Who is Cologne? More than 50 percent of urban youth, especially college and middle school students, can answer, but further ask, what is his life status and personality characteristics?
I am afraid that even teachers of Chinese majors in colleges and universities may not be able to answer, his novels are fascinating, and his own peculiar habits of life and writing habits are equally puzzling.
Especially on September 21, 1985, when Gu Long suddenly passed away at the age of 48, the majority of readers not only lamented this beloved excellent writer, but also increased their desire to understand "what kind of person Gu Long is".
Gu Long, formerly known as Xiong Yaohua, was born in Jiangxi, but he himself was born in Hong Kong, moved to Taiwan with his parents at the age of 13, and graduated from Tamkang College (now renamed Tamkang University), a prestigious institution in Taiwan.
Passionate about literature since childhood, he was gifted and dexterous, and began to write novels at the age of 11, and published his debut novel "From the North to the South" in Morning Light magazine at the age of 19. The initial works are pure literary works, mainly writing love, beautiful and fresh writing, but not very famous, just a young literary lover who debuted.
Until the early 1960s, with the economic take-off of Hong Kong and Taiwan in the "Four Asian Tigers", a new middle class grew rapidly, and the demand for urban civic literature became more and more obvious. Those who have been working hard in the business field for a day want to see some light-hearted, lively entertainment.
In the face of all kinds of social injustices and inclinations, I fantasize about being able to have heroes with martial arts and extraordinary abilities to fight injustice.
In this way, the new school of martial arts novels known as "adult fairy tales" came into being. It is unbelievable that in the early 1960s, in the narrow literary circles of Hong Kong and Taiwan, there were more than 100 writers who specialized in martial arts novels. In the fierce competition for commodity culture, Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng "combined swords" and swept Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The impact of this trend, the demand of the market, the temptation of fame and fortune, and the encouragement of friends made Gu Long, who was only 23 years old, finally unable to bear the loneliness of the pure literary position, and was suddenly involved in the martial arts world written by the literati.
With his brilliant talent and experience in wandering society, in just a few years, the martial arts novel signed Gu Long has entered the room, becoming the favorite object of publishers and the target of readers in bookstores.
The reason why the new martial arts novel can attract many readers is that in addition to inheriting the traditional Chinese novel to pay attention to the storyline narrative, it has absorbed a lot of Western novels that are good at describing the character and inner world, paying attention to the setting of suspense, the description of the martial arts scene is extremely realistic and meticulous, and with the help of rich imagination, highlighting the thrilling life and death struggle.
Although the ethical essence of each work is single and concise, that is, good has good retribution, evil has evil retribution, heroic chivalry, and red pink hot sausage. But every writer can use this to write about the birth flower.
For example, Liang Yusheng always puts his characters in exotic, or the desert of the northern country, or the flower rain of southern Xinjiang; Jin Yong is good at laying out the delicate children's love in the atmosphere of the jianghu heroes.
If Gu Long followed the path of Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong and others, it would be extremely difficult to stand out. Gu Long broke through his own writing world with his unique thinking.
First, there are no tricks to win, and the scenes of martial arts in general martial arts novels are dazzling. However, Gu Long's novels rarely see his moves and scenes describing martial arts. He did not like to describe the fight in detail. Obviously, this is because before Gu Long, many writers have developed martial arts moves to the fullest, unsurpassed.
Gu Long said it cleverly:
"The highest martial art in the world has no moves to find, because without moves, others cannot resist." No move is a move, and the style of no move makes the opponent chill. ”
He wrote a master move, there is no process, only the result, in an instant, the victory or defeat is decided.
However, Gu Long is good at setting off the atmosphere of solidified fear before the decisive battle, in the face of the power of the mind, any detailed statement is thin, avoiding martial arts moves and fighting scenes, so as to promote his own strengths, free up pen and ink to describe human feelings and mentality, write the love between men and women, the righteousness of suffering and rivers and lakes, the whole work is suspenseful, strange and strange, and opens up a new martial arts novel.
