wuxia

It Came from the Sinosphere: The Bride with White Hair

December 11, 2012 by Sara K. 2 Comments

A drawing of Zhuo Yihang and Lian Nichang

To start, allow me to translate an excerpt:

Lian Nichang crumpled a wildflower, and threw it down the mountain valley. Zhuo Yihang, stunned, watched the flower pieces float down in the wind, and suddenly said “Sister Lian, your looks should be like an everlasting flower.”

Lian Nichang laughed. “What a silly daydream! Where under the sun is there a place with everlasting spring? I say, if the old man of heaven were just like a human, having done so much thinking, even he would be old! We see each other here, bicker with each other there, the next time you see me, I fear I’ll already be an old woman with a head full of white hair!”

What she said made Zhuo Yihang’s feelings surge, and he thought “Lian Nichang really is very insightful. She hasn’t read many books, can’t compose poetry, nor fit lyrics to a song, but when she says what she thinks, aside from not having a proper meter, is simply wonderfully poetic. [Zhuo Yihang quotes poetry in Classical Chinese, which I can’t translate.] Doesn’t what she just said have the same meaning as all that classical poetry? However what she says is much easier to understand, and thus is more moving.”

Lian Ninchang laughed, and said “I just fear that when my head if full of white hair you won’t want to see me.”

Zhuo Yihang knew that she was just trying to get him to pour out his true feelings, but he found it very hard to answer her, so he tried to make light of it, and answered “when your hair turns white, I find an elixir to restore your youth.”

Lian Nichang sighed, and said “when someone else is trying to have a serious conversation,you make a joke of it.” Her mind soured, and said no more.

The foreshadowing is tickling me.

“The Bride with White Hair” is the most iconic female character in all of wuxia. She is one of the most iconic characters of all of wuxia period.

This novel has been adapted for TV five times, the most recent one being the 2012 TV drama. Additionally, there are four film adaptations, of which the best-known is the 1993 movie adaptation starring Brigette Lin as Lian Nichang. In other words, it’s one of the most-adapted wuxia stories ever.

The Story

The Ming dynasty is in decline, and the Manchus are ready to take some power. Meanwhile, there is a fierce sword fighter, known as “Jade Rakshasi” who is kicking everybody’s ass.

Zhuo Yihang meets Lian Nichang in a cave

Zhuo Yihang, of the Wudang sect, gets involved in some of the intrigues happening around the throne. During his adventures, he encounters a beautiful maiden called Lian Nichang who was raised by wolves. Later, he enters a duel with the “Jade Rakshasi” … only to discover that she is none other than Lian Nichang!

Zhuo Yihang and the Wudang elders

Anyway, Zhuo Yihang and Lian Nichang work together for a while to deal with intrigues, during which they meet Yue Mingke. While Lian Nichang and Yue Mingke are comparing notes, Lian Nichang’s sword-fighting manual gets stolen, which leads to set of adventures in which Lian Nichang becomes Tie Feilong’s adopted daughter, and Yue Mingke gets acquainted with Tie Feilong’s biological daughter Tie Shanhu. Heck, Lian Nichang and Zhuo Yihang get pretty sweet on each other. Then Zhuo Yihang becomes the leader of the Wudang sect and, well, Lian Nichang is officially their enemy…

Zhuo Yihang gets into a sword-fight

About Liang Yusheng

If you want to know about Liang Yusheng, the writer, read the Wikipedia entry and this webpage.

Mountains, trees, and sword-fighting!

It’s worth noting that one of his innovations was infusing real history into his stories, and this story is no exception – many of the characters are based on actual historical figures. I have previously mentioned another Liang Yusheng novel, Pingzong Xiaying Lu

Tie Shanhu flees for her life!

One thing which really makes Liang Yusheng stand out from other wuxia writers is how he handles female characters. He treats them pretty much the same way he treats the male characters. In many wuxia stories, it seems that the female characters’ primary purpose is to offer romantic options to the male protagonist. This is definitely not the case in Liang Yusheng stories.

The female characters are also sometimes, you know, the main character. It’s not just this novel, it’s a trend in Liang Yusheng novels.

Female Appearances

Let me state the obvious. Women are judged based on their looks far more and far more narrowly than men. They are expected to look pretty, sexy, and youthful. Actually, both mainstream Chinese and mainstream American culture have trouble imagining a woman who is pretty and sexy without looking youthful. I once heard a guy once asked a professional makeup artist why old men look dignified, but old women don’t. The professional makeup artist said this was 100% cultural, and has nothing to do with physical appearances.

The main purpose of this type of ‘female beauty’ is to please men.

Yue Mingke meets Ke Shi

One of the villains, Ke Shi, is a middle-aged woman who has managed to maintain her youthful appearance. She considers her looks as a tool to manipulate males and, thus, take their power. Likewise, she considers her young and pretty daughter to be an asset that she can trade with a man to acquire more power. Ironically, in her quest for power, she is submitting to the idea that a woman’s place is to be youthful and pretty to satisfy men’s desires.

By contrast, Lian Nichang likes youth and beauty for its own sake, not as a bait for males. Having been raised by wolves, she didn’t grow up with patriarchy. She doesn’t hate men; she loves her adopted father Tie Feilong, and becomes good friends with Yue Mingke, not to mention that she falls in love with Zhuo Yihang. She simply treats men as she would anyone else.

Lian Nichang and Zhuo Yihang meet again

People’s hair turning white while they are still young is a common trope in wuxia – in the Condor Trilogy alone there is not just one, but two characters under the age of 25 whose hair turns white. However, The Bride with White Hair explores this much more deeply.

I think white hair looks beautiful, and is a great way for a woman to look pretty while countering the male gaze. So at first I thought it was strange that Lian Nichang was so upset about the white hair. But it is an involuntary change, and she does value her youth, not to mention that the circumstances which cause her hair to turn white are extremely distressing.

Nonetheless, she at one point puts on a mask which makes her look like an old woman (aside from the hair, she still looks young). This was clearly a move to reject the male gaze.

Zhuo Yihang chases Lian Nichang through the mountains

Meanwhile, Zhuo Yihang is much more preoccupied with Lian Nichang’s looks than, well, her feelings. When he meets Lian Nichang disguised as an old woman, his response is “in my heart you look just the same as when I met you” (as in, he wouldn’t value her if she looked like an old woman in his heart) and “I will find an elixir which will restore your youth” (this time, he’s serious).

Lian Nichang fights the Red Flower Devil Woman

Since this is a society-wide problem, the female characters either have to take it, or sacrifice their social life (particularly the prospect of romance). Tie Feilong had made Mu Jiuniang his concubine because he wanted a pretty young female to satisfy his desires, and he doesn’t think about her feelings until it is too late (he deeply regrets that). Mu Jiuniang happily leaves him … but the man she marries ends up being even worse. Meanwhile, the Red Flower Devil Woman (a badass swordswoman) had left her husband because he didn’t respect her … but her own son Gongsun Lei is like his father, and considers women to be mere sex objects. Eventually, he is murdered out of revenge for a rape he had committed. “Find a lover who respects gender equality” is not helpful advice when a) you’re looking for a male lover and b) males who respect gender equality are in very short supply.

Even Lian Nichang doesn’t escape from this unscathed.

A Surprise that Made Me Think

While reading the novel, I expected this story to have a very predictable ending. Then actual ending turns out to be quite different from the “predictable” ending I imagined.

This made me think hard about the story, and helped me appreciate the novel in a much deeper way. Lian Nichang grew up among wolves, who didn’t teach her how a woman should act. She doesn’t do what a woman “should” do, she does what she wants to do. And that’s less predictable.

Availability in English

Naturally, this novel has not been published in English.

As far as I know, the only version of this story which is available legally in English is the 1993 movie. Speaking of the movie, I find Albert A. Dalia’s comparison of Lian Nichang and Mulan intriguing.

