Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

I also completely forgot to do anything for Halloween (as a replacement for Hungry Ghost Festival), so you can use this post to talk about your fav CN horror stories or favourite horror/thriller scenes in the novels you've read too!

Comments

[geraineon]

Still reading CLX (chapter 17 now). I think he's better off with horses and men than with women.

I've also been reading various papers and other writings on sino-malay literature, so maybe that counts?

[aurumcalendula]

I'm rereading the fan translation of The Beauty's Blade! I'm really enjoying Yu Shengyan and Fu Yanqing's interactions.

[geraineon]

I need to get started on that sometime! How are their interactions like?

[aurumcalendula]

Fu Wanqing (ack, I just noticed I mistyped her name earlier) is attracted to Yu Shengyan, but at the moment she hasn't decided if she wants to kiss her or kill her, so FWQ' keeps challenging YSY to duel and doing stuff like siting on her lap and asking why she's there at Goldmelt Grotto (a brothel). YSY refuses to duel her (she doesn't want to kill people) and acts indifferent, but does like FWQ.

imho the push and pull between them is fun (as is the fact that, iirc, FWQ gets flustered when YSY responds).

[geraineon]

Oh, that does sound delightful! I hope the officially translated version will be good.

[anne]

The library gave me Aliette de Bodard's new novella, Navigational Entanglements. Four juniors of different clans fight each other, politics, and aliens from beyond this dimension! I don't think it's her best, but it's plenty good! Given the author, nobody will be surprised that Highlight for spoilers!*all four juniors are women and they end up as two couples.*

And then the mail brought me vol 1 of Liu Yao/Coins of Destiny! My first Rosmei. It's a beautiful object...but they italicize "shifu/xiong/di/jie/mei" and for some reason they put "yao" in smallcaps, which is baffling. But I'm sure I'll get used to it! Turns out I'll put up with a lot for Priest.

[ehyde]

Those are some strange editing decisions! I just pre-ordered the first volume of Lie Huo Jiao Chou and now I'm worried it will do the same.

[geraineon]

The de Bodard book sounds rather wuxia~ I remember aurumcalendula recommending it previously~

Hm... Did they italicize anything else? I haven't read Liu Yao, but what do you mean by the yao in small caps?

[anne]

It is kind of wuxia IN SPAAAAAACE!

I can't figure out how to do it in html, but it's a regular capital Y and then capital AO, but the size of lowercase. I flipped through and it looks like they italicize everything they left in pinyin-minus-tonemarks. (Tonemarks would have driven me out of my tree, so, small mercies I guess.)

[geraineon]

I do like the idea of wuxia in space. Hm, de Bodard's works either hit of miss with me but I will check with my library to see if they have it.

(small mercies indeed. tone marks drives me nuts too)

[forestofglory]

I've had so little brain for reading this last week -- very small progress on To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth. sigh

[geraineon]

Small progress is still progress!

[douqi]

Am halfway through Serenade of Tranquility by Ruo Hua Ci Shu, a historical baihe, emphasis on historical. The author takes that aspect of it very seriously and has a good line in very proper-sounding, quasi-historical prose (it's about a whole staircase above the kind of 'mass media wenyan' you find in standard c-dramas and webnovels). It's just not currently very exciting though — a lot of court politics that are clever in themselves and very carefully plotted, but don't seem to have much wider thematic significance (though the author may yet pull something out in the second half of the book). Also, other than the two main characters and a couple of (very secondary) bitchy imperial consorts, the other important characters are all men. A bit of a shock to the system since I'm reading it alongside daily chapters of To Embers We Return, which iirc still doesn't have a single reverse Bechdel pass in it yet (i.e. two named men talking about something that isn't a woman).

[geraineon]

Ah that sucks. I guess it's hard to have all the delicious ingredients in a pot (properly historical + interesting and engaging plot)

I love your reverse Bechdel test xD

[douqi]

Tbh I think she did much better on Minister Xie (aka Sha Po Lang meets The Goblin Emperor), which I read a while ago. It's also properly historical but there was a much stronger theme and direction. She wrote that three years after Serenade of Tranquility though, so she had probably developed more as a writer by then.

[shipperslist]

I've caught up with my c-novel reading and I'm taking a smol break before the next 2ha comes out. But I'm eyeing the stuff I have ready on my Kindle, mainly all the priest e.danglars has translated...

[geraineon]

Tai Sui will occupy you for a very long time, and it's very good! So this is my vote for Tai Sui.

[shipperslist]

I've heard a lot of good things about it!

[anne]

I started slow, but it was like the first hill on a rollercoaster. After that I zoomed through it.

