Project for 2011: 水浒传

[Gleaves]

I'm going to throw my 笠 into the ring. I'll join.

I'm going to try and read one chapter a week. I realize a pace like that will not get me through the book this year, but with any luck, I'll be able to speed it up after a few months. I'm realistic about the difficulty level: this is above my level and much of it will go way over my head. But I think it will be fun anyway. I odered the annotated version gato suggested (thanks, looks great), so I think that will help, and I will likely consult a translation from time to time as well. I had the urge to tackle something a little more academic this year, so I think this project will scratch that itch nicely. Once things more or less officially kick-off here, I'll start my tortoise pace. Thanks to renzhe for the proposal and initiative.

[gato]

I browsed around the bookstore and ended up buying the annotated edition of 水浒传 published by 中国戏剧出版社. A few sample pages are attached below to show the level of annotation it has.

http://www.amazon.cn/%E6%B0%B4%E6%B5%92%E4%BC%A0-%E6%96%BD%E8%80%90%E5%BA%B5/dp/B00200LPJI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294893426&sr=8-1

Publisher: 中国戏剧出版社

- Description on cover: "轻松读名著，释意加评注，注音加解词"

- Date: October 1, 2008

- Hardback, 786 pages

- 1 Volume

I also looked at the versions published by 长春出版社 （mentioned above by Wushijiao) and 中国少年儿童出版社 (mentioned above by Glenn and myself).

I went with 戏剧版 because it has an unabridged version of the text (unlike 长春版), and its annotations are just as good if not better than the others.

Here is a summary comparison of the three versions:

- Annotation Level: The level of vocabulary annotation for the three are about the same and more detailed than most other editions on the market. Some words that are annotated in the 戏剧出版社 version is not annotated in the others, and vice versa, but overall the annotation level is about the same. The 戏剧版 and 长春版 seem to have more pinyin annotation than the 少年儿童版 - a bit surprising since the latter is specifically target towards younger readers.

- Annotation Layout: 戏剧版 and 长春版 annotations are embedded within the text, in parentheses right next to the words being explained (see sample pages attached); 少年儿童版 annotations are on the left or right margin of each page.

- Unabridged Text: Both 戏剧出版社 and 少年儿童版 seem to have the full version of the text. 长春版 appears to be abridged, though this is not clearly stated anywhere in the book. I compared a chapter from each edition against the 人民出版社 canonical edition and found that 长春版 was missing some poems and some sentences were re-written in a more colloquial form.

- Size and Binding: The 戏剧版 and 长春版 are 1-volume hardbacks; 少年儿童版 is a 4-volume softback.

- Drawings: 少年儿童版 have some nice color drawings to accompany the text; 戏剧版 and 长春版 are text-only.

- Paper Quality: The paper used for 戏剧版 is thinner compared to 长春版 and 少年儿童版, and therefore might be more susceptible to damage.

WaterMargin1.TIF

WaterMargin2.TIF

WaterMargin3.TIF

[renzhe]

I have not forgotten this.

I discovered that my reading skill has dropped off more than I thought after a year of basic neglect, so I'm reading through 杜拉拉 at the moment, to get some practice in.

This is still planned for early February, and anyone willing to start sooner should do so. It's not as if you'll finish it in a month

[renzhe]

Sorry for the delay -- I'm moving countries and taking care of everything, so I've been quite busy.

I've started on this, so the project is officially underway! I've read the first chapter (our of 120) so far, and intend to keep going until I'm finished, probably some time next year.

A word about difficulty: there are two different types of text one needs to read. The narrative is told as relatively standard, old-fashioned prose, which is peppered with poems and poetic descriptions conveying the majestic of beautiful nature of scenes, places and animals: a lavish hall, a majestic mountain, a vicious tiger. The prose is written in 白话 and is relatively straight-forward to get through, if you consult a good dictionary. Honestly, this is easier than I expected, though the frequency of archaic and rare words is quite high. The poetic parts are in what appears to be Classical Chinese, typeset italic and so far they do not carry important information, only add to the style.

While I could just skip the classical parts and get on with it, it seems like it would be cheating, and I couldn't really claim to have read 水浒转. So my current strategy is to understand the prose 100% and to try to get the main idea behind the poetic parts without aiming for understanding each sentence and each characters. So far, it has worked fine, actually, considering how difficult some of this stuff is (for native speakers too, I hear), so I intend to continue like this.

[gato]

Ok. Maybe I should get started, too. ;)

[Gleaves]

Good work kicking this off, renzhe.

I just read through Chapter 1. The poetic/classical parts are definitely rough going for me. I am going to read through them, but I am not going to expend much energy deciphering them (unless they become more important). The regular prose is tough, but I can more or less follow along. I'm aiming to tackle this one slow and steady, probably a chapter a week.

