What are you reading?

[gougou]

Yeah, agree with laurenth. I think not Yu Hua is to be blamed for the objectification (not just of women), but the society he writes about.

Have you read anything by 池莉？ I read 所以 a few years back. which to me felt like a very female novel. It's not high literature, but I found it interesting.

[gato]

I haven't read any book from the last 10 years or so that recognizes that. There are writers from a bit longer ago (Zhang Jie, Xi Xi, Sanmao, Ba Jin, Hong Ying, in no particular order) that do get it, but I get the impression that in new literature, women-as-people is not a very popular trope. Recommendations proving me wrong are always welcome. Du Lala has already been mentioned earlier

How about reading some female authors like 西西, 王安忆, or 朱天文?

Now reading Han Han's 1988 我想和这个世界谈谈, which I fear will be another case in point.

His magazine 独唱团 had an excerpt from "1988 我想和这个世界谈谈" that dealt with prostitution, so probably not much better from the feminist perspective. Han Han's forte is in puns, which works better in his essays than novels. His writing feels formulaic after a while.

[skylee]

I don't usually read Han Han. But I have read his blog 碎片 and I quite like it.

As to female writer, how about reading some 亦舒? Her earlier works are quite good IMHO.

[imron]

Finished reading 《飞狐外传》and I think this book had a number of problems with it.

I really didn't like how Jin Yong tried to bring in all the characters from《雪山飞狐》and especially not the parts with 苗人凤 and 胡斐 together, and to me it's pretty unbelievable that 胡斐 wouldn't go back and try to speak with him in the next 10 years and find out the truth or that 苗人凤 wouldn't try to seek him out either to find out what connection he had to 胡一刀. Plus there are a number of continuity issues between the two stories caused where the author has tried to retrofit events in《雪山飞狐》to match the current story. It's kind of the 'Highlander 2' of Jin Yong (though not quite as bad). To be fair, Jin Yong himself acknowledges this weakness in the afterword.

It also suffered from the fact that if you'd read 《雪山飞狐》first then it destroys parts of the plot.

We know nothing is going to happen to 胡斐, or to 苗人凤 in this story because they are alive and well in《雪山飞狐》. Conversely neither of the two romantic interests make an appearance in the original, therefore you know things probably aren't going to end up well on either of those fronts.

In that sense, it might be better to read《飞狐外传》first, but then that might ruin parts of《雪山飞狐》and personally I think《雪山飞狐》is the better story so if I had to chose which one to have bits ruined from, I would choose《飞狐外传》.

Moreso than his other novels I really got the feeling that this was written in a serialised format, except the sense I got was that the author kept deciding to change his mind about where to take the story because it seemed he was continually writing in passages to explain previous events in a different light in order to make sense and be consistent with whatever new direction he wanted to take it. This was especially so towards the end where he goes on for several pages just to connect various different events and story arcs. Perhaps that was what he intended, but it felt really laboured, and IMO detracted from the story.

Anyway, I'm now reading 《北京记者》

[skylee]

When are you going to read the big ones? Like 倚天？ I don't know why but I like this one more and more, probably because the characters are all full of flaws. And have you read 碧血劍？ (I think you have.) How do you like 溫青青？

[imron]

When are you going to read the big ones? Like 倚天？

I'm reading them in the order they were written, so 倚天 will be next, once I've read a couple of books in some other genres first :-)

碧血劍 is my favourite out of the ones I've read so far, and is the one I've gone back to several times to read my favourite parts. At the beginning I didn't like 溫青青 so much as she came across too bratty. She got better as the book went on, and I felt sorry for her in the end, especially how 袁承志 treated her.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on《飞狐外传》?

[skylee]

Frankly I don't remember a lot of the plot. Because I have only read the two books like two times, I guess. I remember the characters' names, though, and bits and pieces like why Mr Miao thinks he must marry Mrs Miao, etc. I have not read 碧血劍 too many times, either (twice I guess). But I remember very clearly that I disliked 溫青青.

[muirm]

Finished 圈子圈套 and started on 神雕侠侣 last week. This one might take a while since I'm only reading on the train. It's also really hard to use OCR on the train, so hopefully it encourages me to actually remember some of those uncommon words that don't pop up quite often enough to stick.

[skylee]

I am going to read Deadlocked (Southern Vampire series). I no longer look forward to reading books of this series but as I have a copy I will read it.

[imron]

Finished 《北京记者》and have started on 《黄金时代》.

《北京记者》is a pretty uneventful novel. Rather than having any sort of overarching plot or narrative it just opens up a window on people's lives for a brief period of time. Things happen, then other things happen, then some more things happen, and some more other things happen and then the book ends.

Actually I find that this style of novel is quite common in Chinese, maybe it is in English too, but I guess my novel reading in English tends to be in genres that require a more story driven approach.

This is not necessarily a bad thing if it's done well (see for example 《平凡的世界》) but 《北京记者》doesn't seem to do it very well IMO.

[Meng Lelan]

Ok, I finally finished 《十個詞彙裡的中國》by 余華, the trad character edition I got from a bookseller in Taiwan.

