Six Classic Chinese Novels

[Nathan "N.R."]

So there are Six Really Great Chinese Novels. Why not do a completionization upon them? I'm about 100 pages into the stack at this point. Several thousand pages to go.

Briefly, they are ::

Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Water Margin
Journey to the West
The Plum in the Golden Vase
The Scholars
The Story of the Stone/ A Dream of Red Mansions(/Chambers)

For readers in the English language, there has never been a better time to read these Great Works. Modern, scholarly, well translated editions are now available of all six. I've outlined these on my 'Review' of Hsia's study :: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

All six are of course treated in Moore's Novel book.

[Dharmakirti]

Earlier this year I read The Journey to the West Volume 1 (revised edition) translated by Anthony C. Wu. I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading the remaining three volumes.

After I complete The Journey to the West, the next classic Chinese novel I want to read is Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

[Jacob]

2400-or-so pages in. I read The Story of the Stone (5-volume Penguin edition translated by David Hawkes and John Minford) earlier this year, and I recently bought the 4-volume Foreign Language Press Yang translation because I'm contemplating a slow and leisurely reread of the novel at some point in the future. First half of next year, maybe. I also have The Scholars, which I may get to sometime in November or December. As for the rest, I'm considering Journey to the West next, probably sometime next year.

[Larou]

I recently read The Scholars and, after enjoying that considerably more than I had been expecting, just started on The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei: Volume One: The Gathering: 1, so I guess I may as well set the bar to trying to read all six of them. We'll see how far I'll get...

[Nathan "N.R."]

Larou wrote: "I recently read The Scholars and, after enjoying that considerably more than I had been expecting, just started on [book:The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P'ing Mei: Volume One: T..."

Great to hear! And it's totally do-able. Only something like 20 volumes total.

[Larou]

Well, it took me almost exactly a year, but I've actually managed to read all six of them in their unabridged version - somewhat to my own surprise, I have to admit. And to my even greater surprise, the novels proved to a be rather a lot of fun (with Plum in the Golden Vase being a bit of an exception - but then, that's not really supposed to be a romp), and I can only recommend the experience to everyone. If you want to try just one of them - Story of the Stone was the high point for me - while I liked all of the novels, that one blew me away. I'm a bit behind on reviews, but hopefully will eventually get something written on all of them.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Larou wrote: "Well, it took me almost exactly a year, but I've actually managed to read all six of them in their unabridged version - somewhat to my own surprise, I have to admit. And to my even greater surprise..."

Congratulations! Well done!

[Nathan "N.R."]

Ausgezeichnet!