"Romance of the Mysterious and the Marauding" "Strange Heroes of the Frontier Beyond the Great Wall"

Author: Liang Yusheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Liang Yusheng's wuxia novels connect the heroic tales following Children of Heroism and Chivalry and the old wuxia of the Republican era, pioneering a new school of wuxia literature. They also paved the way for Jin Yong and Gu Long's wuxia world. He once described his position in the wuxia genre: "The pioneer of wuxia is Liang Yusheng; the one who brought it to greater heights is Jin Yong." In the 1960s and 1970s, he and Jin Yong together carried the banner of the new school of wuxia, earning the reputation of "Jin and Liang, rivals of their time." During their era, Liang Yusheng advocated that "the hero is the embodiment of the wisdom and virtue of the lower laboring classes," grounding heroic actions in justice, dignity, and love for the people, while discarding the old school's tendency toward revenge and bloodlust. Jin Yong further elevated this to "For the nation and the people—this is the greatest essence of a hero." Liang Yusheng's novels are renowned for their rich historical and literary knowledge, as well as their incorporation of classical poetry and folk sayings. His language is elegant and poetic, filled with the charm of scholarly refinement, often interspersed with verses and folk expressions. His writing style primarily inherits traditional techniques, frequently employing the chapter-based structure of traditional novels. The chapter titles are profound in meaning and skillfully balanced in parallelism, with plot developments possessing a rhythmic flow. His narrative also carries a distinct storyteller's tone. The characters in his wuxia novels are deeply moralized, with clear distinctions between heroes and villains. Each of his wuxia works is set against a specific historical backdrop, with plots meticulously crafted and steady in complexity. Some critics argue that the flaw in Liang Yusheng's novels lies in their "monotony," likely because he consistently maintained a "conventional" scholar's demeanor. Liang Yusheng himself once said, "I may have also been guilty of being 'far-fetched.' But in my works, 'far-fetched' is not the mainstream—it is not my style."