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After reading this Chinese classic, I feel inspired to write several short comments (about a paragraph each)in essay format on the work covering varying issues. The comments are not linked together in anyway and sort of demonstrate a stream of consciousness. The title is a parody of "22 Short Films about Springfield" which itself was a parody of "Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould". ^_-
I guess the first comment will be about the edition that I read. I read the 100 chapter edition translated by Sidney Shapiro in three volumes. The translation seems to be reasonable in regards to expressing the main plot; myself, I would have preferred more annotations to explain the various official positions and cultural aspects that most Western readers would not be aware of. In fact, something like the edition of "Pillow Book" with a second volume of footnotes might have been useful for this work. Since I can't read Chinese, I cannot really comment on the validity of the translation though.
The structure of this work is very rigid. Reading the book, it seems that there are five major sections. In the first chapter, the background to the story is given; a Marshal removes a tablet releasing the 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly Fiends. In the next 69 chapters, the bandits all gather at Mount Liangshan. During the middle section, all of the chieftains fight to obtain their amnesty which they eventually receive. Following their amnesty, the chieftains fight the Liao Tartars and succeed at defeating them. Finally, the bandits are assigned to defeat Fang La, an upstart that is trying to become a ruler.
Even though there are five distinct sections, I got the distinct impression of the book consisting of really only three parts. There is the Processional which gets all of the bandits to Mount Liangshan. After a short interlude, the Recessional follows leading to most of the bandits getting killed. Of the 108 members, only 27 remain at the end of the battle against Fang La. The summary of the bandits' fate is as follows: "fifty-nine had been killed in battle, ten died of illness, one expired in a religious trance, one was crippled and became a monk...another was a Taoist who returned to Qizhou, four had gone off on their own, five had remained in or returned to the capital, and twenty-seven now presented themselves before the throne." (Outlaws 1582)
Filial devotion was a very strong theme in this work. Throughout all of the various incidents, the bandits remain loyal to the group and to the leader Song Jiang. Based on this, I would wager quite heavily that this attribute was highly valued in 11th century China.
The bandits are always portrayed in an excellent light no matter what they do. Continually, the narrator mentions about how the bandits were just and did not harm innocent people in anyway. Even so, the bandits are not innocents; in battle, most of the enemies captured (in the latter portions) are executed.
A bonus in reading this book is figuring out what exactly a Suzaku is. Based on the fact that the one set of Tartar troops were named after the Seven Southern Constellations and their general had a standard with the "Ochre Peacock Fire Planet", I would surmise that Suzaku is actually a "Fire Peacock" based on this translation.
Continuing on the Fushigi Yuugi thought, the character Li Kui reminded me of Tasuki very much. The similarities include the fact that both Li Kui and Tasuki like to drink very much as well as the fact that both are very brash. Further similarities include the fact that both are very loyal for their causes as well as being outspoken. In fact, at times, I thought Tasuki and Kui were interchangeable.
From the specific character of Li Kui, I'll head to characters in general. This book is even worse than Genji was for keeping track of people. At least in Genji, I had a reasonable shot at remembering the characters. In this book, I found it extremely difficult to remember the introduction of each of the chieftains; the only ones I really remembered were Song Jiang and Li Kui for the most part ^_^; There are just too many characters that some became more caricatures more so than full characters.
There were relatively few women in this novel. Most of the women who appeared were dishonest and were ruled by their emotions/body more so than their minds. Of course, all of the disloyal women are all killed by their jealous husbands which conveniently forces the male to join the bandits. At least 4 bandits joined that way. There are about three women who actually play significant roles including Ten Feet of Steel, Mistress Sun the Witch, etc. These characters are loyal and seem to be examples of what women were supposed to be like (loyal, complacent--Ten Feet of Steel is assigned to a husband after being captured by the bandits).
At times, I found myself wishing there was a companion volume explaining certain confusing issues. Firstly, I wanted to see a map of China identifying where the bandits went; I had much trouble determining what exactly was happening during the major battle scenes since the bandits and opponents often split into several parties during the melee. Secondly, I would have liked to have seen illustrations of the various battle formations that the armies engaged in. Visualising the "Nine-sided Octagon" format used by Song Jiang is tough.
On the same issue of battles, there is some hyperbole in the descriptions; it is almost as if battle has been romanticised. The successes of the bandit army seem to be exaggerated. However, on the positive side, the battle scenes are quite exciting.
Shui Hu Zhuan is a very episodic work. In fact, some parallels could probably be drawn with 1001 Days and 1001 Nights as well as the Decameron, two other examples of episodic works from different cultures. The episodes in Shui Hu Zhuan are quite well done with the infamous cliff-hanger; read the next chapter to find out.
After reading the criticism that Janaki sent me, I still haven't been able to determine exactly the underlying message of this work. There is the suggestion of brotherly love among the bandits and its importance in society. The second issue that I seemed to detect was a criticism of the evolution of Chinese society. The major idea with the second issue is that the Emperor is truly descended from God and is good. However, the Emperor has been corrupted by evil officials leading to the problems facing the dynasty. This corruption is further accented by the fact that the bandits only kill corrupt officials and leave the innocent officials alone. This as well is another example of the glorification of the bandits.
Overall, I don't think that Shui Hu Zhuan is among my favourite works that I have read even though it is quite well done. However, I do know that it is much better than Anna Karenin ^_- I did learn some interesting things from the book as well as finding some things that I want to look up (such as the various constellations discussed); I wish that I knew a bit more about astrology and military strategy and feel that I could have understood the work a little better with this knowledge.
Anyway, I would like to thank Janaki for her criticism about this work; I would never have ever read this book without being informed of it. As an interesting comment, my public library had a copy in three volumes in Chinese but no translation. Thus, I had to get the text from the University library (thank you Interlibrary Loans ^_^).
Copyright ©1999 Stephen Congly
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