In the era of great changes at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, under the wave of revolutionary trends such as the Reform Movement of 1898, the Revolution of 1911, and the May 4th Movement, when many people overthrew the "Kong Family Store" , Lin Shu did not greet the revolution with an attitude of subverting tradition, but settled down in the literary world and the forum, carefully guarding and inheriting the tradition. At the same time, he was not an old antique who could not change the past, but was open-minded and collaborated with others to translate He wrote a large number of European and American novels and became the most famous translator of that era.
Lin Shu had an impatient temperament and was a conservative in his thinking, and he disagreed with the leaders of the New Culture Movement at that time, such as Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi. However, Hu Shi still spoke highly of him. He mentioned in the article "Chinese Literature in the Past Fifty Years" that "no long novels have ever been written in ancient Chinese, but Lin Shu actually translated more than a hundred full-length novels in ancient Chinese. There are many novels in ancient Chinese." There is no comical flavor, but Lin Shu actually translated the works of Owen and Dickens in classical Chinese. Classical Chinese is not good at describing love, but Lin Shu actually translated "La Traviata" and "The Short Story of Cain" in classical Chinese. The application of classical Chinese has since. Since Sima Qian, there has never been such a big achievement. "Arthur Willey commented: "All Dickens's excessive management, excessive exaggeration and uncontrollable chatter have disappeared (in Lin's translation). , but it was changed by the concise style. Every place that Dickens damaged by excessive complexity was calmly and appropriately repaired.
Although Lin Shu does not understand foreign languages, he has a profound knowledge of ancient prose. Therefore, he needs to cooperate with a friend who understands foreign languages. The friend will read the content in Chinese first, and Lin Shu will translate the read content into classical Chinese. Lin Shu's translation speed is very fast, and the friend often has not finished reading the content that needs to be translated. After entering the Republic of China, Lin Shu was politically conservative, advocating reform and opposing revolution. In his later years, he resisted the vigorous New Culture Movement, so he insisted on using classical Chinese throughout his life. Translate novels.