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lou1sb's review against another edition
4.0
It's rare for a novel translated into English to have the translator's name on the sleeve, and even rarer when it's a work of popular fiction translated by an emerging translator. (Side note: Goodreads needs to lift their game. Can I get a librarian to add Tyran Grillo's name as the translator of this book?)
A complex and beautiful work of detective fiction, which Tyran Grillo's translation brings to us despite the original Dream of the Red Chamber being distant from most English readers. The translator's skillful mix of Chinese and English cliches in the opening chapters foreshadow the way in which the author references and subverts the conventions of Eastern and Western detective fiction in the later chapters, as the bodies pile up and the killer is finally revealed. There are sniffs of Edogawa Rampo, who of course wore his influences on his sleeve, as well as references to the classic and sometimes-supernatural tradition of detective fiction in China.
Kurodahan Press does a good job of publishing genre fiction translated from Japanese, and I'd love to see them put out more crime fiction (I know I've said that before), particularly works as original and richly detailed as this.
A complex and beautiful work of detective fiction, which Tyran Grillo's translation brings to us despite the original Dream of the Red Chamber being distant from most English readers. The translator's skillful mix of Chinese and English cliches in the opening chapters foreshadow the way in which the author references and subverts the conventions of Eastern and Western detective fiction in the later chapters, as the bodies pile up and the killer is finally revealed. There are sniffs of Edogawa Rampo, who of course wore his influences on his sleeve, as well as references to the classic and sometimes-supernatural tradition of detective fiction in China.
Kurodahan Press does a good job of publishing genre fiction translated from Japanese, and I'd love to see them put out more crime fiction (I know I've said that before), particularly works as original and richly detailed as this.
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