On the Critical Standards of Wuxia Fiction
by Jin Yong
This article by Mr. Jin Yong was published in 1957 in Hong Kong’s New Evening Post and was later lost. In 2015, Jin Yong Jianghu Forum1 poster “Emulating Lei Feng” found and copied the text of the article so that it could once again see the light of day. As everyone knows, although Mr. Jin Yong is a grandmaster of wuxia, he rarely wrote about his theories of wuxia literature. This article may be called a rare find and is extremely precious.
Recently someone published and article in the paper that was critical of wuxia fiction which led to a lot of debate. For the seventh anniversary of The New Evening Post, the editor asked me to write an article about wuxia fiction, so I am going to express my views on the subject.
If you take wuxia fiction as unadulterated entertainment to pass the time, then there is only one standard that has to be met: “does it interest the reader or not?” But clearly, the recent discussions have been treating wuxia fiction as a part of the national literature. For my part, I too hope wuxia fiction can be qualified to be considered “literature” and have been striving to write wuxia with that in mind, though I have not been successful at it so far.
When it comes to critiquing the good and bad of wuxia fiction, I think there are four main standards:
Theme
First is theme: A literary work inevitably has a theme. In some cases, the author intentionally strives to express the them; in other cases, the author writes freely, yet a theme still emerges. Some common themes of wuxia fiction are the affirmation of chivalric behavior, the code of brotherhood, resisting tyrannical, cruel governments, robbing the rich to help the poor, eliminating bullies and helping the downtrodden, not giving in to evil forces, etc. But in all cases, the author’s worldview, philosophy of life, and political views are invariably reflected in the work. The critic might stand in direct opposition go the author, leading to a differing appraisal of the work. For instance, defenders of orthodox tradition have long held Quell the Bandits in high regard, but have censured Water Margin. But for us, Water Margin is worth much more than Quell the Bandits.
Whether or not a work conveys its theme well is an important standard for criticism. I’ll use three of my own wuxia novels as examples. The theme I was going for with The Book and the Sword was: Don’t ever have illusions about a ruler who oppresses the people; you cannot compromise with him.” The theme of Sword Stained with Royal Blood was: The interests of a people’s revolution against a nation must be founded on the individual’s personal feelings and interests.” The theme of Legend of the Condor Heroes is: depicting how an honest, muddleheaded young man gradually grows up and matures to become a hero.” Personally, I’m not satisfied because these three themes were conveyed poorly. Even though Princess Fragrance wrote the book’s theme in her own blood on the sand: “Don’t trust the emperor”, I think most readers only remember the fights and romantic scenes and take no notice of the theme I was trying to convey, so it’s clear I didn’t handle it successfully.
All of Liang Yusheng’s novels have a clear theme, especially Dragon and Tiger Battle in the Capital. This is his major strong point.
Character Portrayal
Second is character portrayal: The most important artistic achievement in fiction and drama is character. Whether or not a work of art is successful depends mainly on whether or not the people are written vividly. A very insightful literary critic Koizumi Yakumo2 once said that after a decade or so away from friends and family, we might not remember their voice or expressions, but the characters from great literary works are unforgettable. Yet in the corpus of literature there are really not many characters that are vividly written. He believed that if an author could create just one successful character his whole life, then he could die without regrets.
The characters depicted in Water Margin hold an immortal place in world literature. Although Jin Shengtan said the 108 characters have 108 different features, but I think the only ones that were truly written successfully were Li Kui, Lin Chong, Lu Zhishen, Wu Song, Shi Xiu, and Song Jiang (Mr. Mao Dun believes there are more than a dozen important characters in that book with different features.”
If we use such high standards to evaluate wuxia fiction, then we would be overrating ourselves. Even so, I think it’s it’s still important to look at how well the characters are written when evaluating a work of literature. I think the literary value of Twelve Coin Darts is higher than that of Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains and Marvelous Xia of the Jianghu because the former depicts Flying Leopard, Yu Jianping, Yang Hua, Liu Yeqing, and Hua Yinhong successfully, and the latter two are successful at focusing on an interesting plot, which inevitably knocks them down a level.
