10-21-2008, 12:01 PM
stupid title is too long...
Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel by John Christopher Hamm
I'm posting this because I know CF is also reading it and maybe it'll bait him into posting.
Jin Yong is hard to fathom. Imagine if Stephen King was crossed with William Randolph Hearst and instead of writing horror, it was martial arts serials. Jin Yong built an empire - his books are the most widely read in China outside of Mao's Little Red Book (and you had to read that or be shot). His stories have become movies, videogames, comic books, and the formation myths of many martial arts styles. His impact on Chinese culture is astounding and to think it was all built on these cheesey martial arts stories. He started writing these serials for the newspapers and they became so popular that he started his own paper with his stories as a centerpiece.
Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel is an academic work, so it's dry and dense, but simply fascinating if you know anything about Jin Yong. A must read for serious martial arts researchers, because it's a cypher for many origin myths and movies. A lot has been translated and they are entertaining reads. Of course, there's a lot of movies too, but those are often hard to decode without knowing the stories. The serials are long, so it's like making a movie from one chapter of Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, over to CF. He'll reply someday. Maybe when he gets out of jail.
Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel by John Christopher Hamm
I'm posting this because I know CF is also reading it and maybe it'll bait him into posting.
Jin Yong is hard to fathom. Imagine if Stephen King was crossed with William Randolph Hearst and instead of writing horror, it was martial arts serials. Jin Yong built an empire - his books are the most widely read in China outside of Mao's Little Red Book (and you had to read that or be shot). His stories have become movies, videogames, comic books, and the formation myths of many martial arts styles. His impact on Chinese culture is astounding and to think it was all built on these cheesey martial arts stories. He started writing these serials for the newspapers and they became so popular that he started his own paper with his stories as a centerpiece.
Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel is an academic work, so it's dry and dense, but simply fascinating if you know anything about Jin Yong. A must read for serious martial arts researchers, because it's a cypher for many origin myths and movies. A lot has been translated and they are entertaining reads. Of course, there's a lot of movies too, but those are often hard to decode without knowing the stories. The serials are long, so it's like making a movie from one chapter of Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, over to CF. He'll reply someday. Maybe when he gets out of jail.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse