《平凡的世界》- Highly Recommended Reading

[Lu]

I don't remember having that at the beginning of 活着, and I read that several years before opening 平凡的世界. But Stapler should probably just try for himself.

[realmayo]

I recall an immediate boost to my troglodyte-related Chinese vocab.

[stapler]

I remember when I started 活著. I had to look up words all the time. But by the 30-40th page it became fairly infrequent.

 

It has also boosted my onomatopoeia and farming vocabulary!

[Basil]

Imron,

 

I'd like to thank you, it was knowing that you had finished this book and that I had said I would write a review that helped get me to the end. & agree with you about the insight into Chinese society at that time. 

 

Others:

A step up from 余华, much more description and slower pace.

 

Scifi book: heliconia spring, brian aldiss. Read Greybeard a while back, which was a good story. The characterisation in this one was just too flat to be sustainable.

 

I really don't get the whole e-book thing. More tiring on the eyes, less sense of progress, and nothing to guilt trip you from its perch when you've moved on to less noble pursuits. 

[gato]

Was it worth the 1200 pages? What did you think of the appearance by an outer space alien late in the book?

 

http://hsb.hsw.cn/2015-03/25/content_8568356.htm

《平凡的世界》为啥出现外星人？(图)

　《平凡的世界》总编剧温豪杰昨日在西安接受华商报记者采访时回应：“路遥先生的原著中就有外星人。”而路遥的好友和谷接受华商报记者采访时讲述了路遥小说中出现外星人的用意。

[Basil]

Hah,

 

I felt that even 路遥 got either bored, stoned, or had just watched life of brian!

 

I'm glad I've read it. After this I won't feel so guilty about not finishing books...

 

But was it worth 1200 pages?

 

Frankly no... but if the author hadn't whispered in my ear quite so much and left me to use my own noggin from time to time, I think the whole story could have been cut down to a thousand. I would then easily have given it 4/5.

 

My main gripe is not with the length of the book, it's the constant interference, examples off the top of my head:

 

但是读者，有时生活就是这样悲惨。。。

 

但是我们不要去觉得她这样做很坏。。。

 

et cetera et cetera ad infinitum.

 

I frequently wanted to shout at him, shut up, tell the story, I'll make my own inferences thank you very much.

[StChris]

This book was recommended to me by a mainland uni student I met in a hostel in Taiwan. He was almost lost for words and close to tears as he tried to describe the story to me. Just like irom said in his original post, he toldme that anyone who wants to understand modern China and what it went through in the later half of the 20th century just has to read it. Well, that was enough for me to make a mental note to read it in the future, and now the time has finally arrived to start tackling this 1200 page monster!

 

I noticed there were some problems finding a reliable online version (or one without annoying adds anyway). After a lot of baiduing I've managed to find what seems like a legit online version, as well as the audiobook (the only ad for the text version is for a Russian dating agency inviting you to "fall in love with Russian beauties" complete with photos of said beauties, which might actually provide a welcome break whenever my eyes get tired of the hanzi).

 

Online version:

http://www.pingfandeshijie.net/

 

Online audiobook:

http://www.ximalaya.com/25914902/album/388591

 

TV series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3FYxYauwM&list=PLb79YyvZG1qRaXS7O2mezQpH-Qg0XWE_X

[imron]

Look forward to hearing your thoughts once as you are reading and once you have finished :-)

[StChris]

Haha, you might have to wait a while for a final verdict. I'll be very surprised if I manage to polish this one off before 2016 rolls in.

 

By the way, for anyone else planning on reading this, the audiobook I linked to seems to be a slightly abridged version of the text version.

[L-F-J]

Audiobooks are almost always abridged. Otherwise that would be a monster project I'm not sure anyone would want to tackle. I found many long but inconsequential paragraphs were dropped in the audio version of this book. Still worth listening to a chapter first, then going in and reading.

 

However, the online version at pingfandeshijie.net was brought up on the previous page. It has the same problems as other online versions. I've just finished reading book 2 and have been following the version on the blog linked to on post #67. It seems to be the most accurate. Only problem is, I don't think it has all the chapters for book 3. So, I'll have to do something else when I get there.

[L-F-J]

-Double Post-

[giokve]

I'm 40 chapters in. I can't really put into words my feelings about it in what is a second language to me, but I think the author plays up too much the innocence and benevolence of some characters. Can a person like 少安's wife exist in the real world?

 

I will probably keep reading it just because I got into the habit of reading it in bed before falling asleep. It's also surprisingly quite easy.

[StChris]

The ximalaya audoibook was taken down. Here's a new link:

http://junshi.zgpingshu.com/2385/

[laurenth]

This is just a "me too" post, but here goes.

 

I started reading Lu Yao's 平凡的世界 a few weeks ago. I'm 13 chapters in, p. 89, and enjoying it.

 

I believe several people around here, like me, started reading contemporary Chinese literature with Yu Hua, because he's supposed to use a fairly simple language. It's hard not to compare Yu Hua and Lu Yao because there's some overlap in the background of their novels, namely rural China during the cultural revolution. However, the way they talk about it is diametrically opposed. Whereas Yu Hua is often sardonic and seems to - almost - relish in cruel details about the tragedies his characters have to endure, Lu Yao casts a much more empathic and dignified gaze on rural China and the hardships of the time. Though I do like Yu Hua, the change of tone is refreshing, even though the facts that are described are rather depressing.

