The new version of Xiaoao Jianghu

Chapter 1 New Preface to "Jin Yong's Works"

Novels are written for people to read.The content of the novel is people.

Novels describe the character and feelings of a person, a few people, a group of people, or tens of thousands of people.Their characters and feelings are reflected in the horizontal environment, in the vertical encounters, and in the communication and relationship between people.Among the novels, it seems that only "Robinson Crusoe" only writes about one person and the relationship between him and nature, but after writing, a servant "Friday" finally appeared.There are more short stories about only one person, especially modern and modern new novels, about a person expressing his external world, inner world, especially the inner world in the contact with the environment.Some novels write about animals, gods, ghosts, and demons, but they are also written as people.

Western traditional novel theory analyzes a work from three aspects: environment, characters and plot.Due to the different personalities and talents of novel authors, they often have different emphasis.

Basically, martial arts novels, like other novels, are also about people, but the environment is ancient, the main characters are martial arts, and the plot focuses on fierce struggles.Any novel has its special emphasis.Romance novels describe the feelings and actions related to sex between men and women. Realistic novels describe the environment and characters of a specific era. Novels such as "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin" describe the struggle experiences of a large group of characters. Modern novels often focus on The psychological process of the character.

Fiction is a kind of art. The basic content of art is human feelings and life, and the main form is beauty, in a broad sense, aesthetic beauty.In novels, it is the beauty of language and writing and the beauty of arrangement and structure. The key lies in how to express the inner world of the characters in a certain form.It can be in any form, either the author's subjective analysis, or the objective narrative of the story, expressed objectively from the characters' actions and words.

When readers read a novel, they combine the content of the novel with their own psychological state.For the same novel, some people feel a strong shock, while others feel bored and bored.The reader's personality and feelings come into contact with the personality and feelings expressed in the novel, resulting in a "chemical reaction".

Martial arts novels are just a specific form of expressing human feelings.Composers or performers want to express an emotion, they can use piano, violin, symphony, or singing, and painters can choose oil painting, watercolor, ink painting, or printmaking.The question is not what form to adopt, but whether the method of expression is good, whether it can communicate with the hearts of readers, listeners, and viewers, and whether it can resonate with their hearts.Fiction is one of the art forms, there is good art and there is bad art.

Good or bad, in art, belongs to the category of beauty, not the category of truth or goodness.The criterion for judging beauty is beauty, emotion, not scientific truth or untruth (whether martial arts is physically or scientifically possible), moral good or bad, nor economic value or not, political respect for the ruler. beneficial or harmful.Of course, any work of art will have social influence, and it can be estimated by the value of social influence, but that is another kind of evaluation.

In medieval Europe, the influence of Christianity was everything, so when we visited European and American museums, we saw that all medieval paintings were based on biblical stories, and the beauty of the female body must also be shown through the image of the Virgin.It was not until after the Renaissance that the images of mortals appeared in large numbers in paintings and literature. The so-called Renaissance refers to the revival of the description of "human beings" in the Greek and Roman eras in the Renaissance, instead of focusing on the description of angels and saints.

The Chinese people's view of literature and art has long been "literature conveys truth", which is consistent with the literary thought of the dark ages in medieval Europe, which uses the standard of "good or bad" to measure literature and art. The love songs in the "Book of Songs" should be interpreted far-fetchedly as satirizing the monarch or praising the concubine.Regarding Tao Yuanming's "Ode to Leisure Love", Sima Guang, Ouyang Xiu, and Yan Shu's words of lovesickness and love either regretfully commented on it as a flaw in the white jade, or interpreted it in good faith as referring to something else.They do not believe that what literature and art express is emotion, and believe that the only function of words is to serve political or social values.

When I write martial arts novels, I just create some characters and describe their encounters in a specific martial arts environment (ancient Chinese society that lacks the rule of law and uses force to resolve disputes).The society at that time was quite different from the modern society, but people's personalities and emotions had not changed much.The joys and sorrows of the ancients can still arouse corresponding emotions in the hearts of modern readers.Readers may of course feel that the technique of expression is clumsy, the technique is immature, the description is not profound, and it is a low-level work of art from an aesthetic point of view.In any case, I don't want to carry any Tao.While I was writing martial arts novels, I also wrote political commentary, and I also wrote texts related to history, philosophy, and religion, which are completely different from martial arts novels.Words involving thought appeal to the reader's rationality, and only then can judgments be made about right and wrong, true or false, and readers may agree, only partly agree, or completely disagree with these words.

With fiction, I want readers to say only whether they like it or not, whether they are moved or bored.I am happiest when readers love or hate certain characters in my novels. If there is such emotion, it means that the characters in my novels have already connected with the readers' hearts.The greatest desire of a novel author is to create some characters so that they become living, flesh-and-blood people in the hearts of readers.Art is creation, music creates beautiful sounds, painting creates beautiful visual images, and novels want to create characters, stories, and people's inner world.If we only want to reflect the external world as it is, why bother with music and painting when we have tape recorders and cameras?With newspapers, history books, documentary TV films, social survey statistics, medical records of doctors, and personnel files of party headquarters and police stations, why need novels?Although martial arts novels are popular works, focusing on popularization and entertainment, they will eventually have an impact on the majority of readers.The theme I hope to convey is: love and respect one's own country and nation, and respect others' nations and nations; be peaceful and friendly, and help each other; value justice and right and wrong, and oppose self-interest at the expense of others; pay attention to faith and praise pure love and friendship; Fight for justice; despise the struggle for power, selfish and despicable thoughts and behaviors.

