Relation of the things of the world

Zhang Hua. - Relation of the things of the world. Trotta. 2001.

In last two years there is translated a fair amount of the Chinese classic works for the Spanish. News to be emphasized, and an effort, that of the publishing houses pawned to the above mentioned task, to praise. It seems that we are "To the search of the lost time", of the Chinese literature, and that he writes it is lucky to take part, like humble critic, of this flowering.

The book that occupies us, the Relation of the Things of the World, translated by Yao Ning and Gabriel García Noblejas, with his part of responsibility in this awakening of the Chinese literature in Spanish, and prefaced by Alice Relinque, in a beautiful work that the author presents to us exactly, the work and the time of creation of the same one, is already a classic work in China, which nevertheless, to just as other classic works, was not known for the Spanish reader.

Although the work is finished and complex, it is in fact the compilation of the fragments that have survived of a much vaster work. That does not take interest from him, but it leaves the reader dreaming with the day in which other scholars manage to recover, if it is that some day is obtained, the totality of this one herself.

As its own name indicates that the "Relation of the things of the world" is a work with encyclopedic vocation. Written by Zhang Hua in the IIIrd century, one of the most awake minds in a century of chaos, presents to the reader the things of the world of this epoch. Since it has already been said before 40 original chapters, only there remain 10. Considering the presentation of the same ones, with brief paragraphs dedicated to every concrete topic, this lack he does not suppose a difficulty in the reading.

The interest of the same is enormous, since extraordinary men include from the geography of the well-known grounds, perhaps the most difficult for a western one, to the foreign countries, extraordinary beasts, animal life, extraordinary news, personages, rites, myths. Quite presented from the optics of a Chinese intellectual of the IIIrd century, somewhat keen of the Taoism, and enough good documented on the ancient history of his country. If every brief paragraph is interesting for his content, the work in his set shows a wide fan of the Chinese knowledge, of the news given for true in those times, and of the popular beliefs. In them the fantasy and the reality look like a gait of the hand, and both are considered of a similar value.

And this affirmation receives special importance when we know that this "Relation", it was considered of special interest, and therefore an almost obligatory text for the intellectuals and attorneys of the later China.

To submerge in his reading, therefore, is not only to enjoy the fantastic news, stories and legends that the author presents to us, and to make use of the opportunity to know the work of versatile Zhang Hua, but also it throws light, always necessary, on the formation of the later Chinese thought.

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