What is "required reading" in wuxia fiction?

[Ken Cheng]

If you were a literature professor teaching a course on wuxia fiction, and you had to choose five books as "required reading," which five would you choose? Rule: Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Leung Yu Sang must each be represented by at least one novel, but no novelist can supply more than two novels.

My picks:

Jin Yong 1: LOCH

Jin Yong 2: DGSD

Gu Long 1: SENTIMENTAL SWORDSMAN, RUTHLESS SWORD

Gu Long 2: LUK SIU FUNG: BEFORE AND AFTER THE DUEL

Leung Yu Sang: DRAGON'S GATE INN

[HuangYushi]

Leung Yu Sang: DRAGON'S GATE INN

What is the actual Chinese title for this novel?
I hope it is not 龙门客栈.

[warlock110]

wuxia fiction? i've alwasy thought it's a form of entertaninment, never thought it'll be in a literature course.

PS: some comminty college english course was reading harry potter. i was cracking up so bad cuzz the book was long but it wasn't hard, and i don't think the author intended for kids ages 1-12 to find the deeper meanings of each characters

i've only read JY novels, i like his story, makes me guess, i'm pretty keen on fictions, most of the time i can guess the ending/event that's about to happen. but JY novel throw me off line all the time, that's why i like'em

triology
DGSD
DOMD
smilling wonderer....

i think those are my favorite stories, the other stories plot aren't as complicated.... not as entertaning to read, also notice i read them for entertainment purpose, i'm not some deep thinker that reads book n think

[kidd]

Uh. A book doesn't need to be hard and confusing to be considered literature.

[Extremer88]

In Singapore, some extracts from Jin Yong novels are used in High School chinese books.

[warlock110]

Uh. A book doesn't need to be hard and confusing to be considered literature.

most of the books i read in class ARE... they're all classic i was bore out of my pants when i read them. it doesn't have to be hard to be a liturature, but for some reason when it's for college/ highschool it usually is pretty hard and deep... it's bull but they don't make it easier for the kids.

i remember in 4 years of high school, i was eating about 4-5 works from shakespears, OMG i couldn't understand wut he was saying, i had to read it like a few times before i know what he's talking about. understanding the story is 1 thing, when i was ask the deeper meanings of things in the book, i was just like a log. couldn't figure out wut he "REALLY" means... there's a few more works i still remember like lord of the flies.. ect..

in college i was mainly in cources relating to arguments so i stopped reading liturature and mostly reading articles, papers....

but yeah, i had my share of reading liturature, i know enough about the school system...

[kidd]

To each his own. I enjoyed those classics, especially Jane Austen books. Wuthering Heights is really good too.

[HuangYushi]

One of these days, I'm going to make excerpts from JY novels "required reading" for the Mandarin Language classes that I teach!

---

Back to the topic:

Ken's choices for JY and GL are good.

Perhaps, I'd make those JY and GL novels compulsory reading, plus one other book that can be chosen from the following:
a. Liang Yusheng: Seven Swords Leave Mt Tian (first 10 chapters)
b. Wen Rui'an: The Chill of Going Against the Currents (first 10 chapters)
c. Huang Yi: The Search for Qin (first 10 chapters)

Then, the students have to write 3 papers:
1. A comparison of the first 10 chapters of the 2 JY novels in terms of plot, pacing, and characterisation.
2. A comparison of the first 10 chapters of the 2 GL novels in terms of plot, pacing, and characterisation.
3. A comparison of JY, GL and the remaining author (LYS, WRA or HY) in terms of story-telling approach and writing style.

HYS

PS: Read the books in Chinese, write the papers in English!

[Ren Ying Ying]

most of the books i read in class ARE... they're all classic i was bore out of my pants when i read them. it doesn't have to be hard to be a liturature, but for some reason when it's for college/ highschool it usually is pretty hard and deep... it's bull but they don't make it easier for the kids.

i remember in 4 years of high school, i was eating about 4-5 works from shakespears, OMG i couldn't understand wut he was saying, i had to read it like a few times before i know what he's talking about. understanding the story is 1 thing, when i was ask the deeper meanings of things in the book, i was just like a log. couldn't figure out wut he "REALLY" means... there's a few more works i still remember like lord of the flies.. ect..

in college i was mainly in cources relating to arguments so i stopped reading liturature and mostly reading articles, papers....

but yeah, i had my share of reading liturature, i know enough about the school system...

One of these days, I'm going to make excerpts from JY novels "required reading" for the Mandarin Language classes that I teach!

awesome, i'd take it just for the jy

but a lot of classic books (the ones u read in highschool/college english classes) have fairly simple plots with complicated language. but JY actually uses pretty simple language despite how complicated his plots are. so in the end...anything could be literature (as long as you can find some deep bs in it :P). j/k (note i'm not a lit major)

[The Khan]

LOCH
ROCH
HSDS
DGSD
DoMD
SPW

Da Tang shuang Long zhuan
Xun Qin ji

[Ken Cheng]

wuxia fiction? i've alwasy thought it's a form of entertaninment, never thought it'll be in a literature course.

