Tuyết Sơn Phi Hồ là ngoại hiệu của Hồ Phỉ trẻ tuổi, trí tuệ và võ công hơn người. Câu chuyện xảy ra từ hơn một trăm năm trước, bốn vệ sĩ trung thành của Sấm Vương Lý Tự Thành là bốn họ Hồ, Miêu, Điền, Phạm, bốn người kết nghĩa anh em, cùng nhau sinh tử và đều trung thành với Lý Tự Thành. Tuy nhiên vì hiểu lầm Hồ phản bội mà ba anh em đã tìm để giết. Mối thù kéo dài đến mấy đời sau. Cuộc gặp gỡ định mệnh dẫn đến tình yêu giữa Hồ Phỉ và Miêu Nhược Lan liệu có hoá giải được mối thâm thù, ân oán tổ tiên?
Louis Cha, GBM, OBE (born 6 February 1924), better known by his pen name Jin Yong (金庸, sometimes read and/or written as "Chin Yung"), is a modern Chinese-language novelist. Having co-founded the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao in 1959, he was the paper's first editor-in-chief.
Cha's fiction, which is of the wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") genre, has a widespread following in Chinese-speaking areas, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the United States. His 15 works written between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the finest wuxia writers ever. He is currently the best-selling Chinese author alive; over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide (not including unknown number of bootleg copies).
Cha's works have been translated into English, French, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Malay and Indonesian. He has many fans abroad as well, owing to the numerous adaptations of his works into films, television series, comics and video games.
金庸,大紫荊勳賢,OBE(英語:Louis Cha Leung-yung,1924年3月10日-2018年10月30日),本名查良鏞,浙江海寧人,祖籍江西婺源,1948年移居香港。自1950年代起,以筆名「金庸」創作多部膾炙人口的武俠小說,包括《射鵰英雄傳》、《神鵰俠侶》、《鹿鼎記》等,歷年來金庸筆下的著作屢次改編為電視劇、電影等,對華人影視文化可謂貢獻重大,亦奠定其成為華人知名作家的基礎。金庸早年於香港創辦《明報》系列報刊,他亦被稱為「香港四大才子」之一。
Louis Cha/Jin Yong is perhaps the most popular author among the Chinese although he only wrote for a mere 15 years, quitting at 48 years of age. In that relatively short time, he managed to write 15 works as newspaper serials (like Alexandre Dumas or Dickens), many of which were incredibly long, often over 1,000 pages.
Unfortunately not much of his work has been translated since “kung fu fiction” (called wuxia) just doesn’t sell that well to western audiences. The title kung fu fiction, however, doesn’t do justice to this book or the other book of his I’ve read (The Book and the Sword). The following labels could also apply, but all would also fall short of capturing the genre: historic fiction, mystery, thriller, fantasy, adventure. The setting of these books in past Chinese dynasties (this and The Book and the Sword are set in the Qing dynasty) is also fascinating, in my opinion, for Western readers and Chinese alike.
Anyway, this particular book is basically a mystery novel with a fair amount of fighting thrown in the mix. While the story takes place within a single day, the stories told by the characters span more than a century.
The English edition makes things easier for western readers by adding a cast of characters at the beginning, a diagram with traditional kung fu weapons, a diagram of paralytic points, an introduction that gives some of the historic background, and a map of China with important locations indicated, all of which helped me a lot.
I’m giving it five stars because I loved the story and the extras mentioned above. The translation is OK, though some raters on goodreads and amazon complain about it. They are only partially right. First of all, one should take into account that the translator grew up in Hong Kong, so she likely grew up bilingual with the result that her English, though definitely native, does not always sound native to someone who grew up in an English-speaking country.
One amazon reviewer complained that a saber-like weapon is translated into English as a knife. This, however, is a common convention also used by many kung fu schools. Let me explain. In English, we differentiate according to blade length using the terms sword and knife. Chinese, however, makes no such distinction, but rather differentiates between blades with only on one sharp side (dao) or two-sided blades (jian). Many kung fu texts simply translate dao as knife and jian as sword regardless of lenth, but make note of the differences in language. The translator just followed this convention, but failed to make a note, except for the weapons diagram.
