Chapter 26 1. I don't want to talk to the world

Chinese creators, I look forward to your works. Whether you have read all the previous chapters, or just casually read one or two chapters or paragraphs, you will find that the author has been trying to discuss with you in a relatively relaxed way.Because reasoning literature itself should not be a very heavy and academic proposition. However, in this section, I have to change my usual tone, because the topic we have encountered has no glorious history and achievements, but some confused explorations and attempts.This topic is "Chinese original reasoning". First of all, one thing must be stated.Mystery novels are purely "imported products" for the Chinese, and they are definitely not our original creations.Many voices believe that ancient Chinese koan novels are far earlier than Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", and this is the earliest mystery novel.Here the author needs to clearly put forward his point of view: Chinese koan novels are not mystery novels.

The focus of koan novels is "people". The novel portrays the heroic image of the protagonist through a series of incidents (especially criminal incidents), highlighting the character's loyalty and integrity, so as to serve as a warning and enlightenment.We are familiar with "Bao Gong's Case", "Shi Gong's Case", "Peng Gong's Case", "Hai Gong Da (Little) Red Robe Biography", etc., all of which are such works. Moreover, in order to achieve the above purpose, it was also limited by the objective cognitive ability at the time, and there were often non-scientific or even superstitious elements in koan novels, such as Baogong judge, trial black basin, etc.More importantly, these elements appear in the work in an unequal form, and become the "patent" of the "detective" to pursue the truth. Such treatment will undoubtedly make the novel lose its scientific and fairness.

Therefore, no matter in terms of creative principles or creative techniques, Chinese classical koan novels are far from mystery novels. The time when mystery novels came to China was roughly the same as Japan, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the Republic of China.The locked gates of the Qing government were bombarded by the strong ships and cannons of the Western powers, and mystery novels flooded into China along with the guns.Because such novels conform to the readers' novelty-seeking psychology, they were quickly recognized by the Chinese people. Similar to Japan, the Chinese know about mystery novels, and they also started with Sherlock Holmes. In 1896, editor Zhang Dekun published a translated novel titled "Revenge of the Recorder" in "Current Affairs", which is the famous "The Hunchbacked Man" in the Sherlock Holmes story.Subsequently, a large number of scholars and literati began to translate mystery novels, and translated works once occupied most of the Chinese market.Objectively speaking, the level of translation in China at that time was higher than that in Japan.On the one hand, those who are engaged in the translation of mystery novels are masters like Lin Shu; on the other hand, the quantity and quality of translated works are not inferior to those of Japan.

Faced with this prosperous situation, Chinese creators will naturally try to create mystery novels.The leader among them is undoubtedly Cheng Xiaoqing, who is known as the "father of Chinese mystery novels". Cheng Xiaoqing, formerly known as Cheng Qingxin, was born in Anqing City, Anhui Province in 1893.Cheng Xiaoqing's family was very poor, and he worked as an apprentice in a watch shop.He loved reading since he was a child, and even taught himself English for this purpose. At the age of 18, he began to engage in literary writing, and has cooperated with famous writers such as Zhou Shoujuan to translate many works of Conan Doyle.

Influenced by the stories of Sherlock Holmes, Cheng Xiaoqing began to write mystery novels. In 1911, Shanghai's "News" held a novel essay competition. Cheng Xiaoqing's novel "Light and Figure" with Hawthorne as the protagonist participated in the competition, and the result was unprecedentedly loved by readers.Originally, the detective in Cheng Xiaoqing's novel was called "Huo Sen", but due to a typographer's mistake, it became "Huo San".Encouraged by readers, Cheng Xiaoqing successively wrote more than 30 mystery novels, including "Jiangnanyan", "Pearl Necklace", "Blood Under the Wheel", and "White Clothes Monster", which established his position in the field of original reasoning in one fell swoop.

Cheng Xiaoqing's "Hawthorne Series" was obviously influenced by Sherlock Holmes' stories—it adopted the mode of "supernatural detective + confused assistant"; adopted the first-person narrative method of assistant Bao Lang; and used a lot of very advanced scientific detection at that time means…… At the same time, Cheng Xiaoqing imprinted the Chinese brand on this series to the greatest extent possible.The characters, background, and events all took place in China, and the behavior and thinking patterns in the story are also very Chinese.Moreover, Cheng Xiaoqing absorbed a large number of elements of mandarin duck and butterfly novels, condemnation novels, and gangster novels that were popular at that time, reflecting the social reality of China's mixed dragon and snake at that time, which was very immersive.Therefore, Cheng Xiaoqing has also become the undisputed "No. 1 person in Chinese mystery novels".

Cheng Xiaoqing has spared no effort to promote reasoning culture all his life. Although he has experienced ups and downs, he has not changed his ambition.He participated in the production and edited a series of speculative literature magazines, and is a pioneer in this field.After liberation, Cheng Xiaoqing was still active in the front line of reasoning literature until his death in 1976. Influenced by Cheng Xiaoqing, a large number of outstanding writers of mystery novels emerged in China at that time.Sun Liaohong, Yu Tianqi, Zhang Biwu, Zhao Tukuang and others competed on the stage, and jointly created the first prosperity of Chinese reasoning.Many commentators believe that in terms of starting level, China’s reasoning is much higher than that of Japan in the “chaotic period” before 1923, and even comparable to the “new youth period” after the birth of Edogawa Ranpo.

However, objective conditions do not give China room for further development of reasoning.With years of war and a sluggish economy, the first wave of Chinese reasoning ended. After the founding of New China, a large number of police literature and anti-special novels have sprung up.Some people think that this is the second upsurge of Chinese reasoning literature, but the author does not think so.Let’s not talk about whether public security literature and anti-special novels are speculative novels in the pure sense. Even if they are, this situation is still under the intervention of objective political conditions (including the influence of our social system and the ideology of the former Soviet Union) What was born was not a real prosperity in the cultural field.

