What kind of crisis does martial arts novels face in the post-Jin Yong era?

Wushu culture in China has a long history. Since the Tang Dynasty, martial arts novels, a popular literature, have begun to rise. Today, martial arts novels have become a part of China's traditional culture. Martial arts novels are set in ancient times, telling stories of wandering children in rivers and lakes. Some martial arts novels are set in real history, interspersed with hatred between the country and the family, which makes the essential content of the novels rise to another height.

No matter whether the martial arts novels are about Jianghu legends or feelings of home and country, their stories are actually fictions of novelists and the products of fantasy. Of course, these fictional martial arts stories are all reflections of real life, and they are a kind of cultural imagination between reality and ideal. And I prefer to regard martial arts novels as fairy tales, and they are adult fairy tales. Adults read martial arts novels mostly for entertainment. The author talks nonsense, and the readers read it for nothing. In reading, let your soul squeezed by real life be liberated and relaxed; Let the things lost in life be comforted and compensated in the fantasy world. In this process of entertainment and re-entertainment, readers are subtly influenced by the cultural values in the novel.

In order to meet the reading needs of readers and the author's self-style, different types of martial arts novels came into being. Fan Yanqiao said in the fifth article of "History of Man and Old Novels" when talking about the types of martial arts novels:

"Martial arts novels can be divided into several types. One is a combination of history and folklore, specializing in boxing and fighting. This narrative is more reasonable and does not involve Machamp's confusion. Most of them are about the struggle between the two sides, or the private struggle caused by the emotional struggle between martial artists of various factions, or the contradictory stories between the government, the escort agency and the green forest; Although the second type also combines some historical events, it specializes in writing martial arts without fairy tales. However, the content of martial arts is unreasonable. There are superhuman skills such as palm wind that can hurt people and make enemies, and magic such as treasure sword. Although the background of the story is still the world society, it has lost its realism. The third is to describe the illusory battle between the sword and the fairy. The story is more mysterious and worse than the former. "

Fan Yanqiao talked about several types and narrative modes of old martial arts novels from ancient times to the Republic of China, while Liang Yusheng, Jin Yong, Gu Long and other new martial arts novelists carried out modern transformation of martial arts novels, among which Jin Yong made the greatest achievement. Jin Yong injected modern consciousness into martial arts novels. On the surface, the background and characters of martial arts novels are still ancient, but his emotional consciousness is the consciousness of modern people. In addition to good and evil, the characters in martial arts novels also have both good and evil, which are similar to evil, showing complex human nature and deep thinking, which is far from the old tradition and has modern style.

Like Jin Yong, Liang Yusheng, Gu Long and other martial arts novelists also introduced modern novel techniques into martial arts novels, which improved the stylistic significance of martial arts novels, thus holding the same view with orthodox serious literature and gradually being accepted by people. However, both the old and the new martial arts are facing the needs of the reader market, constantly seeking novelty and change for selling points, and pursuing strangeness and excitement, which makes the fairy tale virtuality of martial arts novels go to the extreme. In this way, the old and new martial arts novels, written and written, will always fall into the strange circle of fate, which will always bring some negative effects. Therefore, with the development of the new martial arts novels today, there has been a "post-Jin Yong era" outlet problem. What are the specific problems? Let me explain it in detail.

The strange circle of martial arts novels: the evolution from "martial arts" to "no martial arts"

As the name implies, martial arts novels are based on "martial arts". There is an old school of martial arts novels, just like Fan Yanqiao said, which specializes in boxing and martial arts and does not involve the Machamp Rebellion. This kind of martial arts novels are still close to the ancient martial arts in China, but the disadvantage is that they are unpretentious and difficult to read. Contrary to this kind of martial arts novels, fantasy martial arts novels, such as the story of the swordsman in The Legend of the Swordsman in Shushan, and magical monsters, are really bizarre and absurd, and have also attracted criticism and dissatisfaction from serious writers.

