447 reviews for:

A Hero Born

Jin Yong

3.78 AVERAGE

theqwertiest's review

3.0
adventurous medium-paced
adventurous fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot

aranthe02's review

4.0

Fun, fast Hong Kong cinema in a book that ends in a cliffhanger.
adventurous tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

antiauk's review

3.0

Three stars and a waffle.
queenoftheharpys's profile picture

queenoftheharpys's review

4.0

I won this book through Goodreads' First Reads program. I entered to win this book because I like adventure stories and I hadn't read any works originally written in China. I had a hard time getting into it at first, though there were a lot of beautiful descriptions. I ran into a fight scene with what seemed to be an error early in the book, and it threw me off. Two characters were fighting and one ran out of arrows, then suddenly he had arrows again. I paused and reread it, this is when I realized that I was reading a Kung-Fu novel. From that point on, it was a much easier read. The story contains a lot of action and characters. I wish that it had a pronunciation guide for the names, as I don't know Chinese pronunciations. This would have made reading it a bit easier.

The appendices in the back were very helpful in giving context, but I wish there had been footnotes in the text to link me to them right away as I'm not familiar with Chinese history.

There were several art plates throughout that were very beautiful.

Excellent! This book is filled with fantastical and eccentric characters, both fictional and historical. There are twist and turns and of course some excellent Kung Fu fight scenes through out the novel. I have always enjoyed Wuxia cinema. Louis Cha captures the essence of Wuxia.

55/100.

Creo que este libro, o más bien, esta versión del libro, no ha sido para mí. Trata un tema complejo: fantasía. Yo, al no ser el lector que tenía en mente Jin Yong a la hora de escribir la obra, debía hacer un esfuerzo extra para entender el contexto histórico. Me ha costado bastante.

Esta novela es el germen del género wuxia, muy popular tanto en literatura como en series de televisión. Esta novela es muy cinematográfica. Fue un libro escrito hace 50 años, así que los clichés de fantasía o el tratamiento de personajes femeninos los juzgo según el contexto en el que estuvieron escritos. Sin embargo, hay algo que a mí no me ha gustado: la traducción.

El problema de la traducción es que procede de la traducción inglesa, y no del original chino. En este juego de doble traslación, se ha perdido algo. He leído comentarios sobre la traducción inglesa y cómo no es que haya convencido mucho tampoco. Entonces, se parte de un contratiempo nuclear.

Sin embargo, debo decir que he devorado el tramo final, aunque es verdad que era previsible.

He visto que había algunas adaptaciones. A lo mejor les doy una oportunidad y así me enamoro de la historia antes de volver a releerlo.
adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

justalackey's review

2.0

A grand epic hampered by a weak translation.

I wanted to immerse myself fully in one of the stories that defined the wuxia genre, but the mechanical translation made for stiff reading. As much as I wanted to see how this generation-spanning tale of romance, revenge, and honor would end, having to parse through the stilted descriptions was too much.

Fortunately, I'm told that the TV adaptation is excellent, so I'll give that a try.