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 honourable 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 terrorising the neighbourhood) are forced to flee established society by powerful but envious officials. There are monks displaying varying degrees of ethical behaviour. 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 flavour 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 characterisation of the principals, and the hundreds of minor individuals who pop up in this detailed account of medieval life in the raw.