Some translations in the book were a little strange. I really don’t understand the translation of chi as “pneuma”. I would venture to guess that more English speakers know what chi is than pneuma. In her introduction, the translator notes that Louis Cha has a pseudo-classical style of mixing in some classical terms while keeping it legible for the mass market. She tries to mimic this by using a lot of Latin terms to get a kind of classic feel. Unfortunately, the words she chooses are so archaic that most readers will have to look them up (do you know what a myrmidon is). I actually don’t mind this, word lover that I am. Though the shortcommings of the translation didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the book, I do think the translation should have been reviewed by a monolingual native speaker who is familiar with Chinese martial arts.
In this novel (Chinese Edition) the storytelling method was through some characters orally narrating past events. I found that this particularly way of storytelling took away some of the suspense that should have been present.
The story is an exposition of cross-generational conflicts and misunderstandings among a few of the outstanding martial arts clans, intermingled with an account of greedy pursuits of some hidden treasures. The parts about the discovery and subsequent fights over the treasures read a bit like Indiana Jones movies.
The fight scenes were engrossing like in other Jin Yong wuxia novels.
My only previous exposure to Louis Cha (a.k.a. Jin Yong) was the first two volumes of Deer and the Cauldron, Cha's last book, which is set during the reign of Kangxi. It was released in 1974.
Fox Volant and the Snowy Mountain was published way back in 1959, and it's just not as rich or as polished as Deer and the Cauldron. It's predominantly a martial arts novel set in Manchuria in late 18th century. My guess is that roughly 60 percent of the novel consists of elaborate fight scenes. I know, that sounds tedious, but Cha had real imaginative flair and could write fight scenes that were thrilling, funny, and imaginative (like Alexandre Dumas). Still, I was somewhat disappointed at the weak characterization and the cliffhanger ending (I believe Cha published two other novels in the Fox Volant saga, neither of which is available in English).
I am, however, thankful that this book finally made it into English. It's a real shame that all of Cha's books haven't been translated. I may have to learn how to read Chinese just to be able to read them.
To a Western audience largely unfamiliar with wuxia novels, Jin Yong's work is probably best described as being similar to Ang Lee's 2000 film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Suffice to say, if you liked "Crouching Tiger," you will probably like Jin Yong. Bear in mind, however, that reading Jin Yong without understanding Confucianism, Buddhism or Taoism is like reading C.S. Lewis without understanding Christianity, so it might be worthwhile to Wikipedia the basic tenets of those beliefs before starting the novel. Otherwise - you may get a good story, but that's all you're getting.
I was turned onto the author by another writer who knew my affection for Chinese cinema. If you're a fan of "crouching tiger, hidden dragon" and the like, you'll love this novel. Need more of the author's work in translation!
So I get that this is wuxia. I get that Jin Yong pioneered a new action-writing genre for the twentieth century that eventually led to some great movies like Courching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I also get that Jin’s novels ignited interest in medieval Chinese history in the West. Credit needs to go to where it is due. But man, reading this was a chore.
In sum, the narration goes from action scene to action scene with hardly any pause in between. The characters constantly fight each other, and then pick up their swords again to battle someone else. Then they stop at a castle for a brief respite, and battle some more. The only thing comparable to this that I’ve read before is the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired Dragonlance series from the 1980s, where the protagonists pop from one place to the next and are constantly battling some new monster (as in the game itself). And the characters are never quite as exhausted as the reader.
Fox Volant and the Snowy Mountain is worse. There’s virtually no plot other than constant fighting, and little to no character development. Another reviewer I read noted that this particular book had more of these things than other Jin novels, which makes me relieved that I picked the one that actually had a modicum of story- telling going on. It’s been awhile since I last picked this up, but from what I remember, there’s somewhat of a love interest situation going on, but even that is drowned-out in all of the “clanging and clashing of weapon upon weapon.”
Here’s a sample:
Valour’s heart trembled. “I am losing face to both sides,” he said to himself. He ducked sideways and dodged. In no time he whipped out his long sword simply by twisting round his wrist. Valour was the strongest of the nine in feat of arms. He then exhibited his skills of Dragon Swordplay. After some clanging and clashing of weapon upon weapon, he succeeded in warding off all of the blows from Century, Peace, Hawk, Prime, and the others. Fortune retreated to the back, guarding himself against attack, availing himself at the same time of an opportunity to study and unravel the secrets of the swordplay of the Northern Branch.
