Professor Chi calls Sima “ a born storyteller ” on whose loquacious tongue “ any story at all might sprout wings and take flight. ” If he had been born in a more prosperous time, declares Chi, he might have written something along the lines of Thomas Mann ’ s The Magic Mountain.
齊老師則稱司馬為「天生的說故事者」，「任何故事到了他耳裡都可能生出飛翔的翅膀」，斷言他如果生在富裕年代，飽讀詩書，也許可能寫出像湯瑪斯曼《魔山》那樣的書。