Gu Long (June 7, 1938 to September 21, 1985) is commonly referred to as one of the three legs of the modern Wuxia tripod (along with Jin Yong, aka Louis Cha, and Liang Yusheng). Although many of his works are familiar to many Western fans through film and television adaptations (such as the Sentimental Swordsman series, Handsome Siblings, Clan of Amazons and Heroes Shed No Tears) there has only been one of his novels officially translated* into English: The Eleventh Son.
I am not sure why Homa and Sekey Books chose to translate The Eleventh Son into English as opposed to other works. Because there is not a well known film adaptation of it, this particular book is not a well known story in the West. It is not a standalone work, like most of his novels, and its sequel has not been translated. Personally, I have never heard of it being held up either as his masterpiece or even as an especially good example of his works. For whatever reason, though, Homa and Sekey chose to translate and release it back in 2005. New paperback copies are still sold on Amazon. I am proud it sits on my bookshelf between the handful of Jin Yong translations and an English copy of Blades From The Willows by Huanzhulouzhu (the sole work by that author to be translated officially into English).
Rebecca S. Tai translated The Eleventh Son for Homa and Sekey and, as far as my brief research into it could tell, she has not translated any other novel. This is too bad because I quite enjoyed her prose. The novel flows well. If a reader was unaware this was a translated work I doubt they would suspect they were not reading the author’s original words.
That being said, I can’t speak to how well she captured Gu Long’s tone or style; if my Chinese was good enough to read Gu Long in the original I wouldn’t need the translation! I also do not have a copy of the novel in the original Chinese. If I did I would at least struggle through the first page or two in an attempt to evaluate the translation.
Because there have been very few adaptations (possibly only two TV series) of The Eleventh Son, I was not familiar with the story before reading the book. In fact, I knew damn near nothing about the book’s plot before reading it. In some ways, it was what I expected from a wuxia novel: there was a great emphasis placed on relationships and standing in the wulin (martial society or the martial arts brotherhood, also called the jianghu) and the action was vague, concentrating more on fanciful names of techniques than actual descriptions of action. The former was not as complicated as other wuxia novels, which I found refreshing. The main character Xiao Shiyi Liang (which basically translates to ”the eleventh son”) is also known as the Great Bandit. He has a reputation as a very strong fighter and a thief so there are no great cultural differences keeping the reader from understanding he is feared by many but thought of as a dishonest, even vicious, person.
Action in the wuxia genre is a pet peeve of mine. Despite novels being nominally centered on martial arts, most wuxia authors seem to duck describing martial arts in realistic, concrete ways. While Gu Long seems to have kept the tradition of tossing out fanciful names and allowing readers to do the work of deciding what said techniques might actually entail, he does describe the physical effects these moves have on their targets. He also tries to quantify how effective the various fighters are at using their styles. This evaluation is translated as the ”maturity” of the martial artists’ technique. I personally found this made the fights a bit more interesting than those in other wuxia novels. It also struck me the lightness skill (a common ability in wuxia novels which allows characters to use their energy to lighten their bodies) was described literally as flying at times. I am not sure if this was Gu Long or the translator, but it is certainly a trope found more in wuxia film adaptations which seems fitting to me as Gu Long actually started a film studio to bring his books to the screen.
However, in many ways, The Eleventh Son was nothing like what I expected. There was much less conflict among the wulin than many other famous wuxia stories which often feature grand conspiracies. It is basically a love story, as many wuxia stories claim to be, but it is actually primarily a love story. It starts out promising to be an exciting heist story as various unsavory elements among the wulin conspire to acquire a fine sword called the Deer Carver (the deer is a symbol of the emperor in China, much like we may use an eagle to refer to the US president). In fact, when the book starts it does not even appear Xiao Shiyi Liang is going to be the main character! The Eleventh Son is also much raunchier than many other classic wuxia stories. It is hard to imagine any character in a Jin Yong novel being as obsessed with breasts or feet as the men and women who populate the pages of The Eleventh Son!
The Eleventh Son is grittier than the works of Jin Yong, the wuxia author who has been most widely translated into English, without actually being more violent. Reading The Eleventh Son reminded me of watching vintage film noir in that those early gumshoe and gangster movies managed to walk in a world of sex, violence and depravity without the graphic depictions seen in more modern films. The drinking the book was rampant and celebrated (and sad, considering Gu Long basically did not live to fifty due to his alcoholism); all that was missing was cigarettes and fedoras! The flaws of characters, be it vanity, prized but undeserved reputations or other personal failings created a much grayer world than other wuxia stories. This also means Gu Long dwells more on emotion and inner conflict instead of gaining power or cultivating inner energy and technique. This is perhaps the strength of this book, which is not exactly the story it seems to promise in the first chapter.
*A quick postscript to this review: Yes, I said officially. Many, if not all, of the works of Gu Long are available on the Internet in the form of fan translations. These are unauthorized, most often communal efforts. By and large they are labors of love created by teams of bilingual fans. Many readers use these services and because they are the only way to read most wuxia novels in English. There are other groups translating Asian comic books, movies and television shows, too.
I avoid these fan translations. I understand many fans feel they are good for the works as they promote them to new audiences. Often there is no material gain for either the fan translators or the websites involved (although this is not always the case). Still, they are technically stealing someone else’s intellectual property. Even though authors like Gu Long and Jin Yong are no longer with us, their books are not public domain. Some may feel the fan translations are working to show publishers how popular English translations are but you can just as easily argue every download of a fan translation represents a lost sale of an officially translated work. Either way, ultimately fan translations are intellectual property theft (even if the fan translators are not profiting in any way and are solely motivated by a love of the genre) and I personally choose not to read them.