Challenging passages in 棋王

[Sam Addington]

Every now and then I get stuck in a passage and can't move on till I've thoroughly analysed it. Until I can hear it in my head, I don't feel right letting the passage slip by. I have been stuck on page 3 of the manuscript Skylee provided us for days now. I thought I'd share my notes.

王一生简直大名鼎鼎。Wang Yisheng was quite simply bigger than life.

This passage 丁丁当当s in my ears. I would love to be able to use it. Is it useful? You guys living in China sure are lucky to be able to put all these new ideas to immediate use!

Do you like my translation?

常常有象棋厮杀 = 有seems to be a weak verb to use in such a colorful passage. My challenge was in internalizing the term 厮杀however.

Our school often had xiangqi battles with the students in other nearby schools.

后来拚出几个高手 = producing several chess masters. (The use of 拚continues to elude me.)

摆擂台 I have often seen the word 摆(though I am more comfortable with the 繁体 form 擺) but it is not part of my active vocabulary. Is this a common spoken form?

Would you translate 擂台as arena? These chess masters would often set up matches and after a while Wang Yisheng would almost always emerge the victor. (Too liberal in my translation?)

我也对其事迹略闻一二 I was uncertain where the word breaks in this phrase occur. 其事迹 would be "his deeds" right? I heard a few vague details of his deeds?

不信人们说的那些王一生的呆事 I didn't believe the stupid things people were saying about him?

寻逸闻鄙事 people were turning ordinary things into legends?

串联时 Is this a political term of some sort? collectivization for example? My dictionary isn't good enough to clarify this.

Later it occured to me that this might be a series of tournaments, matches.

[gato]

Glad you are reading, Sam.

后来拚出几个高手 = producing several chess masters. (The use of 拚continues to elude me.)

拚 can be translated as "struggle".

摆擂台 I have often seen the word 摆(though I am more comfortable with the 繁体 form 擺) but it is not part of my active vocabulary. Is this a common spoken form?

You are right. 摆 means set up.

我也对其事迹略闻一二 I was uncertain where the word breaks in this phrase occur. 其事迹 would be "his deeds" right? I heard a few vague details of his deeds?

其 is the possessive its/his/her from classical Chinese.

不信人们说的那些王一生的呆事 I didn't believe the stupid things people were saying about him?

The 呆事 belong to 王一生, thus here it's referring to stupid things done by Wang.

寻逸闻鄙事 people were turning ordinary things into legends?

逸闻鄙事 can translated as gossip and scandals.

串联时 Is this a political term of some sort? collectivization for example?

串联 refers to a practice during the Cultural Revolution of student groups going from place to place to engage in political demonstrations .

See http://www.xici.net/b7556/d3867986.htm

外出串联～文革系列故事之二

[Sam Addington]

Immensly helpful. Thank you Gato.

The text continues to be difficult for me. In parts I wonder if it is entirely my fault. Anyway, let me try to translate the text at the top of page 4:

后来常常是众人齐做一方，七嘴八舌与呆子对手。呆子也不忙，反倒促众人快走，因为师傅多了，常为一步棋如何走自家争吵起来。就这样，在一处呆子可以连杀上一天。

After that you could often see everyone lined up on one side, noisily facing off with Daizi. Daizi was not at all hurried; to the contrary he urged everyone to leave because there were too many shifus and they often quarrelled among themselves over a single move. Like this, Daizi could spend an entire day in one place at continual play.

I suppose this is okay; I had trouble with the passage because it seemed a bit contradictory. On the one hand he is 不忙 and on the other hand he 促众人快走. I think the most difficult part of reading a foreign text are the OBLIQUE passages. The mind will make the leap when you are reading in your native language, but it becomes much more literal when you are trying to read in another language.

邀 = yao1, invite, ask .... this was a new word for me. It is such a complex character. Somehow it looks like it should be pronounced ji ... no wonder .... 刺激！！！

反队审 Do not know this one at all. I wager it is an abbreviation of some sort? A brigade for investigating a counter-revolutionary?

棋锋必健 His chess skills will be sharpened? will be more robust?

Hopefully, things will go a bit more quickly for me from this point forward. I will also read the passage your link refered to. How did you find that?

I read the bio, but I forget when this story was published. I can look it up, but if you happen to mention it in passing ...

[gato]

呆子也不忙，反倒促众人快走，因为师傅多了，常为一步棋如何走自家争吵起来。就这样，在一处呆子可以连杀上一天。

I don't have the hard copy with me. If you are reading it online, there could be errors introduced in the scanning. "呆子也不忙" might be "呆子也不慌" (not scared), which would make a little more sense, but not necessarily. The difficulty you are having with that sentence is mostly because you don't know that that 走象棋 means "to play chess." “快走" means "to hurry up and play (i.e. make a move)." You have the rest of it right. Keep at it. It's quite a lovely story.

《棋王》 was published in 1984.

http://www.bwsk.com/xd/a/acheng/

阿城作品集

阿城于1984年开始创作。在处女作《棋王》中，阿城表现出自己的哲学：“普遍认为很苦的知青生活，在生活水准低下的贫民阶层看来，也许是物质上升了一级呢！另外就是普通人的‘英雄’行为常常是历史的缩影。那些普通人在一种被迫的情况下，焕发出一定的光彩。之后，普通人又复归为普通人，并且常常被自己有过的行为所惊吓，因此，从个人来说，常常是从零开始，复归为零，而历史由此便进一步。”小说一发，便震惊文坛，先后获 1984年福建《中短篇小说选刊》评选优秀作品奖和第三届全国秀中篇小说奖。

http://news.xinhuanet.com/book/2003-10/29/content_1148248.htm

阿城，阿城

阿城笔力老而弥辣，众所周知。写《棋王》时，他已经３５岁了。他曾经可是说过要写“八王”的。第四王“车王”写好后，邮寄途中给弄丢了。真是个重大打击，从此，我们不能看见剩下的“五王”了。悲哉！