Today, the "new style of martial arts" is no longer considered new, and the writers of that year have generally concluded it. Perhaps just like in martial arts novels, people like to rank and discuss heroes, ranking martial arts people one, two, three, or four according to their martial arts skills or reputation as chivalrous, and call them so and so; readers also treat martial arts authors in the same way. If mentioned, of course everyone will think of Jin Yong first, followed by Jin Yong Gu Long, and after that, the "Three Great Masters" or "Jin Gu Liang Wen" including Liang Yusheng. From this point of view, Liang Yusheng is one of the most important people in the context of the "new martial arts", but to this day, he has been gradually ignored.
However, when the "new martial arts" emerged, Jin and Liang, two people of the same age, were often compared to each other. Today, on the occasion of their 100th birthday, at a time when traditional martial arts themes are "in decline", we can re-review their creations and later influences. We may explore the reasons and draw some conclusions: why does Jin Yong's reputation last so long, but why does Liang Yusheng not? Gradually no one cares about him, but does he have any lost value worth rediscovering?
These questions are still relevant today. As scholar Song Weijie pointed out, at the same time as Roland Barthes declared that "the author is dead," Chinese martial arts novels were still attached to the names of several authors, completing the "heroic story giving way" in Foucault's sense. to the author's myth." It is precisely because under the specific political and cultural background of Hong Kong at that time, writers such as Jin and Leung did not focus on a specific character image, but created works that shared the same elements but were actually different within them. The "authors of the words" finally complete their "author myth".
Of course, this kind of author myth must correspond to the fact that this category, as popular literature, has long been marginalized or even cast aside in the field of literary criticism. Even though the name has been "rectified" many times since the 1990s, and academic circles have begun to include martial arts novels in their research horizons, it seems that except for Jin Yong, other martial arts writers are still "difficult to be recognized as elegant" in many research fields. Behind this debate between elegance and vulgarity is the struggle for the right to speak, and this issue has never disappeared and continues to this day, reappearing in front of people in new forms. Therefore, mentioning Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng again is not only a discussion of the past, but also a discussion of the present.
The theory of Jin and Liang He has been discussed for a long time. The two were born in the same year and later worked for the same newspaper. They were both colleagues and friends. They started writing one after another, but due to differences in ideas, they became rivals. Therefore, there are almost all the anecdotes about their lives and deeds, and there is no need to go into details. In 1966, "Haiguang Literature and Art" published three consecutive issues of "Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng", which compared the two creations in various aspects in great detail. The article was signed by Tong Shuozhi; in the same year, Jin Yong published "Confessions of a "Storyteller"" 》 in response. It was not until 1988 that Luo Fu, the founder of "Haiguang Literature and Art" published an article "Liang Yusheng in the Shadow of Heroes" in "Dushu" under the pen name Liu Su, revealing the truth of that year. Tong Shuozhi was Liang Yusheng's pseudonym. At his invitation, he wrote the essay To build momentum for the new issue.
I think Jin Yong already knew about this, so he wrote in his response: "Brother Tong is an old friend of mine for eighteen years. We lived in the same house and ate at the same table, and we know each other very well. "
From today's perspective, this can certainly be regarded as a media-led hype, but Liang Wenzhong's discussion shows that he takes the matter very seriously, especially the criticism of Jin Yong in the second half is quite direct. Therefore, This shows the difference between the two creative ideas. Of course, praise and criticism are quite subjective, but later commentators mostly recognized the conclusion at the beginning of his article and quoted it frequently, namely:
"Liang Yusheng was the one who started the trend, and Jin Yong was the one who carried it forward."
Why is the "new martial arts"
Different from the "old school martial arts novels" written by authors such as Pingjiang Buxiaosheng and Huanzhu Louzhu, the "new school martial arts" represented by Liang and Jin are influenced by the West and have a more modern consciousness. The work that started the "new school of martial arts" is Liang Yusheng ’s debut novel "Dragon and Tiger Fighting Beijing".
The direct factor that led to the birth of this work was the public competition between Tai Chi and Bai He in the Hong Kong martial arts community in 1954. At that time, the boss of the New Evening News thought it was a gimmick, so he ordered Liang Yusheng to publish it in the "Tian Fang Night Talk" column of the newspaper. Serialized martial arts novels, and Jin Yong, who was Liang Yusheng's colleague at the time, later had his first work "The Book of Swords and Enemies" also serialized in the same column.
It can be seen from this that since its birth, "new martial arts" has been closely related to the media industry as a part of the cultural industry.
It is precisely for this reason that neither Liang nor Jin had any intention of distinguishing between the new and the old at the beginning of their creation, even just to complete the work. The two have very consistent attitudes towards this. Jin Yong once said that the "new school" may not be better than the "old school", and he was unwilling to consider himself a "new school martial arts" writer. Liang Yusheng also agreed with this, in "Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng" "A Comprehensive Review" wrote: "The new martial arts novels may not be better than the martial arts legends of the Tang Dynasty, nor may they even surpass the modern Bai Yu and Huan Zhu." Although they may be self-effacing, it can be seen that they themselves have a deep understanding of the so-called " New School Martial Arts” didn’t care too much. But on the other hand, no matter what their attitude is, they actually still accept the widely circulated statement of the so-called "new martial arts" - the two have quite a lot in common in terms of creative concepts.
The most important thing is the relationship between "wu" and "xia". When talking about the origins of the concept of martial arts, most of them can be traced back to the ancient knights and knights. Han Feizi's sentence "Confucianism uses literature to disrupt the law, and chivalry uses martial arts to violate the prohibition" is still regarded by many people today as one of the core of the concept of "martial arts". However, a chivalrous man in ancient times did not necessarily know martial arts. What was emphasized was his personal spirit. Regardless of the new school or the old school, martial arts novels must of course make a fuss about martial arts. In a sense, it is this kind of "wu" that has been criticized by serious critics as an element of surreal fantasy that has assumed the role of martial arts novels as a cultural industry. part of the function.
But both of them are scholars, so how do they know about martial arts? In his early works, Liang Yusheng did not understand martial arts, so he directly copied Bai Yu's martial arts descriptions. He was also pointed out. He admitted frankly, but also defended himself. What should he do if he really didn't understand? So the solution he gave was: "From 'martial' to 'god', all kinds of bizarre 'martial arts' emerge in endlessly in novelists' writings." However, he obviously only regarded this as a temporary solution, and wrote straightforwardly, no matter what Whether it was himself or Jin Yong, "he also unconsciously embarked on this crooked path." Therefore, he scorned the martial arts designed by Jin Yong later and felt that they were getting more and more outrageous.
However, Jin Yong’s works have been widely circulated. In a sense, it is precisely because of these unconstrained martial arts that also contain cultural elements and philosophical implications. In comparison, Liang Yusheng adheres to the traditional view. On the one hand, he believes that this is " "Wrong path", but had to go on, so there has not been much progress in the design of the exercises. The author once saw someone on a martial arts forum saying that Liang Yusheng wrote martial arts strictly according to boxing rules, so he was not as good-looking as Jin Yong. Of course, there is no source for this statement, and it is probably based on rumors. However, it is also a comment on Liang Yusheng's creative impression. Probably from this point of view, Jin Yong has indeed taken a step forward than Liang Yusheng.
And the two people have similar attitudes towards "Xia". Liang Yusheng admired chivalry and believed that martial arts were only for the sake of chivalry. After all, martial arts novels are still about writing about heroes and chivalrous spirit. This statement is widely accepted. Many readers follow Guo Jing's line in Jin Yong's "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" that " This is the famous saying that a great chivalrous person serves the country and the people. Although Jin Yong did not have a high opinion of martial arts novels themselves, and once bluntly claimed that "martial arts novels do not have much artistic value after all," but "if we have to put it at a higher level, it is to express a kind of emotion and portray a kind of personality. Describe human life or lives, political thoughts, religious consciousness, scientific right and wrong, moral right and wrong, etc." From this point of view, although Jin Yong worked harder on the "face" of martial arts than Liang Yusheng, in terms of "face", he also agreed that martial arts was only for the sake of writing heroes.
This may be an important feature of the "new style of martial arts": martial arts are based on chivalry, and martial arts are written as chivalry. However, the two have different understandings of the connotation of Xia.For example, Liang Yusheng once commented on the lack of "xia" in Jin Yong's novels:
"Jin Yong's early martial arts novels did not forget the word 'xia'. Unfortunately, as the later years progressed, there were more martial arts and less chivalry. Now he The writing of "Dragon and the Eight Parts" gives people the feeling that there is no distinction between good and evil. There is almost no character who can make readers admire the chivalrous people."
The tripartite confrontation of "martial arts", "xia" and "emotion"
When the above remarks were made, "Tian Long Ba Bu" had not yet been completed. According to the ending, the fates of Xiao Feng and Duan Yu were reversed in the second half of the story, which was different from what Liang Yusheng had accused; but in addition, On the one hand, the protagonists in Jin Yong's later works such as "The Swordsman" and "The Deer and the Cauldron", whether Linghu Chong or Wei Xiaobao, were obviously criticized by Liang Yusheng, so it is not unreasonable to extract this sentence to discuss the differences in their creative concepts. Proper place.
One of the reasons why Liang Yusheng is criticized by readers is that he is so clear-cut between good and evil that it is difficult to express the charm of the character, but this is obviously his insistence. He once stated bluntly, "Although human nature is complex, there are always boundaries between good and evil. If there is no distinction between good and evil, then the purpose of martial arts novels will be lost." But Liang’s concepts of good and evil are almost entirely rooted in nationalist narratives, which is why he praised Jin Yong’s Guo Jing. The male protagonist Zhang Danfeng in his most popular work "The Footprint" is quite similar to Guo Jing in terms of background. Although he is outside the Great Wall, he is of Han descent. Therefore, he does not agree with Xiao Feng, who is a Hu, and the difference between Hu and Han is very important to him.
Not all "new martial arts" refer to national themes, such as the later Gu Long. Although it is involved, it is mostly a construction of a spectacle. But at least for Jin and Liang, nation is indeed one of the most important themes. This is of course related to their own backgrounds. In the special political context of Hong Kong in the middle of the last century, media workers, as representatives of the literati at that time, wrote national propositions because of the traditional Confucian ambition of the country and the world. As it should be. But if it can be said that during the period of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "The Footprint", the two people's views on nationality were still very similar, then later on, Liang Yusheng always had the same attitude towards this and held high the nationality. In the great righteousness, Hu and Han are not at odds with each other, but Jin Yong has changed. It can be said that Xiao Feng in "Tian Long Ba Bu" tried to deal with the relationship between nations and countries from a higher perspective. In the last work "The Deer and the Cauldron", Jin Yong used a man who did not know that his father was a Han Chinese. As the protagonist, Wei Xiaobao subverts the concept of nation-state in previous martial arts works.
"The Deer and the Cauldron" is a work of great significance to Jin Yong, or the entire "new martial arts". Wei Xiaobao is undoubtedly an "anti-martial arts" protagonist. It can be said that Jin Yong's final work deconstructed everything he had constructed in the past. This is a very courageous approach to martial arts narrative. Rather, it is also the work with the highest literary achievement so far in the context of "new martial arts novels". The establishment of this genre not only relies on works that share the same narrative structure and ideology, but also requires the existence of anti-genre works. At this point, Jin Yong is worthy of everyone’s name.
On the other hand, Jin Yong's re-examination of the entire history and cultural tradition of China through martial arts novels from a perspective that transcends nationalist narratives is indeed more in line with the overall trend of thought in the Chinese cultural circle in the 1980s and even after the new century. It is also loved by the new generation of intellectuals influenced by postmodern consciousness - this may be one of the reasons why Jin Yong's works were later more widely circulated than Liang Yusheng's.
Of course, martial arts novels are not limited to national narratives. According to Liang Yusheng's own words, "New school martial arts novels pay great attention to the description of love. 'Martial arts', 'xia' and 'love' can be said to be the three pillars of the new school of martial arts novels." This statement is quite accurate. Jin Yong's works It can generally be analyzed according to this structure.
From the perspective of cultural studies, the level of Xia is the embodiment of the nation-state view, and the so-called "emotion" is the representation of the love-gender view.Tracing back to the development of martial arts novels, in the chivalrous novels of the Qing Dynasty, the knights were mostly ruthless and detached. In the old-school martial arts during the Republic of China, love descriptions were added to the creation. This is why early scholars classified most of the old-school martial arts into Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies. Reasons in the faction context. But for the old school of martial arts, love is just an add-on. For the new school of martial arts, this element becomes more and more important.
Liang Yusheng is quite confident in writing about love. He believes that his achievements in this aspect "surpass those of his predecessors" and that he "can use it freely in the description of love, especially the love psychology of boys and girls is very detailed." He despises Jin Yong, believing that "Jin Yong's favorite themes in love stories are one man and many women" and that "Jin Yong often commits the problem of putting love first and not caring about right and wrong." This statement is actually about what he thinks. Jin Yong's "no distinction between good and evil", for example, Liang could not accept that Zhang Wuji, as the protagonist, actually fell in love with Zhao Min, the daughter of a Yuan Dynasty general who had been helping his father and brother make plans and murdering Zhongliang.
Jin Yong has indeed created numerous classic female characters, but at their root, they are nothing more than two models: "fairy" and "temptress". The former is like Wang Yuyan and Xiao Longnu, and the latter is like Huang Rong, Zhao Min, Ren Yingying, etc. From a feminist perspective, the so-called double standards of "saint" and "slut" seem self-evident in Jin Yong's creations. On the contrary, Zhou Zhiruo, as the villain, is quite eye-catching among Jin Yong's portrayals of many female characters.
In this aspect, Liang Yusheng is indeed different from Jin Yong. Lian Nishang and Zhuo Yihang, a typical pair of strong female and weak male characters created in "The Legend of the White-haired Witch" are rare in Jin Yong's works; Li Shengnan, the heroine of "The Jade Bow in the Sea of Clouds" is also very classic; even the relatively weak Yun Lei in "The Shadow of a Heroine" must put the country's interests first - and this book created Liang Yusheng's personal favorite Most of the plot of the work of the male protagonist Zhang Danfeng unfolds from Yun Lei's perspective.
However, no matter "The Legend of the White-haired Witch" or "The Jade Bow in the Sea of Clouds", the love stories in them all end in tragedy. Perhaps this is because Liang Yusheng subconsciously believes that this kind of love that reverses the relationship between men and women is too difficult - - As he said, he likes to depict "celebrity-type" knights the most - the weak side of the literati and Confucian scholars in his heart is also truly revealed, but this can be seen as some kind of irony.
In comparison, although Liang Yusheng claims to be better at portraying characters, while Jin Yong is better at plot design, even if Liang adheres to a more equal concept of gender, there are certainly some outstanding female characters created by Liang, but overall It's hard to say how exciting it is, and there are very few things to dig into and ponder over - Jin Yong is indeed smarter in this regard. Take the Zhou Zhiruo mentioned above as an example. Currently, fan creations with him as the protagonist can be regarded as a small hit, and the number of all the characters is even larger. Of course, there are many factors in this change of cultural industry and media, but after all, Basically, the meaning and connotation hidden under the text created by Jin Yong is higher than that of Liang Yusheng. On the one hand, this is because Jin Yong has a more macroscopic and detached perspective on the nation-state, constructing an ambiguous and grand martial arts world; on the other hand, it is also because of the complex plots and character relationships in Jin Yong's works. Created many images that have the potential to be reshaped - even if their performance in the original text may not be satisfactory.
The song is not finished yet
In 1972, "The Deer and the Cauldron" was completed, and Jin Yong stopped writing and began to concentrate on revising many of the works he had written; by the time of "Wudang Yijian" in 1983, Liang Yusheng had also completed the first step in his martial arts novel creation career. The last work. Perhaps just as Wang Meng said in the late 1980s that "literature has lost its sensational effect" - even if it is classified as popular literature - the era of being able to take on public issues has passed. "New martial arts novels" are no longer new, and their glory will eventually fade.
But martial arts never died. Just like starting from Tang Dynasty Legends and gradually evolving into "new martial arts novels", creations in this vein will continue forever.
was first reborn in film and television dramas.Although there were not many Liang Yusheng works adapted into film and television dramas at this time, and there were classic works such as "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch" starring popular Hong Kong stars such as Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin, but compared to Jin Yong, there are indeed some The gap is not just quantitative. In a sense, starting from the large number of martial arts works imitated and continued by Jin Yong in the early years, and then to the emergence of classic Hong Kong films such as Cheng Xiaodong's "The Swordsman" and Wong Kar-wai's "Ashes of Time", It symbolizes that the huge text group named after Jin Yong has been formalized into a kind of "author myth". Under this, many works that may be called fan creations are based on materials but are separated from the original text and grow independently, becoming a kind of "author myth" in the media field. The new darling of regional cultural capital.
Since the end of the last century, with the popularization of computers and the Internet, Liang Yusheng seems to have fallen even further behind. As a new media form, video games are rewriting Jin Yong. In 1996, "The Legend of Jin Yong" released by Heluo Studio won the praise of countless players and left a mark that cannot be ignored in the history of Chinese games; in 2001, The author with the pseudonym Jiang Nan named the characters in his novels after characters written by Jin Yong, and began to serialize "The Boy Here" on the Internet. So far, Jiang Nan is also one of the most famous Internet literature writers in China - more than ten years later, Jiang Nan The famous lawsuit with Jin Yong even became a far-reaching copyright case.
To this day, Jin Yong's works are still an important resource for games and fan creations. Taking the recent example as an example, NetEase is still promoting everywhere to build momentum for its new game "The Legend of the Condor Heroes"; as for online literary creation, it is even more difficult to count. All. The creations that rely on Jin Yong are not limited to this. For example, in 2008, Baoshu serialized "The Cambridge History of Heaven and Slaying the Dragon" on the Tianya Forum under the online name Xinyuan Ping, narrating martial arts novels in an official historical style, which was full of fun; a few years later, he published "Cambridge Concise" "Jin Yong's Martial Arts History" integrates all Jin Yong's works into Chinese history and writes it in the style of orthodox historical research. Although it is a play, his hard work can be seen. In the new media era, self-media such as "Six Gods Leilei Reads Jin Yong" have reinterpreted Jin Yong's works and created many valuable articles with a wide audience.
From this point of view, Jin Yong is not only the "promoter" of the "new martial arts", but also the "inheriter". However, if the former can point to the person himself, the latter seems to only point to "Jin Yong" as a symbol and as an "author's myth". This is actually the result of the conspiracy of many parties in the entire cultural field - so early on At a time when no one is writing about the "new martial arts", martial arts is still passed down in the name of Jin Yong and is integrated into various forms of literature and art and media.
However, some problems emerged after Jin Yong became a classic. A few years ago, scholar Shao Yanjun once commented that the online writer Mao Niang was on par with or even surpassed Jin Yong, which caused an uproar on the entire Internet - the vast majority of people did not agree with this assertion, and even thought it was grandstanding. Regardless of the literary achievements of Mao Ni and Jin Yong, we can see that quite a lot of objections are not about Mao Ni at all, but about "online literature" itself. Most of those who hold this view are both audiences for online articles and readers of traditional "new martial arts" - they never recognize that the form of "online articles" can produce works that can be compared with Jin Yong, who has become a master and classic. But this seems to be the question faced by the "new martial arts" back then.
In other words, isn't this essentially the difference in creative concepts between Liang Yusheng and Jin Yong? From a consequentialist perspective, Jin Yong succeeded, but today this issue has returned to people.
But this is the answer that our generation needs to find. Both Liang Yusheng and Jin Yong have completed their missions - in the context of "new martial arts novels", in the inheritance of martial arts themes, and in the entire history of Chinese literature Inside.
……
On January 22, 2009, Liang Yusheng died of illness in Sydney. Jin Yong presented an elegiac couplet, "A colleague and colleague of the same age, a great ancestor, a crazy, chivalrous and literary good friend", and signed "Those who feel ashamed of themselves: my younger brother Jin Yong of the same age". Nine years later, Jin Yong died of illness in Hong Kong.
Before his death, Chen Wentong (Liang Yusheng) had his last phone call with Cha Liangyong (Jin Yong) to arrange a chess game. On the phone, he said: "You come to Sydney (Sydney) and come to my house for dinner. After dinner, we will play two games of chess. You Don't let me, I've lost, it doesn't matter..."
I think it's time for them to take off their pen names.
Author: Yan Yihang
Text: Yan Yihang (Ph.D. student in drama and film and television at Beijing Normal University) Editor: Fan Xin Editor: Shao Ling
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