The Scholars

You have to be ready for this one and know what you're getting into. I especially enjoy Old China books. What a great culture. As many as I've read, this one was different. It is a translation yet keeps the Chinese vernacular and takes place during a period which transcends between the old Confucious teaching and the new thoughts. There is no hero or central character. It is about the process of becoming a scholar and the status of the stages in doing so. The various characters, and there are many, are in tune only to their own kind - not their moral attributes but their level on the learning ladder. They reach these levels with intense study and taking the tests of each of the levels. Only few are chosen and not necessarily the best, depending on the judging. Again, it is fascinating because it is different. Just don't expect a story of plots and heros. Know what you are getting.

I have just begun reading, but I am totally encapitvatd. This is a very amusing tale, rather in the humorous spirit of "Journey to the West" (another which I've only just begun reading), and I am surprised how enjoyable they are. I was afraid it would be like reading Beowulf or Shakespeare, but the story was quite "modern" for the most part. That's what I want to say about this story: it's social satire and reads very well (likely due to the translation in many ways, no doubt; I have the Columbia University edition, which I suspect may be more lively than the one put out by the Bejing Foreign Languages Press). Reading this story is a wonderful and most educational contrast to learning about classical China in school. History is written by the elite, but this story has an Everyman's sensibility and pokes great fun at Chinese conventions and customs, many of which persist to this day.

I must confess that I read with pure, unadulterated JOY this masterful tale of Wu Jingzu. "The Scholars" is an incredible work, and the translation presented here is masterful.I can add little to the excellent review below. "The Scholars" is a well-crafted satire displaying the virtues (few) and vices (many) of the Confucian scholar-officials of the early Ming dynasty. The tales are often humorous (sometimes, even slapstick), and though many of the conventions will be unknown to the general reader (such as wedding and funeral ceremonies, adoption principles, host-guest relationships, etc.), the gist of the novel cannot be missed. The good news here is this: now, only the hardcover version (available through FLP, Beijing) is available. This version has nicer paper, and the illustrations are much more clearly rendered (and there is a print-quality rendition of the author to lead off the text). Oh, did I mention that the hardcover version is fifteen dollars less than the paperback? Do yourself a favor and give this excellent collection of tales a try!

I think it was Mark Twain who said that a classic is a book that everybody wants to *have* read, but that nobody wants to read. The Scholars is an exception to this generalization. It is one of the masterpieces of the Chinese novel, but it is as fun for a contemporary American to read today as it was for Wu Ching-tzu's contemporaries to read in imperial China.This book is an incisive satire of hypocrisy and corruption among Confucian intellectuals. Although the circumstances of the stories will be unfamiliar to the general reader, this translation supplies supporting material that will help explain the context. And we immediately identify with the cast of characters and their catalogue of vices: arrogant officials, obsequious would-be officials, impoverished students who become exactly like those who exploit them as soon as they are given a chance, etc.Wu Ching-tzu's worldview is not wholly negative, though. There are characters in this world who have honor. We get the sense that the author believes that the true spirit of Confucianism is very different from the debased institutional form it has taken in his era.One brilliant but challenging feature of this work is that it is not a simple linear narrative. Wu Ching-tzu weaves the stories of individuals in and out of one another. One storyline will abruptly stop, seemingly abandoned; another storyline will begin; then the characters from the previous storyline will reappear in the new story. This is dazzling narrative, but sometimes a little hard to follow: I recommend that you scrawl some brief notes in the margins or the back of the book so that you can remember who a character is when he or she reappears somewhere down the road. (I did a chart myself.) Believe me, though, it's worth the effort to fully appreciate this book.This is a delightful, humorous, and humane novel that will transport you to another world, but leave you with insights into human nature that are universal.