I'm reading the 少年儿童版 mentioned above. I like the presentation and it does a pretty good job of providing notes. It was a relief to have something like 嘉祐三年 (which appears in the first sentence and means 公元1058) explained right in the margin. Some of the footnotes are less helpful. For instance, ”你不要说谎？“ is footnoted. The footnote explains that the sentence means ”你不是在说谎吧？" That seems somewhat unnecessary given the tons of other difficult stuff going on around it, but maybe my Chinese is not good enough to know why I needed that explained to me.

[Daan]

Good job, renzhe! The first chapter's only 20 pages in my Sanmin edition, and I have this week off...so why don't I join you? 20 pages in 7 days is just under 3 pages a day. Should be doable, right?

[renzhe]

This is just to let you know that I'm back and reading again (half-way through the second chapter still).

The 3000-km move put a slight damper on things, but now that I'm slowly settling down, I'm back to reading.

[renzhe]

...and I'm still here Reading through the fourth chapter. The slow speed is caused by too many things to do, but I try to finish a page or two every night.

I hope somebody out there is reading it still. I'm really enjoying the experience, though it's too early to judge the story, and my language level obviously doesn't allow me to pass judgment on the literary value.

I have to use the dictionary a lot, but I find that most of the difficulty is in the new vocabulary, and less common meanings of common characters. I have to look up a word often, sometimes once for each line, and it reminds me of my beginnings with Jin Yong. It's also quite inspiring to see the richness of the language by doing this. It's a different way to read than what I was doing recently, and I'm enjoying it, though it is definitely work.

Let's hear it. Who's been slacking?

[Gleaves]

Totally guilty on slacking. I'm still in the middle of Chapter 2. I made the somewhat odd choice of starting to read this and Jin Yong (雪山飞狐) at the same time. It was just too much 武侠 for me to handle, so I have 水浒传 on hold for a few weeks.

[gato]

I haven't started 水浒 yet. I've been reading 张永发's 《中国共产革命七十年》 lately. A pretty good read.

http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/supplem/essay/9903026.htm

在史料的叢林中

──讀陳永發新著《中國共產革命七十年》

⊙ 高 華

[anonymoose]

I don't know where you guys all find the time... :unsure:

[Daan]

Guilty as charged...I've only read one chapter so far. I've been very busy writing a paper on Classical Chinese syntax, but I'm almost done, and when I'm done I'll have three months off in which I can read Chinese books to my heart's content. So I'll be catching up with you then, I hope :rolleyes:

[jbradfor]

I'm at exactly 100% of my target! ;)

[rob07]

Reading through the fourth chapter ... though it's too early to judge the story

I think the 鲁达/鲁智深 story arc starts in Chapter 3, so I suppose 史进 has dropped into the background and you are following 鲁智深. 史进 and 鲁智深 are the first of the 108 heroes to be introduced and I would say that their stories are very typical of the book as a whole. The focus will stay on 鲁智深 for a couple of chapters and then switch to someone else. All of the 108 heroes get some sort of introduction and backstory, although most get much less screen time than 鲁智深 (史进 is less important than him but more important than most of the others). So by the time the focus shifts off 鲁智深 in a few chapters you should have a pretty good idea of how much you are going to like the book. In fact, the pattern for most of the book is already set when the focus shifts from 史进 to 鲁智深.

Partially inspired by this thread to read something long again, I started 笑傲江湖 earlier this month.

[renzhe]

Thanks Rob. I'm enjoying the story so far. It seems like the characters are pretty nicely fleshed out even if it looks like a bunch of talking and a bunch of fighting at the first glance. So far, it seems like it's not a story of moral, good rebels against the evil government, but a story of complicated characters with weaknesses and moral problems. 鲁达 is a good example of that.

[rob07]

There's an upmarket Chinese restaurant/bar near where I work that has wallpapered some of its walls with pages from a book of Chinese literary criticism. I was sitting next to some pages from an essay on 水浒传 yesterday. It was having a go at the 梁山好汉 for not basing seniority on merit and being misogynistic. Good stuff.

[renzhe]

Another short update:

About 50 pages in, so roughly 5% Snail's pace, due to lack of time, but I'm making slow progress.

I think that it's slowly becoming easier to read, but I might be just fooling myself. I still need my trusty New Century jumbo dictionary all the time.

[Gleaves]

I picked this back up a week or two ago. I am up to chapter 4. At times, I can pretty closely follow what is going, other times I am a bit mystified. As long as I am getting the major plot points, I'm content.

I found brief chapter summaries here, but it only goes to chapter 60. Does anyone know of a more complete list of chapter by chapter recaps? I know I am going to lose track of things after a bunch of chapters, so I'd like to have quick summaries to reference.

[renzhe]

I have cracked the 100 page mark last night, having reached chapter 12. That's about 10% of the way.

Has everybody else run away already?