Thoughts about other Water Margin and other novels

[Lady Wu]

no recommendations? nobody even wants to tell me which version/s they've read?

I only know Sidney Shapiro's translation. According to Wiki there's a more recent one, but I haven't seen it and don't know how it compares. (Not that I read through Shapiro's either...) Sorry.

[agga]

oh, i'm okay for now. in china over the spring festival i picked up a copy of SGYY that i can actually read: it's from 世界少年文学经典文库, which I guess is a series of abridged classics for young readers - this i can handle. it's been abridged and re-written by two authors, 吴远山 and 胡之澍.

knowing the story, i'm getting through it with about 80% comprehension (some passages i have to get my wife to explain), though i can't get through most pages without using the dictionary like 10 times.

so i will get to the water margin later...

[Zhuanyong]

I haven't read this story but, by watching about 20+ episodes of the series I am very interested in reading it and probably will try to read the PDF version I have soon.

The story appeals to me more than SGYY for some reason and I definitely enjoy following the hardships and bonds that each of the men (so far) share with one another. I'd say that the fighting is blended well with the character development. In my opinion, more so than SGYY. As for the series, All Men Are Brothers 2011, I'd say I think it was done better than Three Kingdoms 2010. Aside from the brilliant acting by a number of the Three Kingdoms actors and actress, the series doesn't quite match Water Margin. I'm sure that the budget had a lot to do with some of this but, I just enjoy the action and story more.

[bodidley]

Water Margin is pretty awesome, although it's so long by the time you get to the formation of the band of outlaws in the marsh it can get pretty tedious.

Sidney Shapiro's translation is just great because of the artful use of dated language, so the book is pretty much full of guys overeating, getting drunk and giving churlish naves a good drubbing.

Sagacious Lu is my hero.

[Zhuanyong]

so the book is pretty much full of guys overeating, getting drunk and giving churlish naves a good drubbing.

Sagacious Lu is my hero.

I gathered that much from watching the first 21 episodes of the series. Pretty funny in my opinion.

You too? I've enjoyed Lu Zhishen the most thus far out of all the heroes.

I'll look out for Sidney Shapiro's translation then.

[Zhai Rong]

Shi Qian is my favourite. After all he's done for the group, I'm surprised that he ended up such a lowly ranked leader.

I caught a bit of the new series while I was in China and thought it look much better than the 1998 version, which seemed to leave some of the major stories underdone while having an odd focus on some of the less important stories.

My grandparents have a copy of 新水浒传 (New Water Margin) and I read a bit of it a few years ago. It seems to be essentially the same plot with a lot more tales added in. I got to about halfway through Zhu Wu's massive backstory. Has anyone read a more substantial chunk of this? What's your opinion?

[Zhuanyong]

This is totally according to their interpretations on the All Men Are Brothers TV Series, but I think I have my favorites among the heroes:

Wu Song
Lu Zhishen
Yan Qing
Shi Xiu
Wu Yong (the actor should have played ZGL in Three Kingdoms in my opinion)

There are some others who personalities are pretty cool and what they represent is fine but, these are the ones that drew me into the series and story more. Li Kui is a unique character but, it made my day when the actor who played Zhang Fei in Three Kingdoms played that role in AMAB.

Song Jiang seems like a Liu Bei rip-off in my opinion.