Romance of the Cliffhangers

Chapters 50-52

Like Arabian Nights, Romance is episodic. And its episodes don't end at the chapter breaks. The chapters often end on cliffhangers, where we are left wondering if a character will die or not. This is like Shahrazad. To stay alive (or in the case Romance, to keep the reader from quitting the novel), the reader needs to keep going and isn't quite sure where they can stop.

In Chapter 50, we see a major failure for Cao Cao. He would be killed himself by Lord Guan, if not for Lord Guan remembering that Cao Cao had treated him well earlier. Lord Guan offers suicide at the end of Chapter 50 because he let the villain go, but Liu Bei and Kongming don't allow it.

Before Cao Cao has even fled all the way, Liu Bei and the Southland are unsure about the future of their alliance. Liu Bei allows the Southland to retake key cities in Jingzhou, but on the condition that if Zhou Yu fails, Liu Bei can take them. Zhou Yu fails, Liu Bei succeeds, and the seeds of resentment are sown.

Poetry Writing Constraints

Chapters 78-80 Tons of plot in these chapters. Most importantly, we get the deaths of a major character (Cao Cao) and minor characters (Xiahou Dun, Hua Tuo, Liu Feng). Hua Tuo’s death is one of my favorites, given my love of lost books. His “Book of the Black

The Devil Goes Down to Arabia

Nights 681-695 After the last couple weeks, I was worried that I was tiring of the Nights. But there was some good stuff here! My enthusiasm for the Nights has been restored. We can thank al-Asma’i, who the index says was a real-life expert on the

Head is a Hot Potato

Chapters 76-77 With the biggest death of the book so far, and likely one of the biggest in the book overall, we really get the sense of the end of a great one. Sun Quan beheads Lord Guan and quickly regrets it. Sun is advised that Liu Bei will

Seriousness replaced absurdity

Nights 649-680 It’s hard for me to say why I found this story so much more tiresome than what came before it. Maybe I’m getting tired of the Nights. Maybe work is particularly stressful right now. If I were to look for an objective reason, I’d

Read more

Poetry Writing Constraints

The Devil Goes Down to Arabia

Head is a Hot Potato

Seriousness replaced absurdity