Chapter 52 postscript

When rewriting and revising, Mr. Chen Shixiang's kind and graceful face always floated in my heart, and I remembered his demeanor of holding a pipe and talking about learning.Chinese people do not have the habit of dedicating a book to a certain teacher or friend when they write books, but I am eager to add a sentence in the "Postscript": "This book is dedicated to a friend I respect and love-Mr. Chen Shixiang .” It’s a pity that he is no longer in this world.I hope his spirit in heaven knows my little intentions. Mr. Chen and I have only met twice, which is not enough to say that we have a deep friendship.He wrote me two letters and said many things that I was really ashamed of.With his knowledge and academic status, this kind of praise is really too much.Maybe it's because of his preference for traditional Chinese novels, maybe because we have something in common in our views on the world, but his evaluation is, in any case, more than I deserve.My gratitude and joy, apart from being recognized by such a famous literary critic and thus increasing my confidence, is also because he pointed out that martial arts novels are not purely entertaining and boring works, and they can also express the sorrows of the world. Huan can express a deeper realm of life.

At that time, I thought that if I publish a booklet in the future, I must ask Mr. Chen to write a preface.Now I can only attach two letters from Mr. Chen to the back of the book to commemorate this friend.Of course, readers will understand that it is also showing the praise of a famous artist.Anyone who writes expects his work to be well received.If the reader does not appreciate it, the author's work becomes meaningless.It is of course very happy for me that someone reads my novel and is happy.Mr. Chen died young, and wept for a long time when he heard the sad news. There is a sentence in Mr. Chen's letter: "I'm still looking for the Christmas movie of the Four Great Evil Men, but I haven't seen it."Once he saw a Christmas card in a bookstore, with four people painted on it. Mr. Xia felt that the expressions and looks were very similar to the "Four Great Evil Men" written in the book, so he bought it, wrote my name, and wrote a few words on it. A word of appreciation would like to send it to me.But we have never met, and he asked Mr. Chen to forward it.Mr. Chen put it among the sundries, but he couldn't find it later.Mr. Xia Ji'an mentioned my martial arts novels several times in his articles, and he spoke highly of them.Although my friendship with his brother Mr. Xia Zhiqing is quite good, but I have a little relationship with him, and I have never been able to see him, and I have not even received this Christmas card.When I read "Xia Ji'an's Diary" and other works, I often regretted that such a talented person with a deep personality and affection was only destined for one side after all.

In 1963, it was serialized simultaneously in Ming Pao and Nanyang Siang Pau in Singapore, and it was written for four years.During the trip outside Hong Kong, Brother Ni Kuang was asked to write more than 40,000 characters.The paragraph written by Brother Ni Kuang is an independent plot, the content is the battle between Murong Fu and Ding Chunqiu in the inn. Although it is exciting, it has no necessary connection with the whole book. It's gone, only the section about Ding Chunqiu making Ah Zi blind is preserved, it cannot be deleted.So I asked him to write it on my behalf, because it was inconvenient for the newspaper to serialize the manuscript for a long time.But publishing a booklet, there is no reason to keep someone else's work as your own for a long time. All the words in "Jin Yong's Works Collection", no matter good or bad, are 100% written by Jin Yong himself, and there is no ghostwriting.Here is an accompanying explanation, and I would like to express my gratitude to Brother Ni Kuang for his generosity in writing.

1978.10 When the re-edition was published in October 1978, it was substantially revised.This time the third edition has been rewritten, added and deleted a lot (a total of three years and six revisions).Some additions may be unnecessary in literature, such as the relationship between Wu Yazi, Ding Chunqiu and Li Qiushui, the relationship between Murong Bo and Jiumozhi, the attitude of Shaolin Temple towards Xiao Feng, and Duan Yu's attitude towards Wang Yuyan who finally got rid of the "heart". "Magic" and other plots, the original book leaves a lot of space for readers to make up for it by their own imagination, but there are also gaps and ambiguities.Chinese readers have a habit of reading novels, and they don’t like to rely on their own imaginations. They must write truthfully, so they are relieved: “So that’s the case, this is it!” Especially many young readers insist on such affirmation. Perhaps it is the advantage of our Chinese character: we pay attention to reality and rationality, and feel uneasy about unfounded romantic fictions.Therefore, I have filled in the original blanks as clearly as possible. Perhaps those who love ethereal feeling feel that this writing is quite "clumsy", so I have to ask for your forgiveness.Because in my personality, there are more clumsy and steady elements than smart and ethereal elements.

