of this and the 1st half of the next we see more characters getting killed off than introduced and the story arcs settle around 3 main characters, about 10 secondary characters and many tertiary characters who probably die within 10 pages. For the first half, there is enough material for a new movie every 5 pages. At least. Within the middle section, we see larger sections devoted to events like the popular Red Cliffs and Liu Bei's takeover of Shu. Some running battles are given 10 or 20 pages, others only a paragraph.

This is not a modern style of storytelling and it runs fairly rapidly through events. There are many fantastical elements and it seems from the religious language that this is pre-Buddhist China. Human sacrifices are common for various reasons as are animal sacrifices to spirits, gods, ancestors, demons, elements, and others.

The overall story happens at the fall of the Han dynasty through a period of divided kingdoms lead by three great leaders. One sees the mistakes made by unsuccessful leaders who inevitably fall as well as the good choices and most importantly good relationships, fostered by the successful leaders. Successful leaders seek out, foster, support, reward and commiserate with talented individuals. They fill their retinues and courts with them. When failures or bad times happen, they know when to overlook them or punish. The leaders often experienced more failures than not but kept pressing on. Good leaders also recognize the faults in their subordinates and know how to use them in spite of these faults or because of these faults. They are active and informed. These leaders are active and take charge. These themes are repeated over and over.

Leaders who are sensual and pleasure-seeking soon irrevocably fall. Failed leaders turn away from their responsibilities, resent contrary advice, are arbitrary with their rewards and punishments, and do not help the subjects they are responsible for. They rely on unqualified individuals, such as the eunuchs, and inevitably fall. Each displaced emperor and king was more or less passive, awaiting help from other quarters while allowing subordinates to amass too much power.

So while I approached the story as a classic piece of literature, I came away with an extensive primer on leadership.½

This classic of Chinese literature is repetitive, and there may be sooo many characters that it's impossible to remember most of them (even using the character guide in the front of the book--though really, the recurrent characters are the ones who truly matter, and even I could keep them straight reading this over the course of 11 months). But this book is to Chinese literature and culture what something like Pilgrim's Progress is to English/American literature. Only this book is from the 16th/17th century. This edition is a translation of the 1641 70-chapter version.

So, though I did not love the text itself, I very much enjoyed reading something that is so important to Chinese culture and literature. I have seen this book/these characters/the marsh referenced in other places. Now I will be able to better understand those references. I am also very glad I read the intro material both before and after the book itself. Fascinating info on how these bandits follow a Confucian tradition of doing right and holding leaders accountable for doing right as well--and how the 70-chapter version (the original 120 chapters, minus the final 50 that apparently find the outlaws back working for government at the end) was put together during a time in China when one dynasty was ending and another beginning. A tumultuous time, and the ending of the 70-chapter version very much leaves the future of the brigands/heroes/outlaws in doubt. Also very interesting how this was the one Chinese classic that Mao utilized as a Communist book, while other classics were demonized.

I am very glad I read this, but will never read it again. Also, I have so many questions about the logistics of feeding 20,000 outlaws hiding in a Marsh. But that is definitely not the point of this book. LOL.

‘Outlaws of the Marsh’, or ‘Water Margin’, is a beast of a book, divided into 100 chapters and coming in at over 2,000 pages. Major portions of it were written as early as the 14th century, and contain a fictional account of real life outlaws from the 12th century Song dynasty. As such, it has its place with Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron’ and Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’, and in some ways may remind the reader of those works or Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ with all of its warfare, but in many other ways, it’s unique onto itself, reflecting Chinese culture, and one of China’s ‘Four Classic Novels’.

