 First edition | |
| Author | Li Jieren |
|---|---|
| Language | Sichuanese |
| Genre | Naturalism |
| Set in | Sichuan |
| Publisher | Chunghwa Publishing |
Publication date | 1935 |
| Publication place | Republican China |
Published in English | 1990, 2013 |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 282 |
| OCLC | 28924130 |
| Followed by | Before the Storm |
| Ripple on Stagnant Water | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 死水微瀾 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 死水微澜 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Ripple on Stagnant Water (traditional Chinese:死水微瀾;simplified Chinese:死水微澜), also translated asRipples Across Stagnant Water, andRipples on Dead Water, is a novel byLi Jieren. It was first published in 1935.[1] An updated version appeared in 1955.[2]
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The work follows the married and romantic life of Deng Yaogu[note 1], a resident of the town of Tianhui[note 2] along with her husband, Cai Xingshun[note 3]. She wants to change the circumstances of her live relocate toChengdu. She is involved in two affairs and divorces Cai between the first and second. The first is with her cousin, Cambuel Luo[note 4], who is in a secretive organization known asElder Brothers Society. The second is with Gu Tiancheng[note 5], aChristian from Chengdu whom she marries.[6]
By describing the lives of commoners, the novel reveals a complex balance of power among thelocal Christian communities, Elder Brothers Society and the bureaucracy, during the last decade of the 19th century.
According to Yuehtsen Juliette Chung[note 6] ofNational Tsing-Hua University, Cambuel Luo and Gu Tiancheng represent both a city-country tension.[6]
The 1955 version was published by Zuojia Chubanshe.C. T. Hsia stated that according to Li Jieren's statements in the postscript, the 1955 version had "slight" changes.[7]
An earlier English translation was marketed byPanda Books in 1990,[4] asRipples Across Stagnant Water. This translation was published in China by theChinese Literature Press.
An English translation by Bret Starling and Yin Chi[note 7], titledRipple on Stagnant Water: A Novel of Sichuan in the Age of Treaty Ports, was published byUniversity of Hawaii Press in 2013. In this version, the appendix houses the novel's prologue.[8] This version is distributed in Canada byUniversity of British Columbia Press. The basis of the Starling/Chi translation is the Chinese version published in 1935.[1]
Kristin Eileen Stapleton[note 8] of theUniversity of Buffalo stated that in the Starling/Chi version, theSichuanese dialect speech in the original novel was translated into "what I gather is a sort of Scottishbrogue".[4]
There is a 1988 television adaptation, titled in English asA Woman to Three Men [zh], but with the same Chinese title as the original novel.
There is also a 1992 British Hong Kong-China film, titled in English asRipples Across Stagnant Water [zh], with the Chinese name being "狂" (kuáng).
Names in native languages: