Sunday, February 18, 2024

Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong translated by Moss Roberts: Book Review


(Book Review--Classics, Historical Fiction)

Started: October 27, 2023 
--Finished Volume 1: December 13, 2023
--Finished Volume 2: January 26, 2024
--Finished Volume 3: February 11, 2024
--Finished Volume 4: February 17, 2024

(This is my first time reading this book, so according to my new rules, I'm doing this as a video only review.) 



See also my reviews of the individual volumes:
(I finished volumes 3 and 4 while away on Tet holiday, so I decided not to film individual reviews for those volumes.)


The summary of the Three Kingdoms video that I mentioned: https://youtu.be/SFKMJmnYUTc?si=KWVfkEIxq9Col6OO

October 29, 2023 Three Kingdoms Introduction p.1-20, p.1-35
November 5, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.35-108
November 12, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.108-224
November 19, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.224-302
November 26, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.302-386
December 3, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.386-456
December 10, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.456-502
December 17, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.502-542,597-612
December 24, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.612-678
December 31, 2023 Three Kingdoms p.678-780
January 07, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.780-820
January 14, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.820-910
January 21, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.910-1002
January 28, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.1002-1104, 1153-1158
February 04, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.1158-1238
February 10, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.1238-1646
February 18, 2024 Three Kingdoms p.1646-1684, p.1723-2340

Playlist HERE

3 comments:

Futami-chan said...

6:30
Three Kingdoms has one excerpt being taught in high school Literature textbook. That being the segment in which Liu Bei feigned astraphobia after dropping the spoon at the table with Cao Cao.

Joel Swagman said...

Ah, interesting. Thanks for that. I've been asking a lot of Vietnamese people about this book recently, and you're the first person to mention that it's been taught in high school literature. I wonder why no one else seems to remember that.
I was having a conversation with my sister-in-law yesterday about something related (Vietnamese knowledge of history), and she said that studying 13 subjects at once, and the stress of high school examinations cause most Vietnamese students to forget most of what they learned in high school. I wonder if that's also why no one I've talked to has mentioned that excerpt?

Futami-chan said...

That's the natural result stemming from the education system and culture that values metrical grades as the sole important thing to concern with. Or so one of what I believe.

The standard way most Vietnamese high school students deal with their Literature class is to spend about 30 minutes copying texts from somewhere else onto their notebook at home [1], coming to the Literature class straining their eyes for 45 minutes, bluffing their answers when being asked questions by the teacher, and only read the works themselves whenever there's an exam. Foreign literature of course is never on the exams (or at least the important ones, my memory is quite fuzzy).

But actually I don't know. I think maybe people just find it hard to convey in English (I assume) and maybe they deemed that to be too trivial to try hard to say. Or maybe those you asked are young students who learned from the reformed textbook which might have omitted (just a guess as I'm totally clueless about what happened to the generations coming after me).

[1] It's called "prepare-the-lesson-at-home-before-coming-to-class" or "soạn bài" or whatever it is. No, it doesn't work, whatever the intended purpose, obviously.