As with other ancient works before the advent of the modern novel, there aren’t a lot of psychological insight or deep observations made here, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. It’s an action story, filled with a large number of characters, with one subplot told over several chapters leading to the next. There are instances of martial arts exploits, such as ‘The Jade-Circle Steps with Duck and Drake Feet’ maneuver, which is flourishing one’s fists in the opponent’s face, turning and walking away, and then catching them with a backward leg kick. There are super-human feats of strength, e.g. uprooting a willow tree, picking up an entire pagoda and moving it, or killing a tiger, all single-handedly. There are characters that may remind you of other super-heroes from the comics of our times, such as Dai Zong with his “magic travel method” resembling The Flash, Zhang Shun, the skilled swimmer dubbed the “White Streak in the Waves” resembling Aquaman (and then some, since he who can stay underwater for seven days and seven nights), and Hua Rong the expert archer resembling Green Arrow or Hawkeye. There are occasional physical abnormalities, such as Huangfu Duan, the veterinarian who has blue eyes with two pupils in each, and Ren Yuan (“Sky-Supporting Pillar”), the wrestler who is ten feet tall. There are also some supernatural aspects, with ghosts talking to the living, or evil spirits inhabiting a place. Lastly, there are Taoist wizards like Gongsun Sheng, who can summon earthquakes, black mists, and sandstorms; they can also pour forth monstrous animals and poisonous serpents in battle, and one wonders why their powers aren’t used more. Of course, the other side sometimes has these wizards as well, including Bao Daoyi, who has a sword called Occult Universe which can fly a hundred paces and kill a man, and late in the novel, a battle takes place in the sky between two supernatural warriors summoned by Taoists, one astride a supernatural dragon.

If violence turns you off, skip this book. There are many double-crosses, instances of false imprisonment, and thievery, followed by brutal vengeance and killing. There are lots and lots of instances of decapitations, bodies being carved up “like hacking melons and slicing vegetables,” and innocent women and children being killed because they’re the family of an enemy. Hearts are cut out, and still dripping blood, offered in sacrifices to the gods. Horse’s legs are hacked with swords to bring their riders to the ground. Rivers flow red with blood. As one character (Wu Song) reasons, “I might as well do this thoroughly; even if I kill a hundred, I can only be executed once.” As another (Li Kui) says, “So I don’t get any credit. But all that killing was a real pleasure.” There are several instances of cannibalism, and by mainline characters. In one, Zhang Qing and his wife ‘Sun the Witch’ use human meat in their dumplings. In another, Li Kui is hungry and realizes “there’s good meat right before me” before cutting off some of the flesh from Li Gui’s leg and roasting it for himself. If that is too much for you, don’t read this book.

There are also a few really nice scenes, such as the glowing lanterns along a hill during a festival with dancers in comic masks in chapter 33. There are references to places such as the Pipa Pavilion in Jiujiang and Xunyang Pavilion in Jiangzhou which still exist (albeit sometimes in rebuilt form), and it was nice to look these up while reading. There is an instance of a classical Song poem quoted (see below), which was a lovely touch. I also liked the half-dream, half-real scene which a character (Song Jiang) has when meeting the ‘Mystic Queen of Ninth Heaven’, as is was so unexpected, and had her dressed in “filmy golden silks, holding a scepter of white jade”, with lovely eyes and a divine countenance. Later she’ll return to him in a dream, giving him advice on how to defeat the powerful Mongol army.

Throughout the book there is also a lot of polite behavior to guests, false modesty, and feasts, along with the drinking of copious bowls of wine. There is also the more utilitarian bribery of officials and guards, which is never described in a cynical way, but instead as an essential tool to get things done. This is a little window into the culture and time period, as are the instances of little sayings, such as “Though you see a friend off a thousand li [a unit of distance], sooner or later you must part”, and “Lust engenders boundless audacity.” There are also little things like armies making night marches wearing ‘stick gags’ to ensure silence, tattooing the face of those convicted of crimes, and medical practices such as green bean powder protecting the heart from poisons, using poultices of powdered gold and ground jade to remove scars, and ‘golden spear ointment’ for an arrow wound.

The book is peppered with salty and ribald language, and there are fantastic nicknames, which I could fill pages with (“Dried Pecker Head”, “Recklessly Rash”, “Devil Incarnate”, “Three Inches of Mulberry Bark”, “River Churning Clam”, “Sick Tiger”, “Magic Calculator”, “Elfin Flutist”, “Nine-Tailed Tortoise”, “Fiery-Eyed Lion”, “Ironclad Virtue”, “Kick a Sheep to Death”, “Flea on a Drum”, “Demon King Who Roils the World”, “Jade Unicorn”, “Ugly Son-in-Law”, “Oily Mudfish”, “God of Death”, “Cut Your Heart Out”, “Drop of Oil”, “Thin-Faced Bear”, etc). One man is known as “Wild Dog” Hao, because “his mother dreamed she was entered by the spirit of a wild dog shortly before she became pregnant with Hao,” and another is “Dragon Dream” Liu for the same reason.