Now imagine that for 366 pages. Woof.
I will admit that the coolest thing about the characters’ martial arts is the ability to levitate by “accessing inner energy,” allowing them to “glide up the snowy, white slope[s] with [their] feet barely touching the ground.” I’ll give this book another star just for that.
I bought this book in Hong Kong at their museum of culture when they had a Louis Cha/Jin Yong exhibit. Although it was hard to follow not reading Mandarin or Cantonese, but the illustrations and the general story of the author, a serialized newspaper writer/owner who wrote both political commentary and fantasy intrigued me, and I was excited to give it a shot.
When I first picked up the book, I got stuck on a translation hurdle, and struggled to get over characters named things like Purity Yang, Honesty Jin, and Chivalry Fong. I struggled at first to follow and didn’t really get into it, putting it down for a while.
When I tried a second time, got a little further into it, and got to the meat of the story, I was hooked! It’s an incredible exciting, high stakes martial arts story with incredible settings, battles, story, confusion, conflict, and a final battle so electrifying and deadly, in such dramatic style and location, that I, an avid action movie watcher, don’t think it’s ever been topped on the silver screen! Which is incredible when just reading and imagining the scene.
The beginning of the book is soooo confusing that you might just drop it right there. By chance I read another book of the exact relevant event in Jin Yong's collection, so I catch on pretty fast. If you have enough patience to get through the opening scene, it turns into an interesting narrative-detective in an isolated place typa drama - in case you are familiar with this motif in detective comic books. And from there Jin Yong would slide you down from his snowy mountain to a deep gorge below by a hanging ending (・_・;)
(Sorry I just thought of this fun scene so I just have to be annoying to everyone right here: Readers: ♪♪ Tell me why - Ain't nothing but a mistake??? (ノಥ益ಥ)ノ Jin Yong: ♪♪ I want it that way ╮( ̄~ ̄)╭ )
Jin Yong (aka Louis Cha) is a treasure of world literature
Many people do not realize China has a rich tradition of fantasy adventure, a genre known as wuxia. Jin Yong is a master, perhaps THE, master of the genre. Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is a complex tale of honor, treachery, courage and skill that should satisfy fans of more familiar western works ranging from The Iliad to Robin Hood to the adventures of Conan!
This is fabulous story-telling. The same story, as seen by different people, may be retold differently because each one has his/her own viewing angle and agenda. This is a perfect example of the same event being told by multiple people. I did not appreciate this when I read this book as a teenager but now it feels so good to see the story being told this way.
No wonder he is one of the greatest story tellers that Chinese literature has ever seen.
Definitely not as good as I thought it was going to be. It pales in comparison to Jin Yong’s《Legends of the Condor Heroes.》There simply wasn’t enough characterization to fully develop the characters. The long fight scene featuring twins toward the beginning of the novel was slow and kinda boring. The book has people telling stories that are disjointed flashbacks that when pieced together make up a complete picture that. But by the time you’ve reached this point, at least for me, I felt bored.
The centrepiece duel/quest for vengeance is pure Chang Cheh (Legend of the Fox obviously, but others as well) / John Woo, anticipating their pet themes of heroic bloodshed and the omnipresent obligation of 義 (yì), with the hero unquestioningly following this code of righteousness among brothers.
The flashback narrative also very neat, and it has a freeze frame ending better even than any Shaw Brothers film.
One of Jon Yong's most under-rated novels IMO. It's set entirely within one day but with flashback, it unfolds into a rich drama that is both heartfelt and gripping. The various characters (of which there are a multitude) are so well drawn out and there's a real edge to each of them.
have a genuine soft spot for this novel. I just love the central character's story and the buildup to all the action is just wonderful... highly recommended!!
Jin Yongs Wuxia-Romane sind normalerweise Epen von einer enormen Breite, was Zeit und Raum angeht. Immer spielt die Geschichte mit, oft sind ferne Orte und weite Reisen wichtiger Teil der Erzählung. In 雪山飛狐 verlieren wir eine der Komponenten, denn dieser Roman ist fast so etwas wie ein Wuxia-Kammerspiel.
