Quote:
Originally Posted by maianhvk
ohh what do you think about "Romance of 3 kingdoms"? I read it when I was 17, a translation also but I think Vietnamese resembles Chinese very much (the biggest difference is how they are written), and the translator did a terrific job so the poems and the rhythms were almost perfect. I always wondered how it would be, reading an English translation or any Western translation.
|
Chinese poems translated to English are always krud. It just doesn't have the same structure, rhythm, or anything. The imagery/meaning is all off too, and English translators manage to make everything sound archaic or bizarre when it's not. I have a vague wish of eventually learning enough Chinese to read it in the original language just for historical nerd power cred, but I'm just not as interested in learning it over other languages. Being in Canada, I need to work on my French first >_>
I still enjoyed reading a badly translated RTK for the battle tactics, excessive/awesome gore and battle heroics, and the unfolding politics.
I feel pretty bad for Zhou Yu. Luo Guanzhong had to write him as a prissy jealous man to create rivalry between him and Zhuge Liang, and so people still remember him that way instead of the skilled strategist that he was in history. A man dying out of jealousy? Pfft.
I'm only really proficient in English. I know Tagalog but there isn't a lot of literature/media/cultural products produced in Tagalog, so as a consumer of culture, I feel locked into the English speaking world. Language acts like a DRMed device and it limits what cultural products I can check out. Sometimes translations aren't good enough or aren't available. Sometimes, I do get sick of reading about American characters all the time, or reading sword and fantasy worlds based off ye olde western Europe. There's other cultures out there that are vibrant and interesting.
It's really cool that many folks from Asia have the shared cultural product of RTK--a 700 year old book of both history and fiction. I can't think of an equally engrossing war epic in Western culture with that kind of reach. Or have as many comic books/TV shows/movie spinoffs. (John Woo's Red Cliff movies were awesome. Yes, thankfully I had access to copies without the American edits).
I can safely say Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a 5 star book, although it trails a bit off after Zhuge Liang dies :P