Customer Reviews

The Book and the Sword

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The Book & The Translator

By Graham Earnshaw

Once upon a time, in 1973, I landed in Hong Kong and sat in the lobby of the Mandarin Hotel and looked at a notice under the glass of the coffee table with identical information in both English and Chinese, laid out as numbered points. I looked at the English "1,2, 3", then at the Chinese squiggles, and saw that one stroke was 1, two strokes 2 and ... three strokes 3! I can read Chinese! It was a simple path from that moment to the translation of the kungfu novel "The Book & The Sword", now published by Oxford University Press.

The novel was written by author Louis Cha, who occupies a position in modern Chinese literature equivalent to that of Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy combined. He is a giant, and unfortunately a lonely giant. There are no other authors of his stature in modern Chinese popular literature.

The Book and the Sword is a story that virtually every Chinese person knows, involving kung fu secret society struggles against the Manchu court, the beautiful but tragic Fragant Princess, whose tomb stands outside Kashgar, and the war between the Manchu armies and the Muslim peoples of what is now western China.

It was Cha's first book, serialised in 1955 under his pen name Jin Yong in the Hong Kong newspaper that he founded, Ming Pao. Louis Cha (Jin Yong), is a famous media person, and one of the top authors in the Chinese world. His novels have had a huge impact on the whole of Chinese society and culture, and have been adapted many times for TV, film, audio cassette, strip cartoon and even computer games. He is probably the most-pirated author of all time.

Cha's novels find favour with all levels of Chinese society, from the university professors who savour his command of the Chinese language, to kids who just love the fight scenes. From a western perspective, they provide a window into the Chinese world, revealing its essence through the dreams and fantasies that make up whatever it is to be Chinese. The equivalent, in other words, of Tolkein's success in "Lord of the Rings" in tapping into the sources of northern European culture.

Book & Sword's story has a panoramic sweep which takes as its base a few unbeatable themes - secret societies, king fu masters, the sensational rumour so dear to Chinese hearts that the great Manchu emperor Qian Long was in fact a Chinese and not Manchu. It also mixes in the exotic flavours of central Asia, a lost city in the desert guarded by wolf packs and the unforgettable Fragrant Princess, who ate flowers and exuded a scent that every Chinese man would love to inhale. Me too.

Translating the book took around four years, and the fight scenes were by far the hardest part to get right. It inevitably involved some simplification. But I was as faithful to the spirit of the original as I could be. I took the view that I could omit or simplify, but not add and Mr Cha agreed with my approach.

When I translated the book, Chinese culture on the world scene basically came down to Bruce Lee. Now, the world has turned, "Heroes" and "Croaching Dragon" are major international box office draws, and kung fu culture has infiltrated western culture to a significant degree - the Matrix series is the proof.


(p.s. the Amazon system requires a star rating on all review entries, otherwise I would not have been so immodest as to rate this book)

This a kung fu adventure story full of fights, beautiful ladies, complicated romantic relationships, political intrigue and travel in China's wild west. The story takes a looong time to get going (about 300 pages out of 510.) When it finally gets going, it's quite good and hard to put down. The adventure gets more compelling, and at the same time it becomes something of a tragic love story.

This book shares some of the virtues and flaws of the other major Louis Cha/Jin Yong novel translated into English, "The Deer and the Cauldron." The virtue: both books are excellently and idiomatically translated by Graham Earnshaw, with a nice glossary to help you with all the character names. These two books are currently the ONLY novels by Louis Cha translated into English (except for one notoriously bad translation by someone else, and some comic book adaptations.)

The flaw: like "The Deer and the Cauldron" which took about 250 pages to get going, after which the next 1,250 pages (or whatever) were simply un-put-down-able, with this novel, the first 300 pages just introduce the characters and have repetitive fight scenes. It shows its origins as a serial in a newspaper. When the real story gets going, here it's only 210 pages to the end, alas, but it does leave you wanting more.

At first you think the novel is about a teenage girl who learns kung fu in secret and travels in disguise as a boy. Then you think it's about this or that member of the Red Flower Heroes, a secret society of patriots in Qing Dynasty China dedicated to overthrowing the Manchu government. They engage in numerous repetitive battles. Several couples are introduced and they gradually pair off, each romantic pairing clearly signalled.

Finally the story centers on Helmsmen Chen, the leader of the Red Flower Society, and his, um, complicated romantic relationships. While travelling in China's Muslim Wild West, he falls in love with Huo Qingtong, a Uighur (Turkic) princess of extraordinary brains, courage, and kung fu skills. But, due to a romantic misunderstanding, he thinks she's already taken. By coincidence he meets her sister, the Fragrant Princess Hasli, the most beautiful woman in the world. Through various misunderstandings, the virtuous Helmsmen Chen winds up with both sisters in love with him. I'm not giving anything away to say that this kind of thing cannot end well, and the story has a tragic aspect.

The latter part of the story can be quite exciting, with lost cities in the desert, hidden passages, that kind of thing. As you'd expect for a newspaper serial, there are implausible parts and logical discrepancies. If there's one thing about this novel that makes it inferior to "The Deer and the Cauldron", it's that Helmsman Chen is so virtuous, he's boring. I kept hoping he would show some lust or jealousy or something.

There is also a lot of political intrigue; the Manchu Emperor is secretly a Chinese by birth, and the Red Flower Heroes hatch a plan to exploit this fact to drive out the Manchu oppressors. Anyone who knows Chinese history knows how that will turn out. So, this story does not have a happy ending, but it is tied up nicely.

Graham Earnshaw deserves a lot of credit for translating this important Chinese author. Hey Graham, when you gonna translate "The Eagle-Shooting Heroes"?

this is what i expect from Louis Cha, an involving storyline and lots of kung fu stuff that i can't understand but still enjoy...
this book has both.
it's a great book, but i wish it were longer, cuz when i get into a book i don't want it to end. even "outlaws of the marsh"(2000+ pages) seems short when you're done reading it.

here are some recommendations.
"Musashi"
"Taiko"
"Outlaws of the Marsh"
& "The Deluge"

I'm not accusing other wuxia stories of being plotless, but the story here has a more noble feel to it because the heroes are trying to ease the pain of the people and restore the rule of China into the hands of the Chinese. I find that most wuxia novels/movies/series are more about the different schools doing this and usually just for their own purposes. In here, the empire is at stake, not just the reputation of the school or the pursuit of a murderer. I guess that's another way of saying that the story would exist even if all the martial arts was taken out so it's a good story that is garnished with exciting fight scenes.

It is true that the story is slow to get started, but I was patient because I knew that would be the case and knew the pay off would be big. And actually, I'm used to that being the case for epics like Three Kingdoms. I was concentrating on Chen Jialuo but I did keep track of the other heroes to some degree and know that I can go back to read and will have more to learn each time, developing new appreciation for various characters.

As to the matter of the translation itself, I thought it was well-done and quite readable. Translating this much text in the first place must be difficult. I like the way martial arts skills were simply left in as is because it's not as if it would make that much more sense to a casual Chinese reader. You just come to accept it as part of martial arts jargon. And the fact that it is an English translation is immensely helpful for those of us who are Chinese illiterate.

And just as a small confession, I picked this up so that I could decide whether or not I wanted to buy the 1976 TVB Drama adaptation of "The Book and the Sword" starring Adam Cheng. I know the TV series was relatively faithful to the book so now I'll have rudimentary knowledge of what they're saying.

Whenever you see a two page list of characters in the front of a novel, you know you're in for a long ride, and that's what this first story by martial arts novelist Louis Cha is - a long ride. Fortunately, the action is rapid, the characters and interesting and the story, while sometimes convoluted in the extreme, keeps the reader's attention.

A typical Louis Cha martial arts novel.
I hope his other novels will be translated also.