Three Kingdoms: A Historical Novel

Where do I start? This is an enormous novel and many things about it seem to be twice as much as War and Peace: twice the length (2340 pages in this edition) and twice as many characters (1000 aginst 500 for Tolstoy’s master work). Three Kingdoms covers a key period in Chinese history from 168 to 280CE when the Han Dynasty collapsed (in 221CE) and was replaced by three kingdoms – Wei, Wu and Shu – who competed for mastery for sixty years before a new Jin Dynasty was founded. That’s where the novel ends, though the excellent translator, Moss Roberts, reminds us that that unity lasted barely a generation before the empire fractured again in 306CE. Western history buffs will know that this was a critical period for the Roman Empire as well, with decades of rebellions and invasions in the third century culminating in the temporary unification of the empire by Diocletian in 284CE. A timeline of events in China and Europe during this time would be interesting.But this is an historical novel, not a history textbook. This edition is published by Chinese Classics in a four volume box set. It looks cheap and it has a lot of typos but on the plus side each volume is easy to carry in your pocket, unlike some other huge editions. You also get the full unabridged translation of one of the most widely accepted and studied versions of the novel. There’s a hint there. Nothing is straightforward with Three Kingdoms. With this edition, however, you get a lost of extras to help guide you through the labyrinth. These include a long “Afterword” at the end of Volume IV. This reads like the kind of scholarly introduction you would expect to get at the start of a Penguin Classics edition – though annoyingly Penguin Classics don’t do an unabridged version of the novel. The Afterword is a detailed but readable canter through the historical sources of the novel and the history of the novel itself, with several variants appearing at different times for different political reasons.Here is a summary from memory. It’s generally accepted that Luo Guanzhong wrote the novel some time in the fifteenth century or possibly the fourteenth. He used various sources, including historical works, poetry and drama. The fall of the Han Dynasty 1200 years earlier had topical relevance in his lifetime because of the fall of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty in 1368 and its replacement by the Ming Dynasty…or if Luo was writing in the fifteenth century, the topical relevance was later Mongol attempts to topple the Ming. Or maybe the novel was written in the sixteenth century when something else was happening. Anyway, we have two main variants, one published in 1522 and one published in the seventeenth century that was edited and heavily annotated by one Mao Zonggang. When Mao was around, the Ming Dynasty collapsed and was replaced by the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty (1644). Was Mao pro-Ming or pro-Qing? Who knows, but his edition is very different from the 1522 version (and about 1/6 shorter). This edition has lots of footnotes that refer to Mao’s own notes. You can ignore these without losing any reading pleasure but they do give a lot of useful background information (e.g. where the novel strays from fact into pure fiction) and Mao’s inciteful observations about the literary merits of the novel.One thing to be aware of is that this is a very masculine novel. There are few female characters, though the women who do appear tend to be at the top of the heap: empresses and imperial concubines. Some warriors even. Some of them are extremely courageous and virtuous, which means they commit suicide rather than face disgrace and dishonour. Occasionally they might influence a decision, but the overwhelming feeling is that is a patriarchal world where elite men call the shots. It reminds me that China doesn’t seem to have any history of democracy. This is a feudal world where everyone owes allegiance to someone above them in the hierarchy, except the emperor, who is the son of heaven. There are characters of all kinds: heroes, cowards, virtuous men like Xuande and incredibly clever and cunning villains like Cao Cao. Most are soldiers and imperial officials, but some of the most interesting are wise men – often Taoist priests – who get by on their wits rather than their lineage. The descriptions of campaigns and battles make you realise that China must have been an incredibly wealthy and well-organised state (or collection of states) almost 2000 years ago. There’s no other way that armies of hundreds of thousands could have been sustained in the field for years at a time. That’s why the various military strategists in the novel make a big deal about grain depots and arms dumps and lines of march. It all sounds very modern. And the translation – which was done in the 1980s – reads very easily. Apparently, it is a close translation of Mao’s text but there’s nothing pompous or stilted about it. It could have been written yesterday.Some rulers regard competence and virtue as more important than being posh so they appoint a wise man of humble birth to high office, but on the whole status and birth trump everything else. One of the great exceptions is Kongming, a man from nowhere who rises to become prime minister of the Riverlands kingdom. He has a wealth of talent bordering on wizardry but is essentially honest and virtuous. There is one extraordinary episode in Volume III where he creates some kind of maze in the landscape that traps an invading army. It is a superb piece of writing. It’s in Chapter 84: “Kongming deploys the Eightfold Ramparts Maze”. If that’s the only chapter you ever read, you’ll come away amazed.If you read the whole novel though, you begin to realise that this is not simply a catalogue of battles, betrayals and flying heads (counting the number of decapitations would be a challenge for any mathematician). It is in fact a masterpiece that has had massive influence, not only in China but in surrounding countries. How helpful it could be in enabling us to predict where China is going in the twenty-first century remains to be seen. I came away from it feeling that I had learned a lot about Chinese history and in the process, I met some unforgettable characters and events. If the present Chinese leaders are learning any lessons from Three Kingdoms, the West needs to read it too.

