Product Details

• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Binding: Library Binding
• 3080 pages

Customer Reviews

One of the world's great folk-novels, but the translation is problematic
Outlaws of the Marsh, better known to British audiences as 'the Water Margin', after the popular Japanese series shown on BBC in the 1970s, is one of the four great classical Chinese novels, and a masterpiece of folk-tale in novel form. It catalogues the complex and sometimes seemingly haphazard adventures of a group of bandits who join together in the Liang Shang marshes, resisting the cruelty of Gao Qiu during the Song dynasty.

This is an enormously engrossing read, with a compelling chapter to chapter progression which it makes it very hard to put the books down. By turns comic, tragic, thrilling, base and noble, this is a book that really does have something for everyone.

There are three problems for Western readers coming to this novel through this translation.

First, the moral background to this novel is entirely different from anything in Western literature. This was rather sanitised for the TV series, which prefaces every episode with 'in a world very different from our own', and casts the whole thing as rebellion against injustice. The novel, however, is altogether more difficult. Sometimes things are done to resist oppression, sometimes they are done out of filial loyalty, sometimes for revenge, sometimes because people are drunk, and sometimes with no more justification than that the perpetrators are bandits, and therefore have a right to do such things. At times the author appeals to the moral indignation of the reader, but at other times he glosses over atrocities which go as far as cannibalism. Most modern readers will also have questions about the casual mistreatment of women throughout the novel, by both sides.

Secondly, with more than 150 characters, and four densely printed volumes, there is an awful lot of this to read and follow. Readers who are well-used to Chinese names will struggle less with this, but just keeping track of who is who is quite an undertaking. The episodic structure also picks up a character for a few chapters and then leaves him behind. This is not a flaw in the writing -- rather, it's a different approach to storytelling and the novel from the one we are used to, though readers of medieval literature will find it more familiar.

Finally, the translation is not entirely complete. The purpose of translation should be to render the original accurately into the new language so that it sounds as though it had been written in that language. Sidney Shapiro, a Chinese-naturalised Jewish-American scholar, does not quite achieve this. Somehow the style of writing is all mixed up, bringing epic words such as 'in twain' next to 'ass-hole', and riper language. On the other hand, Chinese scholars consider this to be much more accurate than Pearl Buck's hugely popular 1933 version entitled 'All Men are Brothers'. Rather than seeing 'Outlaws of the Marsh' as a bad translation, it is probably best to see it as incompletely edited. The translation is also not helped by the print production, which has several typographical errors on each page, thanks to poor proof-reading by the Beijing Foreign Language Press.

Interestingly, Outlaws of the Marsh was Mao Ze Dong's favourite novel, and he considered it the inspiration for a number of his military strategies.

Five stars for the novel, then, less half a star for the translation and another half for the print. Outlaws of the Marsh would be on my list of '100 novels translated into English that ought to be read', both for its own sake, and for its cultural importance.

In desperate need for new translation
This is a classic piece of Chinese literature that has the potential to make a fascinating read. Nonetheless, as the translation is very unsatisfactory, reading this book was quite tiresome.

Unlike other Chinese novels that were fortunate to have excellent translations [...] the Outlaws of The Marsh is given here in bad English, unedited and without the proper presentation [useful notes]. Having studied translation as part of my undergraduate degree this translation reminded me more of the work of a careless student than the work of a professional that is suitable to be presented to the general public. I hope a better translation of the book will be soon in print - even an edited reproduction of this one could be helpful.

If you are interested in reading well-written prose, avoid.

An overlooked masterpiece of storytelling
Do not be put off by the size of this book, it comes in a 4 volume box and is an epic. The first volume could be considered as a collection of tales and amusing stories about different characters. The second book is the coming togheter of these characters, 108 of them. The third book is thier forming and defence, and the final book shows thier downfall.

This book is truly an epic soap opera, some of the stories are so hillarious and so is some of the dialouge. However a word of warning, you will fall in love with the main characters and this is almost a shakesperian tragedy in its nature of the dilema the characters face and thier fall. Some examples of stories are:
Figthing a tiger on a mountain top
Getting very drunk (happens a lot)
Bar fights and prisonbreaks
Stories of lust and trechary
Epic battles
Buddist knowlege and nature

It is a very worth while read and probably one of the best books ive ever read.