Yesterday, I had a conversation with a Chinese guy from China. While he is not really a Wuxia genre fan, he has read some of Jin Yong's popular novels (XAJH, SDYXZ, TLBB, LDJ) and some of Gu Long's favorite stories (XLFD, Twins, CLX, LXF). What makes him less ordinary than just your average Joe Schmoe who have read Wuxia novels is that his hobby is Chinese literature, writings, poetry and caligraphy but he tends to like the classical literature more than the Wuxia genre, literature such as ROTK, HLM, Journey to the West, Peony Pavillion, Butterfly Lovers, and an avid fan of Su Dong Po's poems.
But what really makes his opinion very interesting to me is because when he was still studying at Fu Dan University in Shanghai, China, he was selected in the first place (which consisted of a group of 20 chaligraphers) winner in Caligraphy national competition throughout the whole China at the University national level. He even did one chaligraphy writing to put on the wall for me for free based on Jin Yong's novels.
Now, My Chinese writing skills are crappy and I can hardly read anything, so I really can't differenciate the technical and literary skills of the two Wuxia writers, let alone reading the novels in Chinese without having to figure out and consult my dictionary every few characters. But here's what he thinks...
He really has tremendous respect for Jin Yong for taking the Wuxia genre to another level, his work showed some scholarly level and he HAS STYLE, the writings and coherency in his novels are distinctive, vivid, and profound. Jin Yong showed that he did his research throughout his writings and showed his own credibility in his writings. The bottom line is Jin Yong's writing is a really a work of a talented artist and qualified to be considered a Scholarly Piece of Arts
While on Gu Long, while he understands that they write in two different styles and Gu Long's style is totally the opposite of Jin Yong, but he said everyone can write like that, the wording is at low grade level, the writings don't show any high level proficieny in literature at all. His writings are meant to be read by low class workers, coolies, blue collar, non scholars. Basically he says Gu Long, although his stories are exciting to read, the technical aspect of writing itself cannot be considered a scholarly pieace of artworks like those of Jin Yong's
Just sharing what I heard.... For those who are well-versed in Chinese writing/reading and very proficient with Jin Yong/Gu Long writings, what do you guys think of this comparison ?