Conclusion

Now that I’ve read this novel, I now get why it’s difficult to have a serious conversation about gender and feminism in the wuxia genre without discussing this story. Even compared to wuxia novels written by women, or the other Liang Yusheng novels I’ve read, it is shockingly feminist. Heck, compared to most novels by women I’ve read in English, it is shockingly feminist. And it’s hard to shock me with feminism.

That said, this novel has plenty of flaws … much of it is totally non-memorable. But the memorable parts are enough to make this a must-read for anybody who can read Chinese and has an interest in wuxia and/or gender roles.

Next time: The Flying Guillotine (movie)

Sara K. is also shocked that she stayed up past her bed time to working on this post.

It Came from the Sinosphere: A Deadly Secret (Part 2)

December 7, 2012 by Sara K. 1 Comment

You may read Part 1 here.

The Fighting

It would probably be unfair to say that the fights in this series are just indiscriminate sword-clanging. But I think most of the fights are no more than one notch above that level.

The thing is, to get good on-screen fighting, you need the following:

1. A good fight choreographer
2. Skilled performers (actors and/or stunt people)
3. Tons and tons of rehearsal time

Now, a great fight choreographer can compensate for less skilled performers, and very talented performers can compensate for a mediocre fight choreographer … but nothing can compensate for a lack of rehearsal time.

All of the above costs quite a bit of money. Particularly the rehearsal time.

I suspect this was outside this TV series’ budget.

Given that they couldn’t afford good fighting, I think they handled the fights pretty well. Though the choreography itself was not exciting, at least the fights moved the story forward. And Jin Yong writes his fight scenes so well that they would be engaging even if the performers were wet noodles.

There were a few fight scenes which did stand out … surprisingly, they were mostly fight scenes which weren’t in the original novel (or maybe that shouldn’t be surprising … when you make up your own fight scene, you can choose to do something which will look good without breaking your budget).

The standout for me is definitely the big fight at the end of episode 25 / beginning of episode 26. I never expected I would say this, but this fight works so well because of the set.

Look at that fantastic ribbon leading up to the stand.

It’s a very scenic way for the fighters to run up…

… and get kicked down.

And that stand is a great place for the fighter to stand above the crowd.

But wait!

The stand gets destroyed in the midst of the fighting!

And we have the two fighters standing on drums, while the stand collapses. Now the space has completely changed. Notice that the fighters are still elevated above the crowd. And notice all of those nice tall yellow-and-red streamers, adding nice vertical lines to the scene. With a set like that, it’s okay if the fighting itself is mostly indiscriminate sword-clanging.

I also need to give points to the costume designer who gave Di Yun such a swishy white outfit. It makes his ~~dancing~~ sword-fighting look more graceful.

Even if you don’t understand Mandarin, I highly recommend watching this fight scene yourself, because I don’t think I can adequately describe it with words and screenshots alone. You can see it in this youtube video (it starts around the 17 minute mark).

Life in an Unjust World

In a way, this is the harshest, bleakest, and most relenting of Jin Yong’s stories. The world is full of greedy people who really aren’t concerned with ethics … and they ruin the lives of the people who actually do follow some ethical principles. Again. And again. And again.

The characters could have easily been portrayed as being just black and white, and I think the TV series does go in that direction for some of the characters. However, rather than showing people as being innately good or evil, it shows that some people choose to prioritize money and power over other people, and let their greed corrupt them …. and other people choose to prioritize other people over money and power. Alas, the people who prioritize money and power tend to actually get more money and power.

Yet when money and power are not involved, the ‘bad’ guys can actually do good things and be very nice people. They don’t want to do evil. They merely don’t mind doing evil.

There is something called the ‘just world fallacy’ (TRIGGER WARNING for the link) – in other words, people want to believe that life is fair. It’s called a ‘fallacy’ because there is lots of evidence that the world is not, in fact, fair.

To pick one example (I could pick many other examples) a bunch of financial firms in the United States bribed politicians to loosen regulations, then violated even the watered-down regulations, committed fraud on a wide scale, blew up a giant housing bubble which made shelter less affordable for tens of millions of people, and which destroyed over 40% of the net wealth of middle-class Americans when it burst. Were the CEOs fired, the financial firms broken down, and serious criminal investigations launched? No! The financial firms got large government bailouts, the CEOs saw their pay increase, tens of millions of people lost their jobs and homes, fraudulent foreclosures are poisoning the centuries-old chain-of-title system which are essential to property rights, etc etc. Oh, and the statue of limitations on their crimes is coming up, which will make them immune to prosecution. This is not what a fair and just world looks like.

A variant of Sartre’s hell: being stuck in the mountains with somebody you don’t like (fortunately, for them, they stop disliking each other, which improves their quality of live).

Justice does sometimes happen in the world, but only by random luck, or when people insist on justice happening. And when people already think that the world is just, they aren’t motivated to do the hard work required to insist on justice.

Most fiction (okay, most fiction that I’m familiar with) supports the just-world fallacy – the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Like most people, I also want to believe the just-world fallacy, so in a way it’s very comforting. Such fiction serves as an escape, which probably is necessary for one’s mental well-being. But I don’t want all of my fiction to be like that.

The TV series does make the story a little more just than the original novel. For example, in the TV series (but, IIRC, not the novel), the bad guys are often plagued with nightmares filled with the ghosts of the people they have wronged. It’s a nice idea that everybody who commits evil is tortured by their consciences, but I don’t think reality always works out that way.

There’s also a new subplot in the TV series where the good guys defeat one of the bad guys very neatly. On one level, I loved watching that, because it’s nice to see the characters I like delivering a character I hate what he deserves. On another level, it makes the world of the story a little more fair, which I think goes a little against the point of the story.

This detestable character finally gets impaled on the spear of justice (the character in the background means ‘justice’). This does not happen in the original novel.

The power of this story, for me, is that it shows that, in spite of the fact that the world is unfair, it is still a wonderful to be alive.

First, integrity is its own reward. Even if you lose, lose, and lose, integrity is still worth something.

Second, there are wonderful people in the world. It is only by staying alive that one will ever have the opportunity to connect with them. And a good relationship is worth the hardship of living in an unjust world.

Of course [SPOILTER] the bad guys blow themselves up with their own greed at the end, and the good guys who are not dead get an ending that is, if not joyful, at least has some contentment. There is a limit to how much unjustness even I can stand in a story, and I’m not sure I could have taken it if the bad guys were all allowed to live happily into old age in luxury. But this story certainly takes the unjustness of the world a bit farther than a lot of other fiction I’m familiar with.[END SPOILER]

I actually find a story which acknowledges that the world is unjust and how to live on in spite of that more comforting than an escapist tale about a just world.

Availability in English

This TV series is, sadly, not available in English. It would be really nice if somebody fixed that. The novel isn’t available in English either. The only version of this story available in English is the movie, which is available on Region 3 DVD with English subtitles.

Conclusion

This … is actually a good TV series. I had my reservations at the beginning, and it took a number of episodes to win me over … but I totally got sucked into the story all over again. If you understand Chinese, I highly recommend trying this.

The movie is also worth watching.

However, my love ultimately belongs to the original novel. Whenever I go back to a story which I had loved before, I’m always afraid that it won’t be as good as I had remembered it. Sometimes my fears prove correct … but not this time. I noticed some flaws in the story which weren’t apparent to me before, but overall it served as a reminder of why I have come to love this story.

Sara K. actually did take a class on set design (as well as a class on costume design and a class on lighting design). She is not a good designer, but she got a lot of practice describing how various designs help or do not help tell a story. The posts she writes about comics would be really, really different if she hadn’t taken those classes … in fact, when she’s writing about comic book artwork, she often feels like she’s talking to one of her design teachers. Of course, it also bleeds into some of her other posts, like this one.