Martial arts novels do not just allow readers to "daydream" while reading and immerse themselves in the fantasy of great success, but hope that readers will imagine themselves as a good person and try to do all kinds of good things when they are fantasizing , Imagine that you want to love the country, love the society, help others to be happy, and get the appreciation and love of your loved ones because of doing good deeds and making positive contributions.

Martial arts novels are not works of realism.Many critics believe that only one school of realism can be affirmed in literature, and everything else should be denied.This is tantamount to saying: Shaolin School martial arts is very good, in addition, Wudang School, Kongtong School, Taijiquan, Baguazhang, Spring Legs, Baihe School, Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Western Boxing, Muay Thai, etc. Cancellation should be repealed.We advocate pluralism. We not only respect Shaolin Kung Fu as Taishan Beidou in martial arts, but also feel that other small schools can coexist. They may not be better than Shaolin School, but each has its own ideas and creations.People who love Cantonese cuisine do not need to advocate the prohibition of Beijing cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Anhui cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Weiyang cuisine, Hangzhou cuisine, French cuisine, Italian cuisine, etc. The so-called "radish and green vegetables have their own preferences".There is no need to elevate martial arts novels higher than they should be, nor do they need to be wiped out.Everything is just right, that is.

This set of 36 volumes of "Collected Works" was written from [-] to [-], about fifteen to six years, including twelve novels, two novellas, and one short story. A commentary on historical figures, and several historical texts.The publishing process is very strange. No matter in Hong Kong, Taiwan, overseas regions, or mainland China, all kinds of pirated copies are published first, and then the original version edited and authorized by me is published.In mainland China, before the "triple edition" was published, only Tianjin Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House published "Book, Sword, Enmity and Enmity" with my authorization.They proofread carefully and pay royalties according to the contract.I paid income tax in accordance with the law, and donated the remainder to several cultural institutions and supported Go activities.It was a pleasant experience.Other than that, it is completely unauthorized until it is officially authorized to be published by Beijing Joint Publishing. The copyright contract for the "triple edition" expires at the end of [-], and the mainland China edition will be published by Guangzhou Publishing House. The main reason is that Hong Kong and Guangdong are close to each other, which makes it easier to communicate and cooperate in business.

No royalties are paid for the reprint, which is the second.Many editions are shoddy and full of mistakes.Some people borrowed the name of "Jin Yong" to write and publish martial arts novels.Well-written, I dare not rob beauty; as for works full of boring fights and pornographic descriptions, it is unavoidable.There are also some publishing houses that reprint the works of other writers in Hong Kong and Taiwan and publish them under my pseudonym.I have received countless letters from readers exposing and expressing their indignation.There are also people who made their own comments without my authorization. Except for Feng Qiyong, Yan Jiayan, and Chen Mo, who have profound skills and are serious about their work, and I deeply praise them, most of the rest of the comments are far from the author's original intention.Fortunately, the publication has now ceased, the publisher apologized and compensated, and the dispute has come to an end.

In some reprints, it is said that I, Gu Long and Ni Kuang collaborated on a couplet titled "Ice is better than ice and water", which is really a big joke.Chinese couplets have certain rules. The last character of the first couplet is usually in a flat tone, so that the second couplet ends in a flat tone, but the word "bing" belongs to steaming rhyme and is in a flat tone.We will not produce such a couplet.Many readers in mainland China have sent me the next couplet, and everyone wasted their time and effort.

In order to make it easy for readers to distinguish, I made a couplet with the first characters of the titles of my fourteen novels and novellas: "Flying snow shoots a white deer in the sky, and the hero of the laughing book leans on the biyuan". (The short story "The Sword of the Yue Girl" is not included, but my Go teacher Mr. Chen Zude said that he likes "The Sword of the Yue Girl" the most.) When I wrote the first novel, I didn't know whether I would write the second novel. When I wrote the second novel, I had no idea what subject matter the third novel would use, let alone what title it would use.So this couplet is of course not neat, "Feixue" can't be with "Xiaoshu", "Liantian" can't be with "Shenxia", "Bai" and "Bi" are both humming.But if you come up with a couplet, you can use the words completely freely, and you will always choose a few more interesting and regular words.

Many readers wrote to ask the same question: "Among the novels you have written, which one do you think is the best? Which one is your favourite?" This question cannot be answered.When I was creating these novels, I had a wish: "Don't repeat the characters, plots, emotions, and even details that have already been written." Limited by talent, this wish may not be achieved, but I always work towards this direction. Generally speaking , these [-] novels are different, and they are respectively infused with my feelings and thoughts at that time, mainly feelings.I love the positive characters in every novel, happy or melancholy, sad, sometimes very sad because of what happened to them.As for writing skills, there has been some improvement in the later period.But skills are not the most important, what is important is personality and feelings.

