{"id":2226,"date":"2013-10-04T09:30:56","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T01:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2226"},"modified":"2013-10-01T10:23:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T02:23:34","slug":"david-tod-roy-on-the-plum-in-the-golden-vase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=2226","title":{"rendered":"David Tod Roy on The Plum in the Golden Vase"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Illustration<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

David Tod Roy on his recently completed translation <\/a>of The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P\u2019ing Mei<\/em> \u91d1\u74f6\u6885:<\/p>\n

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I came to believe that in order to study the Chin P\u2019ing Mei<\/em> accurately, I would need to have some means of control over the text, so I spent about two years making a card index of every line of poetry, parallel prose, and proverbial sayings in the entire novel. I ended up with tens of thousands of file cards. People said, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you hire a graduate student to do that?\u201d But I knew that wouldn\u2019t have worked. With this information at my fingertips, I could read through earlier Chinese drama and poetry, and whenever I saw something that seemed familiar, I could check the index cards within seconds to see whether or not that phrase occurred in the Chin P\u2019ing Mei<\/em>. That\u2019s how I wrote the notes of my translation. Without having compiled this index, I never could have done it.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I tried to read every extant work of Chinese fiction and drama in circulation before the Chin P\u2019ing Mei<\/em> was published. That\u2019s a huge project, but I kept discovering more and more sources.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Click the image above for his complete comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Tod Roy on his recently completed translation of The Plum in the Golden Vase or, Chin P\u2019ing Mei \u91d1\u74f6\u6885: I came to believe that in order to study the Chin P\u2019ing Mei accurately, I would need to have some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8srwF-zU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":749,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=749","url_meta":{"origin":2226,"position":0},"title":"Paul Mason’s top 10 books about China","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"English novelist and Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason has compiled a top-ten list of books on China he found helpful for his novel Rare Earth (here's a review of the novel by scholar-translator Julia Lovell), comprising five works of fiction in translation (including Lu Xun \u9b6f\u8fc5, Mo Yan \u83ab\u8a00, Gao\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"Mine in north-west China","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Admin\/BkFill\/Default_image_group\/2012\/1\/31\/1328030928136\/Mine-in-north-west-China-007.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3031,"url":"https:\/\/xichuanpoetry.com\/?p=3031","url_meta":{"origin":2226,"position":1},"title":"The Umbrella Movement at Asian Cha","author":"Lucas Klein","date":"February 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The current issue of Asian Cha includes a suite of poems and images on Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, featuring photography by Manson Wong, poetry by Lo Mei Wa, and photo essays by David William Hill. 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