It might surprise you that William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, now heralded as two of the greatest writers in the English language, studied by students and admired by academics the world round, were considered "trashy" writers of cheap entertainment for the uncultured masses in their day.

It often takes time for a classic to sink in as such.

[owbjhx]

If you were a literature professor teaching a course on wuxia fiction, and you had to choose five books as "required reading," which five would you choose?

Only five books in total? You're too gentle to your students. If they don't read all of Jin Yong's Big Six novels on top of Gu Long etc., they should get corporal punishment, the little slackers. I'd also make it compulsory for students to spend a certain amount of time lurking in this forum (and over at Wuxiapedia).

but a lot of classic books (the ones u read in highschool/college english classes) have fairly simple plots with complicated language. but JY actually uses pretty simple language despite how complicated his plots are. so in the end...anything could be literature (as long as you can find some deep bs in it :P).

Anything can be literature, just as anything can be music or fine art or food. Getting people to like it is a different matter. I agree that 'literature' has very little to do with big words.

I find questions of Jin Yong's 'literary value' very interesting. The Trilogy books (with the possible exception of LOCH) certainly aren't going to get into someone's university course on literary qualities alone, because I sense that JY was to some extent still learning the craft when he wrote them. (That's not to say they aren't worthy of examination.) From what I understand, his reputation as a writer is based more on his later novels, when he started to get a lot more self-conscious about the form he was writing in (i.e. wuxia fiction) and began to manipulate it a little. You can already see a hint of it in the opening chapters of DGSD.

It might surprise you that William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, now heralded as two of the greatest writers in the English language, studied by students and admired by academics the world round, were considered "trashy" writers of cheap entertainment for the uncultured masses in their day.

In my opinion, the academics are wrong about Dickens - surely the most overrated novelist ever - but yes, Shakespeare plays once had to compete with dancing bears (the 16th-century equivalent of Britney Spears) etc. for the public's attention. And as much as I like Shakespeare, there are times in one's life when what you really want to watch is a dancing bear.

[Laviathan]

What is the actual Chinese title for this novel?
I hope it is not 龙门客栈.

Yeah, I never knew Longmen Kezhan was from Liang Yusheng, that's new to me...
�`

[0-0-0]

It might surprise you that William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, now heralded as two of the greatest writers in the English language, studied by students and admired by academics the world round, were considered "trashy" writers of cheap entertainment for the uncultured masses in their day.

don't know too much about Dickens, but Shakespeare certainly uses a lot of sexual innuendos in his plays to entertain the lower class. In terms of classics, i personally prefer Jane Austen

Back to the topic, from Jin Yong, i would pick LOCH and DGSD. However, if i was given a third choice, i would make them also study DOMD.

From Gu Long, i would take Sentimental Swordsman. Not sure about the other one though... I don't know enough about his other books to judge. Never read Liang Yu Sheng either

[warlock110]

i think they'll just rent the movie, read the forum n write the paper ... when it becomes a form of entertainment it's alot easier to write about than when it's tough stuff to read. i'm pretty sure most of us read the these books about 1-2 times (and they are LONG).. but when reading regular school books, we probably read 1 times and start writing (just from my experience)

[Ken Cheng]

Only five books in total? You're too gentle to your students. If they don't read all of Jin Yong's Big Six novels on top of Gu Long etc., they should get corporal punishment, the little slackers. I'd also make it compulsory for students to spend a certain amount of time lurking in this forum (and over at Wuxiapedia).

I was thinking in lines of what would be realistic for a ten-week course. I prefer depth to breadth, and if the students are successful in this course, they could always sign up for a Part 2 course that would cover a different set of novels.

In my opinion, the academics are wrong about Dickens - surely the most overrated novelist ever.

I think Dickens was great. In his A TALE OF TWO CITIES and GREAT EXPECTATIONS in particular, I recognized a narrative technique for plot and character development that is echoed in Jin Yong's work. Jin Yong is reportedly a Dickens fan himself, and Dickens was one of the many influences on his own writing.

And as was the case with Dickens' work, Jin Yong's novels first appeared in a self-published newspaper that rose to prominence thanks to the editor's regular installments of pulpy fiction pieces.

[owbjhx]

I think Dickens was great. In his A TALE OF TWO CITIES and GREAT EXPECTATIONS in particular, I recognized a narrative technique for plot and character development that is echoed in Jin Yong's work. Jin Yong is reportedly a Dickens fan himself, and Dickens was one of the many influences on his own writing.

Actually, I do like 'Great Expectations', and 'Hard Times' isn't bad too. Those were his mature works, when he'd acquired a certain focus. The earlier stuff - particularly 'Bleak House' - made for agonising reading. (I was forced to write an essay on Dickens at university. It was a tough week.)

I'm glad that you mention the connection between Dickens and Jin Yong, as I've been wondering about the similarities for a while. The form of JY's Trilogy novels - I'd call it 'wuxia bildungsroman' - is likely to have been influenced by Dickens. The books share similar strengths & weaknesses. Both guys are journalists-turned-serialised-novelists with a flair for writing eccentric characters, a predilection for naive but good-hearted heroes with parental issues, and a distrust of institutions & politics. They both also became less escapist (and more refined) over time. But I prefer JY.