[Answer] Jin Yong Dies at 94: What Were the Achievements of His Life, and How Did He Influence Several Generations?

[Answer] Jin Yong Dies at 94: What Were the Achievements of His Life, and How Did He Influence Several Generations?

For centuries, Chinese people have carried an unbroken dream of wuxia in their hearts. Whenever society fell into turmoil, when ordinary people were trapped in suffering and powerless to save themselves, when they could neither appeal to heaven nor find help on earth, they often needed some kind of spiritual refuge simply to endure. China, unlike most countries in the world, never developed a broadly shared monotheistic faith, and divine authority was long fused with imperial power. As a result, people could only place their hopes in the dream of the wandering hero—the knight-errant who robs the rich, aids the poor, and rescues the people from misery.

From Romance of the Sui and Tang to The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, the traditional chapter-based wuxia novel reached a dazzling level of expression. But like every art form, after reaching its fullest flourishing, decline became inevitable. Once every possible angle of an art form has been explored to the utmost, what remains is only clumsy imitation, and then clumsy imitation of clumsy imitation. Traditional chapter-style wuxia fiction was no exception. Yet unlike many art forms that simply vanished, just as this tradition was nearing extinction, Hong Kong’s “new school” wuxia writers—represented by Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng—burst onto the scene. For a time, wuxia fiction was unmatched in popularity, with books selling in enormous numbers. One could call it a renaissance of wuxia fiction, though in hindsight it feels more like a final blaze of glory. After the successive deaths of Gu Long and Liang Yusheng, and after Jin Yong laid down his pen, no truly strong successors emerged. Writers such as Wen Ruian can only be regarded as less influential contemporaries, not heirs. The prosperous era of the new school wuxia novel was far shorter than that of traditional chapter novels, and before long, only plagiarism and imitation remained. For many years now, the works adapted again and again for film and television have still been those of Jin Yong and Gu Long, with only a small number from Liang Yusheng, Wen Ruian, Xiao Yi, and others. The flourishing of new school wuxia seems, in retrospect, more like a brief flowering than a lasting age.

Among the three great masters of the new school wuxia tradition, Liang Yusheng is remembered more as its founding pioneer. His works still bear the strong imprint of the traditional chapter novel, and often fall short in narrative technique, plotting, and even literary quality. As a result, his popularity has long lagged behind that of the other two, and after a period of temporary fame, his influence faded relatively quickly. Jin Yong and Gu Long, by contrast, have long stood shoulder to shoulder, each leading the field with a distinct and unmistakable style, and they are constantly compared whenever the subject comes up.

Once, while thinking about Jin Yong and Gu Long, I was reminded—somewhat inappropriately—of Andy Lau and Stephen Chow. There seems to be a certain resemblance. Andy Lau completed the first hundred films of his life very early on, yet what has truly stayed with audiences are still the songs that were once sung everywhere. Of course, some of his later film roles were memorable too, but they still cannot compare with Stephen Chow, whose relatively limited body of twenty-odd films produced role after role that has become almost iconic: Tang Bohu, Beggar So, Wei Xiaobao, Chow Sing-Sing, the Joker, Chan Mong-Kat, Sung Sai-Kit… Most of the artistic figures created by Stephen Chow still feel vividly alive today. But what about Andy Lau?

In the same way, among Jin Yong’s mere fourteen works, Linghu Chong, Yang Guo, Qiao Feng, Guo Jing, Huang Rong, Zhang Wuji, Wei Xiaobao… almost every one of them is a classic. Gu Long, compared with Andy Lau, fares somewhat better: among his hundred or so works, he at least created figures like Chu Liuxiang, Lu Xiaofeng, Ximen Chuixue, Li Xunhuan, Xiaoyu’er, Hua Wuque, and Ye Kai—characters who can just about stand beside Jin Yong’s in stature. Yet in influence and popularity, they still fall far behind. This is certainly related to Gu Long’s style of characterization and storytelling, but more importantly, it is because the wuxia world in Jin Yong’s writing is not merely about the jianghu.

“The greatest heroes are those who serve the nation and the people.” In my view, Jin Yong’s greatest strength lay in his profound mastery of literature and history. Because of that, he wrote fiction with an ease that made difficult things seem light. On the one hand, this is reflected in how skillfully he came to weave together the fictional and the historical—from The Book and the Sword to the Condor Trilogy and then The Deer and the Cauldron. Much like Romance of the Sui and Tang, he turned wuxia into a kind of half-true, half-false historical romance. On the other hand, precisely because his characters had to move through real history, what they embodied was not merely the exhilarating freedom of the jianghu found in Gu Long’s work, but also the larger obligations of national duty and the rise and fall of the state—among the most precious spiritual elements of traditional wuxia.

Qiao Feng and Guo Jing are the clearest examples. Their images go far beyond the ordinary idea of martial heroes; they become national heroes—though Qiao Feng is, of course, a tragic hero in the Greek sense. At the same time, Jin Yong’s literary depth is beyond the reach of other wuxia writers. The jianghu he created feels more like a series of warm fairy tales. There is little relentless bloodshed, and even when violence appears, it is usually described in a way that does not repel the reader. Key characters, whether righteous or villainous, seldom die—a style utterly unlike that of George R. R. Martin. From time to time, his writing is also suffused with poetic charm, humor, and emotional richness. This jianghu may feel less realistic, but it is all the more enchanting.

By contrast, the jianghu in Gu Long’s works has an entirely different flavor. This is probably rooted in the different lives and backgrounds of the two writers. In Gu Long’s jianghu, one constantly senses real bloodshed, intrigue, and deception. It makes the reader uneasy, yet unable to look away. And the flashes of genuine feeling and justice that emerge within it are like a ray of light in darkness, illuminating both the characters and the reader’s heart. That is precisely where the appeal of Gu Long’s characters lies. If Jin Yong is like Hans Christian Andersen, writing fairy tales for adults, then Gu Long is more like Nietzsche, filling his lines with worldly aphorisms and philosophy.

The prosperity of the new school wuxia age has long since passed, but writers become immortal through their works. Gu Long left this world more than thirty years ago, yet whenever we speak of Chu Liuxiang, it feels as though he never truly departed. And in truth, after laying down his pen, the name Jin Yong had already, in a sense, left this world as well. We remember it again and again only because it remains inseparably bound up with characters like Linghu Chong. Now that Mr. Louis Cha has passed away, like Xiong Yaohua (Gu Long, died in 1985) and Chen Wentong (Liang Yusheng, died in 2009), he has only formally parted from this world. In another sense, he lives on forever in the new school wuxia universe created by his own pen.

Only when everyone who has read these books is gone will they truly lose their trace in this world. But I think that day may still be a very, very, very long time away.