Product Description

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is Lo Kuan-chung’s retelling of the events attending the fall of the Han Dynasty in 220 A.D., one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods in Chinese history. It is an epic saga of brotherhood and rivalry, of loyalty and treachery, of victory and death. As important for Chinese culture as the Homeric epics have been for the West, this fourteenth-century masterpiece continues to be loved and read throughout China as well as in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66174 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-15
• Original language: Mandarin Chinese
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 708 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780804834674
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From the Inside Flap

About the Author
Lo Kuan-Chung (c.1330-c.1400) was a novelist and dramatist who played an important role in the development of Chinese popular fiction.

Customer Reviews

5 stars to the work, but only 4 to the translation!
I love the Three Kingdoms. However, having read Brewitt-Taylors masterful exposition, this translation seems lacking, in my opinion.

First, I must confess, I hate the modern Pinyin system of romanization. I cannot abide in a system where letters do not have the proper values. I mean, an entire generation of Americans (and God help the ignorant French!) will pronounce names like Cao Cao as "Cow Cow", or the Qin dynasty as the "Kwin" dynasty. The Brewitt-Taylor translation uses the old Wade system, and while it can be hard on the eyes, the reader gets a sense of at least the rough pronunciation (Cao Cao is rendered Ts'ao Ts'ao, Qin is rendered Ch'in, etc).

Also, Brewitt-Taylors translation is nice to listen to. "Empires wax and wane, states cleave asunder and coalesce"; the sound itself is beautiful, and yet still renders the sense clearly. The Roberts translation certainly succeeds in the latter, but the beauty is lost. However, Brewitt-Taylor requires a very great vocabulary, whereas Roberts is more tame in this regards. Still, this was a book for scholars, and the translation should at least reflect that.

Again, if you have no familiarization with the events of this tale, the complete rainstorm of names is daunting indeed. Always keep in mind the three separate forces (Cao Cao of Wei, Liu Bei of Shu and the Sun family of Wu) as well as a few of the other players (Zhang Jiao of the Yellow Scarves, Dong Zhuo, Lu Bu, Yuan Shao. Liu Biao and Liu Zhang) and you'll do fine. The book itself, in my opinion, is the greatest book ever told, succeeding in being at once a work of strategy, psychology, government, warfare, and human emotion, and there is nothing like it in the lexicon of Western literature. Enjoy!

Great story but a very sloppy edition
The story is truly a classic and the translation is pretty good. However, the actual product is pretty sloppy. Volume one was less problematic than volume two, but both had a high number of instances. The main problem is that letters that are similar in shape, such as b and d, p and g, etc. get switched, almost once a page. Also, the names weren't proofread very well, as apostrophes get pretty regularly left out. In a translation system where an apostrophe is the only difference between the names to two characters or places, this becomes a source of confusion. Also, entire words are left out pretty regularly. I wonder if any highly fluent English speakers actually got to proofread this, because most of these errors are so obvious. These errors aren't so bad that it is unreadable, but they really take a person out of the scene while the confusion is dispelled.

Confusing For Spelling and Comprehensive For Pronunciation Ideas
I wrote this novel's review a couple of years ago as below.
(Name revised for Pinyin system and some errors corrected)

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Romance of Three Kingdoms is not just the novelized version of the history record "Three Kingdoms". It overtook the heart of both Chinese and Japanese. In Japan even younger generation who rarely read literature enjoy the story in the form of either comic books or in popular PC games. In China many of the Chinese Opera comes from the part of this story.
The story is based on the history of ancient China around late 2nd century to late 3rd century when the Chinese continent was divided by three strong kingdoms,Shu(Gui in Japanese),Wu(GO in Japanese) and Wei(SHOKU in Japanese).

I am familiar with the version of Eiji Yoshikawa, the author of Musashi, focusing more on the story of Liu Bei(Wei emperor),Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhuge Liang. Liu Bei, an heir of Han Dynasty ruling clan, is a humane leader supported by Guan Yu, deft both in brain and might maybe eastern version of Knight, Zhang Fei,short tempered but really strong warrior, and Zhuge Liang the master of strategy.

Rivaling Lie Bei is another giant Cao Cao outstanding ruler who nearly took hold of the whole Chinese continent but blocked by the allied forces of Wu and Wei in 208. Cao Cao is a bit demonized in this story but he is in fact one of the greatest rulers China ever had comparable to Napoleon. While Lie Bei who has little power gradually gains by charming a lot of talented people by his couteousness yet with propaganda tactics to demonize Cao Cao, Cao Cao took advantage of courting the Emperor and with the finest staff collected from the whole continent. Cao Cao's Wei will be overthrown by Sima clan who eventually subdue both Shu and Wu but Lie Bei, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang are still loved and idealized by Chinese public.

On first reading you will be enjoying the way the characters outsmart the other camps. On second reading you will be struck by the humanity upon which the story is based. It is much more than a legend. It will surely get you closer to the mind of either Chinese and Japanese. But be careful. The way character name is pronounced differ between Chinese and Japanese. Such as Cao Cao is pronounced in Japanese as SOSO.

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Now I must add a few things for newer 3k fans who encountered this epic through koei games. Koei adopts Pinyin system for three kingdom character names and pinyin method has almost subdued English speaking community. Brewitt Taylor uses Wade system differeing so much from the way the character names were currently spelled. For example. Cao Cao is spelled T'sao T'sao. As you can see older system is useful in pronunciation ideas.

Verdict: Excellent translation getting you much closer to this Chinese epic. Must-read for chivalry novel fans.
Rating: 94 out of 100. A bit cut by spelling confusion as I mentioned.
Recommended: For wide variety of readers.