Going from Western literature to this feels like whiplash. I'm only 30 pages in, and so much has happened already that I couldn't even write it out here. Why the fuck is it so fast-paced? They will plan for an ambush, complete the ambush, and then be executed by the emperor for treason all on the same damn page. Compare that to something like Game of Thrones, where there are moderate to long discussions of political moves and descriptions of everything, and the difference is so night and day. Am I missing something? I feel like I'm watching a YouTube plot breakdown.
I was fine until I got to the bit after Dong Zhou was killed then it became incredibly confusing
>>25424069>>25424083For me it's when Gaun you died. Then it got incredibly boring because all the new characters didn't have any build up or background. They were just named and more battles happened
>>25424069I’m not trolling. But perhaps you can try the manga. Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s Sangokushi. Good adaptation, good translation.Or the tv adaptation from the 90’s. Some fans are resubbing it. https://gentlemenofthehan.wordpress.com/
>>25424069The beginning is really good, it gets some choppy bits in the middle that are great and annoying intermixed and the end is straight up weird - a lot of magic and mysticism and prophecy just flying around and taken for granted. It reads a bit too schizophrenic at the end. It's very Asian in how there's pretty much a complete abandonment of the themes at the beginning of the narrative in order to show consistency and inevitability through completely contradictory events.
>>25424069>Why the fuck is it so fast-paced? They will plan for an ambush, complete the ambush, and then be executed by the emperor for treason all on the same damn page.Remember that before they invented paper the Chinese wrote books down on heavy bamboo slats lugged around by caravans of oxcarts. Brevity helped keep the thing portable
>>25424069I just finished reading it like 5 days agoIt reads a lot like a Roman or Greek history, minus the speeches and usual techniques of the genre. It also has dialogue which you would never see in ancient histories. Of course I read the Penguin edition which was abridged by some 75% but I think I got the gist of it. The best part is the Red Cliffs, all downhill from there, but it's still pretty good.
>>25424283Good point. No idea if it's true. But I will use it for my novel.
>>25424069My summary after reading it:1. Zhang Fei is an idiot.2. Guan Yu is less of an idiot, but still an idiot.3. Liu Bei is super evil.4. Showing Cao Cao losing all the time, and making him win the end out of nowhere is just shit writing.
Kong Ming had cheats turned on the entire time. The chapters after Liu Bei died were just 'BUT KONG MING WON AN AWESOME VICTORY AGAINST THOSE STUPID WEI RETARD FUCKS AND SIMA YI SHIT HIS PANTS WHEN HE SAW HIM.'I have no idea why they suck him off so much, considering Sima Yi was the one who actually won in the end and had his family unite China, would have thought propaganda points would go to the actual winner
Asia is just trash and when the west falls and asia rises to become the hegemon God is gonna weep for what has been lost.
>>25424069>Compare that to something like Game of Thrones>Am I missing something?yes, yes you are. you can't compare modern novel structure to 14th-century Ming Dynasty compilation of centuries-old oral stories
>>25424377I liked the Jiang Wei/Deng Ai arc a lot more for a final stretch than I thought i would. Sima clan "winning" is interesting because it shows time and time again that heaven wants them to win but the Shu boys are so enamored by the majesty of their own farts, they can't imagine stopping the bloodshed even once it's obvious they have no reason fighting... except I guess there's something to that since the Jin was the shortest dynasty and maybe that was in part due to the romanticism of the Han that the kingdom of Shu inspired. In any case, Kong Ming and his "son" continually show an interesting parallel to Greek classic in that the son is lesser than the father.
What is hands down, the best translation available? I read the Tuttle edition like a decade ago and I have this sneaking suspicion that it was just an absolute dogshit translation.
>>25424543Moss Roberts.
