There’s been a lot going on, and I want to blog an amount of it, so I’m going to start with something relatively trivial and move in a haphazard manner to the more serious, substantial and significant.

First, then, Outlaws of the Marsh: an absolute rollercoaster of a book for all 2000+ of its pages. Lent to me by a colleague at work (as an attempt to teach me something, I think, rather than lending me a book he particularly thought I’d like…), I started reading this beast of a book back in September, and it took me three months to get through volume 1 (of four). When I managed to get through that at the start of December, I burned through the rest…

The story: a number of minor officials and wandering nobles find themselves on the far sides of the law during the course of the Song dynasty in China, and consequently take refuge in the marshes and hillside forts of the bandits. Convinced, for the most part justifiably so, that their exile is the work of corrupt officials and that they are on the side of the just, they begin to consolidate their forces in Liangshan Marsh under the leadership of a few particularly prominent leaders – the 36 stars of heavenly spirits and 72 stars of earthly fiends incarnated. This means, of course, that during the course of the book, you have to chart the progress of 108 heroes: tough work, and requiring occasional reference to sites like this if you really want to know what’s going on. Favourite characters included “Nine Dragons Shi Jin,” “Song Jiang the Timely Rain,” “Sagacious Lu the Tattoed Monk,” and Wu Song, whose honorific slips my mind at the moment…

It’s a bizarre book; the social and ethical mores of Song-Dynasty China are slightly… odd. While always on the side of honour and justice, Song Jiang and his troops feel no hesitation in ensnaring other “gallants” by framing them for crimes and forcing them to join them in Liangshan Marsh, women are treated as property throughout the book, and at one point Wu Song, dealing with the tragedy that is a bowl of plain rice, decides to make use of the “plentiful meat” he has available by roasting some meat from one of the men he’s just killed – not to worry, though, the man was a corrupt official…

In any case, despite its oddity, this is a deeply enjoyable book, filled with fantastic battle descriptions, lively characters and silly anecdotes. I’d recommend it to anyone…