Indeed, from the genre of martial arts novels, the change from martial arts to magic is actually the development from "martial arts" to "no martial arts", which brings crisis to martial arts novels. The new school of martial arts novelists reversed this crisis and injected vitality into martial arts novels. But when it comes to martial arts, in addition to the fictional "internal skills" introduced from Buddhist classics or ancient Qigong, it is light martial arts such as crossing the river with eighteen palms, crossing the river with reeds hard to grasp, and stepping through the snow without trace, and then deadly martial arts such as blue fingers and yang fingers. These inexplicable martial arts, written later, are all helpless.

Zhang Sanfeng taught Tai Ji Chuan and Taiji Sword in Zhang Wuji in "The Dragon Slayer with Eternal Hand", not only because of his gentle martial arts, but also because Zhang Wuji had to learn and forget at the same time in order to learn the essence of Tai Ji Chuan and Taiji Sword. Wei Xiaobao, the hero of Duke of Lushan, has no martial arts except running away. He is simply a hooligan, but such a person has done many things that a great hero can't do. Wu, became no Wu; Who knows what Xiao Li's flying knife technique is like in Gu Long's martial arts novels? Only at every critical moment can the problem of the knife flying out of the sleeve be solved. This is also the highest realm of martial arts. There is no way to win, and there is no way to win. Vu Thang without martial arts.

After Jin Yong, like Huang Yi's martial arts novels, they all developed into fantasy; In Ni Kuang, in addition to martial arts, elements such as science fiction, reasoning and strange feelings have become the mainstream of creation. The film and television dramas spawned by modern science and technology, for commercial purposes, like to shoot martial arts movies best. The high-tech martial arts are very beautiful. Those fantastic martial arts are vividly photographed with the help of sound and light, but after a while of excitement, the audience is even more reluctant to see the real martial arts, which forces the traditional martial arts to develop into performances. In this way, martial arts novels and real martial arts will gradually disappear, from "martial arts" to "no martial arts."

Martial arts novels blur and confuse the true face of history.

Because martial arts novels are set in ancient times, this makes martial arts novelists willing to integrate historical themes into martial arts novels. The Legend of Loyalty and Righteousness Heroes written by Wen Gongzhi, an old-school martial arts novelist, takes Yu Qian as the protagonist and shows the history of the Ming Dynasty. New school of martial arts novelists, such as Liang Yusheng's Biography of the Female, Biography of the Tang Ranger, Biography of the Xia Ying in the Past, Seven Swords Down the Tianshan Mountains, etc. , as well as Jin Yong's legend of the condor hero, sword book, dragon slaying, Duke of Lushan, etc. The combination of chivalrous spirit and historical theme makes martial arts novels full of strong sense of history. There are also martial arts novels, which are only set in ancient times and seem to generate their own fantasy stories by borrowing the shell of an egg. Like many of Gu Long's novels, we only talk about ancient times, but we don't really mean which dynasty or generation.

Of course, there is no art without fiction, and martial arts novels are inseparable from fiction. However, compared with historical novels, martial arts novels contain too many "jokes", such as Huang Yi's "Searching for Qin", which are illusory and far from the real history of Qin. As a novel artist, it is understandable to treat history like this. However, with the popularity of martial arts novels and the rise of martial arts film and television dramas, many readers or viewers can't distinguish between historical truth and artistic fiction. They often regard history as true history, so that the true face of history becomes more and more blurred in front of a large number of "jokes", which in turn causes many people, especially teenagers, to misread history. This is a cultural phenomenon that cannot be ignored. For example, Cao Cao in history may not be as described by novelists, but how many people have time to look through those thick history books or take a look at those long speeches?

Whether the transformation of martial arts novels from "martial arts" to "no martial arts" should be like this, and even the future of martial arts novels, these problems are still left to novelists to solve. However, as readers, we must keep a clear head when reading martial arts novels, and never treat history as a joke, let alone a joke. After all, martial arts novels are just adult fairy tales. Don't treat Feng Jing like a horse!