coffeeaddict's Full Review: Kuan-Chung Lo and Guanzhong Luo - Three Kingdoms: ...
History
The novel "Three Kingdoms" is one of the great classical literary masterpieces of Chinese historical literature. The novel covers the period from the fall of the Han dynasty under Emperor Ling to the installation of the Chin dynasty (about 168 - 265 AD). The fall of the Han dynasty brought with it a time of great turmoil. Numerous feudal lords fought one another for rights to the throne. This all culminated in the split of China into "three kingdoms", Shu Han in the south, Wu in the west and Wei in the north.
The novel represents more than just an account what happened at the time, but represents the ideals of society. The story of the "Three Kingdoms" or more commonly referred to as the romance of the three kingdoms is well known amounst the Chinese people. This novel is a compilation of the stories and "folktales" of storytellers of the time rearrange into chronological order. The original novel was compiled Luo Guan Zhong and Mao Zhong Kang and remains in Chinese. This particular translation was done by Professor Moss Roberts who is a well known scholar in Asian history and is now on faculty at New York University.
A Historical Novel? Doesn't sound interesting to me..
I bet with the introduction of this novel as one related to history, many people automatically cringed in fear at the thought of actually reading one of these for pleasure. Well, believe me, it was indeed a very pleasurable experience and I don't even like reading!
Woven into the stories of the battles and different historical figures of the time, is a look at the structure of society and its ideals. I'm not going to even begin talking about the different themes present as there are just too many.
The most interesting part of this novel was definitely the descriptions of different strategies used in battle. One especially interesting part comes to mind when an advisor of one of the three kingdoms Zhuge Liang was challenged to collect arrows in return for freedom of one of his colleagues. This at the time was an impossible task as he was only given a certain number of days. Not only was he able to accomplish the task, he was able to do it without any wood! How? His plan was to sail several boats across the river to enemy territory feigning an attack. Once the enemy saw the boats coming, they immediately shot thousands upon thousands of arrows at the boats. Of course, the purpose was not an attack so once the collected the arrows needed, they sailed back.
The novel is just fraught with instances of strategy and intrigue such as the example above. I could attempt to list them, but obviously that would be like me telling you in excruciating detail every step of a movie.
Another major theme is this novel seems to be that of loyalty and honor. There is a portion where a general Zhao Yun and his lord Liu Bei was escaping from their castle overrun by enemies. As it turns out, Liu Bei had left one of his sons in the burning castle and Zhao Yun risked his life to retrieve him. Upon his return, Liu Bei, threw his son aside and said to Zhao Yun "I could have many sons, but never a general as brave as you" (That quote was not verbatim for obvious reasons... =) ).
Honestly, I could sit here for hours talking about this novel, but I'll wind down as you now have a book of several hundred pages to read...
A word of warning though. Given the large number of characters involved, the first few chapters may be a bit bland because of the introduction of them.
Video Gamers!
An aside...
For those who are occult followers of the video game, yes, this is the same three kingdoms as in the Nintendo game "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and the computer games by Koei. After reading the novel, playing the game seems to have a lot more meaning. I know that the way I played and the generals I went after changed dramatically after I read it. It certainly brought me to a new level of enjoyment.
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