Plot and Structure
Third is plot and structure: A strong plot is one of the national characteristics of our country’s chapter novels. But truly lively plots must abide by lively characters’ personalities and development. If a work isn’t backed by distinctive, flesh-and-blood characters, then even a story that is suspenseful with twists and turns, in the end it will not be able to leave a deep impression on the reader. The Battle of Red Cliff in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is better written than the Battle of Changping in Records of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms, I think mainly because the former has lively characters such as Cao Cao, Kongming, Zhou Yu, etc.; and the latter, though the scale and importance of the battle is greater, and there are twists and turns, but because Bai Qi, Zhao Kuo and others don’t have distinct personalities, the large-scale battle seems to be just another event.
Western fiction stresses structural technique, like some of Thomas Hardy’s works, which follow an almost flawless geometric pattern. In modern American novelist Henry James immensely influential horror novella The Turn of the Screw, the structure is like a screw, tightening and tightening the events and characters’ psychology level with perfect technique. Soviet novelist Fedin’s Cities and Years is even more original. Structure is important, but for literature it is not the most important thing.
Sword Stained with Royal Blood’s structure was influenced by Western fiction, at first employing it here and there, finally weaving seemingly scattered events into a single thread. As for technique, it’s a bit better than The Book and the Sword, but upon closer inspection, there really are too many traces of artificial polish that may not be that significant. When analyzing the artistic structure of Water Margin, Mr. Li Xifan believed that although it seemed loosely constructed on the surface, when taken as a whole, it is organically complete. I really agree with that view, because Water Margin uses what could be called a higher level compositional method, just like a master martial artist’s palm technique might seem sloppy, but it’s actually much more brilliant that the tightly performed conventional forms of lesser martial artists.
Wang Dulu’s style is much inferior, therefore reading his novels is really not as pleasant, but his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Armored Cavalry, Silver Vase, etc., has characters with introspection, and its structure is better than Twelve Coin Darts, and of course way better than Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains.
Portrayal of Setting
Fourth is the portrayal of setting: Great thinker Engels once said, “Realism, to my mind, implies, besides truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances.” Though realism is the best creative mode, it’s not the only creative mode. Wuxia fiction has always gone down the path of romanticism. But in wuxia fiction, even if you permit a lot of hyperbole, and permit the appearance of phenomena that deviate a lot from reality, but social context, people’s lives, political circumstances, etc., in a work must be written vividly and authentically. On this point, none of us seem to have come close to satisfying people (not to mention actually satisfying people). The dialogue in Legend of the Condor Heroes is definitely not the vernacular of people of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and the way of thinking, living customs, etc., are also not quite on the mark. Despite the considerable amount of time I spent researching the society and customs of the time period, my scholarship is limited and was not all that fruitful.
In my opinion, critiquing wuxia fiction (if this kind of criticism has any value) ought to be aimed at these four main points (in bourgeois literary criticism, conventional fiction analysis is divided into the three studies of character, plot and structure, and circumstance3). Everything else, such as martial arts description, weapon usage, palm and fist techniques, terms of address by seniority, the relations between factions, and other purely technical aspects, can never be treated as important departments of a wuxia novel. Mr. He Xin’s4 book, A Study of Water Margin, points out over a hundred errors of detail in Water Margin, including Pan Jinlian’s age, Song Renzong’s reign period, dates, geography, official titles, reasoning, seasons, etc., but those errors don’t detract from Water Margin’s greatness. Comparing Water Margin with the novels of us inconsequential authors is naturally inappropriate, but the principles are the same. Of course, we hope a wuxia novel’s particulars are perfect, but if the work is excellent, then even if the martial arts descriptions happen to be like that of others who came before, or there are a few plot holes or mistakes, it still wouldn’t influence its literary value. And comparisons of the trivialities of details is probably not very useful for “enhancing the standards of wuxia fiction”.
The above opinions may not be correct; I hope learned gentlemen will give me advice and comments.
Note: Jin Yong was supplemental editor at New Evening Post in 1952. In 1957, when this article was published, Jin Yong was in the middle of serializing Legend of the Condor Heroes for Hong Kong Commerical Daily. This was before he created his own newspaper, Ming Pao, which he founded in 1959.
Notes
- https://www.jyjh.cn/bbs/thread-67013-1-1.html
- aka Lafcadio Hearn
- aka setting. Jin Yong actually wrote it in English here next to the Chinese term, so I included it. But he means setting.
- aka Lu Dan’an (1894-1980)