Chapter 19 clear spell

No one can escape the spell set by Seicho Matsumoto. 1957.The scene of the third Edogawa Ranpo Award Ceremony. Compared with the previous two awards, which awarded the grand prize to books on theoretical research on reasoning literature, this time the Edogawa Ranpo Award is open to the public for the first time.Among the more than 400 works received, a novel called "Only Cats Know" was unanimously recognized by experts and the media.Everyone believes that this will be a work that will change the direction of Japanese mystery novels.The author's signature is "Niki Etsuko", and no one has seen the true face of this newcomer.Therefore, on the day of the awards ceremony, hundreds of reporters came to the venue early, looking forward to meeting the author as soon as possible.

When the host announced that the winner, Etsuko Nigi, would be invited to the stage to receive the award, everyone was stunned by the scene before them: a gentleman walked out slowly pushing a wheelchair, and the lady in the wheelchair was his wife, "Only Cats" Know" author Etsuko Nigi.Etsuko Nigi suffered from severe polio when she was four years old. She lost feeling in her legs and was confined to a wheelchair all day long.This awards ceremony is the first time in many years that she has stepped out of the house and appeared in public. For a while, the venue was silent.Suddenly, overwhelming applause sounded.The highest tribute is paid to this amazing creator.Edogawa Ranpo couldn't help exclaiming: "Miracle! Miracle! Japan has its own Helen Keller! Japan has its own Agatha Christie!"

As a result, Etsuko Nigi has the title of "Christie of Japan".Her experience is unprecedented, and I am afraid it will be unprecedented. After the publication of the award-winning work "Only Cats Know", it sold more than 100,000 copies within six months and became a classic in the history of reasoning in the world.Etsuko Niki tells a reasoning story with a strong sense of realism with a female-specific perspective and fresh and delicate brushwork. Nigi Etsuko, whose real name is Oi Mie, was born in Tokyo on March 7, 1928.Due to childhood illness, she could not receive formal education.All the knowledge in elementary and middle school comes entirely from my elder brother who is studying at the University of Tokyo-the elder brother spends two hours a day teaching his younger sister.This kind of experience makes Niki Etsuko full of gratitude to her brother, and this kind of gratitude is most directly reflected in her mystery novels.

Niki Etsuko's second sister is a serious fan of reasoning.Affected by it, she read "The Collection of Sherlock Holmes" and Edogawa Ranpo's "Youth Detective Team Series" when she was very young, and she was very interested in mystery novels.After getting married, she changed her name to Mieko Erkaichi with her husband's surname, and began to write novels under the pseudonym "Etsuko Nigi". Like Seicho Matsumoto's, Etsuko Nigi's "Only Cats Know" was published in 1957.These two works are similar in style, both belong to realism, and both have pure literary style.These two books became the first works of socialist reasoning, and together they ushered in a new era.

After becoming famous, Etsuko Niki created works such as "House in the Forest", "Tree with Thorns", and "Black Ribbon".The combination of "detective brother and sister" in her works comes from the extraordinary relationship between herself and her brother, and it has also become a very distinctive detective image in Japanese mystery novels. As mentioned repeatedly before, the appearance of Matsumoto Seicho and Niki Etsuko overthrew the "honge" novels that had ruled the Japanese reasoning literary world for more than 30 years, and established a dynasty of socialist reasoning novels.From 1956 to 1986, the influence of Seicho Matsumoto was ubiquitous.It can be said that if there is no "clear demeanor" in the work, the creator will not be able to gain a foothold in the reasoning world.Commentators define this phenomenon as the "Qing Zhang Curse"-the status of socialist reasoning is evident.

In the heyday of the socialist school, Sasawa Sabao, Sano Hiroshi and Natsuki Shizuko were the most influenced by the "Ching Chang Curse" and had the most outstanding achievements. Sasawa Saho, whose real name is Sasawa Katsura, was born in Yokohama in 1920. His father is Sasawa Meiaki, a famous poet in Japan. In 1953, Sasawa Saho became famous in the "Gem" magazine with two short stories "Rumors in the Dark" and "The Ninth Victim".He originally thought he could make a big splash, but he was involved in a car accident in October of this year, and it took two years for him to fully recover. In 1959, Sasawa Saho participated in the competition for the Edogawa Ranpo Award with the novel "Unwelcome Guest". Although he did not win the award, his work was selected by Kodansha for publication.

