I didn’t even make it through the first few chapters, Chinese writing style is just terribly convoluted and full of unnecessary pathos. Reminded me of some early 1700s literature from Britain, like Robinson Crusoe.
I can see that. I definitely gave it a huge benefit of the doubt, as it was the first post-revolution Chinese fiction-cum-political commentary I ever read. In retrospect I feel like the point of the book was the commentary and the story was just some kind of allegory that didn’t resonate as an American.
Yeah agree. I was living in China when it was recommended to me since it was super popular with the locals, but really couldn’t get through.
I did enjoy the Western series though despite the mixed reviews, they reduced all the political clutter to the bare minimum to provide historical context, so maybe that’s something to check out instead.
I didn’t even make it through the first few chapters, Chinese writing style is just terribly convoluted and full of unnecessary pathos. Reminded me of some early 1700s literature from Britain, like Robinson Crusoe.
I can see that. I definitely gave it a huge benefit of the doubt, as it was the first post-revolution Chinese fiction-cum-political commentary I ever read. In retrospect I feel like the point of the book was the commentary and the story was just some kind of allegory that didn’t resonate as an American.
Yeah agree. I was living in China when it was recommended to me since it was super popular with the locals, but really couldn’t get through.
I did enjoy the Western series though despite the mixed reviews, they reduced all the political clutter to the bare minimum to provide historical context, so maybe that’s something to check out instead.
Related:
The tencent tv adaptation was boring as hell lol, couldn’t get past like episode 8/30 as a native Mandarin speaker.
The netflix adaptation was far more enjoyable.
Also tencent cut out the cultural revolution scene from the book… boo… governments really stifles creativity.
Yeah the Netflix show was a good watch, agree. Didn’t even try the tencent one, I saw it coming…