It Came From the Sinosphere: A Deadly Secret (Part 1)

December 4, 2012 by Sara K. 2 Comments

It’s high time that I discuss something from China again. It’s high time that I actually review a TV series that is not an idol drama. And it’s high time for me to discuss Jin Yong again. Now, I’m going to do all three at once.

A Scene

Why, it’s a wedding!

It’s a wedding in front of a tomb.

See, both the bride and the groom are dead, so the wedding has to take place at the bride’s tomb.

In wuxia stories, if you promise to marry somebody, you marry them. Death is no excuse.

He’s drinking because he is so happy that his best friend is finally marrying the love of his life (who apparently is also the love of his afterlife).

And he’s swinging his sword around with joy.

Anyway, since the groom and bride are dead, he needs to help them get together. This is the problem with getting married when you’re dead – there’s no privacy when the newly married couple finally gets intimate physical contact.

Wait a minute … why are the bride’s arms stretched up like that?

And there’s writing on the inside of her coffin. That’s only possible if she was put in the coffin while she was still alive.

The writing says that, as a reward to whoever reunites her with the love of her life (afterlife), she is revealing The Deadly Secret (which is not exactly a favor, since people who learn The Deadly Secret have a tendency to die young).

The groom’s cremated ashes are poured onto the bride’s body. What a romantic wedding!

Background

I don’t think it’s possible for a Jin Yong novel to be underrated, but if any of his novels are underrated, it’s this one. It’s my personal favorite of his novels under 1000 pages.

If you don’t know or forgot who Jin Yong is, you can refer to my post about the Condor Trilogy or The Book and The Sword.

There are only three adaptations of this novel: the 1980 movie, the 1989 TV series, and the 2004 TV series. This is (mostly) about the 2004 TV series.

The Story

Di Yun is a country bumpkin who is studying martial arts and is in love with his master’s daughter, Qi Fang. It’s a real bummer when his master disappears, he gets framed for heinous crimes, Qi Fang marries the man who framed him, the prison guards break his body, and he’s put with a cell mate who beats him up for apparently no reason whatsoever.

This is what Di Yun looks like after hearing that Qi Fang is going to marry the guy who framed him and put him in prison.

Why does his life suck so much? Well, you see, there is this ultra-powerful martial arts technique and fabulous fortune that everybody is trying to get … and Di Yun is unwittingly close to this deadly secret.

The Songs and the Production Values

At first I didn’t like either the opening or the ending songs. But the opening song eventually grew on me and, by the end of the series, I even liked the ending song.

If you watch the opening and ending songs, you might notice that the production values are a bit lower than the norm for, say, Hollywood TV shows.

Welcome to China.

Personally, I’d rather watch something with consistently low production values than something with mostly high production values which spectacularly drops the ball, and really, the production values of this TV series really aren’t that bad at all. And ultimately, the quality of the story and acting is much more important to me than the quality of the special effects.

Adaptation

This TV series is 33 40-minute episodes long. The original novel is less than 500 pages long. Before watching this series, I wondered how they could make it so long without lots and lots of padding.

Well, it turns out that there is not that much padding per se. There is quite a bit of added material, but a lot of it is just spelling out things which are merely implied in the novel. Most of the added material is relevant to the story. At worst the new stuff is offensive (because of sexism or ableism) but thankfully most of it is not. Quite a bit is powerfully mediocre. Some of the new stuff, however, is quite good.

The biggest change is not that new stuff is added (since much of it was implied by the novel), but the pacing itself. This novel is quite concise by Jin Yong standards, so things move fairly quickly. In the TV series, things progress in a much slower and more thorough way. In some ways, this increases the emotional impact – for example, we see a lot more of Di Yun and Qi Fang’s relationship, which makes their separation even more heart-breaking. However, in some ways it makes the story harder to watch – it’s much easier to read about Di Yun getting framed in the novel, where events move pretty quickly, than to watch the TV series, where it takes several episodes to watch Di Yun getting framed and tortured in prison.

I also think there is some power in leaving some things left unsaid. That’s one of the things I like about the novel. Sometimes, when the TV series fleshed out the unsaid stuff, it did pretty cool things with it … but I still think leaving things to the reader’s imagination is more powerful.

It’s hilarious to compare the 33-episode TV series to the 90-minute movie. Things which take two episodes in the TV series happen in two minutes in the movie. Of course, the movie cuts out about 60% of the original story (the TV series covers about 130% of the original story).

Ding Dian

Even though Ding Dian only appears in two chapters of the original novel (specifically chapters 2 and 3 of the novel), he is definitely the most memorable character in the story. Apparently, other people agree, because both the movie and this TV series give him plenty of screentime.

On the one hand, he is a bad-ass martial artist, one of the toughest fighters in this story, and he spends a great deal of time cultivating his kung-fu skills. In fact, he can even (under certain specific circumstances) bring dead people back to life. But it turns out martial arts is not his greatest passion in life.

His great passion, it turns out, is flowers.

Ding Dian at the flower fair

He is a flower encyclopedia (this is most apparent in the novel, but also indicated in the TV series). He goes to a flower fair. His greatest joy in life is watching flowers. It turns out that one of the villains is also a flower-arranging geek, so he gets to communicate with Ding Dian via flowers.

Of course, there are other reasons to love Ding Dian. He is a person of great integrity, and intensely loves his friend and his sweetheart. But being a badass martial artist who loves flowers above all else (except maybe his friend and his sweetheart) clinches the deal.

The Female Characters

In some stories, I would be annoyed if the female characters were constantly relying on the male characters to rescue them. Not in this story. It is clear that they are just as innately competent as the male characters. However, patriarchy has so badly stacked the deck against the female characters that they can’t rescue themselves. They do still manage to rescue the male characters when it is in their power to do so.

A picture of Qi Fang

All of the main female characters – Qi Fang, Ling Shuanghua, and Shui Sheng – have the same problem; they were born into a society that is so patriarchal that even their own families, who ‘cherish’ them, ultimately consider them to be merely disposable possessions. Sure, their families claim to love their daughters and other female relatives dearly, but when push comes to shove, in this TV adaptation [SPOILER WARNING] one female character is murdered by her father, another female character, after having almost been murdered by her fiancee, is driven to suicide by her uncle, and the last one is murdered by her husband [END SPOILER WARNING].

And the fact that Baroque China was an extremely patriarchal society makes it that much easier for their families to oppress them, in fact, without the patriarchy helping their families bully them, these female characters would have definitely had much happier outcomes.

A Picture of Ling Shuanghua

An interesting thing I noticed is that the female characters don’t want to believe that their families regard them as (potential disposable) possessions. They want to believe that they are being loved as full human beings. I can understand this, since the truth is very cruel. In a way, it’s easier to keep on believing one is being valued and loved properly. But reality catches up with all of them.

I appreciate that this TV series gave a lot more attention to the female characters than the novel. On the one hand, some of the new material is powerfully mediocre (at worst, offensive). On the other hand, some of it is good, and definitely fleshes out the females characters more than the novel does. In particular, the TV series is a bit more sympathetic to Qi Fang, and treats us to the Extended Adventures of Shui Sheng (granted, it’s a mixed bag).

A Picture of Shui Sheng

Yes, the adult female characters even talk to each other in the TV series, which is not true of the novel (they mostly talk to each other about men though). That said, I actually think it’s okay that this story fails the Bechdel test, because the female characters’ isolation is one of the worst ways the patriarchy has stacked the deck against them. Two of the female characters’ families hardly ever let them leave home, and only with supervision, and the third one gets kidnapped, which drastically limits her opportunities to bond with other women.

What is really interesting is that, even though all of the main female characters have the same problem, they react to the problem in different ways.

You Think I’m done Talking? Bwa ha ha ha ha…

I definitely have more to say about this TV series, but this post is getting long, so I guess I’ll have to wait until Friday to say more.

