There are no good books about Asia in English. I just can’t find any good books. If anybody read a good one, please let me know. I am so desperate for some good books in this direction that I have to read books about the Pacific Theater of WWII. I dislike books on wars, but at least they are about Asia and they are assuming a normal narrative tone. This is how desperate I become. Most books about Asia don’t have a normal narrative tone. They are usually filled with superficial observations, uncritical praises, paranoid criticisms, incorrect historical facts. Also generalization is so common that one starts to feel that it cannot be done any other way. And most important of all, all the books about Asia are devoid of humor. How come? I find humor in books about other regions. LOL. The world is absurd and we just have to accept it as it is.
I just finished this book, the first book I finished in 2021–a companion to me when I do chores. Listening is easier than reading. Most of the non-fiction I read nowadays are actually through audiobooks–I wonder if a new word should be created. I mean I am not actually reading it, but rather listening to it. For example a word like “readlisten” is probably more apt to be used on audiobooks.
I don’t want to talk about the title of the book since I don’t really like it and it usually pains me to talk negatively about a book. I like authors in general and think there’s a special place for authors on earth and in heaven somewhere.
I don’t really agree with the book since it is assuming a paranoid tone and use one fictional book “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” as a guides to gauge a whole country and its people. It’s like using “Iliad” and “Odyssey” to judge Greeks. It sounds ridiculous if somebody claims that people of certain nation is devious because they used a “Trojan horse” to deceive people of Troy. Another guide the author used is the modern version of “Spring Autumn And Warring States”, which is based on the history book written by historian Sima Qian about two thousand years ago. If you are familiar with the historical plays by Shakespeare, or watched shows about “Wars of the Roses” or Henry VIII, or read the trilogy by Hillary Mantel, you will feel that the strategy, the plot, the power play are similar despite the difference of location, race, timeline. It’s the age old story all over the world.
Haoyan Do 