[ehyde]

I didn't get much reading done last week on account of scrambling to get the kids' halloween costumes finished, but I've picked up The Smiling, Proud Wanderer again and I'm continuing to have a lot of fun with it. I'm about a quarter of the way through (midway through the final chapter of volume 1). I am uh. Slightly sideeying Linghu Chong's judgement re. enthusiastically learning new techniques from mysterious masters in caves almost immediately after his actual master was telling him about the dangers inherent in improper techniques but! He seems very much an in-the-moment kind of guy.

The site where I'm reading includes an illustration for each chapter, but they're very low quality copies/scans--my bookbinding agenda hopes to track down better quality images eventually.

[geraineon]

I am thoroughly enjoying reading your experience with this novel even though I haven't read it myself (having just watched the adaptations).

[ehyde]

And I want to add: as a reader I am actually pretty skeptical re. his master's stuff about their way being the only right way. I just find it funny that Linghu Chong was like "oh yeah, that makes sense" JUST a moment ago and now he's completely forgotten it in light of shiny new sword moves.

[anne]

I love an ADHD flavored protagonist

[geraineon]

Mmhm. I will carefully keep quiet XD

[douqi]

Also carefully keeping quiet, though one hopefully non-spoilery observation is that a running theme in Jin Yong novels is that you get the most out of a martial technique that fits with your personality/character. E.g. in Legend of the Condor Heroes, Guo Jing (a pure-hearted simple soul) does super well with a technique with relatively simple moves that relies heavily on strong qi fundamentals, while Huang Rong (gremlin trickster girl) does much better with techniques that are dexterity-based and involve a bit of sleight of hand.

Here, Linghu Chong's free spirit is somewhat incompatible with his shifu's strict training regimen, but is a perfect fit for Feng Qingyang's much more flexible approach.

[alterkrmn]

I'm back on track with Global Examination. I'm on chapter 100! It's more and more entertaining and exciting. Now I feel fully immersed in their world and also invested in You Huo and Qin Jiu's mission, but also their bond. They amuse me a lot, and in these last chapters they're even cute sometimes, considering the enviroment, their personalities, and other issues with their brains :) I'm so fond of those rule breakers.

I'm having such a great time reading this story. I wanted to preorder Vol. 1 from Rosmei but my pockets are almost empty right now (and in the near and not so near future), so... *shrug*

I've discovered that if I don't try to juggle 100 activities at the same time it's easier to read more... who would have said it, huh?

[geraineon]

You're getting closer and closer to the end~!

Haha, yeah. When brain is going a million directions, it's hard to concentrate (I haven't been able to read much lately too...)

[hazevi]

Currently still going through 悼金陵 (To Mourn Jinling) for me- honestly I really really like it! I'm about 30 chapters away from the ending, but my reading endeavor has to be paused for life chaos haha.

In what I did get through, Gao Ying continues to be the girlboss emperor that she is so it's always interesting to see what she's up to in order to balance court politics. Also last week I got questions about Gao Ying's 'objective' craziness description as the author wrote it. Well, the author defined 'subjective craziness' as the type who acts questionably like going on a killing spree or smashing things. As for 'objective',-- Highlight for spoilers!* I originally thought that her craziness meant her lack of an instinct for self-preservation since there's one particular political incident in which she literally nearly gets herself killed and yet she charges into it, but it's also later revealed that there's a slow acting poison in her body that causes the crazy episodes. Take whichever reason. *

I recall that once I said on here that I want more literati girls in historical and I definitely got that in terms of Xiao Yue, the other half of the ship. She's got that stubbornness, virtue and kindness that involves everyone, down to the lowest peasant, which is why I think I love this type of character in the first place!

The writing of this piece in Chinese is also beautiful! A lot of classical literature references and the author really does know how to make things sound romantic or heart wrenching in that half historical setting prose. Like, here's my attempt on a beautiful quote on Xiao Yue: "She was still the young princess with snow scattered upon her shoulders during the fourth year of Chengtai; she couldn't help anyone transcend the pain, nor could she help herself."

honestly this would be going on my 'to be translated list' but the classical Chinese is waving sinisterly from the back corner... We'll see haha, I need to finish it first.

[geraineon]

Glad you got what you wished for~ Your translation for that line does sound beautiful, very evocative.

Re: spoilers: hm, not sure if that's what I'd consider "objective craziness" (tbh I don't actually know what I'd consider "objective craziness"...)