My favorite character early on was the irascible “Sagacious Lu”, a hothead “who gets in hot water and is forced to hide out as a monk in a monastery. It’s with disastrous results, as he has no intentions of renouncing his earthly ways. Another was “Golden Lotus”, the wife of a short and ugly little man who first tries to tempt her brother-in-law Wu Song, and then has an adulterous tryst with a man named Ximen, arranged for by her crafty neighbor Mistress Wang. As Mistress Wang explains it to Ximen, for a successful seduction, he must satisfy five requirements: be handsome, well-endowed (ok, she says he “needs a tool as big as a donkey’s”), rich, forbearing, and attentive. It works, and each day she “returns with a rosy face”.

There are other little bits of sex, you know, to go with all of the violence in the book, for example, “Clever Cloud” in volume two, a young woman who carries on an affair with a monk named Hai the Preceptor. I love the steamy way their desire gradually builds, and how the act itself is described: “He picked her up and carried her to the bed. Then he disrobed her and had his heart’s desire. Only after a long time did the clouds expend their rain.” Later the lovers are described “as close as glue and turpentine, sugar and honey, marrow and bone juice, fish and water, indulging merrily in licentious pleasure.” Of course, the two are eventually discovered, and then executed (which is mentioned as legal at the time, if they’re caught in the act).

One of my favorite characters in volume two was Wu Song, aka “Constable Wu”, who after getting vengeance for his brother, is falsely imprisoned, breaks out, commits various acts of carnage, and then uses clothing from one of the dead men and blood, to boldly write ‘The slayer is Wu Song the tiger-killer’ on the wall. Another was Wang Ying, the so-called “Stumpy Tiger”, a lecherous fellow who attempts to carry off one woman or another until finally given a bride. Lastly, Li Kui, “Black Whirlwind”, who I mention above. He’s an ill-mannered warrior who wields two battle-axes, often fights stark naked, and is impossible to control in his mania to attack, is memorable. The battle he has with Zhang Shun, the “White Streak in the Waves”, first on land and then in the sea, is entertaining.

Li Kui remains a prominent figure throughout volume three, constantly getting into trouble because of his impulsiveness and violent ways. His adventure trying to recruit Gongsun Sheng, getting toyed with by the Taoist wizard and his master, and later befouled with filth by jailors, is a good one. He reminds me of an extreme form of Toshiro Mifune’s character in ‘Seven Samurai’, with the bloodlust dialed up. In one scene he’s asked by a squire to help with what seems to be a supernatural disturbance in his daughter’s room at night, discovers she has a secret lover, and beheads both of them. He then strips to the waist and “flails the two bodies with his axes as if he was drumming”, before reporting back to the squire, who goes into his daughter’s room to see “dismembered parts of the headless bodies scattered all over the floor.” At one point his tendency to get into trouble is so bad that he’s threatened with execution by Song Jiang, but his loyalty and strength always seem to have enough of a perceived virtue in them that he’s valued.

