The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh

J. H. Jackson’s translation with introduction by Edwin Lowe. Paperback edition is legible. There are a few typos or misspellings but nothing substantial. Overall, a nice volume of work.

The Water Margin (Shui Hu Zhuan) is one of the most surprising classics of Chinese literature. Many books in the west have portrayed Asia, and China in particular, as being a place where people blend in, go along to get along, or submit to authority out of Confucian filial piety. This is not one of those books. This book is a riot of rebellious violence, subversive vulgarity, bouyant indulgence and righteous indignation. It is a celebration of a society of individuals and their complex relationships.The basic story follows a series of characters who for various reasons fall from grace with the powers that be, sometimes through no fault of their own, but often through their own rapacious appetites. They each find themselves pushed by a mix of circumstance and necessity, to the marshes of Mount Liang, where they unite to form a notorious gang of bandits, waging outright war against a corrupt bureaucracy.As this novel defies stereotypes of traditional Chinese culture, it also presents one of the most complex and ambivalent portraits of heroism in literature. The bandits in the Water Margin are not merely "Robin Hood in China" though some that is stolen form the rich is indeed given to the poor, they are each complex individuals with their own motivations, often in contradiction with their comrades and themselves.This translation, furthermore, is an excellent way to get to know the novel. Many earlier translations either bowdlerized or censored the more vulgar and ignoble content, or politicized the work, attempting to impose bland moral conformity on a work that's principle insight was the moral complexity of human beings. This translation restores the text to its original form, and updates translational conventions to modern standards.

There are four widely-recognized classic Chinese novels. Seriously, do a web search for "classic Chinese novels" and you will find dozens of pages referring to "The Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature". (Wikipedia lists six on its Classic Chinese Novels page" -- these include the usual four, plus two others.) The phrase "Four classic Chinese novels" also appears frequently in commentary on Chinese literature. The four areRomance of the Three KingdomsThe Water MarginJourney to the WestDream of the Red ChamberI begin by clarifying that in this review of Water Margin I am trying only to answer the question, "If an educated American who understands no Chinese and has only the most cursory knowledge of Chinese culture (that would be me) reads Water Margin, will they find it entertaining/rewarding?" I make no attempt to judge its literary merit or its place in the historical canon of Chinese literature -- I am not qualified. I am not even answering the question, "Should you read this?" One may have many reasons for reading a book, of which entertainment is only one. For instance, Mao Zedong enjoyed Water Margin and took it as a model for his revolution, in some degree. To my mind, that itself is a pretty good reason to read it.As you have already guessed from my two-star rating, my answer to the entertainment question is "Probably not." The plot of Water Margin consists mostly of big dumb men wandering around China whacking each other with sticks. OK, that is not entirely accurate, but let me be more specific. Under sticks, of course, I understand cudgels, spears, swords, halberds, hooked poles, and even occasionally arrows. Not all the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh are big -- some are rather small, including Song Jiang, the Robin Hood of this band of Merry Men. About the "dumb" part, well, some of the heroes are intelligent. I know this because I was told by other heroes that these ones are intelligent. I don't know it from their own actions or words. For instance, I kept a careful tally of all the times when one of the heroes said something that made me think to myself, "Very clever!" or "Yeah, that's wise." Let me add them up: the grand total is 0. Yeah, that never happened. As for the "men" part, that regrettably, is almost entirely accurate. Of the 108 heroes of Liangshan Marsh, three are women. The portrayal of every other woman than these three is, in two words, "wildly offensive". I haven't the stomach to go into details, so I'll just leave it at that.Song Jiang views himself as succoring the common people who oppose the officials of a corrupt and illegitimate empire. He frequently makes speeches proclaiming his virtue and the virtue of the heroes. So, he really is portrayed as the Robin Hood of China. But he is not Robin Hood. His actions don't conform to his words. Let me give an example. This example concerns the recruitment to the band of Zhu Tong, nicknamed "Beautiful Whiskers".As our story begins, Zhu Tong has just arrived at Cangzhou Prefecture. The Prefect's Son (who admires Zhu Tong's beard) becomes friends with him, and the Prefect asks Zhu Tong to "look after his son and to play with him in future." One day two men from Liangshan Marsh show up and distract Zhu Tong. After they leave, the boy is no longer where Zhu Tong left him. Zhu Tong finds him dead with his skull cleft in two. The men from Liangshan explain this as follows:“They were on their way to request you to join them at Liangshan Marsh. As you refused to join them, Li Kui kidnapped the boy, and killed him, so that you could not return to the yamen and face his father.”Just then Lei Heng and Wu Yong entered the room, and after saluting Zhu Tong they said, “Please forgive us for the crime committed. We did it only by order of our chief, Song Jiang. If you come with us to Liangshan Marsh all will be explained to you.”“Your asking me to go to Liangshan Marsh was all right,” replied Zhu Tong, “but your method of inducing me to go was exceedingly cruel. I will go with you now, but I must first see Li Kui.”Yeah, "exceedingly cruel" hardly covers it. Even by his own standards, Song Jiang is not an admirable character.”Finally, a word on this edition. The editor is Edwin H. Lowe of Macquarie University. He is careful to specify that this is not a new translation -- it is merely a polish and modernization of an earlier translation by J. H. Jackson. Lowe has prepended to the book an introduction that is truly fascinating -- much more interesting than the novel itself, in my opinion, describing the textual history and historical significance. I will quote here his dedication, which I found most interesting, to (I am guessing) his sonTo little Harry,25th Generation of the Liu clan of Zhongshan, Guangdong;5th Generation of the Lowe family of Sydney, Australia;67th generation descendant of Liu Bang,The leader of the bandit rebellion who slew the snake near Mount Mangdan and who became Gaozu, the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty in 202 BCE;with love.I was reminded by this of Abraham Lincoln's wordsI don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.The contrast between Chinese and American cultures could hardly be greater.

This is a very long but worthwhile book. It's not difficult to understand why, in Chinese tradition, "The Water Margin" is considered one of the great Chinese books.Whoever reads it will find a well conceived ethic, romance, violence, and nobility of spirit.I found the Kindle format well suited to a book of this size. Scrolling and bookmarking, with the succinct explanatory notes, make this a very readable and easy to use book.Despite some minor typographical errors, possibly OCR malfunctions, the book was never unintelligible, and deserves the five star rating I gave it.

This is a great translation of 水浒传 that was instantly engaging. Going through the book, it's easy to get the tons of different characters mixed up, but that's not a fault of this version whatsoever. I have a hard time reading books to the end, but this one engulfed me and kept me turning the pages.

I have not finished it yet - 800 pages!I am not a scholar, and I do not know anything about this translation, but it is highly readable. It is not an impenetrable jungle of Chinese names like 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' which I am finding difficult to read.'Water Margin' is for me a 'kick back and enjoy' sort of book. It will join 'Story of the Stone' on my 'read again' shelf.

Of course the underlying literary work is great; but did anyone else notice quite a few typographical and grammatical errors while reading this English language edition? Seems as though it suffers from the general lack of copy editing to which many digital age publications (of both new works and old) are prone.I am not a Chinese literary scholar, so I can't speak to the quality of the translation or the editing of the abridged version. Nonetheless, the fairly frequent typos made it hard for me to trust the quality of this edition overall. I recently ordered the first volume of the Shapiro translation published by Foreign Languages Press in order to compare.

As one of the 4 Great Classics of Chinese Literature, it is clear how The Water Margin has earned a special, though cautious, place in the Chinese tradition. It is a tale of lawlessness and honour among thieves, and runs contrary to the Chinese tradition of law, order and stability.Upon reading this, I was initially curious as to how this was an influence on Mao Zedong, but it becomes clear that the influence was primarily on his period before power, rather than in power. The story of the brigands of Liangshan Marsh resembles very much the period of the Communists as an outlaw, rural insurrectionary force, and as one reads, one cannot help but imagine the Communists using similar tactics to gain the support of the rural people, and to win people over to their side. In actual fact, they did just that, they were outlawed, but they were able to grow their numbers.The tale itself is not an easy read. There are many characters, and the story seems to lack a coherent direction, and seems in many ways to be a series of events, rather than a flowing narrative. However, it is a useful insight into the nature of rebel societies.To it's credit, the translation uses Pinyin, rather than the incomprehensible and misleading Wade-Giles system, so commonly found in English translations. Having said this, if one is expecting classical language, then think again, as the book does not have a very eloquent prose, and in some ways seems closer to tabloid style writing than anything academic, however, this was a tale of the common man and outlaws, rather than a high society piece, so the vernacular is entirely appropriate.On the whole, an interesting, though rather difficult read, but a must for anyone who wants to discover a Chinese cultural treasure.

This free translation has a lot of faults. It appea s to have been composed from a racy text. It has a variety of approaches including magic and fantasy. However the reader learns quite a lot about early medieval China. The translator clearly had difficulties. It reads more like a weekly comic. I would not advise a reader new to this period to spend much time on it. I have tried confess that I did finish it.

book to be read. No film.

Great, thanks.

It is an amazing Chinese epic. Well worth reading.