Jin Yong stopped writing novels at the age of 48

[BlackRaven]

I'm surprised to learn that Jin Yong wrote wuxia novels for only 15 years, stopping at the age of 48. That seems very young for a writer.

George R. R. Martin, the author of A Game of Thrones is 65 and is planning on writing 2 more books to complete his Song of Fire and Ice saga.

I sometimes wonder if at the age of 53 or 55, Jin Yong suddenly had the urge or inspiration to write again.

On the other hand, Jin Yong has written novels covering pretty much every dynasty period. And the page count of all his novels is very high, his 15 novels probably hold more words than what most authors write during their lifetime. Furthermore, if one were to translate his Chinese works into english, that would increase the word count even further, since each Chinese sentence requires more words in English, due to the structure of the language.

Do you guys feel that Jin Yong could have come up with more ideas and kept writing wuxia? I heard that his last works were still as good, or in some cases even better than his earlier works. I have not read The Deer and the Cauldron, but I have heard good praise about it. Sword of the Yue Maiden I have read, thanks to Bliss' fine translation, and I enjoyed it very much.

The pace that Jin Yong wrote is astounding though. Perhaps we take it for granted, when compared to writers like GRRM who take their sweet time and make us wait 5 or 6 years between novels.

[kidd]

I think Jin Yong is smart to stop at the peak. In this way, he will always be remembered as the best wuxia novelist. If he keep on writing and his subsequent books are not as good, it might pull down is overall reputation.

Every novel of Jin Yong also seem to have its unique theme. If he write more, there will be a danger of his work becoming repetitive.

Lastly, I remember reading that Jin Yong want to focus on more literary stuff (wuxia genre was not very highly regarded by the literature circle).

[Trien Chieu]

I think Jin Yong is smart to stop at the peak. In this way, he will always be remembered as the best wuxia novelist. If he keep on writing and his subsequent books are not as good, it might pull down is overall reputation.

Every novel of Jin Yong also seem to have its unique theme. If he write more, there will be a danger of his work becoming repetitive.

Yeah, if you look at other authors who wrote way way more novels than JY's, their best novels are at around JY greatness but some of their novels aren't that good and they are less popular than JY. I guess quality is more important than quantity in this case. Wuxia serials are no longer as popular as they were back then during the 70s and 80s. When you watch 70s/80s wuxia serials (ATV/TVB), you can feel the characters as great martial artists as they would rely on hand to hand combat and win the fights by techniques. You are no longer have that feeling when you watch current wuxia serials. They are more like magicians and superman than martial artists. It's also hurt that Mainland China keep making remake instead of making serials based on new novels.