[llonkrebboj]

Alongside the LYB reread, I've started a delightful Chinese nonfiction 唐代基层文官 (Grassroots Civil Officials in the Tang Dynasty) by 赖瑞和 Lai Ruihe, which is a book about the ground level, lowest tier of Tang Dynasty's civil service officials. The author wrote in his preface about coming across the biographies of poets during his younger days and undergraduate studies, finding them just list after list of official ranks, and being frustrated/just skipping over it like many others. But it bothered him for twenty years during which he was busy busy with work and life, until one day circumstances caused him to finally quit and take one year off to research and work on this book properly (in Johor Bahru O:). And you know what? Even the explanation and 'decoding' of one example in that preface impressed and taught me enough basics about titles with '郎' in them + observing the trajectory of an official's career, that this book instantly became the most attractive read on my shelf xD

(There is apparently A LOT of meaning to be derived from these lists - I've keenly felt the same frustration, so THANK YOU FOR THIS, MR LAI)

The author also wrote about his grand dreams of writing a similar book for middle ranking officials and high ranking ones too. This was in approximately 2002/3. Meanwhile I'd downloaded the full set two or three months ago, i.e. in the year 2024. So that was a moment reminiscent of time travel that made me smile. You did it, bro!!!! \o/

I'm enjoying chapter one so far, which is mostly setting out the scope and objective of this book. Will translate excerpts to share if there's anything particularly exiting ^^

This is tangentially relavant to the Wan'er project in that one of the articles I read on her epitaph mentioned the shoddy writing in comparison to that of other epitaphs from her time. And frankly, I can see a bit of of stylistic/artistic differences between a Xu Ning vs. Li Bai waterfall poem, but for these formal writing that's standard in epitaphs, I'm functionally illiterate. This made reading 墓志s an excercise in frustration, and a (admittedly small) fraction of that frustration was due to their career trajectories being gobbledegook to me!

And that's how this book comes in.

To use harvard-yenching institute's summary for this book because I'm lazy... xD

"The first book, The Low-Level Civilian Officials in the T’ang Dynasty tries to recognize the most popular starting official posts for the T’ang literati who passed the civil examination, and clarify the importance of these posts in the T’ang bureaucratic system. These official posts include: (1) Editors (jiaoshu lang) and Proofreaders (zhengzi) of Department of the Palace Library (mishu sheng), Institute for the Advancement of Literature (hongwen guan), Academy of Scholarly Worthies (jixian yuan), Institute for the Veneration of Literature (chongwen guan) and Editorial Service (sijing ju) of the Heir Apparent; (2) Adjutants (canjunshi) and various Section Administrators (liecao canjunshi) of Prefecture (zhou), Superior Prefecture (fu), Princely Establishment (qinwang fu), Area Command (dudu fu) and Protectorate (duhu fu); (3) Defenders (wei), Recorders (zhubu) and Assistant Magistrates (cheng) of District (xian), as well as Inspectors (xun guan), Judges (tuiguan) and Chief Secretaries (zhangshuji) of Private Secretariat (mu fu) in the mid-late T’ang periods. The author characterizes these official posts as typical of low-level civilian officials, especially in the eras of Tian Bao (742-756) and Hui Chang (841-846)."

[hazevi]

Ohhhh wait this is so interesting!! Tang dynasty stuff :>

Also ties into last week when I was asking about Southern Liang stuff you mentioned the transition between government systems (from san gong jiu qing to shangshusheng with the nine rankings system, I believe?) and that was pre-Tang as well. I feel like my impression of grassroots officials in modern media who make it through the imperial exams either start like as the County/District Magistrate (xianling), or they go and help record history books or something before getting into a higher position. Tangentially related, but I feel like a lot of protagonists go through the justice system a lot like Dalisi shaoqing or something lol- it's a good post for character development.

Interesting that they mentioned Tianbao (Emperor Xuan); I wonder if there was mention of how during the Wu Zhou era a lot of the imperial systems in place got renamed, or was Wu Zhou excluded because, well, on the thinnest technicality, it is a different dynasty?

I honestly might go and find the book myself because why not!

[geraineon]

+1 that book about officials in the Tang Dynasty sounds very interesting. Thank you Mr. Lai! (why Johor Bahru? That's so random. Is he Malaysian? Does he have Malaysian relatives?)

[lunarriviera]

[skulks in] hi hey hello everyone, i'm like never on DW anymore and i feel badly about this. but the semester ate me…and also the upcoming (IN FOUR DAYS) US election has me extremely mentally interesting. ANYWAY i'm about halfway through BAB and, wow. it sure is a book! pretty convinced i have psychological ebola now.

my copy of liu yao vol 1 just arrived tho so HERE WE GO—hope everyone is well, happy samhain!! <3

[geraineon]

Hey! No worries, always welcome when you have time and energy~

Yeah, times have been rough due to election times in the U.S., along with ... other things... but hoping for the best (I can't vote, so I can only cheer for you all).

Enjoy Liu Yao and Happy Samhaim!

[lunarriviera]

thank you and feliz día de los muertos!

[douqi]

Take care and hope all goes well re: the election (and also re: the semester).

[lunarriviera]

FINGERS CROSSED

[duckprintspress]

wait did I forget to post? I finished vol. 2 of Rose and Renaissance and am plugging away at vol. 3 (of 4). The main story ends in 3 afaik, 4 is all extras.