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The story, one of the four great Chinese classical novels, describes events from the 12th century Song Dynasty. The plot, written during the 16th century Ming Dynasty is fiction, though it is based on historical characters.

I would separate the book into two sections. Roughly the first half describes various criminals, evildoers, and misfits, all of whom tend to gravitate toward an outlaw post at Liangshan Marsh. These chapters are full of violent actions such as killing tigers, poisoning people, murders, countless decapitations, cutting hearts out, eating human flesh, and the like. The ease and matter of triviality with which people, frequently with their whole families, households, and sometimes even their entire villages are exterminated, are horrifying viewed from today's perspectives--until the horrors of modern war come to mind such as the 60 million souls lost in WWII.

- Possible spoiler alert in the next paragraph! -

The second section of the book seems to shift the emphasis from the earlier blind aggression to more selective confrontations. After the death of Chao Gai, a righteous man turned outlaw dies in a battle, an emerging new leader, Song Jiang takes over at Liangshan Marsh. From this point on the outlaws' activity becomes more and more focused on punishing corrupt officials though a lot of innocent lives are still lost due to their actions. Song is an unflinching loyal supporter of the Emperor, but he knows that the imperial court is full of corrupt, murderous ministers. Song's ultimate goal is to achieve amnesty from the Emperor so that he can put his outlaw army in the service of the country. Song Jiang builds up his corps of chieftains to 108 fearless warriors. Using his exceptional diplomatic sense he frequently recruits powerful imperial officers captured in battles. One thing I personally could not forgive of Song Jiang despite all his later gallant and noble actions is a murder he ordered. In order to recruit one of his chieftains, Zhu Tong, he had a child killed. (I guess with today's terminology the little boy would be referenced as a "mushroom," or with a more upgraded term, a "civilian casualty of a drone strike").

From here on, the focus of the story shifts to Song Jiang's personal journey with his army. Indeed, his character development became one of the strongest attractions of the book for me. Eventually he is granted the desired amnesty from the Emperor and is sent to fight the Liao people at the northern border of the empire and later to beat down a rebellion in the southern part of the empire, led by Fang La. This second expedition comes at the extremely high price of the ex-outlaw army leaving only a fraction of its chieftains alive. The surviving members of Song's officers are properly rewarded by the benevolent, though mostly clueless Emperor however the conspiring ministers, led by Marshal Gao Qiu, have more murderous schemes up in their sleeves.

As I alluded to above, the portrayal of the multidimensional Song Jiang is superb. He is a righteous wise man with unmatched loyalty to the Emperor who displays respectable poetic skills as well. At times he appears merciless and abrupt although he also has a strong melancholic streak.

A number of other characters are masterfully depicted. Every single one of the 108 chieftains has a unique personality, talent, and life story. Although I can't do justice to all of them, here are some names that stand out after having finished the book: Sagacious Lu, the Buddhist monk with tremendous strength who fulfills his prophecy; Li Kui, the bloodthirsty psychopath who gets into killing frenzies yet somehow becomes the funniest and most entertaining character of the story; Wu Song, who kills a tiger with his bare hands; and the unusually fast walking Dai Zong who serves as the outlaws' courier. Countless other life-like personalities make the book enjoyable, including some of the conniving ministers (Gao Qui, Cai Jing, Marshal Tong Guan) and the Emperor himself along with his favorite concubine, Li Shishi.

Besides its length (2200+ pages), I see two potential difficulties in the book for today's Western readers. Although the depiction of violence may not be as graphic as in some modern books, it still could keep a few potential readers away. As with the three other great classic Chinese novels (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West, and The Dreams of the Red Mansions), the sheer number of characters makes it hard to keep them straight. The similarity of the short Chinese names adds further complexity to this problem. I frequently had to go back to earlier parts of the story for clarification of who is who although many times I simply accepted a certain degree of ambiguity about a character's exact identity.

That being said, I think that this is a fascinating book with countless interesting subplots neatly fitted together. By the end the reader will be rewarded with a giant mosaic in the center of which stands a larger than life character seeking to "Delivering justice on Heaven's Behalf:" Song Jiang.

How can a 21 Century person evaluate this book? If you want to see the origins of many of our "modern" super heroes, this is your book. It takes patience and perseverance to read and understand, but well worth the time and the money, This book is still considered "naughty" reading by some Chinese, I had a Chinese (Taiwanese) friend tell me of reading this under the covers of her bed when she was a young teenager, because her parents would certainly not approve.
Peace and Be Well, Always

I wasn't sure how I'd react to this book. Well before I got my Kindle, I was at a Chinese book store in NY and was tempted to buy and English translation. The salesman suggested I might have trouble following it and suggested "Three Kingdoms" instead, which I bogged down with in print but eventually read through with my Kindle and I posted a review here on Amazon). Having been fascinated by "Three Kingdoms," and having honed my ability to slog through one of these epics, I then decided to take a shot at this one and actually found it a much easier read. Yes, there are a lot of characters to keep track of in Outlaws, but I found it manageable with a bit of help from Wikipedia and a couple of other sites dedicated to this work, but also because each incident is better developed with a better grasp of what's important and what's not.

As to the substance of Outlaws . . . Wow! This is an incredibly thought-provoking book, one that may have been way ahead of its time.

Clearly, you want to root for the outlaws. The book is set up such as to drive readers in that direction and it's incredibly hard to resist. Character development isn't as intense as it is in our modern post-Freudian literary world, but it's still pretty good more often than not, enough so as to prevent us from brushing these people off as mere criminals and recognizing the genuine good that is in them; a lot more good than we find in many others who lead so-called law-abiding respectable lives. (Many bureaucrats and military officers of the Song dynasty would feel quite at home in the petty, stalemated early 21st century U.S. Congress.)

Then again, it's unmistakably clear that these outlaws did bad things; sometimes in the heat of passion, other times due to habitual need for anger management, and other times as a thoughtful response to events. Even the most liberal-minded among us today would be very hard pressed to simply look the other way and say "Forget it."

There are no easy answers in this book. Even when you think you've decided where you stand, there's still likely to be a bit of discomfort, an awareness that you may find your belief hard to live comfortably with.

My Chinese in-laws tell me it's true that this work as well as the other three great epics are widely read and admired today in China ("Three Kingdoms," "Journey To the West," and "Dream Of The Red Chamber"). The Mao-era Communist Party was uncomfortable with them and during the Cultural Revolution, my then-young brother in law had to read these stealthily at night. Now, the epics are again out in the open.

It's unfortunate that we in the West are so unfamiliar with these epics. If I were teaching a university-level class in sociology in general or criminology in particular, Outlaws would be required reading along with such works as "Crime and Punishment" and "An American Tragedy." Outlaws is a very worthy part of a true global literary cannon. (And by the way, this isn't just an anti-West multi-cultural rant. The Chinese miss a lot by not knowing our classics; I'm trying to find Chinese translations of Homer, etc. for my in-laws.)

In any case, I very enthusiastically recommend "Outlaws Of The Marsh" (just as I do "Three Kingdoms" and I'm about 20% of the way through "Journey To The West" and . . . well, I'll review this, too, when I'm done, but the first 20% is definitely five-star material).