Gu Long, real name Xiong Yaohua, is a famous Taiwanese martial arts novel writer
"Tianya Mingyue Knife": The only novel whose serial has been stopped
What kind of person a person is and what kind of person he wants to be is usually decided by himself.
- "The Sword of the Three Young Masters"
Anyone who has read Cologne's novels knows that the prodigal son is the protagonist of course, while friends, women, and wine are eternal themes. Some people metaphorically say that Gu Long is Li Bai and Jin Yong is Du Fu, because the former is good wine and romantic, while the latter gives people a more calm feeling. Judging from their respective external personalities, this analogy cannot be said to be unreasonable, but if it is changed to the perspective of the work, it may be said in reverse. Gu Long's early life was bumpy and he tasted the cold of the world, so there are many manifestations of the underlying society and complex human nature in the novel; while Jin Yong was born into a family and had a superior life, which was reflected in his martial arts world, which was a "fairy tale" of the imagination.
Gu Long's early works follow the story structure of Previous Generation writers such as Sima Ling in Taiwan and Jin Yong in Hong Kong, and are nothing more than the stories of hot-blooded young people breaking into the world. Because of the rush to change the manuscript fee to make a living, many novels are shoddily made, making it impossible for people to read. Taking the 1965 "Legend of the Hero of the Great Banner" as a watershed, Gu Long's works have undergone qualitative changes, and in the middle period, there are famous works such as "History of Wulin Foreign History" and "Absolute Double Pride", and later there are "Amorous Swordsman Ruthless Sword", "Legend of Chu Liuxiang", "Legend of Lu Xiaofeng", "Happy Hero" and other large-scale furnaces, their protagonists Shen Lang, Li Xunhuan, Chu Liuxiang, etc., most of them are floating in the world, experiencing ups and downs, lonely and arrogant, but they are intelligent, calm, and intelligent figures with strong logical thinking. Solve puzzles in the novel.
The exploration of human nature is the biggest difference between Gu Long's middle and late works and previous martial arts novels, he said, "In martial arts novels, we should no longer write about gods and devil heads, but should start writing about people, living people, and flesh and blood people!" The protagonists in martial arts novels should have someone's strengths, should also have people's shortcomings, and should have people's feelings. Therefore, Gu Long's novels do not have those true or false historical backgrounds, but intuitively depict the real people in the social jianghu, such as Shen Lang in "The History of Wulin", although he is a hero, but his personality is cowardly.
The ongoing TV series "Tianya Mingyue Dao", adapted from Gu Long's novel of the same name and written in 1974, is not only an important work of turning significance in Gu Long's creative career, but also the only novel that Gu Long was stopped during serialization. "The reason is that many readers are not accustomed to the fast pace of Gu Long, montage penmanship, and go to the newspaper office to say that they want to 'withdraw from the newspaper', which scares the newspaper owner into inviting Dongfang Yu and other predecessor martial arts writers to serialize, and interrupts Gu Long's works." In fact, when he first started serializing "Tianya Mingyue Dao", Gu Long said, "I don't know if it can give readers a little 'new' feelings, I just know that I am trying my best to go in this direction." He adopted a prose poetic style in his writing, which was criticized.
Gu Long later recalled, "One of the films that made me feel the most painful and frustrated in my life was 'Tianya Mingyue Knife'. Because at that time, I always wanted to seek innovation, change, and breakthrough. "Deliberate change will undoubtedly deepen the author's writing difficulty, and after the completion of the manuscript, it cannot be liked by the reader, and the pain is something we cannot understand." However, this novel is destined to leave a place in the history of martial arts novels, and the concise, powerful, humorous, and philosophical characteristics of Gulong's language are vividly expressed in this novel:
"The end of the world is not far away. Bright moon in the heart. The return journey is imminent.
Human life is a journey, and the meaning of life lies in the process itself.
As long as you look for it, you will be able to find it. ”
At least today, writing martial arts novels with this kind of writing is still worthy of the eight words of "no ancients before, no one after".
But when the novel was remade into a TV series and led the trend of ratings, all the "ancient fans" must have been powerless to watch an episode in its entirety. In fact, because Gu Long often uses large sections of dialogue to advance the plot in his works, and the martial arts moves are fast and concise, making its adaptation has always been a big problem, no matter which novel it is remade, most of the time only the character names are the same as the novel, and the other plots are completely irrelevant to Gu Long.