Next Time (not Friday): The Bride with White Hair (novel)

Sara K. plans to discuss every single Jin Yong novel at Manga Bookshelf. She is now halfway there, having discussed six novels and having six novels left to cover. Her plan is to discuss Tales of the Young Fox, Sword Stained with Royal Blood, and The Laughing Proud Wanderer next, in that order, but that’s only a tentative plan.

It Came From the Sinosphere: Spirit Sword

October 9, 2012 by Sara K. 12 Comments

I have previously discussed Zheng Feng’s first publishing success, Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero. While that was her first published novel, this novel is actually the first novel she wrote, though after publishing Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero she made major revisions to this one before publication. She said that, of the two, this novel was much more difficult to write, partially because she would often weep while revising it. I can believe it. In fact, she thinks she made Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero so breezy to compensate for the solemness of this novel.

So, what is this novel about?

Story Overview

The martial arts world is being menaced by the ever-growing Fire Cult. So some people try to divine how to defeat the Fire Cult. They get a prophecy, which says that to extinguish the fire (as in the Fire Cult), the spirit sword must weep.

The story starts with a boy who has the power to read other people’s minds and to sometimes see the future (yep, psychic powers). Yet even though he can sometimes see the future, he doesn’t know about his own past – he has no memory of anything that happened to him before he was five years old, and knows nothing whatsoever about his parents. Furthermore, his body is covered with strange marks. He doesn’t even know his own family name – only his nickname, ‘Ming’er’.

Meanwhile, the Fire Cult is taking over the world with its kung fu, assisted by the psychic powers of its charismatic yet monomaniacal leader, Duan Dusheng. And for some reason, the Fire Cult is seeking out Ling Xiao, a former cult member who betrayed them. Yet Ming’er knows Ling Xiao’s father, Ling Manjiang and knows that he and Ling Xiao are about the same age … how could a little boy been a member of the cult, let alone do something so terrible that the cult would still be searching for him years later.

As it so happens, while Ming’er lives with Ling Manjiang, Ling Manjiang has a relationship with a woman, and she dies after giving birth to a daughter, Ling Yun. Ling Manjiang leaves, telling Ming’er to treat Ling Yun as his own sister.

Well, as a teenager, Ming’er finally figures it out … this ‘Ling Xiao’ boy is none other than himself. His mother was mad that Ling Manjiang was falling in love with another woman, so she left him and entered the Fire Cult. Duan Dusheng recognized Ling Xiao’s psychic powers, and decided to steal them. However, in order to make use of them, Duan Dusheng had to subject Ling Xiao to heavy-duty physical torture. His mother regretted bringing her son into the Fire Cult, so she made him drink a potion which made him lose all of his memories, sent him to a safe place. The cult punished her with torture and death. During the novel, Ling Xiao occasionally angsts over the fact that he doesn’t have a single memory of the mother who made such a sacrifice for him.

And of course, because he is in fact Ling Xiao, Ling Yun happens to be his biological half-sister.

This is only the beginning of course (this novel is over a thousand pages long), but I think this is enough to get the idea. Oh, and if you don’t know Chinese, you might want to know what the meaning of the prophecy is, right?

[MAJOR SPOILER WARNING]

At some point Duan Dusheng had loses his psychic powers, but he is still practically invincible because of a special kung-fu power. But to maintain this invicibility, he needs to regularly sexually assault young women. Most of these women die, and the ones who survive usually go mad. Now, if somebody interrupted the kung-fu ceremony, Duan Dusheng would temporarily lose his invincibility, but he’s not going to let anybody get close enough to do such a thing (well, except for his victim, since the victim has to be nearby for the ceremony to work, but trying to get into the ceremony this way is a suicidal mission).

So, during the course of the novel, Ling Xiao falls in love with a woman called Qin Yanlong, whose backstory is even more complicated than Ling Xiao’s. She has observed that, in spite of all of the suffering Ling Xiao has endured, he’s not a bitter guy at all, and it’s really difficult to make him angry. In fact, he doesn’t even hate Duan Dusheng. He is so used to being tormented that he thinks it’s normal … yet he won’t allow anyone he loves to suffer. The only time he ever wanted to kill anybody is when he thought that his beloved sister, Ling Yun, had been assaulted and tortured, and the only time he ever weeped was when he thought she herself (Qin Yanlong) was dead or dying.

Qin Yanlong eventually realizes that the ‘spirit sword’ mentioned in the prophecy is Ling Xiao himself. And she puts two and two together.

[END MAJOR SPOILER WARNING]

How it Works as a Prequel

So, since I had read Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero first, I knew how things were going to end up in this story. That did not reduce the suspense. It might have actually increased the suspense, since I knew exactly how terrible things were going to get the for the main characters.

Yet there were many surprises. For example, when Qin Yanlong was first introduced as Cheng Da’s young male companion, my reaction was ‘WTH’, because a) in Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero, Qin Yanlong is female and b) in Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero, Qin Yanlong is paired with Ling Xiao, whereas Cheng Da is paired with Ji Huohe (to the extent you could call it a pair, since they were both had other partners).

And, as a fan of Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero, I greatly enjoyed seeing the characters from that novel appear in this one, though I personally would have liked to have seen more of Ji Huohe (Zheng Feng says that she plans to write a novel about Cheng Da one day … I hope we might see more of Ji Huohe in that one). Learning more about their backgrounds, particularly Qin Yanlong’s background, was also a fannish delight.

Yet it is remarkable just how different this novel is from Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero considering that many of the same characters appear in both. Whereas Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero is fleet-footed and humorous (well, it’s can also pretty grim, but the grim parts tend to be brief), Spirit Sword is somber and tragic. And it was much harder to get into Sprit Sword. I was hooked on Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero by page 10, but it took over a hundred pages for me to really get sucked into Sprit Sword.

And while Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero is definitely more fun, Spirit Sword feels like a deeper experience. I cried a lot more while reading this novel. I think it’s because of the pain level. While Ling Haotian and Zhao Guan have to suffer quite a bit in Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero, it’s not in the same league as what Ling Xiao and Qin Yanlong endure in Sprit Sword.

The fact that Zheng Feng has written two such different yet wonderful novels had only deepened my admiration for her.

The Intoxicating Atmosphere

It’s really hard to describe the feel of this novel. It’s … a lot like classic fairy tales, (the originals from Hans Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm, etc … not the Disney versions). Those old fairy tales are often bizarre and, frankly, cruel when you take a cold look at them. Yet they form such striking impressions in one’s mind … blood red and snow white and all.

A lot of this novel like that. If you actually pause (like I did when I was trying to put in the description) you think ‘what the jianghu is that?!’ For example, while Ling Xiao is being tortured and slowly dying from the curse Duan Dusheng put on him, a woman comes into his dreams and relieves the symptoms of the curse, and Ling Xiao falls in love with her. That could come straight from a fairy-tale; a curse that kills slowly, and the mysterious dream woman who eases the pain. Or, for example, the time Qin Yanlong comes back bloodied up. It turns out that she had become friends with a tiger and her cubs, but when the tiger threatened Ling Yun, she ended up killing her friend (the tiger), getting heavily wounded herself, and begs Ling Xiao to take care of the orphaned cubs because she’s in no condition to raise them herself.

But life is like that. Or at least, a life worth living. Surprises happen. Great emotions get stirred by striking events. Whether it’s a 80 tall waterfall, or hearing that your great-aunt saw two of her children die, a full life is marked by punctures to mundane.

This novel is a bit like Please Save My Earth, and I’m not talking about the psychic powers. It sounds ridiculous when you summarize it, but makes total sense while actually experiencing it … and it just sucks you in with the complex character backgrounds and (often messed-up) interactions.

Availability in English

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Conclusion

I think you have all figured out by now that I love this novel. I’m now sad that there is currently only one un-read Zheng Feng novel left for me … but Zheng Feng is still an active writer, so I look forward to reading whatever she writes as long as her pen (or keyboard) keeps moving.

