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Cargando... The Song of King Gesar: A Novel (Myths)por Alai
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. 1   Jakujin | Sep 18, 2014 |   http://www.thebookoutline.com/2014/03/book-review-song-of-king-gesar.html (  ) theBookOutline | Mar 31, 2014 | sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Pertenece a las series editorialesThe Myths (18)
The first English translation of Tibet's founding myth, written by an acclaimed winner of the Mao Dun Prize, China's top literary award, and impeccably translated The Song of King Gesar is one of the world's great epics, as significant for Tibetans as the Odyssey and Iliad for the ancient Greeks, and as the Ramayana and Mahabarata in India. Passed down in song from one generation to the next, it is sung by Tibetan bards even today. Set partly in ancient Tibet, where evil spirits mingle with the lives of humans, and partly in the modern day, the tale tells of two lives inextricably entwined. Gesar, the youngest and bravest of the gods, has been sent down to the human world to defeat the demons that plague the lives of ordinary people. Jigmed is a young shepherd, who is visited by dreams of Gesar, of gods, and of ancient battles while he sleeps. So begins an epic journey for both the shepherd and the king. The willful child of the gods will become Gesar, the warrior-king of Ling, and will unite the nation of Tibet under his reign. Jigmed will learn to see his troubled country with new eyes, and, as the storyteller chosen by the gods, must face his own destiny. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)895.136Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Chinese Chinese fiction 2010–Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (3.67)
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1
I gather that Alai in his fiction (Red Poppies, Tibetan Soul) doesn’t romanticise Tibet, new or old. The present-day portions of this work aren’t idyllic, aren’t bitter, but a little of both. Jigmed is a simple shepherd who is seized by the song, in the traditional spiritual way where the song is thrust upon you in dreams – and can be snatched back by the spirits, too, if you serve the song ill. So Jigmed, who has become a transient in service to his song, intersects with an aged woman singer who has taken the government’s comfortable deal – singing into tape recorders, to conserve the cultural treasure – yet in result her inspiration has failed her.
Here I am talking about the present-day portions, and in truth I was often more interested in them – than in a prose Gesar, which had its touches, but was unavoidably prosaic. They are interspersed under headings of The Storyteller and The Story. In the latter stages these start to entwine and interact… not only, now, is it Gesar visiting the singer in his dreams, but he dreams too, to start up a two-way conversation, and Gesar wants to know what’s become of his song in Jigmed’s time.
I have a large complaint, not against the novel but the publisher. There’s no introduction to the Gesar legend, or preface/afterword to acquaint you with Alai’s project, and there are no notes whatsoever for the unfamiliar audience whom I think this book was meant to woo. That’s no way to send this book out into the English-language world. It needs notes, and I for one wanted to begin with an idea of what Alai is doing with the old story. My four stars are for Alai’s novel, but the novel is ill-served in this edition. (