Second, gu long's characters are "evil" cute and amazingly refined. Jiang Xiaoyu, the protagonist of "Absolute Double Jiao", grew up in the Valley of the Wicked and learned all kinds of skills that are extremely tricky and strange, and he always says the opposite and does evil things.
People are evil, things are evil, the ending is evil, and they are all evil and funny, and the ending of the characters is often a peak outside the sky, which is unexpected. Gu Long has brought martial arts novels into a new artistic realm.
Many writers are said to have quirks when writing, such as Balzac, who liked to conceive plots in the bathtub.
Gu Long's habit is to go to the bathroom after dinner, wash his hands clean, and then use manicure tools to trim the nails of ten fingers, one by one, very neatly, and the time to trim the nails shows that he is conceiving the plot of the novel.
As soon as the maid in the house saw him manicure, he knew that he would not go out and would definitely stay at home to write articles. So he hurried to the study and laid a large blackboard on the ground, put the other utensils aside, and then quietly withdrew.
Gu Long has a special habit of writing, he does not like to sit at the desk, perhaps feel that the desk can not put down his galloping like an electric mind. He likes to sit on the floor and use the blackboard as a table. Only then can inspiration come flooding in.
Gu Long walked into the study, immediately took off his clothes, leaving only a pair of underwear, he thought that he could get rid of external constraints and constraints, the most natural and free. When he writes, he smokes in his left hand and pen in his right hand, and he doesn't stop writing and smoking. One night, two packs of "555" cigarettes were exchanged for a wonderful chapter.
Interestingly, although Gulong is good at wine, he never smokes, even if others respect, he does not take it, but when writing, he does not drink alcohol, but regards smoke as his life.
Gu Long is good at drinking, likes to make friends in the jianghu, and is debauched and entertaining, quite a ranger style. He has loved to drink since he was young, and after graduating from Tamkang College, he made a living by writing manuscripts and lived in poverty, but as long as he received the manuscript fee, the first thing he did was to buy two bottles of good wine.
In his life, he only quit drinking for half a year because of illness, but Gu Long was willful in everything, and when his body recovered slightly, the wine was still not wrong, he would rather die than completely quit drinking, he thought that men who did not drink were nestled,
"It is better to tell me to live for ten or eight more years than to simply die."
After he became famous, in his luxurious apartment, the most eye-catching thing was the wine cabinet, which contained famous wines from all over the world, which made the drinkers look at the saliva.
Once, a friend helped him get two bottles of Shanxi wine "Zhuyeqing", which was not available on the Taiwan market at that time. He opened it happily, poured a bottle on his neck, and said approvingly: "Wine, or the good of the mainland"!
Although the heavy drink shows the willfulness and straightforwardness of the cologne, it is also an important reason to pour sorrow through wine.
Under the prestige of the ancient dragon, the family is always shrouded in tragedy. He was married twice, his two wives left him, he had three sons, three sons also left with their mothers, surnamed other people's surnames, and became a veritable "lonely" style of wanderer.
The tragedy of marriage and family has a lot to do with Gu Long's unruly nature.
"Ancient Box Dragon Yin Qiu said sword, Bao Lian Zhu roll evening condensed makeup." Bao Jing Zhu Bell Spring Audition, Gu Tao Dragon Sword Night Paper. ”
The two couplets have been hanging high in Gu Long's study. Lianzhong carefully embedded the names of Gu Long and his wife Baozhu, which is the handwriting of the famous Taiwanese artist Chen Dinggong. Gu Long always cherished these two couplets, which seemed to contain a vague sense of regret
At that time, Gu Long's wife Baozhu was in her youth, born beautiful, radiant, and even more tender and considerate to Gu Long. But the young Gu Long did not cherish all this, and the beautiful and wise lady could not tie up the debauchery heart.
After writing a manuscript and throwing the pen away, the cologne is like a bird out of the cage, flying out for a few days without a trace. The gentle orb could not do anything with him, and she knew that the cologne would only return tired when he was having no fun outside.
Red sleeves add incense and warmth, thousands of gold buy drunken joy, and the bad habits of feudal scholars and doctors deeply corrode the ancient dragon. The long-indulgent nightlife invaded the health of this talented man, and the twists and turns of love carved painful marks in his soul again and again. But Gu Long still went his own way and never intended to change his disposition.
