The martial arts works created by Mr. Jin Yong can be described as a peak in the history of Chinese novels, which is difficult for ordinary authors to overcome. But in the same period, there is a person who can compete with Jin Yong, whose novels have been pursuing breakthroughs and innovations, expressing the understanding and understanding of human nature, the forgiveness of human nature, he is Gu Long.
Nowadays, we know that many online writers have achieved great success by virtue of their excellent works, relying on online serialization, physical book sales, later film adaptations, manga adaptations, anime adaptations, etc. have earned them a lot of fees and copyright fees. It can be said that after the success of every fiction writer, it is a moving treasure mountain.
In this way, the high prolific of writing novels based on Gu Long and his position in the martial arts novel industry at that time should be able to accumulate a lot of wealth. But this is not the case, Gu Long has not accumulated too much wealth in his life, and he once did not shy away from laughing at himself: I eat on manuscripts. This is not the sorrow of all writers, but it is his sorrow.
Cologne
Jin Yong can generously sell the copyright of the novel "Smiling Proud of the Jianghu" to CCTV for one dollar, but Gu Long can only put survival first. Even his embarkation on the path of creating martial arts novels was an attempt to make a living.
If we dig carefully, in each of Gu Long's works, those fictional characters seem to have their own shadows. Therefore, Gu Long himself is a dashing person, but at the same time he is also a poor and well-known novel writer, after his untimely death, the maintenance left to his son is only the copyright fee of a novel "Tianya Mingyue Dao", in addition, there is no extra money.
So what kind of life experience and creative experience does Gu Long, a generation of grandmasters in the martial arts novel industry, have?
"Gulong" is Xiong Yaohua's pen name after he began to create, it is said that the origin of this pen name is because he has a favorite girl named Gu Feng, so he named himself Gu Long.
Cologne in his youth
In 1938, Gu Long was born in Hong Kong, when he was a child, the situation was more chaotic, in order to escape the impact of the war, Gu Long's father took his wife and son together, ran to Taiwan to settle, Gu Long also went to school in the local area.
Gu Long's father originally had an official body, and there should be no problem in supporting the family to live a good life. But Gu Long's father was not a good husband, let alone a good father. When Gu Long was young, he abandoned Gu Long and his mother, rolled up money and lived with his lover.
Gu Long can only rely on his mother for his life. Before long, his mother also left, and no one cared about gu long, who was in a rebellious period. At the age of 17, Gu Long finally broke with his father and resolutely ran away from home, like an orphan, he began his own barbaric growth path.
Because of being abandoned, the ancient dragon will inevitably be ridiculed and teased, so when the ancient dragon grows up in the early days, the life is relatively dark. It is precisely because of this that he can better perceive the human heart and human nature, and observe this indifferent world. Therefore, in his writing, the description of this part is very resonant, and Gu Long's early experience eventually became part of his literary creation.
In Gu Long's student years, because of family reasons are very poor, in order to earn some money to support the family, he began to create a large number of poetry in the student age, submitted articles to some editorial agencies, newspapers, and constantly accumulated experience.
In 1955, Gu Long officially began to write novels under the pseudonym "Gu Long", and the publication of the first "From The North to the South" in Morning Light Magazine was the beginning of his professional writing career.
Cologne (left)
In 1958, Gu Long, who was studying, did not want to stay in school to continue to learn boring courses, so he abandoned school and began to mix with society. Perhaps because of inheriting some of his father's genes, the young Gu Long was not a decent person, and he was debauched at that time, often shuttling through some windy and snowy places.
It was in such a place that Gu Long met the first woman to live with, the dancer Zheng Yuexia. Soon after the two people met, they lived together in the Zheng family in Taipei County. At that time, Gu Long was very short of money, and in order to survive, Gu Long tried to write some martial arts novels. At the beginning, it was out of control.
In the beginning, from 1960 to 1963, Gu Long was always exploring a martial arts style of his own, which was not easy.
Because at that time, there were already many mountains in front of him, not to mention Liang Yusheng, these people, just a Jin Yong who wrote a few years earlier than Gu Long, has become the "Big Dipper Taishan" in the writers of martial arts novels, and wrote his own unique new school of martial arts novels, with its plot twists, delicate emotions and gentle style, which is well received by the majority of readers.
Perhaps in order to quickly obtain the manuscript fee to support his life, Gu Long chose to imitate Jin Yong's writing style and techniques, but after trying it for a while, he found that it was not satisfactory and could not achieve the effect he wanted. So Gu Long tried to combine the foreign novels he read with traditional Chinese martial arts novels to create his own unique style.
Soon, with some Western cultural colors, various emotions were fused together, as if with their own values, the novel style of the concept of life was formed, and Gu Long also began to become famous, ranking among the four masters of Chinese martial arts novels in one fell swoop.