Song Jiang’s story is interesting because despite his character, and his unimposing appearance (he’s described as swarthy, ugly, short, and fat), he’ll eventually become the leader of the outlaws of Liangshang Marsh when Chao Gai takes an arrow to the face and dies in chapter 60. (Chao Gai will reappear as an apparition to provide Song Jian with advice, not unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi in ‘Star Wars’). He resists leadership, trying to give it to Lu Junyi (“Jade Qilin”, translated here as “Jade Unicorn”, though this seems a little westernized, as the two beasts seem different). Song Jiang is a reasonable, generous, and well regarded man, but becomes an outlaw after killing his adulterous wife Poxi in a fit of anger towards the end of volume one. His reputation as “Timely Rain” often precedes and protects him from harm. He can flash anger and is a man of the world, but there is a bit of the Buddha in him when he wisely says of the uncouth and out of control Li Kui, “That’s his nature. No one can change it. But I respect his honesty.” As the book evolves, it’s stated that he’s only leading this band because the emperor’s officials in China are corrupt, and a burden to the people. He seeks amnesty for them, at which point he will give up his lawlessness. However, we do see his cruelty, such as killing a prefect’s son in volume three to ‘help compel him to join their stronghold’, only to have it said shortly later he only does what is morally right. On other occasions, his men will kill entire families, big fractions of a town’s populace, or bind batches of prisoners with big rocks and throw them in the lake to drown them, so it’s hard to truly see them as honorable bandits, but that’s the book’s intention. As for his own men, Song Jiang weeps when they die, and gets depressed when battles don’t go his way. He’s an emotional man who is often consoled by Wu Yong, his military advisor, who tells him “You mustn’t let your distress over your brothers ruin your health.”

Unfortunately, if you’re looking for more positive female characters, you’ve got to go quite a ways before finding one, but eventually, in chapter 47 after 991 pages, you’ll come across “Ten Feet of Steel”, a “courageous girl … who wields two long gleaming swords, and is an excellent horseman.” She’s followed shortly afterwards by Mistress Gu, the Tigress, who is also a powerful fighter. Oh, how I enjoyed “Ten Feet of Steel’s” battle scene and victory over “Stumpy Tiger”, though it is telling that she is unable to refuse when she’s given to him as a bride later.

There is a fair bit of repetition in the themes in the book, one being the drugging of travelers with poisoned wine to rob them, which we first see in volume one. More prevalently, the pattern is that a fierce opponent battles the outlaws, but once captured, is treated with respect (or blackmailed) and cajoled into joining them, which he almost always happily does, and sometimes in a comically short turnaround. The little variations therefore end up being pretty interesting, such as Zhang Qin (the “Featherless Arrow”), who uses his “ape-like arms” to hurl rocks at the outlaws who challenge him, somewhat humorously knocking them down until 15 have been seriously wounded.

One bit of advice I would proffer is to not be intimidated by the sheer number of characters that begin to accumulate over the telling of the story. It gets a little crazy in the last five chapters of volume two, during the siege of the Zhu Family Manor, when large numbers of leaders and armies go at one another in battle after battle. This continues to build as various leaders join the bandits in Liangshan marsh until the end of chapter 70 in volume three, when all 108 are present. At its worst, details for leaders of various regiments are rattled off in large battle scenes, and at its best, the individual stories are told. Just remember that even in those big battle scenes, you don’t need to recall the backstory behind each to enjoy the action, and often if a character is reintroduced for a longer subplot, we’re often reminded of who they are, or you can look them up.

After the 108 outlaws have assembled, they seek amnesty from the emperor, and after a few attempts are scuttled by corrupt imperial ministers, they succeed. In volume four they’re then sent by the emperor to battle the Mongols to the north, who under the Liao Dynasty were a real threat to China. The Tartars often carry black flags and banners, and it’s interesting to hear one general described as having a fair complexion, red lips, golden hair, and green eyes. In one battle, different contingents of their army wear different colors (e.g. “In conical hats of ochre red and robes dyed the color of orangutan blood, over which was chain and fish-scale armor of peach pink”). Included is a contingent of women cavalry dressed in fabulous silver and white. However, I have to say, some of these chapters lag, as battles are on a large scale, and there is less originality.

After defeating the Liaos, they’re then sent south to defeat a group of bandits who have formed under a chieftain named Fang La, another real historical figure who was fictionalized. I loved this description of his clothing: “He wore a high hood of bright gold with turned-up corners and a robe embroidered with nine dragons amid sun, moon, and clouds. A jade belt embossed with gold and precious stones bound his waist. His feet were shod in a pair of royal boots stitched in gold thread with soles of cloud design.” And it’s in battle with Fang La and his armies that the novel finishes strong. To its credit, it shows that many of the bandits suffer the fate that so many who wage war suffer: they are killed in battle. Others die of sickness or retire, and even though the group is ultimately successful, they slowly disband, which of course is the fate of all things. One Buddhist abbot perhaps foreshadows this in Chapter 90 by saying “Alas, all living things afloat in this world futilely howl in mire and sand.” When Gongsun Sheng decides to leave to go back to being a Taoist monk in the mountains, Song Jiang tells him “Our days together were like opening flowers. Our parting is like flowers that fall.” Often when they die, the narrator comments on the tragedy of it all; for example, when ‘Ten Feet of Steel’ is killed by a brick to the forehead, he says “Poor beautiful female warrior, her life was gone like a dream of spring!” There is a wonderful sense of poignancy in these moments, coming after all of the bravado and camaraderie.

