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Post by kyc on Dec 15, 2022 6:17:50 GMT
This is a review of a Gu Long series, Seven Weapons (《七種武器》). It is one of the four "series" GL wrote, the other three being the Xiaoli Feidao series, the Chu Liuxiang series, and the Lu Xiaofeng series.
This series is not completed by GL, and it lacks one final novel to complete the seven short novels. The last novel has been completed by Fists (《拳頭》), Seven Killers(《七殺手》)or Heroes Shed No Tears (《英雄無淚》) in many editions, but in my opinion, GL never really completed this series. One theme that runs through all six is the secret organization "Green Dragon Sect" (青龍會), but those three novels do not feature this sect.
Each weapon is accompanied by a short novel: Longevity Sword (《長生劍》), Peacock Quill (《孔雀翎》), Emerald Saber (《碧玉刀》), Amorous Hoop (《多情環》), Separation Hook (《離別鉤》), and Hegemon Spear (《霸王槍》). To be honest, I consider all of them second-tier works with none of them as important as the other three series GL wrote. In fact, right at this moment, I have a hard time recalling the plots of all six works. I stopped at the fourth novel for a month and realized to my horror that I have forgotten the plots of these earlier parts, whereas I can still remember what happened in the Chu Liuxiang series I read three months ago.
In short, I consider Seven Weapons the least significant series GL wrote. It could be because it does not have a memorable hero like Chu Liuxiang or Lu Xiaofeng. As a result, you hardly see these novels made at all into movies or TV series. And if you are not a completist, you may consider skipping them as I personally did not derive that much pleasure reading these short novels with less memorable heroes.
Next, I will attempt to finish the Chu Liuxiang series.
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Post by kyc on Dec 15, 2022 6:21:41 GMT
finally my interface when browsing this forum is back to normal! let's discuss Juedai shuangjiao zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%95%E4%BB%A3%E9%9B%99%E9%A9%95from that wiki page, if my intuition is not wrong; - Ni Kuang is involved on some chapters - this is the only work that Gu Long revised - there are some editions/version of novel -- TigerWong (he is gulong expert btw) @spcnet said: "And in some versions of the Legendary Siblings, it's mentioned that Shen Lang, Xiao WangSun, the Purple Marquis, and either the Night Emperor or the Day Empress knew Ming Yu Shen Gong (clear jade skill). In addition to the two Princesses, of course." but then i checked the english translation on spcnet, that paragraph doesnt exist. www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/11810-Legendary-Siblings-Unabridged-(COMPLETED)/page5#.Y5beU3ZBw2wthen i checked the indonesian translation, i found the paragraph similar to what TigerWong said. i checked baidu about Ming Yu Shen Gong, no info about practitioners other than two floral princesses. my conclusion is there are a few version of juedai shuangjiao, perhaps Gu Long revised the story, but i am not clear. could someone enlighten me? Welcome back! You have been sorely missed. I should think Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source of information on wuxia. It is highly possible GL revised The Legendary Siblings. Other than that I cannot help you.
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Post by Lone Crane on Dec 24, 2022 12:19:05 GMT
@all members who've read GL's works, which books would you say are the best and most representative ones of the entire opus? and which one would you say is a good first-ever story for someone who's never read GL? I think Parting Hook 離別鉤 deserves special mention. It's tightly plotted, one of the few Gu Long novels (maybe the only one?) that was plotted out in advance. It would be a good first read for a new reader (if it were translated). Also The Sound of a Sabre Among the Windchimes 風鈴中的刀聲 is right up their with Horizon, Bright Moon, Sabre, very similar writing style. It's just the very end is bad. It was ghostwritten by Yu Donglou and one wonders if he even read the novel up to that point because the characters don't act like they should. But everything up to that point is very very good. Gu Long at his best. According to Ding Qing, this novel was dictated to him by Gu Long. Gu Long was not able to write much at that time, having had his wrist stabbed and almost died a year or so earlier. This novel isn't translated either, but I did translate the prologue and Gu Long's preface to the novel, and I wrote a bit about the novel here: wuxiawanderings.com/windchimes-horse-hooves-sabre-gu-long/My go-to recommendation for a first read though is Sword of the Third Young Master. It's not too long, the grammar in the translation is good (if memory serves), and it has Gu Long's signature writing style. Heroes Shed No Tears is a good beginner novel too for the same reasons.
