Been Reading
Aug. 12th, 2005 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudraJust finished re-reading Louis Cha's The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, a 1,570-page monstrosity (1,623 pages if you count the appendixes on Genghis Khan's genealogy and the history of a particular school of Taoism that I skimmed at the end of the book). Some of you might know this book better as Jin Yong's Shèdiāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn.
This is your typical martial arts novel, very clear-cut black/white characterization in terms of who's on the good side and who's on the bad. But reading this again as a non-preteen also shed new light on more complex human nature issues. The "worst" Bad Guy in the story loves his son with all his heart; the Bad Son has a very loving relationship with his foster father; Genghis Khan is both a cruel hero and a genius invader... the list goes on. This time around, the novel has many more shades of gray.
I don't think I can do the novel justice by attempting to explain its plot. To get an idea of the background and main characters of the story, check out Wikipedia's article here. (I love Wiki, it has everything ^_^ ) You can also go here to test out a few translated chapters. A warning though: the beginning's the most tedious part of the novel, full of poetry and historical overviews, so you might think I'm crazy for loving the story so much. It really is good, the goodness is just astronomically difficult to be transferred into an outside language.
While you're on that second page link, I will point out that "The Demi Gods and Semi Devils" is the title that I've always put at the top of those Favorite Book memes that I fill out. And "The Smiling Proud Wanderer" is a second favorite, a clever social commentary of contemporary 1960s Chinese politics cloaked in the guise of a martial arts novel ;) Wiki article on the second novel here.
I'm sooooo thinking about reading The Demi Gods and Semi Devils next, for what will probably be at least the 25th (?) time. But how can I not take advantage of the fact that I'm home and has all these books sitting in my bookshelf, waiting for me to read? Of course, nowadays I can access all of Louis Cha's novels online...
*heads off to read*
.
This is your typical martial arts novel, very clear-cut black/white characterization in terms of who's on the good side and who's on the bad. But reading this again as a non-preteen also shed new light on more complex human nature issues. The "worst" Bad Guy in the story loves his son with all his heart; the Bad Son has a very loving relationship with his foster father; Genghis Khan is both a cruel hero and a genius invader... the list goes on. This time around, the novel has many more shades of gray.
I don't think I can do the novel justice by attempting to explain its plot. To get an idea of the background and main characters of the story, check out Wikipedia's article here. (I love Wiki, it has everything ^_^ ) You can also go here to test out a few translated chapters. A warning though: the beginning's the most tedious part of the novel, full of poetry and historical overviews, so you might think I'm crazy for loving the story so much. It really is good, the goodness is just astronomically difficult to be transferred into an outside language.
While you're on that second page link, I will point out that "The Demi Gods and Semi Devils" is the title that I've always put at the top of those Favorite Book memes that I fill out. And "The Smiling Proud Wanderer" is a second favorite, a clever social commentary of contemporary 1960s Chinese politics cloaked in the guise of a martial arts novel ;) Wiki article on the second novel here.
I'm sooooo thinking about reading The Demi Gods and Semi Devils next, for what will probably be at least the 25th (?) time. But how can I not take advantage of the fact that I'm home and has all these books sitting in my bookshelf, waiting for me to read? Of course, nowadays I can access all of Louis Cha's novels online...
*heads off to read*
.
