Novel
Water Margin
水滸傳
Shi Nai'an · 1370
Synopsis
Under the Northern Song, in the twelfth century, Marshal Gao Qiu has the arms instructor Lin Chong falsely accused, because his adopted son covets Lin Chong's wife. Sent into exile, Lin Chong escapes the burning of a fodder depot and joins the outlaws of the marsh of Mount Liang. Others follow him, each with his own story: Wu Song, who avenged his brother poisoned by his sister-in-law, or the minor official Song Jiang, who killed his mistress. Little by little, the band gathers one hundred and eight chiefs.
Context
The novel starts from an attested fact: the official History of the Song mentions an outlaw named Song Jiang, defeated by General Zhang Shuye. His legend circulated among the storytellers of the Southern Song period and in the theatre of the Yuan before being fixed in writing. The oldest surviving complete edition, of 1589, has one hundred chapters; an expanded version has one hundred and twenty, and Jin Shengtan published in the middle of the seventeenth century a version ending at the seventieth chapter, long the most widely read. Jacques Dars produced the French translation, published by Gallimard in 1978.
Who it is for
A novel of more than two thousand pages in French, made up of almost self-contained narratives devoted in turn to the outlaws.
Prizes and reception
Ranked among the four great classic Chinese novels; Li Zhi and Jin Shengtan counted it among the works of genius.
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