Gu Long was first put on the screen is "Meteor Butterfly Sword", recommended by Ni Kuang, directed by Chu Yuan, and produced by Shao Shi, which was greatly acclaimed as soon as it was released. Subsequently, Shaw Company successively made more than 20 famous works, including "Tianya Mingyue Dao", "Legend of Chu Liuxiang", "White Jade Tiger", "Hero Without Tears" and so on, all of which were sold well. Chu Yuan's ancient dragon film is so far, and the ancient dragon film is the most divine. However, in Gu Long's view, Chu Yuan could not be completely faithful to the original work, and the characters he created were also different from what he imagined in his heart, so he was still not very satisfied. Gu Long decided to invest in a film company and wrote and directed the book himself. Unfortunately, the so-called "interlaced like a mountain", the film made by Gu Long, he himself is embarrassed to show it to people, that is, his friend Ni Kuang is no exception.
The specific number of novels created by Gu Long in his lifetime is difficult to verify, there are about seventy martial arts novels that can be determined, other scattered works, novels written by Gu Long's disciple Ding Qing, and pseudo-works of impersonating Gu Long, there are about twenty or thirty, so there have been hundreds of martial arts novels signed with Gu Long in the world, and Li Xunhuan, Chu Liuxiang, Lu Xiaofeng, Shen Lang, and Xiao Shiyilang have long been irreplaceable heroes in the reader's heart.
Gu Long (left) and his friend Ni Kuang are a pair of friends of suffering
Write martial arts novels for survival
If a person is going to do something, it is best not to ask about its ending, because all endings are the same when they really end. So when we want to do something, we should only ask this thing, whether it should be done, whether it is worth doing, and when doing this, is it possible to make others happy! Excite yourself! For life is only a process.
- "The Legend of Chu Liuxiang : Midnight Orchid"
Gu Long' original name is Xiong Yaohua, whose ancestral home is Jiangxi, and the year of birth is widely disputed, of which the birth in Hong Kong in 1938 is the most common. In 1950, before the end of the civil war, he moved to Taiwan with his family. His father was a taiwanese civil servant, but when he was in high school, his parents divorced due to a broken relationship. Gu Long, who was affected by this change, ran away from home and, with the help of friends, settled in Taipei's Pucheng Street. After that, Gu Long worked to earn a living, went to school at the same time, and once joined the local Four Seas Gang, because he often fought with people, resulting in knife wounds on his body. Therefore, the prodigal son in Gu Long's novel is a portrayal of his own early life.
Gu Long had a literary dream at a very young age, and was already trying to write novels at the age of 11. His first published work was a new poem, and when he was in high school at the age of 19, Gu Long's debut novel "From the North to the South" was published, earning him his first writing fee. This undoubtedly strengthened Gu Long's confidence in relying on words to eat, but the remuneration was meager, far from enough to make a living, so when Gu Long graduated from tamkang English College, he went to the US Military Advisory Group in Taipei as a librarian.
At that time, wuxia novels were all the rage in Taiwan, and Zhuge Qingyun, Sima Ling, and Wolongsheng's "Three Musketeers" were so famous that they regularly organized salon activities and talked with friends from all walks of life in a glass of wine. Gu Long, with the broad vision accumulated by his own reading and the amount of wine that cannot be poured in a thousand cups, has also become a regular visitor to their salon. The "Three Musketeers" were sometimes busy socializing, and would instruct Gu Long and ask him to help ghostwrite so that the serialization in the newspaper would not be interrupted. Over time, Gu Long was also familiar with writing martial arts novels, and began to create independently, and in 1960, he had his first martial arts novel, "The Sword of the Heavenly Firmament". In this year, Gu Long has successively published 6 novels such as "Moon Alien Star Evil", "Sword Qi Shuxiang", "Xiangfei Sword" and so on, and truly embarked on the road of selling literature for a living.
Gu Long was originally engaged in the writing of martial arts novels, purely forcing him to make a living. At that time, in order to reduce the price, Taiwanese publishers would print dozens of thin books to sell a martial arts novel of hundreds of thousands of words. Gu Long usually writes a novel of 100,000 words first, finds a publisher, and asks them to pay 20 copies in advance. Publishers see that Gu Long's beginning is suspenseful, and usually does it. But after that, the cologne will disappear, take the money from the manuscript to invite guests to dinner, and squander it on the wine table. Publishers, on the other hand, have to hold half of the book in vain. After doing this several times in a row, naturally no publisher will dare to cooperate with Gu Long again. Since he had reached the point where there was no money to earn, Gu Long had to correct his attitude, show his real skills, and bury his head in creation.
