Jin Yong 金庸 (Louis Cha): A Hero Born

It is humbling, especially to one who takes some satisfaction from knowledge, to realize that there is an author on the level of Tolkein or Lewis of whom I had not heard before this.  Jin Yong's following in the Chinese speaking community easily matches those writers, and approaches the popularity of J.K. Rowling within his niche.  I am told by multiple Chinese friends that it would be difficult to find someone who spoke Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) and  had not read his books. 

Having read the book, it's easy to see why.  The characters are clearly and engagingly drawn.  The plot and setting have all the requisite elements for popular appeal.  And the ending of this first book in the Condor Heroes series makes it impossible not tho immediately search for the  next volume.  I'm certifiably a fan.  And yet.

The combination of the limitations of translation, and the unfamiliarity of the narrative structure do present something of a barrier to fandom, at least for the first half of the book.  The stories covered in this first volume alone feel so rapidly dispatched, that it feels like a shame.  Any Western author would have lingered through these passages; Jin (Yong? Cha?) seems to have been chiefly concerned with getting them out of the way at times.  He can be forgiven, of course.  If he had treated the material with Goerge R.R. Martin's relish, he never would have finished--and there would be far more than 12 volumes for me to work through.

And it's equally possible that the text doesn't feel so offhanded in the original Mandarin.  My efforts to find the original language for a particularly pleasing passage helped me to realize just what obstacles the translator faced.  A word for word rendering would have been utterly unrecognizable, and when I enlisted a native speakers help, he was unable to find the passage I wanted at all.  Such is the chasm between the original text and the translation that I enjoyed.