A Novel of Martial Arts - The Eleventh Son

A Novel of Martial Arts - The Eleventh Son

One of several top three Chinese martial arts fiction writers, Gu Long (1937-1985) wrote sixty-nine novels in a very career spanning twenty-five years. Numerous copies of his books have been sold, and many are repeatedly adapted for TV or cinema. His other important novels include The Compassionate Swordsman and the Merciless Sword (1970), The Orchid at Midnight (1979) and Hunting Hawk, Gambling Game (1984). At the age of forty-eight, he died of liver disease caused by excessive alcohol drinking. Rebecca S. Tai received her master's degree from University of California, Los Angeles. She enjoys reading adventure fiction and watching martial arts training drama.

One of his missions, Xiao (the Eleventh Son, the Great Bandit) meets Shen, the fairest woman within the martial world. By the desire of fate, he rescues Shen several times, which plants the seed of love in each them. However, Shen is married with a rich child who will be also an exceptional martial artist. Like things are not complicated enough, Xiao has her own secret admirer, Feng, an attractive swordswoman by using a quick temper. Xiao is drawn right into a messy fight for a legendary saber, the Deer Carver, and it is charged with stealing it. Xiao learns that the one who has set him up is actually a mysterious young man by having an angel's face and also a devil's heart. Before he could pursue any longer, Shen's grandmother is murdered, and Xiao is known as the killer. It seems that everything is spinning uncontrollable?

The following are some comments made by several foreign readers.

This book is really the only official translated wuxia novel of because of the Late Gu Long (Ku Long, Ku lung) easily obtainable in English to date. Gu Long is amongst the three best wuxia writers ever, so having one his

finally being recognized can be so wonderful. While comparing it to translated wuxia novels are rather unfair, because Gu Long has his personal distinct way of writing, nevertheless in technical element of translating, Becky Tai, the translator, exceeded what's left, mainly when compared John Minfor and Graham Earnshaw. Becky Tai maintained the writer's original way with words and mood, choice . words and sentences now are in English. Additionally, Becky kept what they are called and important terms in Chinese pinyin and explained those to her readers, a much better approach than changing character's name into English or ignorantly with all the term "Karate" for Chinese fighting styles, like Minford did in his translation of The Deer along with the Cauldron. Overall, this book worths every penny and will be collected by anyone that love the "wuxia" (Chinese knight-errand) genre but not able to read neither Chinese characters nor another Asian language by which many wuxia novels are translated.

As much as I know, this is certainly Gu Long's second novel published within the West. The earliest was Christine Courniot's French translation of "Les Quatre Brigands du Huabei" which is available from amazon.fr. This is the first professional and English translation created by Rebecca Tai. Customers, who be interested in martial arts fiction, find novels like this one but a sensational scene being a martial arts training aficionado to appreciate this excellent novel. Gu Long, over Louis Cha, features a poetic kind of writing which is unique to the genre of Chinese martial arts training fiction. I have found the settings of his novels lush and delightful which leaves a great the imagination. Gu Long has acute psychological advice about with the human relational perception of honor and shame. The characters are fascinating, the situations these characters land in are at times fantastic but that's conventional literature that encompasses background fantasy. I thoroughly enjoyed this

. It became a new and refreshing experience.

This really is one of the primary translated novels from the famed Chinese fighting styles fiction write Gu Long. It's well translated and walks you back in time to some mythical China hundreds of years ago, when style and Chinese beauties went send back hand. The world Gu Long creates is romanticized with diverse characters both good and evil, and all trained while in the martial arts. With great character development, Xiao, Feng, and Shen are quite believable and they often humorous. This is sort of a literary version of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, or House of Flying Daggers. Kudos to Rebecca Tai for translating and Homa for bringing a terrific Chinese literary gem on the states!