Next Time: The Love Eterne (movie)

Sara K. really did see an 80m high waterfall today. In fact, she saw a lot of waterfalls today. And rainbows. And mountains shrouded with clouds. And forest-blanked hills. And a clear, blue, cascading stream. And … you get the idea.

It Came From the Sinosphere: The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain

July 31, 2012 by Sara K. 2 Comments

Brief Story Overview

A group of martial artists find and fight over a treasure chest. Then they get snowed in at a house on top of a mountain, menaced by the vicious “Fox Volant of Snow Mountain.” Having nothing better to do, they tell each other stories, which gradually reveal a long history of family feuding and provide a lot of context for what is going on.

I am not going to try to summarize the whole, complicated backstory—instead, I’m just taking out a slice.

One of the people present in the house, Miao Renfeng, unintentionally killed his good friend Hu Yidao. He does not know what happened to Hu Yidao’s infant son, Hu Fei, but he wishes he could have raised the child himself to compensate for the wrong he did to his friend. Miao Renfeng also did not teach his own daughter, Miao Ruolan (also present in the house) martial arts because he wants the feuding to end with his generation.

[Tangent: in lots of western literature and even sometimes in manga they make a big deal when a female can do well in combat—”ZOMAGOSH she can fight?!!!”—but in wuxia it is taken for granted that females can fight, so generally it’s more shocking when it is revealed that a female does not know martial arts—”ZOMAGOSH she can’t fight?!!! How come she’s still alive??!!”]

Miao Ruolan had felt sorry for Hu Fei ever since she first heard the story of what happened to Hu Yidao, and thought that if, by chance, he was still alive she would want to comfort him for all of the pain he must have endured in his wretched life. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything if I say that Hu Fei is actually still alive. In fact, he has a nickname … “Fox Volant of Snow Mountain.”

Background Information

This novel is by Jin Yong. If you read this column regularly, you already know who he is. If you don’t know who Jin Yong is, read this and this.

The novel was originally serialized in Ming Pao, one of the top newspapers in the Chinese-speaking world. In fact, the first chapter was published in the very first issue of Ming Pao.

Since I’ve discussed Ady An a couple times (The Outsiders 1&2 and Autumn’s Concerto) I feel obliged to say that she was cast as Miao Ruolan in the most recent TV adaptation of this novel. I haven’t seen the adaptation (and probably never will, based on the negative reviews I’ve read) but casting her as Miao Ruolan makes a lot of sense to me.

About the Context

This is unusual for a Jin Yong novel. Most Jin Yong novels span the course of years or decades, but thanks in part to the framing-story device with the various people telling their stories at the house, this novel just takes place within the course of a day. And while Jin Yong stories tend to have people running up and down Jianghu, this story takes place at that building and its vicinity (it’s hard to travel far within a day, especially with all that snow). Thus this story does not have the sense of adventure I associate with Jin Yong. Instead, it feels a bit more like No Exit, where a bunch of characters are stuck together and have to hash out their issues with each other. It’s one of his most “literary” stories, since instead of having characters swashbuckling around, he uses fancy narrative devices and gets nice and psychological in a way that literature professors approve of.

However, while this is unusual for a Jin Yong novel, it is not an unusual wuxia novel. Wuxia comes in many flavors. Jin Yong novels tend to be sweeping, historical, melodramatic adventures, but there are plenty of wuxia novels which emphasize mystery and atmosphere and focus more tightly on a smaller cast of characters (hello, Gu Long). Though I personally prefer epic adventures, even I like variety.

“The Lovers’ Blades” and “White Horse Riding in the West Wind”

Most Chinese-language editions of this novel come with two Jin Yong novellas, “The Lovers’ Blades” and “White Horse Riding in the West Wind.” I do not have anything to say about “The Lovers’ Blades,” but I find “White Horse Riding in the West Wind” interesting because it is the only Jin Yong story in which the main protagonist, Li Wenxiu, is female.

In some ways, Jin Yong treats Li Wenxiu just like most of his other protagonists—she undergoes childhood tragedy, trains in martial arts, and eventually overcomes and compensates for that tragedy. But he treats her differently in that, instead of granting her a (reverse) harem, she gets just one love interest, and [spoiler]she even loses him[/spoiler]. It’s more like a typical Jin Yong tale than The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain. I also happen to like the story.

The Lady, or the Tiger?

One of the most noteworthy parts of the novel (whether you love it or hate it – many people hate it) is the ending. Thus I have to discuss it. I will try to express my opinion of the ending without saying what happens, but people who are very spoiler-sensitive might still want to skip this section.

I never liked the story “The Lady, or the Tiger” because I know almost nothing about the princess—how am I supposed to know what decision she would make. However, The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain is not a short story. It’s a novel, and it has a prequel (Fēihú Wàizhuàn / Tales of the Young Fox) too. Thus there is a lot more material with which to reveal how the characters would make a tough choice.

Lots of people complain about the “inconclusive” ending of The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain, and Jin Yong has received many requests to write a “fuller” ending. I actually think the ending is sufficiently conclusive. I mean, in “The Lady, or the Tiger?” the outcomes are really different—marry a beautiful woman, or get mauled by a fierce tiger. But in this novel, the choice is between [spoiler]one tragic outcome, and a completely different yet equally tragic outcome[/spoiler]. Yeah, the possible endings are really different … except they are not. No matter what choice the characters make, the general direction is pretty clear to me. And it’s pretty clear what the fallout for each outcome would be, so I don’t think it needs to be spelled out.

The final scene, however, is exquisite in just the same way as one of my favourite scenes in Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ. In both scenes, Character A has a very dramatic choice to make; either save Character B’s life, or kill him. Jin Yong writes the stories in such a way that Character A has really compelling reasons to kill Character B … and really compelling reasons to save him. I have rarely been more engaged in story than when I was reading that scene in Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ because I really did not know what was going to happen, and it is still one of my most vivid memories in Taiwan. Of course, Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ actually had to move on with the plot, so Character A finally does make a choice … and the moment when the choice was made was … powerful stuff. But that was the climax of the scene for me—the remainder of the scene was not special to me. So I do understand why people are frustrated by the ending of The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain—they feel cheated of the promised climactic moment. Yet The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain does not have more plot lying in wait, and is not trying to make a specific point in the same way that Shēn Diāo Xiá Lǚ is. So I think, even if the choice was revealed, it wouldn’t add anything to the novel. The point of the final scene is the charged feelings of the characters and the readers, and I think trying to “complete” the ending would just dissipate that.

In fact, the fact that so many people passionately hate the ending of The Fox Volant of Snow Mountain proves just how effective Jin Yong is at rousing the readers’ feelings.

There is something that really does frustrate me about the ending, but it’s not the finale itself. It’s the build-up to the finale. Under the circumstances, a good father would have asked his daughter how she felt. Not only did Miao Renfeng not ask Miao Ruolan how she felt, but when she tried to tell him, he told her to shut up. If he had bothered to listen to his own daughter for just two minutes [spoiler]the entire tragic dilemma would have been averted and the story would have had a nice happy ending[/spoiler]. Argh.

At least people talk about the ending of this novel. Some Jin Yong endings are not particularly memorable, and I think those endings are actually worse than this ending.

Availability in English

This novel has been published in English. A lot of people criticise the Olivia Moktranslation, but based on the brief excerpt I’ve read, it is actually not so terrible (aside from the way the characters’ names are handled, which is terrible). I don’t know whether it includes the novellas “The Lovers’ Blades” and “White Horse in the West Wind” or not.

Like every Jin Yong novel published in English, it’s not cheap, so I suggest making inquiries at a library near you.

Conclusion

You know what? This novel is recommended.

Reading this novel won’t give you a typical Jin Yong experience. On the other hand, it’s more accessible than some of his other works. This story actually gets to the point quite quickly, unlike Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì in which Jin Yong spends over 200 pages before bothering to introduce Zhang Wuji (who happens to be the main protagonist).

