China and the West

[Orwell, George]. 1984. = Yi jiu ba si. Liu Shaoming [Joseph S.M. Lau] yi [ID D21368].
Lau recognizes in the preface the fact that Nineteen eighty-four is not a groundbreaking work by artistic standards and one ought not read it as a work by Flaubert or by Henry James. Therefore, this might have given the translator more freedom to explore the resources of the target language to a further extent, because there seems no strong obligation to represent the author's language style accurately in the translation.
Lau's approach is liberal as it hosts more variations in language and introduces highly idiomatic Chinese expressions. The language of Lau's version varied unreasonably from point to point throughout the story regardless of the language of the original at the respective points. After reviewing Lau's general beliefs, it is obvious that the translator as reader considers more important the political elements present in the novel. Towards the end of the preface, he clearly states that he has very high opinion of Orwell's way of producing such terror as the world of Oceania and strongly recommends the novel. Lau seems eager to allow his shadow to be present in the translation because he has his own considerations as a literary writer of Chinese.