Jin Yong's works

Author: Ge Tao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: By intuition, one feels it is a high-quality work. It can produce the major functions mentioned in literary theory: cognition, education, aesthetics, and entertainment. It offers a feeling similar to or even superior to reading classic masterpieces—it gives beauty, purification, and strength. A professor from Peking University, after sustaining a leg injury, read Jin Yong's novels and gained the strength to stand up again. Some students, after experiencing heartbreak, read Jin Yong's novels and restored their belief in life. Tolstoy said that the mark of true art is its ability to move people. Kant stated that pure aesthetic judgment does not depend on stimuli or emotions. Jin Yong's novels possess immense artistic, sufficient to warrant a judgment of them as high-brow art. However, because they are martial arts novels, containing fights and martial arts skills, they are often dismissed as having "bad origins," and people hesitate to give them high praise for fear of losing face. The University of Peking honorary professorship and, which was not well understood by some people, mostly out of good intentions, who lamented the "mixing of highbrow and lowbrow distinctions." Indeed, for Jin Yong's works, all of this ultimately focuses on heroes like Linghu Chong, Hu Fei, Zhang Wuji, and Yang Guo. Their common traits can be expressed by Jin Yong's description of Yingying: "In life, one values only personal freedom and the expression of one's individuality. The only thing that truly matters is love." For them, life is precious, but freedom is even more so. If love is the reason, both can be abandoned. For example, in Chapter 45 of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, the author lets Wang Yuanyan quote Murong Fu's words: "A true man should prioritize great undertakings. If one is too sentimental and lacks heroic spirit, then one is not a hero," to refute Duan Yu's belief that "the most important thing in life is mutual affection between husband and wife." On the surface, it seems quite noble, but as the story progresses, it gradually reveals that Murong's so-called "great undertakings" are actually a base desire for power and a mediocre dream of wealth and status, rooted in selfishness. This, in turn, subverts and deconstructs this "heroic theory," restoring the reputation of Duan Yu's "freedom above all, love supreme" stance. It is clear that the untamed heroes in Jin Yong's works differ fundamentally from various Taoist figures in that they oppose a "collectivism" that suppresses individuality, but they do not oppose "society." Their insistence on maintaining individual dignity is precisely their stance against selfishness. Because "selfishness is not the self-awareness and self-affirmation of individuality; on the contrary, it is self-negation and self-destruction." Clearly, this is precisely why Jin Yong so firmly created his protagonists, almost without exception, as lovers of love, and why the theme of "love" resonates throughout his world. Because "only one force can fundamentally shake self-centeredness from within, and that is love, particularly sexual love." Only from this perspective can we better understand why Jin Yong finally confessed to the world: "I admire women." This reminds us of Rodin's famous quote: "For us artists, gentle women are the mediators between us and God." In a sense, all great artists are ideal...