I love that Shao Yanjun recommended Silent Reading, but just so anglophone readers know: the Seven Seas translation seems to be based on the censored simplified mainland print edition, so a not-insignificant amount of text is missing. Thank you for these two posts!
I didn't know that -- thanks for this note. Seven Seas also has all sorts of issues with how it handles translations, including making significant alternations without the translator's input, but in so many cases they're our only choice if we want to read licensed novel translations in print. Hopefully there will be more options one day so that readers don't have to make these compromises anymore!
Oh yeah no, they're an absolute nightmare in so very many ways, but when they license a beloved text instead of e.g. Rosmei, Haitang or Via Lactea, anglophone danmei fans are sort of stuck with them (though most of us quietly continue to hoard extant fan translations).
NB by the way Professor Shao also mentions that the fourth case of 默读 is based on Demons; but that novel is by Dostoyevsky, not Camus (though Camus did kind of write Dostoyevsky fanfiction—not unlike Xu Lei's revision of Ghost Blows out the Light, actually).
Thank you again for this series and for your substack! Truly wonderful, valuable and welcome information.
I love that Shao Yanjun recommended Silent Reading, but just so anglophone readers know: the Seven Seas translation seems to be based on the censored simplified mainland print edition, so a not-insignificant amount of text is missing. Thank you for these two posts!
I didn't know that -- thanks for this note. Seven Seas also has all sorts of issues with how it handles translations, including making significant alternations without the translator's input, but in so many cases they're our only choice if we want to read licensed novel translations in print. Hopefully there will be more options one day so that readers don't have to make these compromises anymore!
Oh yeah no, they're an absolute nightmare in so very many ways, but when they license a beloved text instead of e.g. Rosmei, Haitang or Via Lactea, anglophone danmei fans are sort of stuck with them (though most of us quietly continue to hoard extant fan translations).
NB by the way Professor Shao also mentions that the fourth case of 默读 is based on Demons; but that novel is by Dostoyevsky, not Camus (though Camus did kind of write Dostoyevsky fanfiction—not unlike Xu Lei's revision of Ghost Blows out the Light, actually).
Thank you again for this series and for your substack! Truly wonderful, valuable and welcome information.
Thanks for the catch on Dostoevksy! And for reading!