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Post by Lone Crane on Dec 24, 2022 12:43:01 GMT
finally my interface when browsing this forum is back to normal! let's discuss Juedai shuangjiao zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B5%95%E4%BB%A3%E9%9B%99%E9%A9%95from that wiki page, if my intuition is not wrong; - Ni Kuang is involved on some chapters - this is the only work that Gu Long revised - there are some editions/version of novel -- TigerWong (he is gulong expert btw) @spcnet said: "And in some versions of the Legendary Siblings, it's mentioned that Shen Lang, Xiao WangSun, the Purple Marquis, and either the Night Emperor or the Day Empress knew Ming Yu Shen Gong (clear jade skill). In addition to the two Princesses, of course." but then i checked the english translation on spcnet, that paragraph doesnt exist. www.spcnet.tv/forums/showthread.php/11810-Legendary-Siblings-Unabridged-(COMPLETED)/page5#.Y5beU3ZBw2wthen i checked the indonesian translation, i found the paragraph similar to what TigerWong said. i checked baidu about Ming Yu Shen Gong, no info about practitioners other than two floral princesses. my conclusion is there are a few version of juedai shuangjiao, perhaps Gu Long revised the story, but i am not clear. could someone enlighten me? Welcome back! You have been sorely missed. I should think Wikipedia is a fairly reliable source of information on wuxia. It is highly possible GL revised The Legendary Siblings. Other than that I cannot help you. Yes, Gu Long did revise The Legendary Siblings. He replaced the section that Ni Kuang wrote during Gu Long's absence when it was first serialized in Jin Yong's Wuxia & History magazine. Cheng Weijun's 程維鈞 book《本色古龍:古龍小說原貌探究》goes into this in detail (and for every other Gu Long book as well). Really great book that explains the differences of the different editions of GL's work and who ghostwrote what and exactly which parts were ghostwritten. I took some quick pics of the Legendary Siblings section from my copy if anyone wants to read all the details:
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Post by texture on Dec 25, 2022 3:52:10 GMT
@ Lone Crane, Welcome back to the forums! I was thinking of suggesting to atumiwa that he try asking you on your twitter account, but you are now back here too.
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Post by atumiwa on Dec 27, 2022 8:47:18 GMT
thank you @lone Crane , you are amazingly resourceful and helpful!
i am curious, other than the legendary siblings, which works did Gu Long revise?
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Post by Lone Crane on Dec 27, 2022 14:30:48 GMT
thank you @lone Crane , you are amazingly resourceful and helpful! i am curious, other than the legendary siblings, which works did Gu Long revise? 《情人箭》(Lover's Arrow) and 《大旗英雄傳》(Legend of the Big Banner Hero) were revised by Gu Long. In 1979 the publisher 漢麟 (Hanlin) wanted to put out three of Gu Long's earlier books: Lover's Arrow, Banner Hero, and Washing Flowers, Cleansing the Sword 《浣花洗劍錄》. Gu Long wrote a preface that's included in that edition of Banner Hero explaining that he wanted to fix them up, remove extraneous words, tighten the prose, etc. Washing Flowers never got this treatment, but Lover's Arrow and Banner Hero did. Gu Long changed the chapters, combining some, changing chapter titles at times, and he added the scene breaks characteristic of his later writing style. He also tightened up the prose in places. So it was like a good proofread and revision, but not the major overhaul that say Jin Yong gave to his entire body of work (in some cases his revisions would be best described as rewritings). There's a rumor that all this revision was done in order to circumvent copyright and avoid a lawsuit by the original publisher, Zhen-Shan-Mei (真善美). So Hanlin changed the titles of the novels and Gu Long did some revising. That's the theory anyway for why they were revised. Lover's Arrow's revised version is called Angry Sword《怒劍》and Banner Hero's is 《鐵血大旗》(Big Banner of Iron and Blood).
My source for this info is the book I mentioned above, beginning on pg.124.
You can check out the revised version of Banner Hero here (in Chinese of course; these novels under discussion have not been translated to English): www.gulongbbs.com/book/txdq/
You can compare with the original Banner Hero here: www.gulongbbs.com/book/dqyxz/
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Post by kyc on Sept 2, 2023 13:08:29 GMT
It took me nine months to finish reading The New Legends of Chu Liuxiang (《楚留香新傳》) but it's worth it! It continues the high standards of the earlier Chu Liuxiang series. Each novel is almost a standalone. Sometimes the continuation between each installment isn't so obvious. 1. <借屍還魂> Reviving a Soul by Borrowing a Corpse: Two young ladies from different families seem to have exchanged their souls. Obviously something is amiss and Chu Liuxiang enters to investigate. 2. <蝙蝠傳奇> The Legend of the Bat: A series of murders committed on a ship brought Chu Liuxiang, Hu Tiehua, and some friends to Bat Island where they muster courage and brains to outwit the island lord. 3. <桃花傳奇> The Legend of Peach Blossoms: Chu Liuxiang keeps meeting girls and falls deeply in love with one of them. It leads him to a secret cult where he marries their holy maiden. (Sounds a bit like Xiaozhao.) This novel has some emotional resonance for me. 4. <新月傳奇> The Legend of the New Moon: Hu Tiehua is tasked to bring Princess Yujian to marry Heavenly King Shi. Although Chu Liuxiang tries to stop this, for once he is stumped... 5. <午夜蘭花> Orchid at Midnight: This is the strangest of the many novels I have read by Gu Long. Not only is the style (long paragraphs) very far from what you expect from him, but he also uses an almost post-modernist technique to end the novel. Chu Liuxiang appears very briefly here. This is one of GL's last books, and sees him experimenting here more than I ever saw him did. Of all the installments, I thought the 1 was the weakest. 5 was like... what on earth is going on... until I reached the midway point of the novel. I suppose you can call it a nice challenge. OK, there are only the Lu Xiaofeng series and The Legendary Siblings left for me. I don't intend to read his very early novels...
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Post by siuyiu on Sept 3, 2023 2:16:41 GMT
kyc yes, the last book of the series is weird, even for GL standards. you'll find the last book of the LXF similarly weird. thanks for continuing to share your thoughts!
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