Essential Chinese literature

4 Great Classics.
Then get back to the west because the rest translates badly and isn't really worth it.

>>9503268
Are you fucking serious m8

>>9503280
Get something better than shitty Chinese literature

>>9503274
This can't be true. China is a 2000 year old country with four worthwhile books in that whole time. Is this fucking /pol/?

>>9503280
Enlighten me on the "obvious" chinese classics I'm missing.

>>9503283
Boy you have no idea how badly chinese translates.

>>9503268
Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Look up Chinese philosophy. Much like a lot of inventions, the Chinese had written about most philosophies centuries before the West but don't get credit because they didn't have contact with Europe.

>>9503296
>chinese philosophy
>philosophy
Yeah no. Awkward mysticism at best.

>>9503268

Since I doubt anyone else will give modern recommendations, I'll give you some. I will include exiled authors that write in Chinese because communist censorship is a bitch.

The True Story of Ah Q (1921) by Lu Xun
Cat Country (1932) by Lao She
Rickshaw Boy (1937) by Lao She
Love in a Fallen City (1943) by Eileen Chang
Lust, Caution (1979) by Eileen Chang
Fortress Besieged (1947) by Qian Zhongshu
Red Sorghum (1986) by Mo Yan
Frog by Mo Yan (2009)
Soul Mountain (1989) by Gao Xingjian
Beijing Coma (2008) by Ma Jian
The Dark Road (2012) by Ma Jian

>>9503287
>heaven composes, man disposes

jin yong is the peak of Chinese literature

he's comparable to Tolstoy

Leave Me Alone, Murong Xuecun

Decoded, Mai Jia

>>9503268
Annalects of Confucius and Mencius and the four classics.

File: 81As6VhuNmL.jpg (451KB, 1523x2337px) Image search: [Google]

451KB, 1523x2337px

Six Records of a Floating Life

>>9503301
>we do not know life; how can we know death?
>The topics the master did not speak of were prodigies, force, disorder and gods
Oh yeah, mystical as hell.

>>9503268
Poems brah. Du Fu, Li Bai, Qu Yuan, the list could go on. Although I guess >>9503287 has a point when it comes to poetry.

>>9503283
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ARE YOU SOME KIND OF POL TARD?" kys, senpai

>>9504734
He was baiting. Don't respond to yeehaw spits yemctortilla white trash.

I've heard Murakami is pretty good but idk.

> ctrl+f li hua
> 0 responces
Does modern /lit/ forget about its heroes?

Poems of Hanshan

>>9503287
Classical Chinese, specifically. Modern Chinese is okay-ish.

Do you want to read the book which got both Borges and Kafka to rave about it? Also it has a bunch of qt monstergirl sex (mostly foxgirl, "fairy" and ghost).

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. You can really see the influence on the two buggers.

Don't read the unbearably shitty translations.

I mostly read modern Chinese novels in their original language (guess my nationality) so for the modern era it would be:

Lu Xun
Xu Zhimo
Lao She
Ba Jin
Hu Shih
Arguably Yu Hua
Mo Yan
Shen Congwen
Lin Yutang

>>9503447
This list is pretty good, although Lust, Caution is notorious to the point of a meme.

Fundamentals are the Four Great Novels and the Four Books and Five Classics, the Chinese equivalent of start with the Greeks. I rarely see the latter mentioned here for some reason, probably because of translation issues. Some Buddhist supplemental readings are required as well, but I'll be damned if I can name them.

>>9503545
Jin yong's novels can arguably be considered literature. I would compare his status to that of Tolkein's. Make of that what you will. I've read some of his series before when I was 15 and personally it was amazing.

I have only read fragments of Chinese poetry, which is a pretty wide term itself ranging from the Song ci to fu, so some other guys here probably have a better idea than I like >>9504739

Only a small glimpse of the pristine quality of Chinese literature is accessible through the lens of Western translations, but if you are already past your midlife crisis its mostly adieu to the originals.

I am not an expert on Chinese literature; all that I know has only been derived from my parents who were educators specializing in Chinese literature.

ge fei is a contemporary writer in beijing, has some interesting short stories and heavily influenced by borges & kafka with borges/kafka. not available in translation last time i checked.
ouyang jianghe is a contemporary poet, high modernist style, difficult to untangle but beautiful. he has been translated by a chinese-british translator austin woerner whose introduction in one of the books 'doubled shadows' gives real insight into the task of translating generally & translating chinese poetry specifically, that helps one go further in understanding than "zomg translation impossible dont waste ur time".

>>9504936
you write like a reddit faggot. stop it.

>>9505023
lol nice reddit spacing faggot

>>9504697
The Lin Yutang translation is much better and follows the original order too.

>>9503447
Throw in Ma Jian's Red Dust too.

and a couple of older classics:

Pu Songling's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (short horror/ghost stories, great stuff)
The Scholars by Wu Jingzi (satire on the Confucian bureaucracy)

>>9504973
>Some Buddhist supplemental readings are required as well, but I'll be damned if I can name them.
Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Lotus Sutra (from Xuanzang and Kumarajiva's Chinese translations), Avatamsaka "Space Odyssey" sutra, Platform Sutra, some Chan sayings, some Chan poetry.

Check Bill Porter/Red Pine's translations, they're among the best out there.

>>9504973
>I rarely see the latter mentioned here for some reason
Be honest: have you read through the Five Classics? That shit is loooooooong.

>>9505047
Thank you. I will try to read them in Chinese if possible.

>>9505206
I haven't even made it through all of the Four Books mate. A couple of my friends who did told me not to bother with the Five Classics. Nevertheless, I am still going to read (if possible) all of them. I just hope that my classical Chinese doesn't fail me.

>>9505253
四書 are very short and quite readable
五經 quite long, very difficult. get commented versions, and dip in and out and enjoy instead of putting yourself off.
Poetry: Dip in and out and enjoy.

Also, 金瓶梅, The Golden Lotus, a Ming dynasty naughty novel that reads like it was written by a Chinese ancestor of Joyce.

>>9503283

Didn't Mao destroy a lot of literature?

>>9505265
I'm skimming through 山海经 at the moment and will move on to 聊哉志异. I will definitely check out 金瓶梅 and 四書五經 in the near future. That comparison to Joyce certainly piqued my interest. For all of them I will be reading it in their original language. With that being said, I will still check out the translations so as to be able to translate some of the ideas into my writing.

>>9505292
山海經 is a great read, hope you got an illustrated edition. (there's actually an English translation out somewhere, the Classic of Mountains and Seas) - SJW types would be horrified at the raychist depictions of horrible mutant foreigners in this classic work of Chinese ethno-geography which was in educational use until only 100 years ago...

The 金瓶梅 & Joyce comparison has been made before (not taking credit for it) in that it contains a load of extra-literary stuff in it, street songs, pedlar's shouted advertisements, ballads, poems, random shit etc.

And of course, whole chapters of darling little fuckbird stuff too.

>>9505268
No. How would that even be possible in the modern (basically post-printing, mass literacy) age?

>>9505027

Where can I find the Lin Yutang translation in ebook form?

>>9506863
libgen.io
It is reprinted in The Wisdom of China and India

>>9506947
>>9506906
thanks my nigga, I'm gonna read it in Chinese though!