Relentless?

[John Fairbairn]

I haven't got the new book Relentless but I've just seen what appears to be the cover. This is dominated by the huge character 狠.

It seems such an unusual choice that I was wondering if it is discussed in the preface. Anyone noticed such a reference?

The reason I am puzzled is that it seems rather rude. Either that, or it's a poor, even wrong, choice. If the intended meaning of relentless was something like unceasingly intense, I don't think 狠 qualifies. That means relentless only in the sense of ruthless, vicious, without compassion. Maybe that was intended, but that would seem rude to me on its own, which is why I'm wondering whether it's discussed in the book.

The original meaning of 狠 is the sound of dogs snapping at each other, so 'dogfight' might be apposite, but that's an ancient and surely anachronistic meaning. In fact, even in the derived senses such as 'bite', 'vicious', 'contrary' and 'extremely' it's a rare character. I don't think many Koreans or Japanese would know it, and though it is used in China it is certainly rare there and, as far as I know, only the modern meanings of 'ruthless' and 'very' apply.

Rare characters with gothic or eldritch overtones sometimes get revived in modern video games and comics, but that is a world beyond my ken so I may have missed that kind of reference.

General comments on the character and its overtones from native speakers would be welcome.

[Shaddy]

That word doesn't strike me as particularly weird or rare. It's a word that I would translate to 'severe' in a commentary (but it also has overtones of 'forceful'). I'm a Chinese-speaker.

[xed_over]

from the book...

The Chinese calligraphy on the cover depicts the word hen, which means relentless in Mandarin. As with the English word 'relentless', it can have both positive and negative connotations.

The cover art and design is by Jingning Xue, who dusted off her calligraphy brushes for the occasion.

The "Cover Art section is complete above. The "Acknowledgments" section was much, much longer, including a section thanking John Fairbairn and T Mark Hall.