"Three Kingdoms" (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)

Three Kingdoms (Lou Guanzhong, translation by Moss Roberts)

Introducing our first review of the same book by two people! Surprised it took this long, really. (I've added a "second look" tag for future posts like this.) Onward!

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four classics of Chinese literature (and the other two I don't own are on my Amazon wishlist, hint). At first it appears pretty intimidating: There's over 2000 pages of text in four volumes here, and everyone, of course, has Chinese names. On top of that, some of the more important figures also have nicknames in addition to their given names. Luckily, the superb translation ensures a minimum of confusion - partly via the simple expident of picking a way of referring to a charecter and then always using that same name. So Zhuge Liang is referred to once or twice by his given name when he's introduced, but once his nickname of Kongming is given, he always appears as Kongming. Kind of amazing how that simple step makes the book much easier to understand (ahem, Nemesis). The translation is very readable, and at times borders on poetic (my favorite example appearing early on when a commander's plan goes awry and he comes to know the regret of defeat). The quality translation combined with the undisputed classic that is the original text yields a wonderful set of four volumes that is a very long, very rewarding, and never boring or tedious read. If you have even the slightest interest, I implore you to not let the setting or size of the work scare you off; This is worth reading at least once.
Now some minor quibbles: The print quality of the books isn't great - the paper is kind of fragile - and, weirdly because the translation is so good, there are some goofy grammar and spelling errors. I barely noticed either one of these after I got a few pages in, and in truth the strongest reaction either one drew from me was an occasional raised eyebrow or giggle at the occasional mis-spelled word.

Grade: A