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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
I choose for now to watch the movie, since it's a bit confusing to understand with my level or vocab and knowledge.
adventurous
slow-paced
This felt like one long list of names and battles. I was never able to pick up the flow of the narrative or find the plot hook to pull me in. This makes me sad as I really enjoy historical reads and I was really looking forward to this book.
One of the Best books I have ever read. Its Politics, warfare, strategy, humanity, cruelty, and so much more rolled into one historical novel.
At times it does get confusing (I read a translated version, some names are the same, but different people), and it is a long book. But I was never able to put it down.
At times it does get confusing (I read a translated version, some names are the same, but different people), and it is a long book. But I was never able to put it down.
If you thought Tolstoy novels had a lot of characters with complex nomenclature, you clearly haven't read Romance of the Three Kingdoms. A fictionalised version of a particularly chaotic time in ancient Chinese history, it's full of towering heroes and scheming villains. Staying true to the vagaries of history, there are innumerable reversals of fortune, defeats coming fast on the heels of victories and vice versa.
It's as stylistically unadventurous as you would expect from a novel hundreds of years old - the battle descriptions become incredibly repetitive - but the neverending intrigues as the kingdoms struggle for supremacy remain fascinating.
It's as stylistically unadventurous as you would expect from a novel hundreds of years old - the battle descriptions become incredibly repetitive - but the neverending intrigues as the kingdoms struggle for supremacy remain fascinating.
i am listening to the book via Podcast from 3kingdoms.com. excellent rendition for English speakers with no social or historical context for the book. great reader and helps you followby explaining the things you're likely not to understand. Great job. i'm enjoying the book
Reading Three Kingdoms is a capital-P Project. 120 chapters chronicling close to a 100 years of Chinese history, the fall of the Han dynasty, the emergence of the Shu, Wei and Wu states and their eventual unification by the Jin dynasty. A kingdom long united must divide, long divided must unite. I read this titanic book over 10 months, 12 chapters at a time, and it proved to be a fantastic way to do so: I got enough content every month to think about, never got bored and never forgot what was going on when I hopped back in.
And I really enjoyed my time with it; like Moss Roberts, the translator of this excellent unabridged version, says in his closing essay, this book can be considered a historical text, a novel, a drama - it has it all. A cavalcade of major and minor characters, most of them memorable, outrageous and terrible at decision-making, at times guided by foolish ideals, and at others the natural inertia towards power that leadership brings. It's a book concerned about what it means to be a good ruler, or someone who serves their ruler, and how that doesn't guarantee success. And sometimes it's about a mischievous wizard that pranks said rulers with troll magic, building ridiculous shrines to change the direction of the wind, doing dream interpretation, or summoning a maze to confound an enemy's army.
And it's *really* well written. It may have been written in the 14th century and that may lead someone to imagine it being hard to read, or constricted by antiquated literary conventions from said times. Far from it, it deploys drama, twists, sometimes tightly paced and sometimes drawn out battles, both in the battlefield and at kingdoms' courts, superbly. Gambits upon gambits are layered on top of each other when master strategists find themselves at opposite ends of the battlefield. Poems, letters and even children songs litter the pages and color the action on the page. I laughed out loud, I... well, I mostly laughed. But it's good! It's not hard to see where its popularity comes from and why it has come to be known as one of China's 4 classic novels.
I'll admit that the first 3/4s or so are more exciting than the latter parts of the book, full of more supernatural feats, legendary heroes and history-shaking battles; history doesn't always lend itself to exciting final confrontations or epic finales, and by the time the book reaches its conclusion it's more of a fizzling out than an energetic burst, but I thought the earlier parts provided enough momentum that the novel kept me hooked to the end.
Also: Shout-outs to the Romance of the Two Networks podcast, a fantastic reading companion to the book that also happened to fit well with my 12-chapters-a-month reading schedule.
Also also: Red Hare Forever
And I really enjoyed my time with it; like Moss Roberts, the translator of this excellent unabridged version, says in his closing essay, this book can be considered a historical text, a novel, a drama - it has it all. A cavalcade of major and minor characters, most of them memorable, outrageous and terrible at decision-making, at times guided by foolish ideals, and at others the natural inertia towards power that leadership brings. It's a book concerned about what it means to be a good ruler, or someone who serves their ruler, and how that doesn't guarantee success. And sometimes it's about a mischievous wizard that pranks said rulers with troll magic, building ridiculous shrines to change the direction of the wind, doing dream interpretation, or summoning a maze to confound an enemy's army.
And it's *really* well written. It may have been written in the 14th century and that may lead someone to imagine it being hard to read, or constricted by antiquated literary conventions from said times. Far from it, it deploys drama, twists, sometimes tightly paced and sometimes drawn out battles, both in the battlefield and at kingdoms' courts, superbly. Gambits upon gambits are layered on top of each other when master strategists find themselves at opposite ends of the battlefield. Poems, letters and even children songs litter the pages and color the action on the page. I laughed out loud, I... well, I mostly laughed. But it's good! It's not hard to see where its popularity comes from and why it has come to be known as one of China's 4 classic novels.
I'll admit that the first 3/4s or so are more exciting than the latter parts of the book, full of more supernatural feats, legendary heroes and history-shaking battles; history doesn't always lend itself to exciting final confrontations or epic finales, and by the time the book reaches its conclusion it's more of a fizzling out than an energetic burst, but I thought the earlier parts provided enough momentum that the novel kept me hooked to the end.
Also: Shout-outs to the Romance of the Two Networks podcast, a fantastic reading companion to the book that also happened to fit well with my 12-chapters-a-month reading schedule.
Also also: Red Hare Forever
adventurous
dark
hopeful
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
After a certain point I struggled with remembering who was who and what side they were on. The character interactions/monolgues were the most interesting part. There is an emphasis of brotherhood and finding your equal in a friend/rival. The numerous battles began to bore me by the end, but there was enough political intrigue to keep me interested. My favorite parts were when the translator would incorporate different poems of the events into the narrative
adventurous
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes