Last year I started celebrating the Chinese New Year by reading one of the Four Great Classical Novels. I started out with the Dream of the Red Chamber, which is easily one of the greatest books I've ever read. It's so full of a work — if any piece of art can be said to come close to capturing the massive, noisy, everythingness of life, it's this.
I'm not sure which one I should read this year. Halp.
I tried to read Water Margin once in English translation but couldn't keep all the names straight.
Try Journey to the West I guess, it's lighthearted at least.
3 kingdoms. Also did you just read part 1 or the all the books of dream of red chamber?
couldn't keep all the names straight.just what is with the proliferation of characters in these books? Classical French and English and Greek and Roman works don't have anything at all like it.
Water Margin's pretty good.
It's misogynistic, and everything is solved with violence, but so what? Makes for a great read, even if characters seem to only become names after their own little arcs.
ahh you forget the Chin Ping Mei or the Golden Lotus. good ol Hsi Men and his multitudinous concubines.
I've only read the three kingdoms, really liked it.