From 1960 to 1961, Sasawa Sabao created 8 novels and more than 30 short stories in a row, and was the most prolific reasoning writer in Japan at that time.These works belong to the realistic social reasoning, but the puzzles are also very delicate, which is the biggest difference between Sasawa Sabao and other socialist writers. Because of the long-term creation in the hospital, Sasawa Saho was unable to adapt to the desk after he was discharged from the hospital.However, he was used to working in bed and worried that he would not be able to resist the temptation of the Sandman and delay the delivery of the manuscript.Therefore, he became the only writer in the world who wrote while standing.

Sasawa Saho's handwriting is small and neat, and often only the middle part of a page is used, leaving neat blanks around it.Plus the name "Sabo" is so feminine that editors and readers alike have long perceived it as a woman. The editor-in-chief of "Gem" magazine even tried to visit Sasawa Sabao unannounced many times to see if it was possible to make her a "beauty writer". Sasawa Sabo's creation view is "mystery novels should be a combination of puzzle solving and romance".For this idea, after 1964, the puzzle-solving elements in his works were further weakened, the sense of suspense and romance became more obvious, and there were more and more love scenes.This change made Sasawa Sabo one of the most popular mystery writers for women in that era.

Hiroshi Sano, whose real name is Ichiro Maruyama, was born in Tokyo in 1928.Hiroshi Sano has excellent grades since he was a child, is good at sports, and has a wide range of knowledge. In 1945, Hiroshi Sano was admitted to a naval academy, but only stayed for four months before the school was disbanded due to the end of World War II.Hiroshi Sano went back to university and entered the "Yomiuri Shimbun" as a reporter. In 1958, Hiroshi Sano won the second prize in the essay contest for his novella reasoning "Bronze Wedding". In 1959, he created the novel "A Lead Pipe" and became a full-time reasoning writer.

Social reasoning writers are known for their wide range of subjects, and Hiroshi Sano is one of the best.His novels involve politics, sports, business, psychology and many other fields, even in science fiction.Hiroshi Sano is hailed by the media as "Japan's Asimov", and his level of science fiction reasoning is not inferior to such world famous works. "Transparent Conception" is the most representative work among them. Hiroshi Sano is not only an excellent writer, but also an excellent critic.As a backbone writer of the socialist school, Sano Hiroshi has been committed to promoting the realism style.He is especially opposed to the appearance of traditional "famous detectives" in his works, and believes that such settings are "made up" and disrespectful to readers.Throughout Hiroshi Sano's works throughout his life, there has never been a serial detective, let alone a so-called "famous detective".

