Chapter 17 Chapter 5 In the Dark Mist

I am Seicho Matsumoto's daughter. In the winter of 2004, a particularly cold morning. The gate of the Matsumoto Seicho Memorial Hall had just opened, and a girl with a very cute gesture was the first to rush in.She lingered in every room where Seicho Matsumoto lived, taking out a notebook from time to time to remember something.Memorial staff asked her what she was looking for.She said she was looking for her father's trail.Seeing the other party's surprised expression, the girl took out her business card, smiled and said, "Yes. I am the daughter of Matsumoto Seicho."

The staff member looked down at the business card, and it was impressively written - Miyuki Miyabe. A few months later, "Selected Short Stories by Matsumoto Seicho" edited by Miyabe Miyuki was published, causing a sensation in Japan. In 2007, Taiwan Dubu Culture published the traditional Chinese version of this collection of masterpieces.In the subsequent votes of readers, this set of books defeated Keigo Higashino's many masterpieces and became readers' favorite mystery novels that year. In the summer of 1967, it was an unbearably hot noon. The living room on the first floor of Seicho Matsumoto's residence was full of guests.They greeted each other in low voices, for fear of disturbing the person who was creating on the second floor.They are already very familiar with each other, because these people are colleagues, and they come here every afternoon to wait for that person's latest works.The publishing house is already ready, just waiting for the latest issue of the manuscript to be delivered, and then it can be typeset and printed.They hope that the people upstairs can be faster, because so many people count on his works to support their families.

After a while, a hanging basket hung from the window on the second floor to the first floor. The editor who was waiting at the front smiled and quickly took away the manuscripts in the hanging basket.A young editor next to him asked enviously, "Sir, you work so hard every day, must you be very old?" "Sorry, I do not know." "What? But every day you have to..." "Yes. It's been five years, and I've come here every day to pick up manuscripts. However, I've never met Mr. in person, and he really doesn't have time." In these two clips, the protagonist does not appear.But it is not difficult to see that his influence on the world is indelible, no matter whether he is alive or dead.And this "Mr." is the protagonist we will focus on in this section-Matsumoto Seicho.

Matsumoto Seicho is the third peak of Japanese reasoning literature after Edogawa Ranpo and Yokomizo Masashi.Edogawa Ranpo "created" Japanese reasoning, while Yokomizo Masashi and Matsumoto Seicho told people what Japanese reasoning looks like-Hokomizo said that it should fly to the sky; while Matsumoto believed that it should be down to earth. Obviously, Japanese "Benge" mystery novels are similar to the classical detective novels prevailing in the golden age of Europe and America, which belong to the category of intellectual games and are filled with romanticism.Therefore, the "Benge Period" is also called the "Romantic Period".After experiencing the glorious period from 1923 to 1956, the "Benge" reasoning, like classical detective novels, encountered a bottleneck again.With the exhaustion of tricks in famous works such as "Tattoo Murder Incident", the reasoning of "Benge" has clearly shown a weak trend.Therefore, the proliferation of random fabrications and vulgar styles is inevitable.Readers denounced the "decadence" of "Benge" mystery novels one after another, and then completely stayed away from such works.

At the same time, sharp contradictions appeared in Japanese society.After World War II, Japan made a concerted effort to start from scratch on the ruins, making the economy take off quickly and becoming the world's second largest economic entity in one fell swoop.In the process, some seeds of malpractice were also buried. In order to make the economy rise rapidly, the Japanese government has supported a large number of "chaebol enterprises".Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Panasonic, Sony, Toyota, etc. that we are familiar with today were all founded or emerged during this period.Large enterprises can maximize the integration of resources and make huge profits in a short period of time.But after the economic rise, its disadvantages became more and more difficult to suppress.

First, large enterprises lack flexibility and oversight mechanisms.After having some capital, it is easy to breed dictatorship and corruption inside.When encountering shocks, they lack the ability to adapt—to this day, these stupid "giants" in Japan have not been able to struggle out of the downturn. Secondly, due to the unlimited occupation of resources in the early stage and the support of the government, "collusion between officials and businessmen" is inevitable.In the 1960s and 1970s, senior officials of the Japanese government fell in almost all bribery cases; and the source of almost all bribery cases came from those superficially large companies.

After experiencing the ecstasy of rapid rise, the Japanese people suddenly discovered that their efforts actually nourished these "giants" and high-ranking officials!Especially as the global economy entered a period of stagflation in the 1960s, this kind of "resentment" permeated every corner of Japan. At this time, Seicho Matsumoto appeared in due course. On December 21, 1909, Matsumoto Seicho was born in Kokura Kita-ku, Kitakyushu City, Fukuoka Prefecture.Matsumoto's family was at the bottom of Japanese society.Because of poverty, his two elder sisters all died, and he became the only child in the family; also because of poverty, he was forced to drop out of school at the age of 13, and he only had a primary school education throughout his life.Seicho Matsumoto used to work for an electrical appliance company, but in 1927 the company went bankrupt and he lost his only source of income.After that, Seicho Matsumoto had to take to the streets to make a living selling rice cakes.

In 1928, he went to a printing factory as an apprentice.During this period, Matsumoto Seicho read the works of Natsume Soseki, Mori Ogai, Akutagawa Ryunosuke and others, and also came into contact with the mystery novels of Edgar Allan Poe and Conan Doyle.He tried to create literature, but his starting point was extremely tragic. In 1929, he was reported by the police because he had borrowed the leftist magazine "Battle Flag". He was held in a detention center for more than ten days and was severely beaten by the police.This experience influenced Seicho Matsumoto's life. At the age of 28, Seicho Matsumoto entered the Fukuoka branch of "Asahi Shimbun" as a piecework worker, and later worked as a designer in the advertising department.In the same year, he married Naoko Uchida and started a family.

In 1943, Seicho Matsumoto was drafted into the army and sent to North Korea as a health soldier.After the war, he was sent back to his country and resumed his job at the newspaper.In the context of the Great Depression in Japan after the war, Seicho Matsumoto had to travel between Kansai and Kyushu in order to support his family of nine (parents, wife and five children).In his autobiography published in 1966, he described this poignant past.This almost humiliating life has laid a solid foundation for Seicho Matsumoto's future creations—whether it is objective or subjective. At this time, Seicho Matsumoto was 40 years old and had not yet published a work.Compared with Edogawa Ranpo and Yokomizo Masashi, who debuted in their twenties, he started too late.

In 1950, "Asahi Weekly" (a sub-publication of "Asahi Shimbun") held a "Million People's Fiction" essay contest, and the first place would receive a prize of 300,000 yuan.This was a huge temptation for Seicho Matsumoto.At that time, he couldn't even afford ink and paper, so he used a pencil to create on a very rough notebook.This short story was called "Xixiang Banknotes", and finally won the third prize, with a bonus of 100,000 yuan.It was revealed afterwards that Matsumoto should have won the first prize, because he was an internal employee, so he was "reduced by two levels".

