Classic Chinese Novel: A Critical Introduction

by Chih-Tsing Hsia

Book Overview

C. T. Hsia studies in depth six landmarks of Chinese fiction: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West, Chin P'ing Mei, The Scholars, and Dream of the Red Chamber.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231086695
• ISBN13: 9780231086691
• Release Date: January 1968
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Great one-volume introduction to the classic Chinese novels!

This book (a reprint, it was originally published in 1968) is a critical introduction to the "classic" Chinese novels. Specifically, it has chapters on _The Romance of the Three Kingdoms_, _The Water Margin_, _Journey to the West_, _Chin P'ing Mei_, _The Scholars_, and _Dream of the Red Chamber_. There is also an appendix on "Society and Self in the Chinese Story" and bibliographies of translations and other works about each novel.I found this to be a very clear, informative, and insightful introduction to these great works of Chinese literature. Hsia provides the context necessary to understand the origin of each novel, as well as a discussion of some of the most important interpretive issues raised by each book. I found that I could appreciate these novels much better with some help from Hsia. Part of the reason for this, I think is that Hsia's style of writing is pleasantly "pre-postmodern" (that is, clear and unpretentious). There are good English translations of all the novels Hsia discusses except for _The Water Margin_. Several of them are quite long, so you would not be a total wimp for reading a condensed version. Moss Roberts has both a complete and a selected translation of _Three Kingdoms_ (a heroic war story). Arthur Waley's _Monkey_ is the most widely read selected translation of _Journey to the West_ (a funny and fantastic story of a religious pilgrimage). David Roy's _The Plum in the Golden Vase_ is a partial translation of the erotic novel, _Chin P'ing Mei_. _The Story of the Stone_ is the alternative title of _Dream of the Red Chamber_ a sort of romance/Buddhist parable, that has been translated in five (gulp!) volumes by David Hawkes. _The Story of the Stone_ is supposed to be the greatest Chinese novel, and it certainly has some very great parts, but overall I found it too slow moving. My own favorite of the classic Chinese novels is _The Scholars_, a satire of hypocrisy and immorality among Confucian literati, available in a handsome translation by Hsien-I Yang and Gladys Yang.So buy this book, along with a good translation of one of the novels that Hsia discusses, and sit down for a great read!