"People in the jianghu, involuntarily", this classic line that reveals a little helplessness must be familiar to everyone, do you know which master's pen it comes from? The answer is the Taiwanese martial arts novelist Gu Long.
In Gu Long's work "The Sword of the Three Young Masters", Yan Thirteen made a similar expression: people in the rivers and lakes, involuntarily, fighting with inches of heart, life and death are forgotten.
Together with Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng, Gu Long is known as the "Three Musketeers (or Three Great Masters) of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction". Before his death, Gu Long wrote dozens of popular works, going deep into the streets and alleys, and his influence continues to this day.
Among the three musketeers, Jin Yong is the most famous, but as far as the author is concerned, Gu Long is the most special one among several famous martial arts novelists, and his style is clear and interesting, which makes the author like it the most.
Gu Long, real name Xiong Yaohua, is a famous martial arts novelist, a new martial arts novelist and grandmaster. His concept of wuxia novel creation is "seeking innovation and seeking change", not bound by tradition, casting Chinese and foreign classics into a furnace, and he has made great contributions to the formation of the concept of "martial arts aesthetics" and the promotion of "martial arts culture".
This article today to talk about this martial arts novel genius who was evaluated by the media as "156 centimeters tall, head as big as a bucket, and his appearance is not proud".
"I just like to see people like you alive, because there are not many people like you living in the world."
— Gu Long,"Amorous Swordsman Ruthless Sword"
Every time I saw this sentence, the corners of my eyes were a little moist, and I felt desolate and hot. Therefore, Gu Long is one of the uncopyable writers in the history of Chinese literature (wuxia novels have been incorporated into the temple of classic literature).
Many people imitate the ancient dragon, imitating very much like or even fake and real, but when you take a look at the text, you know that it is not a cologne. Gu Long's unique experience has led to his novels, which cannot be copied at all. For a simple example, Gu Long's supporting characters are written as well as the protagonist, and this is very powerful.
The ancient dragon is the ancient dragon, just like Fu Hongxue is Fu Hongxue, and Gongzi Yu still doesn't move by the more things that Gongzi Yu gives Fu Hongxue, because this is Fu Hongxue.
So Gu Long's drinking, lustfulness, abusiveness, and writing attitude are not good enough, he knows all this, he also knows his mistakes, but he still chooses to do that, because this is Gu Long. It is because life is not smooth and debauched, he is the ancient dragon.
I think Gu Longcheng is also willful and willful. That kind of arbitrary, willful and extreme personality brings a lot of romantic things to his novels, and has a very unique value. But if he is not so willful, on the one hand, he may have a longer life and have time to revise the previous books, on the other hand, he may be restrained and mellow in his written expression, so as not to make people feel deliberately talking about life and philosophy.
Gu Long's novel is a very strange thing, you can think of it as a very different kind of martial arts novel, or it can be said that pure literature is cloaked in the skin of martial arts. It's as if the absurd drama of "Happy Hero" has actually been written as a martial artist, which is really powerful.
"Seven Weapons" is a short story that is even more terrifying, and if you replace these elements of martial arts with modern gangster elements, what kind of novel will it look like? In short, his works are martial arts novels full of literature, which can be martial arts or literature, not just for entertainment.
There is always a philosophical flavor in Gu Long's books. His books can often make you move, short and clear, but under the consideration of the reason, like this style of language! (And many of his protagonists and villains are philosophers, tormented by metaphysical problems every day)
The unique "ancient dragon body" of the ancient dragon is also worth mentioning. In addition to Hemingway's dialogue, the author grew up so big that for the first time I saw writing a novel with such words, long and short sentences, prose culture, unadorned dialogue, the dialogue is full of philosophy, humor, and sometimes it seems a bit wordy.
"The sword qi spans thirty thousand miles, and one sword light is cold and nineteen states."
— Gu Long,"The Sword of the Three Young Masters"
This is the beginning of Gu Long's third novel, The Sword of the Three Young Masters. This opening chapter is really full of martial arts flavor, let us feel the charm of the sword and light sword shadow.
Compared with the relationship between kings and subjects in Feudal Chinese society, the relationship between the characters in Gulong's novels is more like that of the Japanese monarch and samurai. For example, Gu Long is very respectful of death and likes to let characters preach in death. Some of the characters in his novels are also very Japanese, like Shangguan Jinhong and Jing Wusheng.
Watching Gu Long's martial arts novels will have a strong sense of déjà vu, that is, the spirit of Bushido inherited from Japan. His martial artists are different from traditional martial arts, always pursuing a pure and extreme "Tao", rather than paying attention to the moves of one board and one glance.
When the sunset is at its most beautiful, it is always close to dusk.
There are many things in the world that are like this, especially some things that are particularly brilliant and beautiful. So you don't have to be sad, you don't have to be sorry, even if you go to Jiangnan to catch the spring, you don't have to keep it. Because this is life, there are some things you can't keep. You must first learn to endure its ruthlessness before you know how to enjoy its tenderness.
— —Gu Long "White Jade Tiger"
Gulong works can be roughly divided into three periods: early, middle and late.
Works before the gulong style fully matured, that is, before "Xiao Li Flying Knife", can be listed as the early gulong, and the ancient dragon was still in the stage of imitation and exploration during this period.
From "Little Li Flying Knife" to "Earth Flying Eagle" is the middle period, at this time, Gu Long's style is more and more mature, but there is no such a strong twilight sigh later, and Gu Long has not participated too much in his own real-life experience of learning Buddha.