The personalities and martial arts skills of the characters in "Dragon" are exaggerated or impossible in fact, such as "Six Meridians Sword", "Flame Knife", "Beiming Magical Art", Wu Yazi's transmission of martial arts, and Child Elder's rejuvenation etc.Readers are asked to think about the surrealism and symbolism styles in modernist paintings, for example, in a painting, a woman has two heads facing left and right. In art, expressions that are divorced from reality are allowed. So far, no Chinese or foreign geophysicist has accused "Zhuangzi·Xiaoyaoyou" of being unscientific.Zhuangzi said that when the rocs migrated southward, "the one who climbs 90,000 li", but according to geophysics, it is more than 17 kilometers above the ground, called the tropopause (tropopause), the temperature is extremely low, and then it goes up to the stratosphere (stratosphere). ), the temperature increases, due to physical effects, the air is only convenient for horizontal movement, and it is extremely difficult to raise it vertically, because after the high-temperature air rises, the low-temperature air below cannot rise to supplement it, and the middle is disconnected.The upper limit of this layer is about fifty kilometers above the ground.Even the air is not easy to rise to more than 50 kilometers. Zhuangzi, the big roc, is going to rise to 90,000 li (45,000 kilometers), I am afraid it will be a bit difficult.I believe that botanists will also accuse Zhuangzi of saying that "in ancient times, the spring was 8,000 years old, and the autumn was 8,000 years old". I am afraid there is no such long-lived plant in the world; There will be.There are natural scientists in China who insist on studying whether the "Six Vessels Excalibur" is possible. I wonder if foreign entomologists have studied whether the person suddenly turned into a big beetle in Kafka's novel is possible in terms of human physiology or entomology. .

Some literary critics require that any novel must abide by the principle of realism.Chairman Mao Zedong's "Yan'an Literature and Art Symposium Speech" principle, mainland writers must abide by it before and after the Cultural Revolution, and the standard has been relaxed for a few days, and they have the freedom to follow it or not.Since ancient times, our country's literary and artistic creation has focused on galloping imagination, but today's people are stuck in reality, which is unavoidably pedantic.In the past, some pedantic people commented that Li Bai's poem "white hair three thousand feet" is too long; "the morning is like blue silk and the evening is snow"; Over ten thousand mountains", from Baidi City to Jiangling, there are too many ten thousand mountains, and the thousand and one hundred are not close.Another pedantic person (in fact, Shen Kuo is not a pedantic person) commented on Bai Juyi and said: "'There are few people walking under Mount Emei, and the flags are dark and the sun is thin'. Mount Emei is in Jiazhou. Tang Xuanzong entered Sichuan from Chang'an without passing through Mount Emei." It is not a travelogue, but this poem only uses Mount Emei to represent Sichuan.He also commented on Du Fu's poem "The Ancient Cypress of Wuhou Temple", saying: "'Shuangpi slips in the rain forty weeks, and the color of black towers two thousand feet'. The forty circles are seven feet in diameter, and the tree is two thousand feet high. Is it too slender?" Some commentators said that Wu Song went from Yanggu County, Shandong Province to Qinghe County to visit his brother Wu Dalang without passing through Jingyanggang.However, Wu Song's fight against tigers in Jingyanggang is an ancient legend. If you don't pass Jingyanggang, you won't hit the eye-catching white-fronted tiger. Except for the protection of rare animals, everyone feels regretful.

It is a wonderful book, but there are many unreasonable things. For example, Li Kui took Gongsun Sheng, which was blocked by real Luo. Replace it with a gourd.On the road, Dai Zong, the Taibao of Shenxing, tied Li Kui's legs with a first-class horse. As soon as he chanted the mantra, Li Kui would gallop and could not stop, and he could travel 800 miles a day. Bring one more person, and the three of them will surely win the gold, silver and bronze medals.It is written that Guan Gong was killed by Lu Meng, and the ghost of Guan Gong yelled at Yuquan Mountain: "Give me back my head!" Then he went to Lu Meng's body and made him beat Sun Quan, then fell to the ground and died. In the section "Marquis of Wuxiang Curse Wang Lang to Death", it is written that when Zhuge Liang was fighting on the battlefield, he scolded the enemy coach Situ Wang Lang. It seems unbelievable to scold the opponent's coach to death after a swearing.However, it is a wonderful book from ancient to modern times, and it cannot be judged whether it is good or bad based on whether it is actually possible.

Mr. Wang Guowei praised the phrase "Last night the westerly wind withered the green trees, I went up to the tall building alone, and looked at the end of the world".Mr. He Zuoma, an academician of the Academy of Sciences, is a famous physicist. He often criticizes the supernatural powers promoted by Falun Gong from an academic point of view, which is quite admirable.The author had a meeting with Mr. He in Beijing the year before last. Mr. He first stated that he was a fan of "Jin Yong's novels", and then pointed out: "There is only one kind of force in physics, and human power should have no distinction between internal and external forces, but martial arts novels say For a long time, readers have been used to accepting that using qigong to use internal force to attack opponents externally, readers have no objection, this is a conventional fiction in art, and there is no need to investigate whether it is true.” The author agrees with Mr. All kinds of habitual general fictions are like the paintings of Huashan Mountain by the painters of the National People's Congress today. They exaggerate its majesty and precipitousness, often with cliffs and no way to go up. In fact, there are often hundreds of people who go up the mountain every day. It is a good painting (not a map), and no one denies it.Back then, Su Dongpo used ink brush to paint bamboo, which was very elegant. Some people criticized him, saying: "Is there any red bamboo in the world?" Su asked, "But is there black ink bamboo?" .The author does not dare to admit that this book can be compared with the above-mentioned works of art, but I know that art does not necessarily correspond to reality, good or bad.

2002.11