EPT
But aren't they not allowed to write science fiction? I heard that
What Are You Reading 2013 - Page 20
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
But aren't they not allowed to write science fiction? I heard that | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
New guidelines issued on March 31 discourage plot lines that contain elements of "fantasy, time-travel, random compilations of mythical stories, bizarre plots, absurd techniques, even propagating feudal superstitions, fatalism and reincarnation, ambiguous moral lessons, and a lack of positive thinking." http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/14/china-bans-time-travel-for-television/ Don't know about novels though; if so, that'd be bullshit. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
Do the Chinese write and read a lot of novels? I know the form doesn't have the same history that it does in the west. edit: "ambiguous moral lessons" lolol | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
Subversive in what sense? I can see how the genre may lend itself more towards subversive purposes, but you'll have to elaborate for me. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
of course there is much degraded sf of the "space opera" or "zombie apocalypse" variety which serves no such purpose, although these can be useful texts for the critique of ideology edit: remember that the central peg on which hangs the ideology of late capitalism (what Lacan would call the point de capiton) is the notion that, as Margaret Thatcher put it so eloquently, "There Is No Alternative." SF says, "Let There Be Alternatives! Another World Is Possible!" edit: the chapter I'm reading as we speak in Marcuse's Eros and Civilization called "Phantasy and Utopia" is a very interesting early version of this notion. This line of thought gets developed in Fredric Jameson's The Political Unconscious and then later, specifically on SF, in Archaeologies of the Future. Highly recommended! (and if you want to know what all of this is fighting against, you can read Postmodernism: Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Can you tell I'm a Jameson groupie?) | ||
Carnivorous Sheep
Baa?21247 Posts
In addition, in line with the "Chinese people are a bunch of pirating scum" image, a lot of people seem to read books online. Tons of sites are dedicated to just hosting txt/html files of books, legally obtained or otherwise. | ||
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StateSC2
Korea (South)621 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 28 2013 06:23 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: In addition, in line with the "Chinese people are a bunch of pirating scum" image, a lot of people seem to read books online. Tons of sites are dedicated to just hosting txt/html files of books, legally obtained or otherwise. this is why I love the chinese :D | ||
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JOJOsc2news
3000 Posts
On January 28 2013 04:29 sam!zdat wrote: ^oh I adore one hundred years of solitude, enjoy  I read that in English, German and right now I'm reading it in Spanish (sloooowly...) whenever I get the chance. I don't have much time for leisurely reading and I do try to translate everything I don't understand so I will be taking my time. | ||
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babylon
8765 Posts
On January 28 2013 06:23 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: A curious phenomenon in China that is, to my admittedly limited knowledge, unique to China is the relative popularity of online novels compared to the traditional. A lot of writers, ranging from complete amateur to "professional" writers, publish a lot of stuff online, where one of the most popular genres is scifi/fantasy. The more popular ones sometimes get published traditionally. In addition, in line with the "Chinese people are a bunch of pirating scum" image, a lot of people seem to read books online. Tons of sites are dedicated to just hosting txt/html files of books, legally obtained or otherwise. Relative popularity, perhaps, but I don't think (also to my admittedly limited knowledge!) that the phenomenon itself is limited to China. There are tons of Western-based online fiction archives on the internet, though obviously their numbers pale in comparison to the number of fanfiction archives. Likewise, popular online stories in the West have gotten published through traditional means after becoming big hits online. Most of the examples I can think of are based off fanfics actually (which were then altered to become original fiction), but I imagine it's not uncommon for the same to happen to popular original fiction stories. I can elaborate on this point if you're interested, but I imagine not everyone's particularly interested in hearing about the "shady" (but hilarious!) pasts of some authors.  Also, I've found quite a few Western-based sites dedicated also to just hosting txt/html files of books myself, though the one I was using (cough, it was mainly for academic books ....) got shut down. @ sam: Are you using SF to refer to sci-fi or spec fic? If the former, I think I see what you mean. If the latter, I would still like some clarification; I imagine there must be some difference in levels of subversion in presenting an alternate future vs. presenting an alternate past vs. presenting an alternate present. Also, are you a philosophy major or an English major? | ||
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dmnum
Brazil6910 Posts
On January 28 2013 05:01 babylon wrote: I've yet to find really good translations of Chinese novels. -__- I want to read Dream of the Red Chamber, but the only translation here in brazil is from the 70s and is out of print for ~20 years. Makes me sad, it seems like a really good novel | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