The decade from 1966 to 1976 was the peak of Gu Long's martial arts novel career. During this period, he created many popular and addictive martial arts novels.
For example, in the long-form martial arts comedy "Peerless Double Glory", Gu Long uses delicate brushstrokes to vividly portray the complex emotions of the characters, and the excavation of human nature is very deep. At the same time, his works also celebrate sincere love and friendship, and their readability is far more than an ordinary martial arts novel can compare. In the history of Chinese martial arts novels, it is a pivotal landmark work.
There is also the "Legend of Chu Liuxiang" that we are familiar with, even Gu Long himself has mentioned: Chu Liuxiang's colorful life makes the story about him full of extraordinary excitement. Chu Liuxiang, who is called "thief marshal" by the people in the jianghu, can be described as a true portrayal of Gu Long himself.
Gu Long took himself as a prototype and beautified it, creating such a dashing, astute and righteous rogue. It is Gu Long himself, as a prodigal son, who can portray the obsessive character Chu Liuxiang almost perfectly, and create a golden age of his own.
Gu Long took a group photo with Lin Qingxia and Zheng Shaoqiu
"Xiao Shi Yi Lang" is the first script written by Gu Long, and then a martial arts masterpiece written according to the script. A deer cutting knife moved the world and attracted the heroes of the world to chase it.
"Although the stories in the whole book are full of bizarre twists and turns, they are interlocked and echoed back and forth, and the unexpected is also reasonable." This is Mr. Ye Hong, a novel critic's evaluation of "Xiao ShiYilang".
Later, because Gu Long was not satisfied with the ending, he wrote 29 more chapters, named "Fire and Xiao Eleven Lang", which together with the previously written "Xiao Eleven Lang" formed a grand martial arts masterpiece.
Finally, let's look at "Tianya Mingyue Knife", which he finally left the copyright to his son as maintenance. This novel is the fourth in the "Little Li Flying Knife" series of works, when Gu Long, in order to pursue the transformation of martial arts novels, infiltrated the syntax of prose poetry into the works, which was not popular at the time.
Gu Long took a group photo with the actresses of "The Legend of Chu Liuxiang"
Later, it was adapted into film and television series many times, creating a wave of martial arts movie peaks and creating the gulong film era. So the book was used as a child support by Gu Long, perhaps because it was adapted into a movie.
As more and more works are sought after by fans of martial arts novels, Gu Long's fame spread throughout the country, coupled with film and television works adapted from martial arts novels, Gu Long was also invited to write some film scripts, and many high-quality movies also played a huge role in fueling his national fame, and everyone knew that there was a top martial arts novel author named Gu Long who was the same as Mr. Jin Yong.
With similar experiences to the characters in the novel, Gu Long can write people's hearts so deeply that people feel immersed in the scene when they read it, as if they are in it, and have a strong sense of substitution. In reality, Gu Long is also a person with a dashing style, and after the specific performance, it is the same as several elements that he cannot avoid writing novels: drinking, close friends, and women.
It can be said that Gu Long was successful because of his dashing style, but he also died early because of the pursuit of dashing style.
Cologne on the wine table (2nd from the left)
Gu Long belongs to the typical kind of people who love to drink and can still drink. Once he and his friends were drinking at the Taoyuan Restaurant, and the underworld people knew that the cologne who could drink was coming, so they came to challenge him. In the face of the menacing words of the underworld figures: "We try to drink, if you drink me down today, you will be my brother from now on, come here to drink for free, but if you lose to me, you will never appear here again." ”
Gu Long was not frightened, but directly ordered 24 bottles of Wumei wine, poured in the bathtub, 24 large bottles of wine poured out a lot, Gu Long abandoned the cup, directly took up a basin to scoop up the wine to drink. The underworld figures who came to challenge saw this battle and quickly smeared the soles of their feet with oil. With this incident in front of it, no one dared to fight with Gu Long casually. If life is like a martial arts novel, Gu Long's alcohol consumption can be called Dionysus.
Many writers who have intersected with Gu Long, the first impression of Gu Long is that this person is too capable of drinking. The famous writer Lin Qingxuan went to find Gu Long's manuscript, but he did not expect to pass a level first, that is, the level of drinking. Just like the characters in the novel, Gu Long directly brought out exquisite wine to entertain guests, and said to Lin Qingxuan, who came to the manuscript, with great spirit: "Drink the wine well, and you can have any kind of manuscript you want!" ”
From the beginning, they were still more subtly drinking wine from a small cup, and the more they drank in the back, the happier they were, they simply took out a large basin again, and one person poured a large basin of Shaoxing old wine to drink. Imagine that scene, more heroic than the fight between Qiao Feng and Duan Yu when they first met.
