My Christmas presents this year will include the book below:
Shi Nai’an. Outlaws of the Marsh: The Water Margin. Trans. J. H. Jackson. 1937. Introduction by Frances Wood. Illustrations from the Rong Yu Tang edition. 2 vols. London: The Folio Society, 2018.
But how can I know that, ahead of opening all the packages on Christmas morning? Well, because for some time now our family has adopted the approach of telling each other what to buy (within a preset budget, that is). While this may sound a bit prosaic, as well as eliminating the happy serendipity of the perfect, unexpected gift, it does have the advantage of stopping us wasting our money on things which other people don't want. All that anxious cogitation has been replaced by simple expediency.
That's not to say that the element of surprise is entirely avoided. There will always be some spontaneous gifts we don't known about in advance, but they're now in the minority. I would have hesitated to buy something as sumptuous as the book above for myself, but I'm very happy indeed to have it bought for me.
One explanation for this uncharacteristic restraint is because I already own no fewer than four complete English translations of the Shui Hu Chuan (including the one selected for the Folio Society edition):
The Water Margin [Shui Hu Chuan]
(late 14th century)
- Buck, Pearl, trans. All Men are Brothers [Shui Hu Chuan]. 2 vols. New York: The John Day Company, 1933.
- Shih Nai-an. Water Margin. Trans. J. H. Jackson. 2 vols. 1937. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 1963.
- Shi Nai’an & Luo Guanzhong. Outlaws of the Marsh. Trans. Sidney Shapiro. 3 vols. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980.
- Shi Nai’an & Luo Guanzhong. The Marshes of Mount Liang. Trans. John & Alex Dent-Young. 5 vols. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1994-2002.
- Vol. 1: The Broken Seals (1994)
- Vol. 2: The Tiger Killers (1997)
- Vol. 3: The Gathering Company (2001)
- Vol. 4: Iron Ox (2002)
- Vol. 5: The Scattered Flock (2002)
Do I need any more copies of it? No, probably not. Do I want any? Well, I'm afraid, when they're as beautiful as this, I'm afraid that I definitely do.
I suppose that the real reason for this profligate behaviour, though, is the fact that I already have a copy of the sumptuous Folio Society edition of the Three Kingdoms, the first of the four great classic novels in Chinese tradition (the other two are Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West (better known as Monkey) and Cao Xueqin's Red Chamber Dream (aka A Dream of Red Mansions or The Story of the Stone):
Luo Guanzhong. Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel. Trans. Moss Roberts. 1991. Introduction by Ma Jian. 4 vols. London: The Folio Society, 2013.In that case, the only other translation of the novel I have is C. H. Brewitt-Taylor's San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms (2 vols. Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1925). It did occur to me, though, that perhaps the Folio Society is planning a long-term project of reprinting illustrated versions of all the classic Chinese novels. Such things go out of print fairly fast, so it seems best to start collecting them from the word go.
Or is that just the usual kind of collectors' rationalisation for adding yet another expensive white elephant to one's hoard? They are very, very pretty, though.
For more on this subject, you could do worse than have a look at my blogpost on 'Classical Chinese novels' here.
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- category - Chinese Literature: Chinese Fiction
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