The Water Margin

Outlaws of the Marsh

De: Shi Naian, J. H. Jackson - translator, Edwin Lowe - translator

Narrado por: Jonathan Booth

The Water Margin is one of the most popular classics of early Chinese literature. It tells the vigorous story of 108 characters who, falling foul of the established state authorities, are forced to become outlaws. They form a bandit community in Liangshan Marsh, becoming such a formidable force in their own right that they threaten the power of government itself.

The author, Shi Nain, writing in the 14th century, the time of the Ming Dynasty, presents the tale with all the force and directness of a live story-teller. He describes in some detail the numerous one-to-one combats with a wide variety of weapons, as well as hand to hand fights. Despite written over half a millennium ago, it all seems very familiar to the contemporary listener, for the style lives on in the Chinese martial arts movies of today.

He pulls no punches with the events themselves. There is deception, murder, torture, adultery, beheadings and massacre on a grand scale, reflecting the disorderly nature of the time—it is set 200 years earlier in a lawless period during the Northern Song dynasty.

But the power of the story lies in the portrayal of the individuals who cover the wide spectrum of human kind. There are the honorable figures, wrongly branded on the face as criminals and forced to wear the heavy cangue—the massive wooden collar, punishing and restricting movement. There are the mighty warriors who, despite good deeds (killing tigers that are terrorizing the neighborhood) are forced to flee established society by powerful but envious officials. There are monks displaying varying degrees of ethical behavior. And there are some who simply love to fight, anywhere, anytime, with any weapons, and find themselves most comfortable in the outlaw milieu.

The Water Margin has come down to us in various forms—its huge size attracted abridgements—and the version recorded here is the 70-chapter chronicle by Jin Shengtan, dating from the 17th century. The translation by J. H. Jackson appeared in the 1930s. But it has been recently revised by Edwin Lowe, who wanted to bring back the earthy flavor of the original, reintroducing the strong language, the brutality and the unexpurgated nature of Shi Nain's language.

In short, it is a rip-roaring tale, unrelenting in its energy, more akin to the modern thriller than the elegant, reflective character one would expect from a Chinese classic! Nevertheless, it often exhibits the features of the morality tale with wise aphorisms.

Jonathan Booth gives a virtuoso presentation with vivid characterization of the principals, and the hundreds of minor individuals who pop up in this detailed account of medieval life in the raw.

©2010 translation by J. H. Jackson and Edwin Lowe (P)2023 W. F. Howes Ltd

A truly excellent story and such an easy listen

In order to understand this story, is a good idea to see the kung fu movie "Seven Blows of the Dragon" as this aids in the visualization of the story. The movie is based on the story, but don't expect the characters to match the actual story.

But this story is incredibly easy to listen to despite its length. There is a continual flow of wine and vegetables and there is none of the typical flying through the air or magical kung fu or any of that. It's just a very good almost fairytale story about a number of characters and how some of their decisions led them down one path and not another. This is sort of a early Chinese version of the long winded Russian "War and Peace", without the nationalistic confetti.

This is an audiobook that you listen to when you want some quiet time, and can just sit back and relax and let the events in the books just flow. I didn't feel any anxiety or one of those things where you would say "let's just get to the end and see how it ends"; each one of these chapters are stories in and of themselves.

The narrator is very easy to listen to. There's no anxiety and his narration just flows very easily.

This is one of those books that is sitting on the back of the library shelf, that is a real gem that needs to be discovered.

very interesting and culturally important

This is considered to be one of the four most important novels. It is interesting both, as a tale of adventure and as a historic and cultural piece.

108 Colorful, Violent, Righteous Confucius Bandits

Despite having been banned by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh is said to be one of the four great works of Chinese vernacular literature. Shi Naian ostensibly wrote the novel circa 1368. Over the centuries since its debut, it has been revised numerous times by various Chinese scholars: by 1592 there was a 120-chapter version, while in 1641 the definitive 70-chapter version was edited by an ambivalent scholar. The version I listened to (engagingly read by Jonathan Booth) is Edwin Lowe’s 21st-century update of J. H. Jackson’s 1937 English translation of the 1641 70-chapter version. According to Lowe, Jackson translated the novel accurately, except for leaving out most of the violence, sex, and gutter language, all of which he (Lowe) has translated and restored.

Set during the corrupt days of the Song Dynasty (“Fear not the authorities, except those who have authority over you”), the historical novel centers on a varied and savory set of outlaw-heroes, relating how they fell afoul of the law and joined the bandit brotherhood headquartered in Liangshan Marsh, turning it into a juggernaut of righteous rebellion:

An innocent man is framed by the Imperial Marshall’s son who lusts after his virtuous wife. A giant soldier kills a thuggish butcher who’d been exploiting a young lady. A mild-mannered clerk cuts off the head of his adulterous blackmailing wife-concubine. A tiger-killing strong man gets revenge on his sister-in-law and her lover after she poisons his good-natured, dwarfish brother. Seven heroes rob a caravan bearing carrying birthday presents to the venal Prime Minister in the capital. And so on.

There is so much government corruption at local and capital levels and so many victims of it that the bandits come to number tens of thousands and their hero chieftains one hundred and eight. Throughout, the bandit-heroes are generally more “straightforward” (if not always more ethical and moral) than the “unreasonable” officials. Even the husband-and-wife owners of a mountain pass inn (where you do NOT want to stay the night or drink the wine) never drug wandering monks, traveling prostitutes, or exiled criminals and cut them up into “beef” for dumplings! When local authorities unsuccessfully send soldiers to arrest the bandits in the marsh, imperial armies follow, with interesting results.