Nevertheless, the success of the novel still gave Seicho Matsumoto great encouragement.From then on, he devoted himself to writing-despite the terrible environment.Matsumoto's family of nine lives in a small house.In summer, mosquitoes and flies are rampant.The parents sleep under one mosquito net, and the wife and five children sleep under one mosquito net.Seicho Matsumoto worked during the day, and at night he wrote articles under the dim light while driving away mosquitoes with a cattail fan.It was this difficult environment that tempered his perseverance and confidence. In 1952, Seicho Matsumoto created "The Biography of a Certain "Ogura Diary"" and sent it to the magazine "Santa Literature", which was appreciated by the famous writer Takataro Muki.In the end, the novel won the 28th "Akutagawa Award". The "Akutagawa Award" is a literary newcomer award in the Japanese literary world. At this time, 42-year-old Matsumoto Kiyocho emerged as a "literary newcomer". Japan has two of the most well-known literary awards, the "Akutagawa Prize" which focuses on pure literature and the "Naoki Prize" which focuses on popular literature.As a mainstream genre of literature, there are countless reasoning writers who have won the "Naoki Award", but the reasoning writer who won the "Akutagawa Award" is only Seicho Matsumoto.The demeanor of a master can be seen. As a well-known reasoning writer, Takataro Mumu admired the talent of Seicho Matsumoto very much.He encouraged Matsumoto to create mystery novels (the previous two works cannot be considered mystery novels), and suggested that he come to Tokyo to develop.Matsumoto Seicho followed Mugi Takataro's suggestion and came to Tokyo alone. Matsumoto Seicho's literary creation began with pure literary works at first.In order to stand out, Seicho Matsumoto often visited literary masters.One day, he brought his own work to visit the famous writer Yasushi Inoue, and wanted to ask Yasushi Inoue to recommend the manuscript to the publishing house.No, Yasushi Inoue was very indifferent and looked down on this "newcomer" who was already in his 40s.This incident became a shame that Matsumoto Seicho would cherish all his life.Seeing the indifference in the field of pure literature and the enthusiasm of masters in the field of reasoning, and feeling the voice of Japanese society at that time, Matsumoto Seicho resolutely threw himself into the embrace of reasoning literature. In 1956, Seicho Matsumoto began to write his first mystery novel.The story takes a low-level Japanese woman as the main line, exposing the current situation of Japanese government-business collusion and social darkness. , implying the helplessness and submission of the individual to the whole under this dark background.The novel employs the timetable trickery successfully, and the writing is fresh and thick. This novel has been serialized in "Journey" magazine since February 1957.In April of the same year, another mystery novel "The Wall of the Eye" created by Seicho Matsumoto also began to be serialized - the style of this work is in the same line. In 1958, the two works were published in booklets and became the best-selling books in the Japanese market-in just three months, the two books sold nearly 500,000 copies.People exclaimed: "The era of Seicho Matsumoto has come!" Afterwards, Seicho Matsumoto was out of control.He has successively created works such as , , "Black Leather Notepad", "Bad Guys", each of which has become a well-received and well-received classic. In that era, after get off work every day, Japanese people would go to bookstores or newsstands to ask: "Is there any work by Matsumoto Seicho?" There was even a period of time, if readers shouted at a newspaper or magazine: "What! There is no Matsumoto Qingzhang's serialization!" Then, it means that this publication is not far from going bankrupt. "There must be Matsumoto!" This sentence became a deadly order given to editors by all newspaper owners.Thus, we see the picture at the beginning of this section. According to statistics, during that time, Seicho Matsumoto wrote mystery novels for 15 newspapers and periodicals at the same time, completing at least 10,000 words a day.This writing rhythm lasts from Monday to Saturday, with only a break on Sunday.Gradually, Seicho Matsumoto developed the habit of meeting guests only on Sundays.Moreover, no matter how important things are, each meeting can only last for 30 minutes, and nothing can be shaken.Seicho Matsumoto's reasoning creation career lasted for more than 40 years.According to preliminary statistics, the mystery novels, novels and short stories he created in his life have exceeded 800.This is also rare in the history of world reasoning literature.Among them, about 30 have been filmed, leaving far behind the current "best-selling king" Keigo Higashino. People define the emergence of Matsumoto Seicho as the "Qing Zhang Revolution"; the era of Matsumoto Seicho as the "Qing Zhang Era"; In the past year, the traces of original reasoning left in Japan have been completely eliminated. This cannot but be said to be a miracle. Seicho Matsumoto is not a young genius, let alone a genius.He is just an old man, an old man who has experienced the ups and downs of life, and has tasted the cruelty of the world.He has no gorgeous writing style, and he can't conceive whimsical tricks. He is just like all old people, nagging in a low voice in everyone's ears, hoping to give you some trivial enlightenment. At the same time, he was a fighter, a fighter who dared to stand up against all injustices.In his works, the dark side of Japanese society is exposed in full view.The germs and freaks that breed on these dark sides have nowhere to hide.Seicho Matsumoto has a work called "Black Mist in Japan", and he himself is the warrior who "the whole world is turbid and I am alone", who dared to dispel the black mist and restore the truth of Japan. Seicho Matsumoto brought mystery novels back to the ground, and began to pay attention to Japan's own situation down-to-earth.The reasoning novels created by him do not use tricks as a selling point, focus on revealing the dark side of society and human nature, and have a strong realistic style, which is called "social reasoning".From this period, Japanese reasoning literature embarked on the road of "originality" in a complete sense, and eventually became the core of world reasoning culture.And it all started with Seicho Matsumoto. Traditional reasoning novels often focus on three levels of issues—— what is it (Who is the murderer?) Why? (what is the motivation?) How to do it? (What's the trick?) Compared with "striving" for the first and third questions, traditional reasoning often stays at the level of "just give a reason" for the second question.Obviously, this is not in line with objective laws.In real life, criminal motive is often the decisive factor.So when Seicho Matsumoto turned his attention to the second question, it seemed natural that his work would succeed. Seicho Matsumoto told us that the techniques of mystery novels can be ignored, there can be no genius detectives in mystery novels, and mystery novels can be as thick and deep as pure literature. In 1963, Seicho Matsumoto was elected as the chairman of the Japan Mystery Writers Association. On August 4, 1992, the great master Matsumoto Seicho died of liver cancer at the age of 83.