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Q: Which of the 'four great classical novels' should a foreigner read?
Water Margin
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Journey to the West
Dream of the Red Chamber
Have people read any of these classics? Which one is considered the greatest?
12 years 28 weeks ago in Arts & Entertainment - China
'Journey to the West' for sure. It is fun, easy to read and gives you a good vision of many chinese customs.
'Romance of the Three Kingdoms' has too much to do with names and titles.
'Dream of the Red Chamber' might make you go crazy.
Never tried 'Water Margin', though, it might be good.
the last one is the best for literature learning, others are for fun and history learning...
*****Admin, why do I get a kick for this answer?
Water Margin - Awesome. A lot more fun and funny than the title would suggest. Like a Chinese Sergio Leone film or something. That's probably a stupid comparison.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Outside of Communist China, there's a debate over whether this should be included or another book (plum in a golden vase) which is a lot more controversial. The party likes this book for its touching, cheesy patriotic scene in Chapter 1 that is the Chinese equivalent of a crying bald eagle carrying Rambo to Mount Rushmore in order to to personally defeat Hitler and Osama. Except it is China so it is grown men crying saying "We are brothers, we love our country." And then non-patriotic Cao cao (Snidely Whiplash meets Hannibal Lector in this book), unpatriotically destroys China for a few hundred years but the Chinese spirit prevails. Basically CCP ideologue pr0n. Anyway, most people never make it past chapter 1 because it is so boring, but chapter one is all they want you to read, and the Chinese know enough about Sanguo from pop culture to fill in the rest of the gaps.
Journey to the West - One of the best books ever written. Funny with lots of action. Not usually the heavy tone you would associate with great literature, so I actually admire the Chinese for including this book even though it goes against a lot of expectations. Must-read.
Dream of the Red Chamber - Also extremely good, if you have the months it takes to read this long-ass book. It's a more serious upstairs-downstairs novel with amazingly well-developed characters, the characters being the main draw. The writer is extremely tasteful, even when he's not being tasteful, and is a master of human psychology.
So, I'd go with the three, and plum in a golden vase, which is also incredible.