Die Handlung ist entsprechend schnell erklärt - die Mitglieder verschiedener Kungfu-Logen treffen sich mehr oder weniger freiwillig in auf einem einsamen Berggipfel liegenden Herrenhaus, um dort gegen einen Feind des Hausherrn zu kämpfen. Doch die Geschichte entwickelt sich anders, als gedacht...
Stellenweise fühle ich mich irgendwie in den "Mord im Orientexpress" versetzt, oder vielleicht auch ins "Wirtshaus im Spessart", denn die vielen eingeschobenen Erzählungen sprengen den einzelnen Tag und die örtliche Enge der Rahmenhandlung, um ein weites Panorama von beliebten Wuxia-Themen aufzuspannen: Blutrache, Familienfehden, der Kampf um persönlichen Ruhm und Ehre der Kungfumeister und Helden der Flüsse und Seen, und die nie wirklich verarbeitete Annexion Chinas durch die Mandschuren. Die Geschichte scheint zunächst klar zu sein, doch die vielen unzuverlässigen Erzähler, die jeweils immer nur Teile der Wahrheit kennen, und diese aufgrund ihrer persönlichen Agenda nur zögerlich preisgeben, lassen den Leser langsam erkennen, dass hier durch Missgunst und Neid aus einem privaten Drama eine jahrzehntelange und reichsumspannende Tragödie entstanden ist.
Wer Wuxia-Romane mag, wird sich hier sehr wohl fühlen - Jin Yong ist der Meister dieser literarischen Disziplin, und hält den Leser durch immer neue Wendungen bei der Stange, unterstützt durch seitenlange, atmosphärisch beschriebene Kampfszenen voller Exotik und Action. Das Ende mag dem einen oder anderen als zu offen vorkommen; ich genieße es, dass der Autor den Leser mitentscheiden lässt, wie die Charaktere auf ihn gewirkt haben. Selten genug, dass man so ein ungewöhnliches Ende sieht!
I absolutely loved this book. The only reason i gave it 4 stars instead of 5, is because I generally refuse to give anything a perfect 5. If 4.5-4.7 were possible I would definitely put it solidly there, but Goodreads doesn’t do decimals. It took me a while to finally give it a chance, only because so many characters are introduced so quickly and I had a difficult time remembering who was who. But once I took my time and slowed my reading down a bit I was able to pick it up.
Jin Yong is a fantastic authors and has definitely become an author whose novels I look forward to. The way he blends the external conflict between the characters, with the internal conflict makes for masterful storytelling. Throw in the way he builds connections between characters that you really care about it’s amazing. Anyone who has read and enjoyed translations of his other works should definitely read this one.
Seru banget! Awalnya seperti kisah sederhana balas dendam, lalu jadi perebutan harta karun, lalu dikupas lagi satu per satu kulitnya. Kisahnya semakin luas dan semakin jauh menembus masa lalu. Lalu kait berkait lagi di masa kini. Masalahku hanya satu: susah ngafalin namanya! Akhirnya aku paksain bacaaaa aja terus tanpa peduli siapa namanya wkwkwk.
I really like the structure of this book. It all takes place in one day, but the narrated events span 3 generations. With a nod to the likes of Decameron, the bulk of the novel is of numerous parties stuck on a cliff, waiting for the mysterious "Flying Fox" and telling stories about him, the various ancestral conflicts and mysteries, and because this is a Martial Arts novel, a hidden treasure trove.
After carving out a heroic image of the Flying Fox, his actual appearance seems flat. This is also the book famous for not having a resolution. It sort of just ends. At the climax. That's why it gets 4 points. And also why Jin Yong then writes a prequel, 飞狐外传
Also of note, this is a short story by Jin Yong standards, (300 pgs rather than 1500,) and was written in 8000-word magazine serial installments instead of the 1000-word newspaper serials. Thus, the story is more clearly divided into several narrative chunks. On the other hand, this was written to be simultaneously published in an English magazine, so it's one of the few officially translated novels.