Best kung fu novel ever?

[renzhe]

If you're planning to read this stuff in 2010, you should definitely buy a paper version of the books.

Books are very cheap in China, even for non-bootleg stuff. My Jin Yong novel was about 10 Euro in Shanghai, and reading 1400 pages online is an exercise in masochism. It's worth the 10 Euro.

[skylee]

Or you can borrow them from a library. Don't know about the mainland or other places but there are lots of Jin Yong novels in libraries (public libraries and school libraries) in HK.

[Javer Chen]

almost all universities' libraries keep Jin Yong novels in mainland.

[OldBender]

Well it kind of depends on your language skill.

Jinyong's novels, like the condor hero, often tell stories based on real history backgrounds, contain a lot of real histroy heroes(like Genghis Khan in condor hero) and stories, and Jinyong also likes to build a very complex Kongfu theory system in his novels, and he combines kong-fu with Chinese philosophy like Yi Chin and sometimes old Chinese religions like buddhism and taoism, so you may want to learn some knowledge of the fields above in order to get a better understanding of his novels.

Gulong's novels, on the other hand, tell less complex stories and the language is also easier--at least the grammar is easier,and the sentences are shorter than in Jin's novels, sometimes the words are very meaningful in the context but at least you won't have too much trouble reading them.

So if your Chinese is great and you wish to learn more about Chinese culture and history as well as Chinese kong-fu, pick up a Jin Yong's book, if you want to choose a reading material to improve your Chinese, you may want to start with one of Gu Long's book, and yes, flying dagger would be a nice choice.

PS, don't worry, most pieces from 50-60's were written very normally and correctly, like textbooks, so you possibly won't have trouble understanding them. The stories written nowadays, especially those published through the internet, however, well, let's just say we don't recommend those to beginners(not even to Chinese children).

[Javer Chen]

let's just say we don't recommend those to beginners(not even to Chinese children).

I can't agree on this point. I think it's a great idea to let Chinese children start to learn traditional chinese culture and traditional chinese literature with reading Jin Yong's books .

His words is a little traditional but also a little modern, not hard for Chinese to understand. there are also chinese cultures(Weiqi,tea culture,wine culture,food culture,Daoism,Confucianism and Buddhism and etc) and even history knowledges included in his books. Each story told by him is masterpiece, is wonderful. it can attract children's concerntration and cause their interest too.

I think it's a good idea to teach chinese children chinese traditional culture start with Jin Yong's books.

[OldBender]

Well, I'm sure you are right, but that's not what I was saying. Read carefully WHAT KIND OF THINGS I don't recommend children to read and you'll understand my statement.

[mph]

金庸小說是非常有趣。我推薦入手買中文和英文翻譯。

The Book and the Sword (書劍恩仇錄) - published by Oxford University Press。

有很多功夫術語是千難萬難翻譯的而且數不勝數的成語。

香港本來繁體的版本是更好的。

[carlo]

I actually think Gu Long is fun. The analogy with pulp fiction may be not too far off. Or something like those early American science fiction stories from the '40-50s with ten-foot spiders and princesses from the stars. Jin Yong is more literary, which sometimes may get a bit too heavy handed IMHO. A suggestion: as a student of Chinese don't get the pirated version of Jin Yong's books, or the typos will drive you mad.

After Jin Yong I'll probably try Water Margin/Outlaws of the March, the language is not much harder, and it's a real classic.

[Javer Chen]

After Jin Yong I'll probably try Water Margin/Outlaws of the March, the language is not much harder, and it's a real classic.

Carlo, shake hands. I totally agree with you on this point. Water Margin is my favorite classic novel. Then, I think 白门柳 is also good.

[zozzen]

Re: Best kung fu novel ever?

Quote:

let's just say we don't recommend those to beginners(not even to Chinese children).

I can't agree on this point. I think it's a great idea to let Chinese children start to learn traditional chinese culture and traditional chinese literature with reading Jin Yong's books .

You raise an interesting question. What's the level of proficiency when we compare adult advanced learners and children? In terms of learning hours, a 10-year-old boy should take more than most 'advanced learners' who may possibly spend only 3 years to become "advanced". In terms of learning curve, i never think that adults really has much more advantages than kids if we talk about language.

Is a beginner able to read jin yong's ? I'm not sure. The first time I read it was at my age 11---- in another word, I'd spent 11 years in learning chinese, but i couldn't get all the words and concepts in the novel. The difference is that kids tend to accept more unknowns. I didn't bother to make a huge task of checking up every word in the dictionary, while most adult learners feel uncomfortable with this.