Later, when Gu Long broke free from the shackles of the existing models of Jin Yong and Zhuge Qingyun, the previous masters, and created his own style, the problem of dragging the manuscript did not change at all. Often a novel is being serialized in the newspaper, but the author is missing, and the editor has searched all over the sky and the earth, but he can't be arrested. Therefore, in the "Collection of Ancient Dragon Works" that we see today, many novels were ghostwritten by Shangguan Ding, Mo Yusheng, Yu Donglou, Ding Qing and others.
Gu Long regarded writing as a very serious matter, he would first wash his hands, change into the most comfortable clothes, then sit at the desk, reach for the drawer, take the manicure tool, and fix the nails clean and tidy before he began to write. When the thinking is smooth, Gu Long can write three or four thousand words an hour, but if there is no inspiration, he can't squeeze out a word. Whenever the mind stagnated, the cologne either smoked a cigarette or simply stuck his ear to the wall and listened intently, as if the wall would tell him how to push the story forward.
Gu Long usually starts writing around 5 p.m., and in order to overcome his "procrastination", he will first invite some friends to wait at a restaurant. Because he had to finish writing before he could leave, Gu Long had to abandon all distractions and devote himself to the martial arts world. Of course, if those friends catch up with the drying up of the ancient dragon's inspiration, they can only sit for a long time, hoping to invite guests to appear early.
Even if it is famous in the world, selling words for a living is not the ideal life of the literati after all. In the article "The Growth and Transformation of a Writer", Gu Long said sadly, "In order to eat, drink, take a car, make a girlfriend, watch a movie, and live in a house, as long as you can write something, you must take it for money without stopping." ”
The womanhood of the cologne
When the first love has deteriorated and faded, there will often be a second time; the second time will often become the same true, the same deep, the same sweet, the same pain as the first time.
- "The Flying Eagle of the Earth"
Gu Long's chivalrous guests, Li Xunhuan, Chu Liuxiang, and Xiao Shiyilang, are all handsome and dashing, but he himself is not proud, and even a little ugly. He was only 1.56 meters tall, his head was as big as an ox, and he was wide and fat after middle age, so much so that Ni Kuang jokingly called him a "square" figure. Gu Long created a character named Yang Fan in "Big People", "a short, chubby young man, a round face, a pair of eyes but thin and long, forehead horns are high and wide, and the two eyebrows are almost twice as wide as others." But this is a real hero, and later finally won the heart of the beautiful big lady Tian Sisi. Obviously, in Gu Long's mind, Yang Fan was the embodiment of his ideal.
But the inferiority in appearance has never affected Gu Long's femininity. His first love was the dancer Zheng Lili, who met and lived in seclusion in Ruifang Town on the outskirts of Taipei. During that time, Gu Long was able to sink his heart and read and write with peace of mind. Many people look at Gu Long's novels without a historical background or citation of scriptures, and they think that Gu Long does not read books and does not have the literary and historical skills of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng. In fact, this is a misunderstanding, Gu Long when he was in college, he could not release the volume, especially read a lot of Western novels, Dumas, Maugham, Hemingway, Jack London, etc. are within his dabble, laying the foundation for the later original style. When I lived in Ruifang Town, Gu Long's manuscript fee was still quite meager, but every time he received the manuscript fee, he would still buy a lot of new books and come back.
Gu Long's relationship of "red sleeves adding incense" lasted only three years, during which Zheng Lili gave birth to a son for Gu Long, named Xiong Xiaolong. As a natural prodigal son, Gu Long longed for a warm family, but did not want to be bound by the family, so he eventually got tired of a comfortable life and returned to the jianghu. Zheng Lili's mother and son were abandoned by Gu Long, and later Xiong Xiaolong changed his name to Zheng Xiaolong with his mother's surname.
Soon, Gu Long met another dancer, Ye Xue, and they also had a son after living together. Subsequently, he met Mei Baozhu, who was still only a pure high school student, and the talented lady soon entered the marriage hall. Gu Long had a wife and gave birth to a third son, but the warm home still could not lock the heart of Gu Long's prodigal son. As soon as he put down his pen, he would run out to call friends and companions, have fun, stay in hotels, and often not return home once for several days. Mei Baozhu finally couldn't bear it anymore and left Gu Long.
When Gu Long fell into a low point in his feelings and creation, the last important woman in his life appeared, that is, born in Xiuling in high school, she loved literature and art, and her temperament was extraordinary, and later became Gu Long's second wife. In the last few years of his life, Gu Long endured the torment of illness and was hospitalized several times, thanks to the company of Yu Xiuling.