On January 28 2013 06:23 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: A curious phenomenon in China that is, to my admittedly limited knowledge, unique to China is the relative popularity of online novels compared to the traditional. A lot of writers, ranging from complete amateur to "professional" writers, publish a lot of stuff online, where one of the most popular genres is scifi/fantasy. The more popular ones sometimes get published traditionally. Online novels are fairly popular in Japan as well, and based on how many translated novels I see in China, I'm inferring they are also quite big in Korea. This is actually a very interesting topic of discussion. When I was much younger, I used to read a lot of Chinese novels, aside from the classics, they were largely literary garbage. While some of the stories were good, there were usually no plot complexities, no elegance in verses, and no morals at the end. The novels offered zero satisfaction, much like a pedestrian dish or a Transformer movie. Of course, there are plenty of English novels that are similar to what I had described above, but they are at least confined within their own categories: young-adult, teen, etc. Popular ones that come to mind are Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. To those authors' credits, they've managed to at least conjure up different worlds and situations that are at least semi-coherent; whereas modern Chinese fantasy and sci-fi novels are just absurdly nonsensical (e.g. Huan Cheng). It's really depressing to see the Chinese literary world in its current state. Partially, I think, this a lot has to do with the government's tight grip on freedom of speech. Almost anything can be interpreted as anti-party, and get refused by the publishers, and of course, risk being labelled as a dissident. With limited topics, it's probably just easier to write about contrived love stories that inundate shelves in bookstores. Hopefully, with time, the situation will get better. Every new dynasty began with literary inquisitions, and the CPC is hardly an exception. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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nohbrows
United States653 Posts
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41b8rudH7iL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg){kind=icon} Going through Hemingway at the moment. edit: bad image. | ||
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123Gurke
France154 Posts
On January 28 2013 04:57 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I strongly disliked The Assault D: Actually my father did not like it either. To me it was one of the greatest books I had read in quite some time, but he disliked it rather strongly. His argument was more or less that the whole story was too improbable to be true. To me that was no problem because I read it more as a meditation on guilt and fate and less as a criminal story. On January 28 2013 05:01 babylon wrote: One Hundred Years of Solitude is extremely good, and the translation is extremely well-done. I'm actually sort of jealous(?) of all the good translations floating around for Spanish, French, Japanese, etc. novels ... I've yet to find really good translations of Chinese novels. -__- I will be reading the German translation though. I just posted the English cover so that more people would recognize the book. Generally, for non-english authors to me as a native German reading the English translation instead of the German one does not make much sense. For some reason some people I know disagree with this but I never understood their reasoning. For English authors I sometimes read the original, sometimes the translation, depending on the author and which version is easier to get. Most of the time the German translations are quite good I think so reading the original is not necessary all of the time. One of my goals for the next few years is being able to read French texts in the original. Right now I can only read children's books... | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
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DannyJ
United States5110 Posts
On January 23 2013 18:51 sam!zdat wrote: @rezoacken: yes! my secret plan is to get everyone in the world to read Red Mars! the series is incredible, probably my favorite novel I personally liked Red Mars as well (didn't love) but there is no way I could recommend it to almost anyone who isnt a big sci fi nerd. It's pretty boring (not a bad thing for what it's about) but I think even if the average person could get past that the thing that would probably put them off is the fact that it's painfully dated politically and the characters are pretty predictable. Having a world in 2030 still basically following Cold War era politics really annoyed me. | ||
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aloT
England1042 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
On January 29 2013 08:40 DannyJ wrote: I personally liked Red Mars as well (didn't love) but there is no way I could recommend it to almost anyone who isnt a big sci fi nerd. It's pretty boring (not a bad thing for what it's about) but I think even if the average person could get past that the thing that would probably put them off is the fact that it's painfully dated politically and the characters are pretty predictable. Having a world in 2030 still basically following Cold War era politics really annoyed me. the politics are not dated, you haven't read the second two books. The politics are the most relevant there are! | ||
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DannyJ
United States5110 Posts
On January 29 2013 09:00 sam!zdat wrote: the politics are not dated, you haven't read the second two books. The politics are the most relevant there are! Fair enough, I didnt read the last two. I might read them if I have the time. I still think the politics of the first book, even just the first 1/4th of the book, would probably be enough for some people to stop reading it. Then again I did read the book like 10 years ago so maybe I'm remembering it wrong... | ||
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