Yu Hua tries to sum up China in 10 words. Each of the ten essays in there explains each choice of word. His writing seems round-about, going around in circles and spirals with all kinds of stories that don't seem to connect until he tries to sum up at the end of the chapter what those stories have to do with the word of the chapter. A lot of the stories are what he hears from acquaintances, family, friends, the press. A lot of it is autobiographical. Many stories show how Yu Hua behaved towards others in his life. He writes about how he was extremely aggressive towards others especially those who were vulnerable and weak. He writes about how he was attracted to watching executions. He can't empathize with others sufferings at all because he is too busy admiring himself so much. He makes women as objects of violence or sex. So in the end I lost track of his goal of describing China in ten words and lost respect for Yu Hua too. The only two things he seems to do well in life is to beat up guys and to read books. I don't think he is a good writer. However, I was immensely pleased by the ending when his doctor parents turned the tables on him. So that's my review of this book. Now I'm on to something else, namely , 孔子論語。

[heifeng]

I'm reading the Chinese translation of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China However, I am apparently half BLIND or my mouse clicking paw hand has a mind of its own b/c I ended up with the Traditional version. ANYWAY, I figured it was a sign that I am meant to read more in traditional Chinese, so whatever, that's what it will be, the amazon e-book gods have spoken!

So...apparently this is a bit long, but I'm done w/ 6%. Yep, 6 whole %. BUT it does keep me on track for my 'historical' reading goal. (ahem, yes, I know, I need to actually copy & paste 2012 write 2013's goals!)

I'm reading some other books too (now I can just be a kindle e-book hoarder since more Chinese books seem available woohoo!), but I'll report back on those later once I feel I have a high confidence level in actually completing them!

[Lu]

His magazine 独唱团 had an excerpt from "1988 我想和这个世界谈谈" that dealt with prostitution, so probably not much better from the feminist perspective.

I finished 1988 (a while ago actually) and while I initially was also turned off by the beginning, it actually gets a lot better. The novel starts out with our young (male, of course) protagonist being solicited in his hotel room by a prostitute, not a very pretty one mind you, but he sleeps with her anyway because he's 不好意思 to turn her down; he then generally treats her like shit and then they get arrested. But after that, we get to know the prostitute almost as well as the protagonist, she turns out to have her own history, hopes and dreams and I found her quite likeable (as a character, probably not in person), practical and completely unrealistic at the same time. Han Han is still not Ba Jin or Xi Xi, but if you want to read something by him, 1988 is not a bad choice.

I'm now not reading anything Chinese, but just ordered a small pile of books from Amazon so that should be amended soon. I should do some serious book shopping soon, leaving China in two months so I should get a little stack while I can.

[WangYuHong]

I'm still working on 《混也是一种生活》

It's a long book...

I was doing so well last year, started reading again back in March, reading about 1 book a month for March, April, and May...

Then I picked up this book. After working on it for about 8 months now, I'm still only 66% of the way through it. The good reading habits I had developed have disappeared, and my day-job has become super busy, so I only get time to read about twice a week now.

It's still an entertaining book though, and I intend to finish it before moving on to others in my list, but I think just the fact that it's so long is making me a little discouraged.

[feihong]

I recently finished Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I read about one-third of the book in Chinese and all of it in English. Although I enjoyed the book, the Chinese version contains some pretty obtuse transliterations for places that ought to sound familiar to many native English speakers.

Overall It was good practice, though, and I'm proud to say it's the most difficult novel I've attempted so far. Because the original English version is written in an imitation of 19th-century English, it uses a lot of antiquated words and grammatical structures. Correspondingly, the Chinese version hits you with tons of words containing rare characters as well as gobs of chengyu. It's a good deal harder than 古龙, though not as hard as 金庸.

Now I've just started 多情剑客无情剑.

[icebear]

Been reading a lot of Caixin (English) on my Kindle - I like how the articles are brief and cover China features that I don't see in Western press. Also complimentary to reading the Chinese website, which I check a few articles a day on.

The first Game of Thrones (English) - pretty good, will probably eventually get through them all, but not successively.

Recently read: Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, Red Capitalism, and Sustaining China's Economic Growth After the Global Financial Crisis; all good, recentish books on China's economy. The first is especially good.

[OneEye]

I just started reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle in Chinese (馮內果，《貓的搖籃》). He's one of my favorite authors, but it been a while since I've read anything by him, and I haven't read this one yet. Bedtime reading is 《一本就通：中國史》 when I want to go to sleep quickly, and 《死亡筆記本》 (Chinese translation of Deathnote, currently on volume 3) if I want to stay up a while. If I have more brain power left to expend at night, sometimes I'll read 《史記選讀》.

I'm also back to working on a high school 國文 reader, 《文言文40篇大探索》, maybe one or two selections per week. Still making my way through 《尚書》, which is going to take a while. The former feels much more like reading, and the latter much more like dissection because I haven't yet gotten used to the early form of Chinese it's written in.

I've been carrying around The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System by William Boltz in my backpack for a while, but haven't cracked it open yet. Maybe if I keep it in there, I'll read it eventually. I'm trying to keep my brain in "Chinese mode" as much as possible these days though, so we'll see.

[amandagmu]

Bedtime reading is 《一本就通：中國史》 when I want to go to sleep quickly,

lol! That's my excuse for why I'm not able to finish the history reference books I have on my shelf. I use them to look up stuff and occasionally read necessary sections but geezus, they are a snooze!

When I can't sleep I pick up any volume of government directives (文件) and start reading. Usually can't make it past a few paragraphs before insomnia problem is solved.

[Meng Lelan]

棋王is what I am reading now.

[Lu]

棋王is what I am reading now.

Which one? Two or three different authors wrote a book with that same title.