Despite quite a bit of pressure in meeting my end of semester essays and exams, I have been able to find a little time to do a bit of light reading and I had been meaning to get round to this book for a while - it is a historical novel of the founder of Baguazhang - Dong Hai Chuan. There is not much historical documentation on Dong Hai Chuan, and Baguazhang is not as well known as Taiji in the martial arts circles, so it is gratifying that a book has been written at all about this mysterious individual. This novel was also serialized on Chinese TV into a 30 episode drama. I have been reluctant in the past to read modern (80s and after) martial arts novels, (manga on the other hand is different) because they all fall in the shadow of the great master Louis Cha (Jin Yong), and many of the writers are less learned and less skilled than he is, and repeat many of the same tropes. There are a number of reasons that I gave in on this one. For Zhang Bao Rui's books, the most important part of which is his reputation. He is well known as one of the best of mainland China's current crop of martial arts authors, having written nine full length novels as well as the series 《京都武林長卷》 which deals with martial artists in Beijing. One of his characteristics is that he deals with historical individuals including many of the giants of internal martial arts and his books are quite scrupulously researched. Thus there are books on Yang Lu Chuan 楊露禪、 Guo Yun Shen 郭雲深、and Yin Fu 尹福 as well as Wang Xiang Zhai. He also managed to obtain prefaces to his novels from such famous martial arts novelists as Liang Yu Sheng 梁羽生、Liu Shao Tang 劉紹棠、Xiao Yi 蕭逸, which function as endorsements, but notably none from Jin Yong.
So how does the book measure up? At 253 pages it is pretty light in comparison to a regular Jin Yong novel, and after reading the book one does not have much psychological insight into Dong's character (he is really quite bad at character development). The novel also retreads many of the same tired set pieces such as going to the mountain to study, the stealing of a martial arts manual, rebellion against a foreign dynasty (in this case the Qing Dynasty) and finding the antidote to a virulent poison. But the book does have its own charm, as Zhang Bao Rui does description very well, describing landscapes and clothes and appearance in a lyrical classical language with passages reminiscent of the Dream of Red Mansions. The other fun part of the book is the regular cameos by famous internal martial artists and it is a game of mine to check which ones are fictional and which ones are real historical figures. Yang Lu Chuan, Liu De Kuan, Ma Wei Qi, Yin Fu and Cheng Ting Hua all make appearances and there is also a set piece in Chen Jia Gou. Zhang also does quite a good job in using real names for martial arts moves in the novel.
Xiao Yi describes martial arts novels as "fairy tales for adults" and in many ways this is just fun escapism on par with "Game of Thrones" or "The Hunger Games". Not Booker Prize winning stuff, but nice for the nights when you want to switch off your brain. Would definitely recommend it to internal artists to test their trivia (see if you catch all the references!)
So how does the book measure up? At 253 pages it is pretty light in comparison to a regular Jin Yong novel, and after reading the book one does not have much psychological insight into Dong's character (he is really quite bad at character development). The novel also retreads many of the same tired set pieces such as going to the mountain to study, the stealing of a martial arts manual, rebellion against a foreign dynasty (in this case the Qing Dynasty) and finding the antidote to a virulent poison. But the book does have its own charm, as Zhang Bao Rui does description very well, describing landscapes and clothes and appearance in a lyrical classical language with passages reminiscent of the Dream of Red Mansions. The other fun part of the book is the regular cameos by famous internal martial artists and it is a game of mine to check which ones are fictional and which ones are real historical figures. Yang Lu Chuan, Liu De Kuan, Ma Wei Qi, Yin Fu and Cheng Ting Hua all make appearances and there is also a set piece in Chen Jia Gou. Zhang also does quite a good job in using real names for martial arts moves in the novel.
Xiao Yi describes martial arts novels as "fairy tales for adults" and in many ways this is just fun escapism on par with "Game of Thrones" or "The Hunger Games". Not Booker Prize winning stuff, but nice for the nights when you want to switch off your brain. Would definitely recommend it to internal artists to test their trivia (see if you catch all the references!)
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