In one of the better sequences in volume four, Zhang Shun swims underwater across West Lake in the attempt of breaking through the gate into Hangzhou. After a couple of attempts of quietly scaling its walls from the water, he’s discovered, and dies under a deluge of arrows, javelins, and stones. He appears to Song Jiang in ghost form in a dream, and then exacts his revenge on the bandits in battle by temporarily possessing his comrade Zhang Heng’s body, and then, buff naked, killing their king’s son, one of his generals. In another, Sagacious Lu just sits calmly and wills himself to die to finish a prophecy, writing in his farewell note that “today I know myself at last.”

The novel saves one of the most interesting and surprising moments for the end. Song Jiang discovers he’s dying from slow-acting poison sent in wine by corrupt ministers of the Emperor who are jealous of him. His thoughts are not to bemoan his fate or to seek revenge, instead, he realizes that it’s the pre-ordained time to die, and simply fears that once Li Kui hears of it, he will re-form an outlaw group and rebel, ruining the reputation his group had. So what does he do? He sends Li Kui the same poison, killing him as well. It was a moment which shocked me, though the two talk as ghosts and Li Kui seems to hold no grudges. In a sign of solidarity, Wu Yong and Hua Rong weep over their brothers, and then hang themselves from a tree. Happily, the emperor is told the truth about what happens in a dream, clearing their name, and allowing him to set up the proper memorials to the brave chieftains.

One of the points the book makes amidst all of the action is how fate can be random, how certain events can have all sorts of far-reaching implications to a person and to hundreds of others, of course rippling from there. There are also overtones of it all being a part of a divine plan, for example, as chapter 32 ends, “Truly, the bumpy roads we travel are all part of Heaven’s plan. Can the gales and storms we encounter be sheer accident, then?” There are evil people, of course, but there are also people who end up on the wrong side of the law because of unfairness or misunderstanding. And of course, with the events in the late chapters seeing the outlaws killed or disbanded, we see in it the arc of all life. Perhaps this is why Pearl Buck dubbed her translation of the 70-chapter version “All Men Are Brothers”, though I think it’s quite a stretch especially given all of the violence. A lot of the time it’s people behaving badly – robbing others, bribing officials, and murdering their enemies. In makes for an interesting read though, and that’s pretty impressive for stories that are 500-700 years old. I was thinking that it would be fantastic if selected parts of it were made into a Quentin Tarantino movie, though perhaps I should check out the adaptations that came out of Hong Kong in the 1970’s and 80’s.

Quotes:
On chaos:
“He rode pell-mell northeast, his army in ruins, his men scattered like raindrops and stars.”

On women:
“Good reader, observe: Nine out of ten women, no matter how clever they may be, invariably are taken in by small attentions and flattery.”

On being apart, this poem by Su Dongpo, also known as Su Shi (1037-1101), who I found was also a vegetarian:
“When is there a bright moon?
Ask the sky, cup in hand.
Who knows what year it is
In the palaces of heaven.
I long to go there, riding the wind,
But the cold I cannot stand
In that lofty jade firmament;
I dance alone with my shadow,
As if in another world.

With the beaded curtains rolled high,
The moonlight, streaming through the open window,
Drives away sleep.
I should not be resentful, but why
Is the moon always roundest at parting?
As people have their sorrows and joys, separating and reuniting,
So has the moon its bright and dark, waxing and waning.
Since ancient times, it has always been thus!
If we cannot for long be heart to heart,
Let us enjoy the same moon, far apart!”

Written in the 14th century about events that supposedly occurred in the 12th, Outlaws of the Marsh (aka The Water Margin) is one of the classics of Chinese literature. It’s a collection of folk takes about a group of Robin-Hood-like honorable bandits that set up a fortress in China under the Song Dynasty and go about robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. There are various versions; a 75 chapter version (in which the outlaws are still outlaws at the end); a 100-chapter version (in which the outlaws accept an amnesty from the Song Dynasty government and go on to defend China against a Tartar invasion and a usurping emperor) and a 120-chapter version which adds some adventures.


This was a difficult read; after a while it became laborious rather than enjoyable. One problem, of course, is that it’s hard to keep track of the outlaws; there are eventually 108 of them: Chao Gai, Song Jiang, Lu Junyi, Lin Chong, Chai Jin, Lu Zhishen, Wu Song – and so on. Fortunately the translator usually appends their nicknames; thus we have Timely Rain, God of Death, Black Whirlwind, Nine-Tailed Tortoise, River Churning Clam - and so on. It’s still hard to keep track of who’s who.


In the first part of the novel each chapter recounts how one of the characters becomes an outlaw: tricked by a corrupt official; the result of an accidental killing; revenge for a murder; failure to make a go of it as a Buddhist monk – and so on. After the initial group establishes itself on Liangshan Mountain (also Liangshan Marsh; it’s never explained how it can be a mountain and a marsh simultaneously) things become formulaic: a government official sends troops and a general to suppress the outlaws; the general is defeated; he’s so impressed by the chivalry of the outlaws (who ply him with banquets and gifts and kowtows) that he joins them (since he’s now in disgrace anyway). Another formula is a small group of outlaws set out on some mission; they’re captured by other bandits, but once these bandits find out that their captives are some of the famous Liangshan outlaws, they release them, apologize, and petition to join up


For a group of supposedly chivalrous bandits, the outlaws are pretty bloodthirsty. Li Kui the Black Whirlwind is particularly grim; at one point he annihilates an entire opponent’s household – wife, concubines, children, servants, nannies, etc. When he gets back to the outlaw stronghold he is slightly admonished for being imprudent. Several of the outlaws were cannibals before joining up; at least two pair lured travelers to their inn then drugged them and cut them up for meat dumplings. Although the outlaws supposedly direct their activities against official corruption, their very first approach when things go wrong is to attempt to bribe some officials. Song Jiang, the outlaw leader for most of the book, joins them after murdering his concubine for cheating on him. That brings up another theme – almost all the women portrayed are evil – usually wives or concubines who cheat and are then brutally murdered. The exceptions are Ten Feet of Steel, an outlaw herself (the book generally follows a convention of translating female names), an outlaw warrior; Mistress Gu (one of the aforementioned cannibal couples) and Sun the Witch (another cannibal); thus two out of three of the “good” female characters were former cannibal murderesses.


The battles are formulaic as well. The outlaws meet their opponents, exchange insults, then one engages in single combat with an enemy leader. They use various martial arts weapons – rods, cudgels, staves, axes, halberds, spears, lances, swords, knives, thrown rocks. The outlaw defeats his opponent, who is either killed outright or flees; this disheartens the rest and the outlaws are victorious. It’s almost as if the 14th century author(s) somehow predicted the future would have kung fu movies and planned accordingly.


There are illustrative woodcuts from a Ming version, but it’s often hard to figure out what’s going on. The book could benefit from a lot more endnotes, and could use some maps of contemporary China. This version was published by the Foreign Languages Press of China; the translator is an American who took Chinese citizenship in 1963. I tend to suspect, therefore, that things have been edited to reflect national politics; but there was nothing obvious (the outlaws never use “The Workers Control The Means Of Production!” as a battle cry, for example).


I suppose the best analogy to a Western work would be to Arthurian legend. Everybody literate knows about the Arthur tales; however actually reading the antique language of Sir Thomas Mallory or Chrétien de Troyes or Wolfram von Eschenbach is more of a chore than an adventure. It’s probably heresy to suggest so, but Outlaws of the Marsh would benefit from the Chinese equivalent of T.H. White to clean it up and make it more accessible.