Send off friends and wine for Cologne
The quality of the wine is not in itself, but in what mood you are drinking it. If a person is full of pain, even if it is the unparalleled wine in the world, it is bitter to drink into his mouth.
- "The Prodigal Son of the Border City"
It is well known that Gu Long died of cirrhosis, but few people know why he contracted liver disease. In 1980, Gu Long once went to the Yinsong Pavilion with his friend to drink, and it happened that Taiwanese film emperor Ke Junxiong was also there. Ke's younger brothers asked Gu Long to give their eldest brother a toast, but Of course Gu Long refused. A clash ensued, and Gu Long was stabbed in the arm, bleeding profusely. After Gu Long was taken to the hospital, the blood bank was insufficient, so he had to temporarily find someone on the street to buy blood. But what I didn't expect was that the blood seller suffered from hepatitis, and as a result, although Gu Long retrieved a life, he fell ill with liver disease.
Hepatitis is not fatal, but alcohol is not drinkable. The doctor advised Gu Long: "You'd better not eat alcohol, you really can't stay up to a day and only eat a small cup." Gu Long also wanted to quit drinking, but wine was second only to friends and women in his life, and he couldn't go a day without alcohol. It's just a good wine, but he doesn't know how to taste wine, he is in the memory of his friend is "good wine, but do not know how to distinguish the taste of wine, see the wine bottle is good to say good wine." He pays attention to the drinking atmosphere. Lin Qingxuan recalled that when he was an editor, he was responsible for urging Gu Long to write. Gu Long often played a rogue, saying, "If you don't drink with me, I won't write to you." So the two men began to drink, but they were not drunk. At that time, I didn't know who of them came up with the idea, pouring Shaoxing yellow wine into the basin, one person and one basin "dry basin". In the last week of Gu Long's life, Gu Long said to his old friend, "I want to tell you an important thing, wine is not a good thing. ”
After the illness, alcoholism finally led to the recurrence of the old disease, and after three days and three nights of rescue, Gu Long was pulled back from the ghost gate. Gu Long, who was on the hospital bed, said to Xiuling: "I'm really sorry for you, and I'm sorry for the women who have loved me." Yu Xiuling replied, "As long as you know, we will live happily in the future." Shortly after this conversation, Gu Long fell into a coma again and never woke up again. Gu Long's last words before he died were: "Why didn't my girlfriend come to see me?" It was 6:03 p.m. on September 21, 1985.
Gu Long died of alcoholism, but after his death, his friends still wanted him to be with the wine. In the end, they decided to buy 48 bottles of xo to accompany the funeral of the cologne. At that time, each bottle cost 4,000 Taiwan dollars, and some people were worried that they would be robbed of the tomb, so it was recommended to open the lid of the bottle and drink half of each bottle. Ni Kuang was devastated, and not only took up the wine on the spot to drink heavily, but also said to his old friend who had been dead for many days: "Gu Long, you also come to drink a little." Saying that, he poured a little wine into Gu Long's mouth, who knew that the corners of Gu Long's mouth actually shed blood. Ni Kuang took a handkerchief to dry the blood as a permanent treasure.
Gu Long made countless friends in his life, regarding friends above all else, and his disciple Ding Qing once said to people, "Although Gu Daxia cannot lack female companions, he often abandons his beloved woman for the sake of friends." He always thinks that women can be found again, but friends and confidants are difficult to find, how can you give up friends and value women? Among those friends, Ni Kuang was called "the closest and closest person in my life and the best person to me", and they would often even call each other long-distance when they were seven or eight points drunk, one in Taiwan and one in Hong Kong, complaining about depression in each other.
When Ni Kuang talked about Gu Long, he once said, "When it comes to Gu Long's tearful eyes, I am like a knife when I think of it, so I really don't want to mention it!" 30 years ago, Gu Long's obituary was written by Ni Kuang, and some of the words in his text were the best remembrance of Gu Long: "His real name is Xiong Yaohua, he is arrogant and dry, heroic, talented, and romantic." He loves friends, is a voracious alcoholic, has a crush on beautiful women, and craves pleasure. In the past thirty years, with his abundant creativity, he has written more than 100 wonderful and popular works. Creating a new way for wuxia novels is a generation of giants of Chinese martial arts novels... His works remain in the world, so that the world knows that there was such a wonderful person who wrote such a beautiful novel. ”