Dream of the Ages: The Wandering Swordsman (Illustrated Collector's Edition)

Author: Chen Pingyuan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-09-01
Features: The spirit of the wandering hero is worth attention, and it is not entirely the same as the future development of wuxia novels. The success of Jin Yong is both an honor for wuxia novels and a great challenge for successors: Can wuxia novels move forward further? Literary scholars and Jin Yong himself have promised that the emergence of great writers can elevate the status of a literary genre. This is naturally true, but it must be added: whether it can continue to develop depends on the potential of the genre and the size of the reserved space. From Three Heroes and Five Heroes to Smiling, Proud Wanderer, wuxia novels rapidly matured in over a hundred years. Lu Xun, in Outline of the History of Chinese Fiction, described "the chivalrous romance in the Qing Dynasty directly followed the lineage of the Song Dynasty's storytelling, and it was indeed the rebirth of popular literature after seven hundred years." Perhaps, the future of wuxia novels in the next century will depend on the involvement of new literary figures and the absorption of the traditional literary realm of the wandering hero. In a sense, Jin Yong has already done so, but I believe the steps could be taken even further. After all, for historians and literary scholars, the spirit of the wandering hero is an extremely challenging and alluring "eternal topic."