[calibre2001]

You raise an interesting question. What's the level of proficiency when we compare adult advanced learners and children? In terms of learning hours, a 10-year-old boy should take more than most 'advanced learners' who may possibly spend only 3 years to become "advanced". In terms of learning curve, i never think that adults really has much more advantages than kids if we talk about language.

Is a beginner able to read jin yong's ? I'm not sure. The first time I read it was at my age 11---- in another word, I'd spent 11 years in learning chinese, but i couldn't get all the words and concepts in the novel. The difference is that kids tend to accept more unknowns. I didn't bother to make a huge task of checking up every word in the dictionary, while most adult learners feel uncomfortable with this.

I'm actually reading 書劍恩仇錄 now. I agree that If I learnt chinese as a kid and read this book at age 11 I probably wouldn't get everything in the book BUT I would still at least know what's going on and skimp on the details. Eventhough I can read the book fairly ok without needing to resort to a dictionary much, I still have the following problems:

-still can't skim through 'like I can English

-'reading' the characters/words and not sure what's going on i.e. lost in the story

-I can't take more than say 10 pages in an hour

The 11 year old kid wouldnt have these problems

[eatfastnoodle]

jinyong, gulong are usually considered the two best Wuxia novelists. After 1998, Huang yi joined them as wuxia novelists with the biggest influences, though he's widely considered, even by his supporters, to be a bad writer when it comes to intricate literary expression of love and all other emotional endeavors highly prized in literature. That said, his influence everything after him is unprecedented and simply couldn't be ignored (he's really good with what would be called "big scenarios", namely, scenarios involving war and peace and all these political and military intricacy usually more associated with romance of three kingdoms than wuxia novels, beside Jinyong, he's the only one I know who is comfortable handing BIG events, events that don't only impact "this boy loves that girl" kind of, allow me to say, petty cliches."), anyway, after him, there were a bunch of really good writers who attempted to write good wuxia novels, (江山如此多娇 is good, it's also much much more NC-17 than most of the idiotic officials in charge could understand, as a result, it doesn't have an end. It is still good, though.). Most of them didn't manage to finish what they started, though

[calibre2001]

You guys might like this.

Jin Yong books in audio form! I think this will be really good listening training material for the learners.

http://www.verycd.com/topics/420214/

[Guoke]

Gulong's wuxia novels can be found here:

古龙小说全集

[Jane_PA]

I like Jin Yong too! I have read all of his novels. I particularly like 神雕侠侣.

[Gleaves]

I finished up Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword (多情剑客无情剑) by Gu Long a little bit ago. I enjoyed it... somewhat. The over-arching plot just wasn't that interesting, but it was easy and there were plenty of great moments. I was just a little disappointed it wasn't more epic. I have actually seen "小李飞刀" （the main character's famous technique) mentioned once or twice outside of the book, so it has been very cool to make that kind of connection.

My question to the wuxia experts here: if I only barely liked Sentimental Swordsman, should I expect any different from other Gu Long works? Or are they all pretty similar?

[skylee]

I don't read Gulong's books. I think I might have read one or two, and disliked them so much that I gave up completely. On the other hand I have re-read Jin Yong's (almost all of them) many times. Like many people I started reading them when I was young in pretty much the same circumstances as zozzen. The problems (if they are problems) with Jin Yong's works are that 1) it is very difficult to stop once you have started -> dark circles under eyes; 2) the long ones are really better than the short ones, which aggravates problem 1.

If you would like to try reading Jin Yong and would like short ones, I recommend the two on the flying fox.

[imron]

多情剑客无情剑

I've not read any of Gu Long's stuff, but I have to say, I really like that title

[Gleaves]

Thanks, Skylee. I have Flying Fox on my shelf, so I'll give it a try. I'm going to get to the longer ones at some point. I suppose it is a good problem to have too much to read.

I've not read any of Gu Long's stuff, but I have to say, I really like that title

I really like when titles of books/movies show up in the actual book/movie. It was very satisfying to finally here a character say this title. imron - I see you have a bunch on Jin Yong planned for this year. 加油.

[imron]

Yep, my (long-term) plan is basically to read all his works, going by the order they were written. At the same time though, I also want to balance that out with other genres, so it'll be a bit of Wuxia, and bit of something else, a bit of Wuxia, a bit of something else, and so on.