I'm assuming anyone interested enough to read through reviews of Three Kingdoms needs no convincing in terms of the story itself. It is, without questions, a superb epic and more than worth anyone's time (of which you will need a lot if you are to finish it). In light of this, my review will focus specifically on Moss Roberts's unabridged edition of Three Kingdoms. To anyone wondering whether to go with Brewett-Taylor's 1920's translation or this one, I say look no further.To begin with, Moss Robert's translation uses the all but universally adopted system of Pinyin, whereas Brewett-Taylor's (published before Pinyin was devised) used the Wade-Giles romanisation system - now out of use everywhere except Taiwan. Thus, when Moss Roberts writes "Cao Cao" and "Sima Yi", Brewett-Taylor writes "Ts'ao Ts'ao" and "Ss'uma Ii". Not only are the Pinyin names in wider use now, they are also easier to read.Secondly, the language is far more accessible in the Moss Roberts version. This is not to say that it is dumbed down - quite the contrary. The translations of the poems and couplets are beautifully rendered and capture the emotional tone conveyed in the original Chinese very well; they even rhyme most of the time.Lastly, this revised edition contains a long list of vital characters, footnotes, an expanded set of illustrations and maps (the maps come in handy when trying to visualise key battles and events). There is also a superb afterword which, at 120 pages long, does a great job of contextualising the novel in terms of its place in Chinese culture and historiography. It sorts fact from fiction, for anyone interested in the historical aspect of the novel (it is, after all, a romanticised and often fictionalised account of the period). These three facts alone place the updated Moss Roberts edition far above Brewett-Taylor's in my opinion. Nevertheless, this edition is not without flaws, and I would be remiss not to point them out.Firstly, there are the typos. It's a shame that the editor didn't or couldn’t to sift through them in earnest, as they are both numerous and grating. Secondly, the quality of the cover, the box and the paper, doesn't live up to the content - particularly given its cultural and historical significance. Lastly - and this is the big one - there are the spoilers. Yes, you heard me. The spoilers.While the introduction and the footnotes do a superb job of clarifying, contextualising and elaborating, they are also often guilty of revealing the turn of events long before the reader has got to that part of the story. Thus, we are told the ultimate fate of Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Cao Cao, the Wei, the Southland, and the Shu, far in advance of getting there ourselves. Unless Moss Roberts thought that only those already versed in the historical period of the Three Kingdoms would read this, I cannot fathom why he would deem it appropriate or even necessary to reveal such things to the reader without warning him first. I suppose this was published before the phrase *spoiler alert* was coined.I would therefore be inclined to recommend that readers who wish to remain unspoiled avoid the introduction and the footnotes sections altogether. However, given how useful the footnotes actually are (for the most part) in terms of aiding the reader through esoteric references to historical figures, historical events, and cultural themes, I cannot endorse that recommendation fully. It is a shame, because the footnotes are essential to all but the most well versed sinologists, and yet they ultimately rob the reader of the pleasure of being surprised at crucial points in the story.However, despite these flaws, I still loved Moss Roberts's edition. It's easy to tell how enamoured and engrossed he was by this story, and his passion shines through in this beautiful translation, promising to make for a spectacular read. I, for one, look forward to rereading it in the future.