Reflections on Masterpieces - The Gun That Breaks the Soul

Author: Lao She
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The Soul-Capturing Gun is a short story written by Lao She in 1935. At the beginning of that year, the author had planned to write a martial arts novel titled The Two Fists Masters, but due to various reasons, it was never completed. Therefore, he adapted one of the most exquisite segments into the short story The Soul-Capturing Gun. Like The Whispering Spirit, The Soul-Capturing Gun is widely regarded as one of Lao She's outstanding short stories. However, the language of The Soul-Capturing Gun is much easier to understand than The Whispering Spirit, yet it is profound and thought-provoking... ... The Soul-Capturing Gun was written in 1935. At the beginning of the year, Lao She had planned to write a martial arts novel titled The Two Fists Masters, but due to various reasons, it was never completed. Instead, he adapted one of the most exquisite segments into the short story The Soul-Capturing Gun. The story depicts Sha Zhilong, a legendary sharpshooter, who, in the era of revolvers and trains, when the role of the escort agency had lost its significance, still clung to his past glory and refused to accept reality. In terms of artistic execution, the story is quite polished and mature, especially the final ending, which is truly a stroke of genius. The Five Tiger Soul-Capturing Gun remains shrouded in mystery—how truly extraordinary it was, like the tail of a divine dragon that appeared but never revealed itself. After being mocked by his disciples, the divine shooter Sha Zhilong, on a quiet night when the streets were deserted, suddenly thrust out sixty-four guns with a single breath and gazed at the starry sky, lost in thoughts of his past glory in martial arts and the wild forests. He couldn't help but sigh at the futility of fate. With his fingers slowly tracing the cold barrel of the gun, a smile emerged as he spat out the four decisive words: "Not passed down, not passed down." The story ends abruptly. The aesthetic imagination space left for the readers is vast. That single phrase, "Not passed down," which seemed capable of piercing the night sky, was filled with such profound and heavy historical vicissitudes. A broken dream of the soul thus buried the culture of the past in solitude and silence, in tragedy and desolation. Everything seemed so sorrowful and helpless.