After "Eagle of the Earth", it was the late stage, and at this time, Gu Long rarely wrote large long stories, and the longer ones were only a few stories after Lu Xiaofeng and the small pattern of heroes without tears. More emphasis on lyricism, the plot is not as rich and twisted and flexible as the middle period, and the exploration of human nature in it is more old and thorough, but it is full of a kind of exhaustion and loneliness.
The late Gulong period is also more like using martial arts to expound his own understanding of Zen, which is most evident in the Crescent Moon legend. There are a lot of sentences in Zen machines.
The cold wind is like a knife, using the earth as a cutting board and treating sentient beings as fish and meat. Thousands of miles of snow will make the sky a furnace and dissolve all things into silver.
Many readers and friends like to compare Jin Yong and Gu Long, and even more so, they have to distinguish between the high and the low, the author's personal opinion is as follows:
On the whole, Jin Yong is better than Gu Long, but in terms of writing mood, Gu Long seems to be better (Gu Long novels always give the author the feeling that his writing skills are greater than the storyline, and the environmental description should be the best writer I have seen rendering at present, and the plot is also first-class).
Or it can be said that it is because Gu Long's ability to describe the artistic conception is very good, so that he can be juxtaposed with Jin Yong.
Mr. Jin Yong's characters do not have much storytelling. Or to translate into modern language, it can be said that Mr. Jin Yong's characters are dead. Their human set never collapsed. In other words, everyone knows the direction of the story, because only this direction fits the character setting of this character.
For example, Mr. Jin Yong's jianghu is more like a traditional RPG (Role-playing game) Who knows that if you buy wine for a beggar or chicken legs to eat, he will teach you martial arts. I just don't know what to teach specifically, but it is probably a unique divine skill that cannot be wrong.
On the other hand, Gu Long's jianghu is different. It's all temperamental people here. Although they also have a bottom line and principles, you can only know what they will not do at most, but you may never know what they will do. Therefore, compared to Jin Yong's RPG, Gu Long's jianghu is more like a sandbox game.
Gu Long used words to create so many living jianghu characters that people can remember, Li Xunhuan, Chu Liuxiang, Lu Xiaofeng, etc. These names are said, who has read martial arts novels do not know, as soon as these names are said, the image immediately appears in the mind.
Compared with Mr. Jin Yong, I prefer Mr. Gu Long in that Mr. Jin Yong is limited by the world, his concept of love is a lifetime of one couple, he is worried about the country and the world, and his protagonist is mostly the embodiment of justice.
Relatively speaking, Mr. Gu Long is a lot more dashing, his concept of love is flowing and not vulgar, he is not bound by the world but has his own rules and bottom line, and his protagonist is better at finding fun.
In addition, the author personally finds the female characters portrayed in Gu Long's works more interesting, such as Mei Yinxue, such as Shi Guanyin. The female characters in Mr. Jin Yong's works give people the feeling that they are mostly male vassals.
Compared with Jin Yong, the shortcomings of Gu Long's martial arts novels are also obvious. Gu Long's martial arts novels are not as compact in plot as Jin Yong, which leads to the feeling that Gu Long's books give many readers the feeling that they can read at any time, while Jin Yong's books have to chase them to the end.
In addition, as a huge mainland readership, there is still a big gap between Gu Long's works and the overall aesthetics of mainland readers. Jin Yong's works are not obvious on this issue.
Mr. Gu Long's works contain too many elements, which also leads to many of Gu Long's works are not easy to be made into film and television works, and Mr. Jin Yong's works are very grounded, which can be seen from the fact that we can see more Jin Yong's works than Gu Long's works being remade.
People in the rivers and lakes, involuntarily, love and hatred are difficult, and enmity is endless.
— "Midnight Orchid" of The Legend of Chu Liuxiang
Gu Long is proud and dry, heroic, amazingly talented, he has left more than 70 wonderful and popular martial arts masterpieces with his rich and incomparable creativity, which has a huge impact, creating a new era of modern martial arts novels and pushing martial arts literature to a new peak.
The formation of Gu Long's style in his later years, the author believes that the main thing is the "Yinsongge Incident" (the events are not repeated here on the Internet), so that he is naked against death. Therefore, the whole person's attitude towards life and state of mind have also been completely subverted.
Gu Long began to retreat at home, practicing calligraphy, practicing Buddhism, and occasionally a few close friends came to the door, and most of them talked about Zen. This mentality gave birth to his late style change.
If he still lives, there is no need to face death nakedly, and the attitude and state of mind of life cannot be so subversive, or will he continue the previous style, spirit, calling friends, and the jianghu, the philosophy of human nature will be much less sighing, a lot of decadence, at most, the middle-aged crisis-style confusion and loneliness of "The Sword of the Three Young Masters".
Gu Long spent more than forty years to exhaust the essence of others for eighty or ninety years. The late works are dull and dull, and they read without the vitality of previous works, but more like a tired and deep sigh of life. At least in terms of writing and thought, several late novels resemble an old man.
If Gu Long could live a long life, his writing and thinking would not have appeared so early in the sighing style and context of "Parting Hook", "Hero Without Tears", and "The Sound of Knives in the Wind Chimes", which is also an old man's context of seeing through the world's human feelings and so it has transcended things.
Maybe this is the reason why God accepted him early, he lived out the essence of the future early. Just like the Yin-Yang Road made a fortune at first sight, Gu Tianle made a bet with the ghost, and was sucked out of the middle decades by the ghost, and he was old in an instant.