Hiroshi Sano's point of view was very sharp, and it triggered a famous debate in the history of Japanese reasoning.The object of the debate is the famous reasoning writer Dozuki Michio.Similar to Hiroshi Sano, Michio Tsuzuki is also a master of writing and criticism.He created many "famous detectives" and insisted on opposing Sano Yang's views.This debate lasted for a long time and had an important impact on the development of Japanese mystery novels. If there is any female writer who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Etsuko Niki in the field of socialism after the "Qing Zhang Revolution", it must be Shizuko Natsuki. Natsuki Shizuko, whose real name is Igarashi Shizuko, was born in Tokyo on February 21, 1938, and her university major is English. Natsuki Shizuko's debut was quite smooth, and her starting point was also very high. In 1969, Natsuki Shizuko competed for the Edogawa Rampo Award with "The Lost Angel", and she came in second - the first place I believe everyone remembers, yes, it was Seiichi Morimura.Still, the work received unanimous approval and was published by Kodansha in 1970. After writing several short stories, in 1973, Natsuki Shizuko's second novel was completed.This work is the highest masterpiece of Natsuki Shizuko, and it has undisputedly won the Grand Prize of the Japan Mystery Writers Association.She went on to write Lost, Frosty Ice and a tribute to Ellery Queen. In the early days, Natsuki Shizuko was a staunch writer who advocated conquering readers with gorgeous and peculiar mysteries; in the 1970s, influenced by the "Qingzhang Curse", her writing style underwent a major change and became a social novelist. Send reasoning generals.Later, Natsuki Shizuko won the title of "Housewife Writer", which shows how "close to the people" her works are.She and another female writer, Misa Yamamura, are called the "peerless twins" of the socialist period. The influence of "Qing Zhang Curse" is far-reaching, just like the "Black Revolution" in the West, which not only created the socialist reasoning itself, but also largely determined the development direction of "big reasoning novels". Because the works of the socialist school advocate realism, the content of the works is close to life, and the character setting is relatively civilian. A considerable number of readers who did not read mystery novels before have become mystery fans.Therefore, during the prosperous period of socialist reasoning, this genre of fiction created two "national writers".These two writers have a large number of works and cover a wide range of subjects. No matter men, women, young or old, they are their most die-hard fans-they are Nishimura Kyotaro and Akagawa Jiro. Nishimura Kyotaro, whose real name is Yajima Kihachiro, was born in 1930. In 1963, he won the Newcomer Award for Mystery Fiction with "Distorted Morning"; in 1965, he won the Edogawa Rampo Award with "Scars of Angels", and became famous in one fell swoop. Nishimura Kyotaro's works involve all areas of Japanese society, and he is an out-and-out "national idol".Among them, "travel reasoning" is the field that Nishimura Kyotaro is best at - he especially likes to create stories based on trams, trains, ships or airplanes, and integrates the customs and social background of each region in the process of solving puzzles. The extension of the novel is expanded to the greatest extent.Obviously, the timetable trick and alibi are Nishimura Kyotaro's "housekeeping skills". In addition to "Scars of Angels", Nishimura Kyotaro's representative works include "Hyperbolic Murder Case", "The Killing Intent of Gems" and so on.And the serial detective Totsugawa Police Department he portrayed in his works has become the most popular criminal policeman among readers. Akagawa Jiro, who was born in 1948, is more "universal" than Nishimura Kyotaro.Since his award-winning debut novel "Ghost Train" in 1976, the writer known as "The Printing Press" has published nearly 150 works.It is said that during the heyday, Akagawa Jiro was able to complete a novel of at least 150,000 words every two days. Since 1983, Akagawa Jiro has ranked first in the annual author income list for three consecutive years.In 1985 alone, his royalty income was as high as 750 million yen, which is incredible.The familiar animated image "Cat's Eye Three Sisters" was written by Akagawa Jiro. There is no doubt that Nishimura Kyotaro and Akagawa Jiro have played a role that cannot be ignored in the popularization of mystery novels.But objectively speaking, the number of works is too large and the subject matter covered is too broad, which also severely restricts the further development of the two writers.Frankly speaking, in terms of the "efficiency" of their works, these two "national writers" are not particularly outstanding. With "miscellaneous experts" like Nishimura Kyotaro and Akagawa Jiro, there will be more experts who are constantly exploring in a field.In the 1980s, many writers implanted elements of Western tough guy reasoning into realist reasoning, thus deriving the Japanese "tough guy school".The representative writers of this faction are Toshiyuki Nishimura, Tsuyoshi Osaka, Jaechang Osawa and Chi Xingzhou. Born in 1930, Nishimura Toshiyuki's masterpiece is "Crossing the River of Anger"-what?You haven't heard of this book?impossible!When I name the movie adapted from this book, you will suddenly realize: .That's right, the film that influenced a generation in China and portrayed Takakura Ken and Nakano Yoshiko as "The Legend of Condor Heroes" was adapted from Nishimura's novel. As mentioned, there is no need for me to repeat the characteristics of this type of works-shady, framed, revenge, action, thrilling, these words can basically summarize Japanese tough guy novels.Unlike the Western tough guys bred by the "Black Revolution", influenced by traditional oriental culture and socialist reasoning, Japanese tough guys will not try to "destroy the world", but only hope to use their own strength to bring the distorted society back on track. Aisaka Tsuyoshi's "Hundred Tongue Series" includes 5 works, creating the image of "Killer Bai Tongue"; Osawa Zaichang's "Shinjuku Yume Series" has sold 6 million copies in Japan, and the protagonist "Shinjuku Yume" is out-and-out The "pure man"; the writer Chi Xingzhou, whose idol is comedian Zhou Xingchi, created the "Never Sleeping City Series", which has become the best interpretation of Japanese tough guy reasoning.These writers and representative works constitute the Ukiyo-e of Japanese tough guy novels. In short, whether it is the direct inheritance, the extension of the extension, or the extension of the core, it is all based on the foundation of Seicho Matsumoto. The principle of socialist realism has not been shaken, but has been more and more deeply embedded in it. Various genres derived from it.No wonder Keigo Higashino of the Heavenly King level also expressed his heartfelt emotion: "No one can escape the spell set by Seicho Matsumoto." However, no matter how good the "Qing Zhang Curse" is, there will always be someone who tries in his own way and tries to make a breakthrough.This attempt is painful, and the probability of success is very limited.But once it succeeds, it must be another legendary and well-told story.