Free-For-All Friday

[geraineon]

Time for free for all Friday, a day for random chit-chat!

Do you want to talk about the other novels you are reading or find a read-along partner? Practice your Chinese? Request for fics? Ask for beta readers? Just talk about your day?

Go right ahead!

Comments

[snowynight]

I have just finished The Fallen Merman:
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-fallen-merman/

It's a thriller set in a world that the alpha and omega have superpower tied up with their animal feature. Bai ChuNian (The seme) is a tactician with lion features, so Rimbaud (the titular mermaid warrior) calls him kitty in his language. It's packed with action, an interesting cast and romance. I recommend this to people who like action and plotty romance.

Note: the mystery revolves around human experiment so it can go quite dark.

It has a manhwa adaptation. Rambaud on the cover is very hot.

[geraineon]

Oh interesting! I love dark. Looking at the recommendations list on this novel updates page, sounds exactly my thing XD

[halfcactus]

Something I was wondering (since I'm reading priest's suspense-thriller novel 橋頭樓上, which takes into account writing styles) is what bad prose looks like in Chinese???

[halfcactus]

It probably says something about me that I enjoyed the "childish" writing that all the other characters were criticizing LOL

[douqi]

You see, when I was thinking about how I'd translate those sections, I decided that the appropriate way to do it would be to do it in the style of mediocre-to-bad YA. And then I thought about how much bad YA I'd have to read to internalise the style and how short my life was, and crushed out any faint flickering vague intention I had of translating it.

[halfcactus]

Thank you for confirming that it's supposed to be mediocre-to-bad! Without the multi-PoV + meta structure I never would even have suspected. (ᵔ́∀ᵔ̀)

I always wondered why no one took on that novel as a translation project, since it's so much shorter compared to priest's other work, but I get it now. ^^; NGL, I struggle to read even decent English-language YA so... yeah, life is too short to be doing that kind of research of a free translation project haha.

[douqi]

I mean... one could just take a very literal, hack job approach to the translation, and I'm kind of surprised no one has done that so far. I assume because it's not a danmei?

But yeah as a translator, there would be absolutely no fun in that kind of approach.

I do wish, though, someone would pitch this to Tilted Axis Press because it is absolutely up their street.

[douqi]

Here's an excerpt from an inexplicably popular baihe novel that reminded me of the prose I've seen in Colleen Hoover excerpts.

[dayadhvam_triad]

You know, I'd never actually read anything by Colleen Hoover till the topic came up in conversation with a friend earlier today. So reading the Colleen Hoover excerpts that she later shared with me for rubbernecking purposes, alongside your link... /crying at the dialogue

I feel like I can usually divorce my opinion of an author's prose from my opinion of their other writing-related strengths/weaknesses, but ngl seeing prose like that sends me running for the hills. /o\

[douqi]

Ahahaha yeah. There's a lot of discussion about this particular novel in baihe circles on Weibo at the moment, because the preview for the audio drama adaptation was just released. The main reaction is respect that the voice actresses were able to elevate the dialogue into something that isn't absolute cringe.

I also get what you mean about divorcing the author's prose from their other writing-related qualities! I've read a few novels that had lovely prose but fell down on plot structure and emotional development.

[geraineon]

I've read a few novels that had lovely prose but fell down on plot structure and emotional development.

I think my tolerance for prose is quite high if the plot structure and emotional development is good... but not the other way round XD

[douqi]

Me too! I've read so many webnovels with great prose and promising starts that fall apart structurally in the back third.

[halfcactus]

Once again crying/laughing because I am unable to detect anything wrong with the prose, just that the banter is going on longer than I would like (which also isn't unusual for me).

Thank you so much for providing a real example! Clearly I need to read more books lol.

I've also only seen random snippets of Colleen Hoover's writing but it was a while back and the only thing I remember is the vibes. It's a pretty solid comparison, though, even just on the basis of romance tropes + popularity. XD

[douqi]

I'm kind of glad Colleen Hoover exists because she's just such useful shorthand to describe a particular type of c-novel haha.

So another example of bad prose would be the first few chapters of Miss Forensics — mainly the narration, not the dialogue (I think the dialogue overall is better than the narration). I would describe it kind of like, as if it were written by an older high schooler/first-year undergraduate with no particular flair for language but does have a decent instinct for dramatic character and plot. The narrative prose does get better after a while, though doesn't overall rise above decidedly mid.

[snowynight]

Some observation of the novel:

- The prose is in a very old fashioned erotica/bodice ripper style. I expected "抹胸" (Bandeau) in historical romance, not modern erotica.

- From the book summary, the novel is written in Hong Kong movie/drama style. The writer is trying to imitate Hong Kong Cantonese syntax in 薛桐 Xue Tong's dialogue (like using "Sorry"), but instead wrote a very awkward mix up with Mandarin.

It's like an English writer doing a bad job of imitating a regional English accent. This makes the dialogue more cringey.

[halfcactus]

Thank you so much for explaining the style/language nuances of both novels! This makes everything more clear.

And it's nice to see that priest was able to nail down that particular style! I always wondered how it read to native readers, so seeing your comments has really helped inform me of the universe it's in.

[geraineon]

+1 what halfcactus said! I enjoyed reading this conversation thread.

[snowynight]

The prose is supposed to be mediocre but not bad: first person POV, stream of consciousness, and misuse of comma. It also needs editing to tighten the narrative.

I agree that it's challenging to translate the style.

[douqi]

I am currently suffering through the final book of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, which might as well be called Sunk Cost Fallacy (I suffered through the first three books and now feel like it would be a waste of effort not to see what happens).

[geraineon]

Ahahaha, would you be opposed to just looking for spoilers or flipping all the way to the back?

[douqi]

Haha I've already finished it! I have to say, for a series that was lauded for its world-building, it's amazing that I've finished all four books and still have no clear idea who owns the means of production or how money works.

[geraineon]

Hahaha. Times like these, I will search for negative reviews so I can bask in the (sorta) company of fellow haters.

Was there anything you liked from the series?

[douqi]

I sort of did like the ethos behind the Utopian faction (one of their goals is the complete defeat of death, so that if a single one of their members dies they will bend all their energies towards eliminating that particular cause of death). Just a pity it didn't really get a chance to shine through all the quite stupid politicking.

[ehyde]

I saw that Seven Seas has licensed the novel that "Love Between Fairy and Devil" was based on (and it looks like they're going with the drama's title). I tried reading the fan tl and didn't get very far, so I'm looking forward to this one. I'm also excited to see them doing a non-danmei cnovel, I hope this bodes well for other non danmei getting punished too.

[geraineon]

Oh yeah! I'm hoping there will be more non-danmei things, and off-topic, I am super pleased they picked to translate Aida Saki's BL novel XD