These novels have been filmed in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China, and Singapore as film and TV series, and some have been filmed in three or four different versions. In addition, there are dramas, Peking opera, Cantonese opera, and musicals.Then came the second question: "Which movie or TV series do you think is the most successful adaptation? Which one of the male and female protagonists in the play is the most suitable for the characters in the original book?" The representation forms of movies and TV are fundamentally different from novels, It's hard to compare.Television is longer and easier to play; movies are more restricted.Furthermore, reading a novel involves a process in which the author and the reader visualize the characters together. Many people read the same novel, but the hero and heroine that appear in their minds may not be the same, because in addition to the text in the book, the reader himself experience, personality, emotions, likes and dislikes.You will integrate the heroes and heroines of the book with yourself or your lover in your heart, and every reader has a different personality, so his lover must be different from yours.Movies and television have fixed the image of the characters, and the audience has no room for free imagination.I can't say which one is the best, but I can say: the one that changes the original beyond recognition is the worst, the most self-righteous, and the most contemptuous of the original author and readers.

Wuxia novels continue the long tradition of Chinese classical novels.The earliest martial arts novels in China should be the legendary "The Legend of the Curly Beard", "The Red Thread", "Nie Yinniang", "Kunlun Slave" and other wonderful literary works.Followed by "Water Margin", "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness", "Legends of Heroes" and so on.Modern serious martial arts novels pay more attention to justice, integrity, self-sacrifice, eliminating the strong and helping the weak, national spirit, and traditional Chinese ethical concepts.Readers don't need to think too much about some of the exaggerated descriptions of martial arts, some of them are actually impossible and are just the tradition of Chinese martial arts novels.Nie Yinniang shrinks her body and sneaks into someone's stomach, and then jumps out of his mouth. No one will believe it is true. However, the story of Nie Yinniang has been loved by people for more than a thousand years.

In the novels I wrote in the early days, the orthodoxy of the Han Dynasty was very strong.In the later period, the concept of equal treatment of all ethnic groups in the Chinese nation became the keynote, which is why my view of history has improved somewhat.This is especially evident in "The Eight Parts of the Dragon", "The White Horse Roaring to the West Wind", and "The Deer and Ding Tale".Wei Xiaobao's father may be from Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Hui, or Tibetan.Even in the first novel "Book and Sword Enmity Record", the protagonist Chen Jialuo later increased his understanding and affection for Islam.In every race, in every religion, in every profession there are good and bad people.There are bad emperors and good emperors; there are bad officials and good officials who truly love the people.In the book, Han people, Manchus, Khitans, Mongols, Tibetans... all have good and bad people.Among monks, Taoists, lamas, scholars, and warriors, there are also various personalities and qualities.Some readers like to divide people into two, distinguish between good and bad, and at the same time infer from the individual to the whole group, which is by no means the author's original intention.

Events and figures in history should be seen in the historical environment at that time.During the Song and Liao Dynasties, the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were fierce struggles between the Han nationality and the Khitan, Mongolian, Manchu and other ethnic groups; the Mongolian and Manchu people used religion as a political tool.What the novel wants to describe is the concept and mentality of the people at that time, which cannot be measured by the concepts of later generations or modern people.When I write novels, I aim to portray my personality and express the joys and sorrows in human nature.The novel does not insinuate anything, if there is any reprimand, it is the despicable and dark quality of human nature.Political views and popular concepts in society change from time to time, so it is not necessary to make value judgments on temporary concepts in novels.Human nature changes very little.

In the book "Father and Daughter Two Lands Book" (Together Enlightenment of the World) written by Mr. Liu Zaifu and his daughter Liu Jianmei, Ms. Jianmei mentioned a conversation she had with Mr. Li Tuo. Mr. Li said that writing novels is like playing the piano , there is no shortcut at all, it is improved level by level, it needs to go through daily hard practice and accumulation, and it will not work if you don't read enough.I very much agree with this point of view.I read at least four or five hours a day without interruption. After retiring from the newspaper office, I continued to study hard in Chinese and foreign universities.Over the years, although learning, knowledge, and insights have improved, talents have not. Therefore, although these novels have been revised three times, I believe many people still sigh after reading them.Just like a pianist who practices the piano for twenty hours a day, if he is not talented enough, he will never be able to do Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Badruski, even Rubinstein, Horowitz, Ashken Na Ji, Liu Shikun, and Fu Cong couldn't do it either.

This third revision has corrected many typos and omissions, most of which have been corrected by readers.There are several longer paragraphs with corrections and rewrites that incorporate the results of reviewers and discussions in the workshop.There are still many obvious defects which cannot be remedied, beyond the power of the author.Readers hope to write to me about the mistakes and deficiencies that still exist in the book.I regard every reader as a friend, and the advice and care of friends are always welcome.

In [-].April in Hong Kong

(End of this chapter)