.Q. wrote:I've read some. Most changes feel annoying and shows that it's just a money grab attempt.
Examples?
From what I saw, those changes were mostly done to:
1. correct errors: Jin Yong's novel references just about every aspect of traditional culture. But the origin of a lot of things we have today are unknown/unclear to most people today unless they are specialists in that area. So the famous example is where he had people from one dynasty singing famous song from another dynasty founded several hundred years later.
2. improve the overall structure, flow, and logic of the plot. Remember, these novels were originally published as serials in his newspaper under daily pressure. Now in his leisure, he can look over the whole thing and make overall improvements.
3. changes to plot: since we wrote them as daily serials over decades, occasionally he would ask two friends to take over when he was on vacation. His friends, like most of us loyal readers, have strong opinion about his characters. In Tian Long Ba Bu for example, the character Ah Zi was first blinded then killed off in the middle of the novel by his friend Ni Kuang the famous sci fi writer during one of his vacations. Coming back from Europe, Ni Kong met him at the airport and just said "I killed Ah Zi". Jin Yong just smiled and said "ok, I'll fix that". In the revised editions he changed the killed off part, but let her remain blind.
My father and my uncle knows Jin Yong's older siblings pretty well. My uncle worked in the same hospital as Jin Yong's older brother for several decades. They came from a very well-known family of scholars, well known for their disdain for money and power. In fact, the story of Lian Cheng Jue was based on family history. His grandfather risked his government career to save a poor innocent peasant, and later took him into the family and took care of him until his death. In Lian Cheng Jue Jin Yong borrowed the story of that poor peasant's famous trial, and reimagined him as the martial hero set up and betrayed by people who raised him.
People call Jin Yong the richest intellectual in the history of China. He has the set of word "put it down, be natural" inscribed on stone on his nightstand. He finally did that when he sold his newspaper more than a decade ago. He's also a very serious Buddhist. I'm still waiting for his translation and annotation of Diamond Sutra.
So taken together, I tend to give him the benefit of doubt when it comes to money-grabbing. It's probably more of a perfectionist instinct.
Wuyizidi