I would say that, after A Deadly Secret, this is my second favorite of Jin Yong’s shorter works. It’s not as fun as some of his other tales, but the structure works quite well and I got involved in the characters’ mental tangles. I’ve read it twice, and it worked better for me the second time around. I will probably eventually read it a third time.

Next time: The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (movie)

Sara K. has heard rain and fireworks while editing this post. Both sounds are very common in Taiwan.

It Came From the Sinosphere: Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero (Part 2)

July 6, 2012 by Sara K. 6 Comments

On Tuesday, I introduced Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero. Because there is very little information about the novel available in English, I split this post into two parts. This is part two.

The Style

First of all, this is a novel that MOVES. Before the reader is five pages into the novel, an innocent girl witnesses a murder. From that point on, the story does not slow down very much, and generally only when it needs to slow down. There are a few sections where the plot loses a little momentum—particularly when focusing on Ling Haotian’s moping over Zheng Baoan—but just when I think the plot might actually drag, a new plot twist bursts in with a BAM!

One reason the novel moves so well is its accessible writing style. I would not go so far as to call it a plain writing style, but the literary flourishes are generally playful in nature. For example, there is a scene where Zhao Guan and Ling Haotian seem to be in a competition to spit out the most chengyu. However, when Zheng Feng is not having fun with words, the language is very direct and to the point.

Fighting

The most enjoyable set of fights for me was the poisoners’ tournament. It has novelty—the contestants duel by trying to out-poison each other instead of using direct combat. It has all of the classic psychological appeals—our protagonist is the underdog (Zhao Guan is the least experienced of all of the contestants) and the stakes for him are really high. And because he is the least experienced of the poisoners, he needs to rely on his wits to win, which is a lot of fun for the reader.

Fighting is a central part of Ling Haotian’s development as a character. Training is how he (tries to) take his mind off of his problems, and as a wanderer he needs to fight to defend himself. It is when he wins a tournament—not of poisoners, but of the finest fighters in the martial arts world—that everybody, including himself, finally realises that he is himself and not merely the son or brother of so-and-so.

Feminism?

One of the reasons I was so interested in reading this novel was, being written by a female, I hoped it would be less patriarchal than other wuxia novels I’ve read. Is it feminist? On the surface, no. But there are some very interesting things beneath the surface…

The two main characters are male, and they both get lots of attention from beautiful women, which makes it seem like a typical harem fantasy wuxia aimed at straight males. However, the standard wuxia-harem-fantasy-for-straight-males tends to feature a man who, while strong, is not particularly handsome, and the women who fling themselves at him tend to be young chaste maidens (please note that I use the word “tend”—of course there are exceptions). Zhao Guan, on the other hand, is so gorgeous that the novel specifically states that 80% of the young women he encounters gets a crush on him. I have come to the conclusion that he probably looks like Hu Ge.

Two pictues showing off Hu Ge's prettiness.

Hu Ge, Chinese bishonen

Even with his looks, he still has to work at getting so many women, unlike the typical wuxia hero who basically has women fall into his lap. And, much as he does not like it, he often has to refrain from pursuing certain women for pragmatic reasons. Most wuxia heroes do not put so much thought into which women to pursue or not pursue—when they do refrain, it’s usually because of sexist cultural programming, not because they actually considered what might be in his or her best interests. Of course, if they actually thought about it before entering into certain problematic relationships, there would be less dramatic conflict, whereas making decisions based on sexist programming tends to increase, not decrease, dramatic conflict.

Zhao Guan of course prefers women who a pretty and not evil, but he does not care about their prior sexual history, or even if they have other sexual or romantic relationships (well, he does care about their other relationships … but in a “I won’t let him hurt her” sense and not a “how dare she have another man” sense). This lack of double standard is rather refreshing. He even takes a woman who had kidnapped and tortured him as one of his lovers. And while he does care about looks, the most beautiful women in the story are immune to his charms for some reason (*cough* the Ling brothers *cough*). This does not look so much like a fantasy for straight males to me. This looks like a fantasy for straight fangirls who want a hot guy who won’t turn them down.

What about straight fangirls who are not physically pretty? They have Ling Haotian. The most beautiful women in the story all fall for him or one of his brothers, not Zhao Guan. Meanwhile, Zheng Baoan, while not ugly, is said to be the plainest-looking young woman in the story. Yet she is the only woman that both Ling Biyi and Ling Haotian want. Even though they can get women who are far, far more beautiful. And they are both hot dudes. This is unambiguously a fantasy aimed at straight female readers.

Speaking of Zheng Baoan, she’s a cool character herself; she’s sweet, reserved, feminine, and tough as nails. Ling Haotian says she is far braver than he (I agree). Whereas Ling Haotian generally runs away from problems, Zheng Baoan confronts them. And while he’s busy angsting over his feelings for her, Zheng Baoan is too busy saving his life to indulge in angst. I like characters like this because they illustrate that courage is just as compatible with femininity as with masculinity.

And then there’s the gender-reversal in Zhao Guan’s story. First of all, instead of being a girl who has heard her parents say they wished she were a boy, Zhao Guan hears his mother wishing she had a daughter, and the other people who take care of him as a child keep on saying it is such a pity he is not a girl. Wuxia novels have no shortage of women who, for various reasons, dress and try to pass as male. No woman does that in this novel. Instead, it is Zhao Guan who sometimes tries to pass as female. His reason is very practical—he needs to hide from his enemies, and it is sometimes safer for him to present himself as female than male. However, he feels no shame in dressing as a woman. This reflects that he really, really does think females are equal to males—he has no reason to be ashamed of being perceived as female. Now count the number of straight men in your life who would not experience any shame or embarrassment if they had to dress up and pass as women.

And speaking of gender reversal, there’s Zhao Guan’s mother herself. She basically lives the live of a male wuxia hero without being male. She overcame childhood tragedy, mastered various martial arts skills, rescues the weak and innocent, punishes wrongdoers, became the leader of a martial arts faction, drinks alcohol, and has her own (reverse) harem. It’s a pity that she has to die so early in the novel … I’d be willing to read a novel which features her as the main character.

How the Novel Made Me Feel

Back in the later years of elementary school and in middle school, I voraciously gobbled up whatever decent-or-better fantasy novels came my way. I did it because it went beyond fun. I lived the exciting adventures of those characters.

Reading this novel brought that feeling back for me. I read this novel at a steady clip of about 145 pages per day—which may not seem like that much until you realize a) I didn’t start studying Chinese until I was in my 20s and b) I often had to put the book down to savor some bit which had captured my imagination. This novel dominated my life while I was reading it, and the story is still ringing through my mindspace.

And … CURSE YOU ZHANG FENG FOR WRITING THAT ENDING! YOU MADE ME CRY!

Availability

The only part of this novel that is available in English (or any other non-Asian language) is the excerpt I translated for this review. There is not even an unfinished fan translation.

I know the handful of wuxia novels which have been published into English or French have not been best-sellers (if any wuxia novels have been published into any non-Asian languages other than English or French, please comment—I want to keep track of all wuxia novels published in non-Asian languages). However, just as contemporary manga tends to be more commercially successful in English translation than classic manga, I suspect contemporary wuxia might be more commercially successful than classic wuxia in the English-speaking world. I think a publisher could make money bringing out this novel in English if they marketed it properly. Now, once enough people in the English speaking world are hooked on wuxia, the classic novels could come out, heh heh heh…

At the very least, it is available in both simplified and traditional characters. For those learning Chinese as a foreign language, I think this novel is a good pick because it has such an accessible style. Is it the easiest novel to read on linguistic grounds? No. But it is entertaining and fast-paced, which in my opinion is more important than whether the grammar or vocabulary are easy. And compared to many other wuxia novels, the vocabulary and grammar are not hard.

Conclusion

I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that I love this novel. It is a monumental artistic work that a literature professor would approve of? No. But much as I love high-brow culture, sometimes I want a story which will just suck me in. This story did that. If you can, you should give it a chance to suck you in too.

Sara K. used to be really into fantasy novels. Looking back, she wonders how she found time to read all those novels considering that she also had to go school, do homework, sleep, and so forth. It gives her hope that she might be able to actually find time to read many of the wuxia novels on her reading list. And she definitely plans to read Zheng Feng’s other novels.

It Came From the Sinosphere: Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero (Part 1)

July 3, 2012 by Sara K. 9 Comments

There is not much information available about this novel in English, so I am giving it a more thorough treatment than usual, and making this a two-parter.

First, I think it’s better to show instead of describe the feel of the novel. So, before continuing, please read this short excerpt – click here to read it in English, click here to read it in Chinese.

Now that you’ve read that, you should have some idea what the novel is like, so you are ready to read this review.

Background Information

In China, this novel is titled Duōqíng Làngzǐ Chīqíng Xiá (多情浪子痴情侠), which roughly means Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero. In Taiwan it is titled (天觀雙俠) Tiān Guān Shuāng Xiá. Even though I prefer the title Tiān Guān Shuāng Xiá, it’s difficult to translate into English, so I will stick with Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero.

Wuxia has historically been dominated by male writers. To this day, if you ask somebody who is familiar with wuxia to name five writers, there is a good chance that that person will name five male writers. Fortunately, times are changing. Zheng Feng (the pen name of Chen Yu-hui) is, at least in Taiwan, the most popular contemporary wuxia novelist … and she’s not male. Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero is the novel which put her on the map.

To learn more about Zheng Feng, read this interview (English translation available here).

Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero is a sweeping wuxia novel set in China, Korea, and Mongolia. It includes naughty children and dying elders, Tibetan monks and Japanese pirates, princesses and prostitutes, Catholic missionaries and desert bandits, doctors and assassins, decadent cities and secluded mountains, desperate fugitives and frightened leaders. As the title implies, this tale revolves around two main characters.

The Passionate Wastrel

Zhao Guan loves drinking alcohol, and he loves having sex with pretty women even more … so he’s built up a reputation as a bad boy. Much of the plot of the novel follows this pattern: Zhao Guan meets a pretty woman, the pretty woman is in trouble, Zhao Guan gets her out of trouble, something happens between them (whether it’s sex, a kiss, or merely lustful fantasies on Zhao Guan’s part), and the plot moves on.

Even though he’s promiscuous, Zhao Guan does not come across as a creep because he cares a lot about what women think and how they feel. When he gets pretty women out of trouble, he does it because he does not like seeing people in trouble, not because he is trying to get sex—nor does he think they owe him sex if he does rescue them. Of course, if they do decide to have sex with him anyway, it certainly makes him happy. Furthermore, he really gets off making women happy. Of course, because he is such a good-looking young man, he makes many women happy (at least in the short term) by letting them into his bed. He often looks to the women in his life, whether or not he’s having sex with them, for advice when he has a problem of his own. And finally, he’s honest with all of his love interests—he tells them that he sleeps around, and that he is not going to stop.

However, while he seems carefree on the outside, he is haunted by the brutal murder of his mother. Years later he can still describe the scene in gruesome detail. He was lucky to survive himself. He wishes to find the killers and get revenge … but the killers left no clues, and he knows that even if he knew who the killers were, he is not match for them. Furthermore, he is almost certain that they are pursuing him in order to “finish the job”—in fact, he has numerous close calls. Thus, he often travels incognito and goes by false names lest he suffer his mother’s fate.

The Infatuated Hero

Ling Haotian is the son of Ling Xiao and Qin Yanlong (two of the most highly respected martial artists and doctors of the era) and is the younger brother of Ling Biyi and Ling Shuangfei (twin brothers who are the most promising and respected young martial artists of the generation). Ling Haotian feels it is impossible for him to live up to such high standards. He often withdraws himself, lest he disappoint somebody by not being as awesome as the rest of his family. He is very close emotionally to Zheng Baoan, his mother’s apprentice, and eventually gets a major crush on her. However he cannot bring himself to tell her how he feels.

Then the bombshell falls. Ling Haotian’s older brother Ling Biyi—who everybody claims is the most wonderful young man in the world—confesses his love for Zheng Baoan, and asks for her hand in marriage. Everybody says that Zheng Baoan is really lucky. For example, Zhao Guan says that if he were into men he would definitely fall in love with Ling Biyi. It is inconceivable to everybody—including Ling Haotian—that Zheng Baoan would not return Ling Biyi’s love. Ling Haotian cannot stand to see his brother and Zheng Baoan together … so he runs away from home.

This, of course, is the beginning of his adventures. He wanders Jianghu without any particular goal, other than trying to forget about Zheng Baoan and his brother (he fails, of course). During the course of his travels, he has to fight a lot, and also ends up learning a lot of martial arts. Gradually, he gets better and better. He is so preoccupied with his unrequited love that he does not notice it when his abilities surpass that of his celebrated brothers. A couple of women hand Ling Haotian their hearts, yet the only woman in his heart is Zheng Baoan.

Trouble, of course, has a way of finding him. In fact, really, really, really big trouble finds him. If you can read Chinese, I do not want to spoil it, but if you cannot read Chinese, then I might as well say that …

[BIG SPOILER WARNING]

Ling Haotian watches his brother, Ling Biyi, die in his arms, murdered. This makes it seem even more impossible to Ling Haotian that he could ever be with Zheng Baoan. He feels he cannot love her without wronging his deceased brother (in traditional Chinese culture, marrying your brother’s widow is considered a major taboo). When Ling Haotian brings his brother’s body back home, his parents treat him as a monster. It turns out that his other brother, Ling Shuangfei, had accused Ling Haotian of committing the murder out of jealousy over Zheng Baoan. Furthermore, Ling Haotian is framed for many other murders, meaning there are many, many martial artists seeking to get their revenge. Ling Haotian wants to avenge his brother’s death and clear his name—until he finds out that the man who murdered Ling Biyi is none other than his other brother, Ling Shuangfei!

Does he murder Ling Shuangfei (his own brother), or leave the death of Ling Biyi (who is also his brother) unavenged? Should he tell everybody the truth about the murder? Would anybody believe him?

Of course, with almost everybody in Jianghu trying to kill him, Ling Haotian will not live long without help. It just so happens that one of the only people who believes in Ling Haotian’s innocence is Zhao Guan … and Zhao Guan knows a thing or two about hiding from people trying to kill him.

It turns out that not only is Ling Xiao not Ling Biyi and Ling Shuangfei’s biological father, but that he killed their biological father. Ling Shuangfei murdered Ling Biyi because Ling Biyi refused to work with him to get revenge for their biological father. It turns out that Ling Shuangfei and Ling Biyi’s half-sister, trying to avenge their father’s death, is the one framing Ling Haotian for so many murders … and is also responsible for the murder of Zhao Guan’s mother!

[END SPOILER WARNING]

Yep, in Ling Haotian’s life, when it rains, it pours.

So that is a basic overview of the novel. In Part II, which will appear on Friday, I will express my opinion. Until then…

What is your impression of this novel based on this overview?

UPDATE: Part II is up!

There is no question about it now … Sara K. is now officially a wuxia fan. The more she learns about wuxia, the more novels she wants to read, and her reading list is growing faster than she can actually read them. And she still wants to read other things. Maybe she will one day grow tired of wuxia novels, but she thinks that will take a while.

It Came From the Sinosphere: The Book and the Sword

June 12, 2012 by Sara K. 4 Comments

Opening

To kick off this review, I will go over the first three pages of the novel. Here’s a summary:

Page One: Li Yuanzhi, a 14-year-old girl, sees her school teacher, Lu Feiqing, kill flies by shooting golden needles at them. She begs him to teach her how to do it.

Page Two: Lu Feiqing accepts Li Yuanzhi as his kung-fu disciple.

Page Three: Li Yuanzhi eagerly awaits her first lesson. Lu Feiqing arrives late, injured, soaked with blood, and he tells Li Yuanzhi to close the door and be quiet.

Right there, on the first page of the novel, we get the first glimpse of the writer’s imagination. He does not merely kill the flies, he kills them by SHOOTING GOLDEN NEEDLES AT THEM!!! Li Yuanzhi seems to be a spunky girl, which is always a good sign. And of course, page three sets up some suspense and promises a fast-moving story with plenty of action.

With an opening like this, I was pretty excited to read this novel.

Background

The Book and the Sword is Jin Yong’s first novel. Jin Yong (English name: Louis Cha) is the most popular Chinese-language novelist of the 20th century. He is one of the most popular novelists of the 20th century period. The Book and the Sword was a sensation when it was first published in 1955-1956, and to this day it is still adapted for television (the most recent TV adaptation was made in 2008).

Brief Plot Overview

The story is set during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Manchu dynasty. The Red Flower Society is a secret society of sword and kung-fu fighters who want to restore rule by Han Chinese. I think the conflict here is really obvious.

One of the members of the Red Flower Society, Wen Tailai, discovers Emperor Qianlong’s greatest secret, so he is captured in order to silence him and the Red Flower Society has to rescue him.

Meanwhile, an Uyghur tribe is trying to recover their copy of the Quran (the “book” referenced in the title). Chen Jialuo, a Red Flower Society member and the chief protagonist, helps them, and in return the leader’s daughter Huotongqing gives him a sword (the “sword” referenced in the title).

As the plot gets thicker, things get messier, especially after the emperor’s secret gets spilled and Kasili (aka Princess Fragrance) gets involved.

The Bad

Chen Jialuo is the most boring of Jin Yong’s main characters. He is virtuous, a good fighter … and that’s pretty much it. Almost all other Jin Yong leads are also virtuous and good fighters, but they generally have personalities too. Chen Jialuo does not, or at least his personality is so flimsy it does not count.

The worst is that he almost never experiences doubt or inner conflict, or questions himself, not even in a “Do I kill the man who caused my father’s death or do I marry his daughter instead?” kind of way. This is especially bad because he is put in situations where 99% of the human population would experience inner conflict, yet he does not. For example, towards the end of the novel, he has to choose between keeping something precious to him, or doing what he thinks is in the interest of the greater good. He goes ahead and does what he thinks is in the interest of the greater good without hesitation or even suffering. The explanation is that he thinks he is going to paradise after he dies, so it does not really matter if he has want he wants in life. Not only is this less interesting than actual conflict, it also rings false. Even people who believe in paradise, believe they are going there, and use that thought to console themselves would experience some reluctance and pain when they give up something precious. The fact that Chen Jialuo does not experience this makes me think that either this thing is not actually precious to him, or that he’s not human.

And then there is keeping track of the cast. There are other Jin Yong novels with a far larger cast of characters (Yǐ Tiān Tú Lóng Jì and Tiān Lóng Bā Bù come to mind), yet this is the only Jin Yong novel where I had serious trouble keeping track of who was who—particularly the various members of the Red Flower Society. I was able to keep track of Li Yuanzhi and Lu Feiqing pretty well because of the memorable opening of the novel, but most characters did not get such a memorable opening, so it was hard to sort out who is just a minor character and who is somebody I should actually remember, especially when a bunch of characters are introduced at the same time. In later novels, Jin Yong handles this much better. Significant characters generally get a memorable introduction, and are generally introduced one by one instead of in a batch.

And there are the fights. Many of the sword fights are just good guys and bad guys finding themselves in the same place at the same time, therefore they fight. All of the sword techniques are generic. It gets pretty monotonous. To contrast this with an excellent Jin Yong fight where the sword techniques are well described and interesting to follow, as well as having psychological depth, read my post The Condor Trilogy in Manhua: Fighting. To be fair, the fights in the second part of the novel are better, with more variety and human interest, but they still do not measure up to the fights in later Jin Yong novels.

So, what did I like about the novel?

The Good

First of all, there is Emperor Qianlong’s secret. It is a good secret. I will not spoil it here.

Then there is Jin Yong’s imagination. It is evident in passages like this:

過了良久良久，陳家洛才慢慢放開了她，望著她暈紅的臉頰，忽見她身後一面破碎的鏡子，兩人互相摟抱著的人影在每片碎片中映照出來，幻作無數化身，低聲道：“你瞧，世界上就是有一千個我，這一千個我總還是抱著你。”

“After a long time passed, Chen Jialuo slowly let her free, gazing at her blushing cheeks. Suddenly he saw behind her the shattered mirror, the reflection of two people hugging each other visible in every fragment, fantastic countless incarnations of themselves. He murmured ‘You see, the world is just a thousand Chen Jialuos, these thousand Chen Jialuos all embracing you.'”

(Please forgive my English translation for not being as elegantly phrased as the Chinese original.)

His imagination sometimes manifests himself for just a moment, like above, and it sometimes manifests itself for an entire scene, such when the characters are running around in the desert city.

Of course, Jin Yong got lots of ideas from Chinese history and lore. For example, Princess Fragrance was inspired by the Fragrant Concubine, who, according to legend, was an Uyghur woman with beautiful looks and an even more beautiful smell. Jin Yong is at good at picking which ideas to borrow, and the historical background adds another layer to the story. He skillfully weaves his own ideas with other people’s ideas into a fresh narrative.

One of my favorite scenes in the novel is when Chen Jialuo goes to visit his mother. This is one of the rare times in the novels where Chen Jialuo actually seems heartbroken. He had been delaying visiting his mother because of his duties at the Red Flower Society, and when he finally does it he learns that she has just died. I can sympathize. I was actually more moved by this scene than certain scenes in other Jin Yong novels where mothers commit suicide right in front of their sons (a lot of main characters watch their mothers commit suicide in Jin Yong novels). Of course, Emperor Qianlong happens to be around when Chen Jialuo pays his respects to his late mother. This helps set up the reveal of the emperor’s secret, and foreshadows later events in the novel.

Availability in English

The Book and the Sword has been translated into English by Graham Earnshaw and published by Oxford University Press. It is supposed to include a character glossary, which I would have found really useful when I was reading the novel. Excerpts from this translation are available at Graham Earnshaw’s website, but I must note that some of the later excerpts might contain spoilers. Considering how expensive this translation is, borrowing it from the library is the most practical option.

I have only taken a brief look at the translation through Graham Earnshaw’s website, but based on what I looked at, it seems alright.

Conclusion

I really, really wanted to like this novel … but it should be apparent that my efforts to like this novel failed. In fact, this is the only Jin Yong novel I do not like.

That said, I am still glad I read it. It deepened my appreciation for Jin Yong. Some of his techniques are more obvious in this novel than in other novels. Some of the ways this novel does not work for me helps me understand how other Jin Yong novels do work for me.

And finally, I am in the minority, at least among people who have expressed in English their opinions of this novel. Most people who have reviewed the Earnshaw translation have a positive opinion of the novel.

Still, why they decided to publish this in English and not Shè Diāo Yīngxióng Zhuàn (which, in my opinion, is the best choice for people who have never read a Jin Yong novel) is beyond me.

Next Time: Divine Melody (manhua)

The Book and the Sword was technically the first novel Sara K. ever tried to read in Chinese. Of course, considering that she knew less than 800 characters at the time of her first attempt, she did not get very far (she did it more as an experiment than as a serious attempt). She did learn that it would probably be better to slide into rather then leap into Jin Yong … and then she saw Lee Chi Ching’s The Eagle Shooting Heroes in bookstores, and the rest is history.