Lin Qingxuan also often recalls the friendship between the two people and says that they are all drunk. Because every time Lin Qingxuan went to visit Gu Long, he always "went in vertically and came out horizontally."
Gu Long, who regards alcoholism as the greatest pleasure in life, once said: he is not very fond of drinking, the taste of wine is not the reason why he loves wine, what he really likes is that drinking can make a lot of friends, and it is the atmosphere and fun created after three rounds of wine. Therefore, the ancient dragon in life is like the proud ranger of the martial arts world, drinking alone is to relieve loneliness, and drinking is because the wine is confidant and a thousand cups are missing.
Lin Qingxuan
Gu Long's wind is also reflected in his aura head, in other words, his chicken thief. There is a part of the book "Absolute Double Glory" that Ni Kuang helped Gu Long write, and later after Gu Long was busy with the things at hand, when he came back to continue writing, he did not know how to continue for a while, so he shook a clever, saying that the 100,000 words written by Ni Kuang were a dream made by Xiaoyu'er. The 100,000 words that my friend had painstakingly written slowly disappeared without a trace, and in the final published book, it was extinct.
Gu Long's friend Lin Qingxuan broke the news, saying that once he asked Gu Long to write a novel that was serialized for one year, and as a result, Gu Long wrote for more than two years and had no intention of finishing it. Lin Qingxuan quickly called Gu Long and asked him to hurry up and finish. As a result, Gu Long's reply made him so angry that he almost vomited blood.
Gu Long said, "I may never be able to finish writing, there are more than a hundred protagonists here, I have to arrange a way for each of them to die, but I haven't thought about it yet." After listening to this reply, Lin Qingxuan was angry and could only publish an ending for Gu Long himself.
This ending is summarized as follows: the protagonist of the novel posted, inviting all the martial arts masters to gather in Shaolin to elect the master of the wulin alliance, and as a result, a lot of explosives were buried under the Shaolin Temple in advance, and the last person did not run away, all of them were killed, and the whole book ended like this.
Gu Long saw this ending, cried and laughed, and specially wrote a task to "revenge" Lin Qingxuan, saying that there was such a Daoist person, who had no evil from childhood, and when he grew up, he was even more evil, and finally he was cut off and hung on the Wudang Mountain, whose name was "Qingxuan Daoist". I have to say that a master like Gu Long is really witty and humorous.
In addition to drinking and making friends, Gulong also has a lot of red faces, many lovers, and a lot of affair. But as in his novel, the emotional experience and ending are not very satisfactory.
The first woman to live with was the above-mentioned Zheng Yuexia, and Gu Long lived with her for several years. In the end, Zheng Yuexia also gave birth to a child for Gu Long, at that time, because of the hukou reason, he followed Zheng Yuexia's surname, called Zheng Xiaolong, grew up to become a police officer, and also won the world police academy judo competition championship.
But Gu Long, a talented man of natural temperament, met his second woman three years later, named Ye Xue, who was also a dancer, and also gave birth to a son for Gu Long, named Ye Yikuan, who grew up to become a lawyer and an information expert. But Gu Long did not relent, and then he left Ye Xue and lived with a Japanese woman. But it didn't become his destination either.
It was not until Mei Baozhu, who was deeply knowledgeable and cultivated, appeared that Gu Long officially married her and received a license. The two also gave birth to Gu Long's youngest son. However, after marriage, Gu Long did not restrain his "prodigal character" at all, and still often looked for flowers and asked for willows, drinking and having fun. The unbearable wife divorced him. Gu Long's last woman was his book fan, called Yu Xiuling, and in Gu Long's last years, it was also Yu Xiuling who took care of him and accompanied him.
Gu Long, who was evaluated by his friends as "lustful and mercurial", eventually ended up because of the wind.
In 1980, Gu Long was drinking and having fun in the "Yinsong Pavilion", because his men and Ke Junxiong's men were fighting, and the drunken Gu Long was slashed by one of the other side's horses, and his blood immediately gushed.
In order to save the cologne who had lost too much blood, they took a blood sample for him by any means, and as a result, some blood with hepatitis entered the body, making the health of the dragon deteriorate. After more than five years, Gu Long could not be cured because of the outbreak of liver and intestine problems, and ended his life at the age of forty-eight.
Ancient dragons before dying
At the end of his life, Gu Long, a generation of martial arts novel masters, had almost no property left, although he also earned a lot of money after becoming famous, but he was not only lavish and lavish, but also did not invest successfully, so in the end he left the maintenance fee for his younger son who was less than ten years old, which was only the copyright of a copy of "Tianya Mingyue Dao" in many novels.
Gu Long's life is full of style, and his deeds are very different from other novel masters, but his novel talent and the style of martial arts novels he created are worth reading and studying.