 

Speaking of which, before I started 平凡的世界, I'd just finished Ba Jin's 家 and I was surprised to find eerie similarities between arranged marriage  in the "old society" as described by Ba Jin and the blackmail used in the 1970s against 田润叶 in chapter 12. Also, the division between "lesser equals" and "more equals" right in the middle of triumphant communism shows that the corpse of the "old society" was not as cold as it was supposed to be. Some things only seem to change.

 

I use both an electronic and a paper version simultaneously: the electronic one tends to be for the parts where more dictionary lookups are necessary, while the paper version is for those parts which I find easier. Lu Yao's language is not too complicated. However there's a certain quantity of vocabulary related to the politics of the time and rural life. At the start of chapter 13, I definitely needed Pleco reader to guide me through the description of a vegetable garden.

 

I'm not sure I'll read all three parts: at my current rate, it would take about a year, which is way too long.

[somethingfunny]

 

 

At the start of chapter 13, I definitely needed Pleco reader to guide me through the description of a vegetable garden.

 

Tell me about it.  It's annoying because when I'm looking everything up I kind of get the feeling it's almost not worth it - I get the gist of what they're talking about, do I really need to know all the specifics?  Especially if I'm probably going to forget it pretty quickly.

 

I read half the first book then decided to take a little break.  There's a bit of a separating page halfway through my copy so it seems to indicate a natural break in the story.  Also, I find the style kind of slow and drawn out so a break seemed like a good idea - I just hope I remember what happened when I go back, although I feel that not really much happened so it shouldn't be a problem.

[laurenth]

 It's annoying because when I'm looking everything up I kind of get the feeling it's almost not worth it - I get the gist of what they're talking about, do I really need to know all the specifics?  Especially if I'm probably going to forget it pretty quickly.

 

Same here.

 

When I started reading full-length Chinese novels (余华's《许三观卖血记》 and  王强's 《圈子圈套 I》), it took me 3 to 4 months and, in many parts, maybe even most of the time, just like you described, I had to make do with just getting the gist, be happy when I understood one full sentence and ecstatic for one full paragraph. I had to look up an awful amount of words, much more than I could remember, and had the impression I was forgetting most of the rest anyway.

 

Now, after a dozen full length novels, a bunch of novellas and countless short stories, it still takes me 3 to 4 months to read a novel. My reading speed has not improved at all, and yet the way I read is very different: now, the parts where I have to look up too many words and I have to move on with just a vague idea of what's going on are clearly a minority; I have a much deeper, finer-grained understanding of most of the text. Most of the time.

 

(Note to self: whenever  you say something like that, about how you've made progress and all, you can be sure you will come across a part where you'll feel like you're thrown back three or four years in time, not understanding anything).

 

[imron]

My reading speed has not improved at all

Have you made any conscious attempts to improve it?  Often your reading speed will get set at a time when you weren't capable of reading much faster, and due to habit, will stick there as your reading ability increases.

 

You might be able to make some quick and easy gains, that pay off massive dividends either in time saved or more things read.

[laurenth]

In time I'd certainly like to try to increase my reading speed. Up to now, I haven't made any conscious effort to that end, though, because  increasing my vocabulary size was and still is the most pressing objective.

 

My impression is that working on reading speed makes sense only when understanding what you read is no longer a problem. In my case, the main benefit of reading a lot has been an improvement in reading comprehension, but I'm afraid I'm still very far away from the point where I can afford the luxury of trying to read faster.

 

[Edit] To be honnest I read your post (re-read in fact; I 'd read it some time ago and thought it was not for me) after I posted my answer.  However, the drills you suggest seem to make sense even at my level, provided I can find the appropriate material. If there were 48 hours in a day, I'd make sure to add such drills to my daily routine One day, it will be a priority.

Edited February 28, 2016 at 07:51 PM by laurenth

[imron]

Understanding all of what you are reading is an important factor for improving reading speed, which is why in that post I recommend only drilling reading speed with content you fully understand.

The benefits of drilling reading speed will flow on to all your other reading though.

Regarding time, it might be worth spending 10-15 minutes testing your current speed. If it's low (say 100cpm) then it probably worth spending 10-15 mins a day working on it, because you'll have easy gains in speed that will let you get that time back very quickly.

For example, if you have a goal to read 5 pages a day and it is taking you an hour at 100 cpm, then if you can increase your speed to 150cpm it will only take you 40 mins - that is you now have 20 extra minutes in the day :-D

[laurenth]

Out of curiosity I tested myself on 8 texts (an extract of 平凡的世界 and seven different transcripts of the podcast 慢速中文) and got 106, 118, 137, 77 (an accident?), 119, 128, 134 and 128 cpm. So, yes, quite slow. Though improving reading speed is definitely not a top priority, I could consider devoting some of my "lunch-time Chinese study time" to such exercises. Yet, I remain convinced that I should further improve my vocab first and foremost: while reading, say, 平凡的世界, the main factor that slows me down is not reading speed per se, it's dictionary lookups. Anyway, today's exercise will provide a useful baseline.