It is tempting to read the novel as a Chinese Robin Hood story, for, like the merry men of Sherwood Forest, the bandits of Liangshan Marsh think they are justified in stealing “ill-gotten” wealth from government officials, and they do often distribute their loot to their followers and leave half of a sacked town’s rice for the populace. However, the outlaws also think nothing of pillaging a poorly run town to “borrow” its stores of rice, and it’s difficult to imagine Robin Hood or his followers chopping bad wives up into little pieces or eating the leg meat of a defeated villain or saying things like, “What’s wrong with killing a hundred people? The punishment is the same as for killing a single person.” In short, the Liangshan bandits can be quite brutal when it comes to punishing bad men and women or arranging circumstances so that heroes on the right side of the law will join their band.

The raw violence of heroes like Li Kui, AKA Black Whirlwind (a comedy relief psychopath who splits the head of an innocent child so as to get the boy’s caretaker in trouble so the man will have to go to Liangshan Marsh) caused the editor of the 1641 version to cut the fifty or so chapters of the earlier version in which the Emperor eventually forgives and recruits the bandits and to end his edition of the novel with the most martial hero of the bandits dreaming a prophetic nightmare in which he and his 107 brothers are arrested and executed.

That said, one of the saving graces of the bandits, especially after Song Jiang, AKA Welcome Rain, starts leading them about half-way through the novel, is that their violence is usually turned on people who violate Confucius ethics: officials who take bribes and then give orders to torture or execute innocent people, wives who betray their husbands, bandits who prey on good people, and so on. Song Jiang, in fact, has the bandits construct a meeting hall named after the Confucian ideals Loyalty and Justice and believes that he’s not leading a rebellion against the Emperor but against the corrupt officials who are preventing him from acting as a righteously Confucian ruler.

In addition to the wild, imaginative, and unexpected happenings and schemes and retributions and fights and so on of the plot, there are many pleasures in the novel:

Colorful character nicknames, like: The Cloud Dragon, the Sick Tiger, the Daylight Rat, the Flea on the Drum, Hell’s Judge, Stinking Dickhead, the Disliked One, the Disgraceful Son-in-Law, the White-Faced Squire, the Marvelous Mathematician, the Firey Star, and many more.

Savory “ancient sayings," like “When there is urgent business, we clasp the feet of Buddha, but when nothing happens we do not even burn incense.”

Spicy lines, like, “Your words scratch us at the place that itches,” and “In the next life if I am a donkey or a horse, I will repay your kindness.”

Coarse talk (Lowe has restored to the text), like, “Stop, you damn pricks!” and “Farts! You’re giving me nothing but farts!”

Interesting culture details, like signing a document and putting your fingerprint on it, eunuchs playing football, and warmed wine and date cakes.

Apt poetic verses that end chapters, like:
"On the way to Hell, no inn is found,
Lin Chong’s soul will now be roaming round.”

Provocative chapter titles, like:
24. Grandma Wang Devises a Plan for Ximen Qing; Pan Jinlian Poisons Her Husband
25. He Jiushu Steals the Bones; Wu Song Offers a Man’s Head as a Sacrifice

Vivid descriptions, like:

“He had long eyebrows, long slit eyes, pearly white teeth, crimson lips, with a minute beard hanging from his lower lip, and a flowing mustache. He was about thirty-five years of age, and on his head he wore a black hat. He wore a brown silk gown embroidered with flowers in circular designs, and round his waist was an elegant silk girdle with a large circular jade buckle. His boots were of black silk embroidered with a design in gold and green. On his back hung a bow, and at his side was a quiver full of arrows.”

The audiobook version is well read by Jonathan Booth, but it lacks both the Introduction by Edwin Lowe and the list of 108 heroes with their nicknames etc. It DOES include a neat Historical Background by Lowe after the novel, pointing out things like the novel’s influence on Mao and continuing importance to Chinese culture.

Readers interested in Chinese culture and epic fantasy featuring anti-heroes should like this book.

nice portrayal of a classic.

an old classic worth a listen. Surprisingly well done in English. Historical notes are also worth the listen.

Very relatable

It always amazes me how similar the social situations are that people are faced with, no matter the time or place.

Exciting! Each story entwined with one another!

I enjoyed that when you go from one story to another, it does have a special connection to the previous story, and that is what I mean when I say it's **entwined** with one another.

This is the first time I've listened to a 24-hour book consistently throughout a week. It helps me relax, not overthink so much, and actually **helps put** me to sleep, which is really great for me since I have trouble sleeping."

Great sprawling story

The historic based story is colored with many different and unique characters as the story builds to magical ending.

Top notch Chinese classic

A superb narration. Stories that are easy to understand. It’s one if the top Chinese classics, still widely read.

Amazing story

Well read. The only thing that needs to be improved is the pronunciation of the Chinese names.

May be best in small portions

Tales of the 108 Outlaws of the Liangshan Marsh who overthrow corrupt government rule.
The inspiration for dozens of novels, comics, movies, TV shows, etc, Mao carried a copy with him.
It can be engaging and humorous, but its reciprocal Confucionist approach leads to the most murderous heroes I've read. Almost cartoonishly wanton violence, lacking in dimension. And there's a sameness to many of the stories.
Still, as a springboard of ideas for historical fiction or fantasy writers, worth considering.