Gu Long's writing is very desperate, and he has to fight for this way of survival in order to spend thousands of dollars on life.
"A broken pocket usually doesn't even have a penny left, and in order to eat, drink, take a car, make a girlfriend, watch a movie, open a room, as long as you can write something, you will take it for money." 」
However, when Gu Long made friends, he regarded money as a broom, and he was extremely generous, and the remuneration of tens of thousands of Taiwan dollars could not be spent overnight on his body. After paying Gu Long's manuscript, a publisher said to others: "I bet gu daxia will not have a thousand Taiwan dollars left in his pocket tomorrow." ”
Once, a friend was going to Thailand to run an errand and was in urgent need of a travel fee to ask Gu Long for help. Gu Long happened to have no money on his body at that time, so he immediately went to the study and took out the front of a manuscript and said to him: "You take these manuscripts to the owner of the ××× publishing house Lin, and ask him to pay 200,000 yuan first, is that enough?" ”
The friend half-believed to find the publisher surnamed Lin, who was overjoyed and quickly took out NT$200,000 in cash from the safe, while carefully locking the Gulong manuscript into the safe.
At the beginning of a book, you have to advance 200,000 yuan in manuscript fees, which has become a common practice between Gu Long and publishers. Because there are too many manuscripts, sometimes I take the money but forget to finish the volume. Despite this, the publisher willingly "dangd" the dragon again and again, which was a small "loss" compared to their profits.
After gu long became middle-aged, he was injured by alcohol, his family changed, his health deteriorated sharply, and he was admitted to the Taipei General Hospital of the Three Armed Services four times.
An unexpected medical malpractice caused him to be injected into the blood with the hepatitis virus in his body, which planted the bane of liver disease.
There are too many unsatisfactory things in life, and Gu Long often says:
"Sometimes it's better to be drunk than to be sober."
He often responded to the advice of his doctors and friends to temper his wine with the audacity of the laughter that shook the house, the bitterness of which only he knew.
In September 1985, Gu Long, who had been in a state of shock, was in shock and finally never woke up again due to excessive drinking, which led to a ruptured esophagus.
His friends placed 48 bottles (Gu Long died at the age of 48) on the inside of his coffin, and the caps were all removed, so that a wine-loving "wine fairy" could still sleep in the fragrant aroma of wine.
After the news of Gu Long's death came out, people from all walks of life and the vast number of "martial arts fans" were deeply saddened and rushed from all directions to mourn. Gu Long's relatives, including his former wife and his lover, have hardly shown up, and perhaps they have never forgiven Gu Long for his "thin feelings".
The old dragon's dying saying is just one sentence:
"Why didn't my girlfriend come to see me?"
This cup of "bitter wine" in life will always accompany Gu Long, the prodigal son in life.
In his short life, Gu Long created nearly ninety works, surpassing Zhuge Qingyun, Wolong Sheng, and Sima Ling (also known as the four martial arts novelists) who rose up at the same time as him, and forming a three-point trend with Jin Yong and Liang Yu.
Less than thirty years old, he has become a great instrument.
His famous works are "Iron Blood Banner" and "Absolute Double Jiao", and later "Lu Xiaofeng", "Rogue Chu Liuxiang", "Amorous Swordsman Ruthless Sword" and other well-conceived works have established his position in the new school of martial arts novels.
The works of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng entered the mainland earlier than Gu Long and seized the lead. When "martial arts fans" competed to read the masterpieces of Jin and Liang, they did not know that there was an ancient dragon.
And Jin Yong's 15 masterpieces, Liang Yusheng's 35 masterpieces, were quickly "eaten" by the wolf, and the ancient dragon became the prey of everyone. Even his self-proclaimed "biggest setback" failed work "Tianya Mingyue Knife" has become a popular book for primary and secondary school students.
However, although he has created countless heroes who can change his destiny and dominate the world with a stroke of genius, he has never been able to dominate himself, he has raised a large number of publishers, but after his death, the scene is desolate, and the family wealth is exhausted.
A generation of tragic wizards.