The real second boom came in the 1980s after the reform and opening up.With the relaxed publishing environment, a large number of excellent foreign mystery novels came to China.Among them, bear the brunt of the works of Agatha Christie. In 1979, "Yilin" magazine was launched.In the inaugural issue, the magazine published the full text of "Queen" - the film adaptation of this work caused a sensation at the time.The move sparked a debate.Many experts and scholars believe that the current stage of China is not suitable for a large number of translations of foreign literature, especially mystery novels with murderous plots.However, the readers' voice finally overwhelmed everything. Soon, Mass Publishing House published "The Complete Works of Detective Sherlock Holmes" and "The Mystery of the Greek Coffin" by Ellery Quinn, and the craze for mystery novels broke out irresistibly.The works of Matsumoto Seicho, Morimura Seiichi, Natsuki Shizuko and other famous writers were published successively in the 1980s and 1990s, and for the first time Chinese readers got a taste of the demeanor of these reasoning masters.Today, "The Complete Works of Detective Sherlock Holmes" by Mass Publishing House should be the best-selling mystery novel in the Chinese market, and even Keigo Higashino in recent years is hard to come by.

Complementing each other with the translated novel is another attempt by the original creators from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.A large number of authors represented by Lan Ma, Cao Zhengwen, Zhong Yuan, and Lan Xiao emerged and created a large number of mystery novels.But objectively speaking, there was no Cheng Xiaoqing-style "leader" in this period, and the quality of his works was not outstanding, and he could not lead the development direction of reasoning literature like Japan. Entering the new century, with the more convenient information dissemination, Chinese creators have the opportunity to read excellent reasoning works from various regions of the world in the first place.With the advent of the Internet age, Chinese creators do not have to work behind closed doors and fight alone, but can communicate more with like-minded people, which will undoubtedly help improve the level of creation.

At the same time, some publishing houses represented by Xinxing Publishing House and Jilin Publishing Group began to publish reasoning works from a professional perspective.While pursuing profits, these publishing houses are also deliberately cultivating local reasoning culture, which is undoubtedly a huge progress. With the joint efforts of many parties, the publication of mystery novels has reached an unprecedented height in the first decade of the 21st century.However, it is undeniable that foreign reasoning works still account for more than 95% of the publishing share. Under such a situation, the development situation of original reasoning is still very severe. Throughout the history of original reasoning, we can easily find that its development is extremely slow and difficult.After Cheng Xiaoqing’s era, no matter in terms of text quality or commercial value, original reasoning has hardly made any substantial progress, and there is even a tendency to retreat instead of advancing—because there is no creator who can compete with Cheng Xiaoqing.Compared with China, which is next to Japan and is the motherland of culture, in the field of reasoning literature, it can only be described as "shame".It can be said that China’s reasoning has been prosperous for several times, but it basically stayed at the stage of translation and publication of foreign works, and commercial interests played a large role in this; while the original creative field is almost a “desert” . There are many and complicated reasons for this phenomenon. Generally speaking, the author believes that there are the following points. First, cultural differences.Chinese culture pays more attention to the construction of the humanities field, and the development of natural science is relatively backward compared with the West and modern Japan.At the same time, the Chinese pay more attention to the role of "enlightenment", and relatively despise the role of rigorous logic training and practice.This directly leads to the serious lack of knowledge reserve and thinking mode of Chinese creators, and the importance of these two points to the creation of mystery novels is self-evident. Second, the lack of creative background.Japanese creators often have an astonishing reserve of knowledge, and even in a certain field of interest they are not inferior to any professional.Let’s give some random examples—Kyogoku Natsuhiko’s understanding of monster culture, Isaka Kotaro’s understanding of music and movies, Michio Hidesuke’s understanding of Freud’s theory, Mitsuda Shinzo’s understanding of folklore...with solid and extensive knowledge In terms of reserves, Japanese creators develop bold imaginations and infuse knowledge into imaginations, thus deriving a colorful world of reasoning. Chinese creators seem to be doing the opposite.Most of their knowledge reserves are insufficient, and there are even loopholes in common sense-the author once read the "trick" of "ice cubes sinking into the bottom of the pool to block the drain"!On the other hand, the imagination of Chinese creators is also relatively limited. In addition, they have read a large number of foreign works, so there are serious traces of imitation, and they cannot go out of their own lines. If the creation of Japanese authors is a process of "bold imagination, careful verification", then the creative path of Chinese authors seems to be just the opposite. Third, the environment is extremely utilitarian.Chinese readers have been looking forward to the early appearance of their own excellent works, which is undoubtedly a huge motivation.However, at this stage, this expectation is more manifested in rash denial of authors and publishers, and even attacks and abuse.Everyone seems to like to start from their own point of view, according to their personal likes and dislikes, and draw one or another conclusion about a work.Obviously, without an objective standard and an inclusive mentality, this kind of conclusion is not conducive to the growth of the author-whether it is "killing" or "killing". At the same time, the eagerness for quick success in the publishing industry is also obvious.So far, there is no reasoning award in mainland China to encourage authors, no relatively mature newspaper or magazine introducing reasoning culture, and no publishing house has cultivated China’s Kyogoku Natsuhiko or Higashino Keigo. Shoji Shimada once told the author such a story—— After Shoji Shimada created the "Royal Washing Series", the market response was not very good.At this time, the editor of the publishing house was even more anxious than Shoji Shimada. A female editor suggested that Shoji Shimada create a series completely different from Mitarai, "The protagonist must be very handsome, preferably a handsome guy in a trench coat!" But another A male editor suggested: "Detectives still need to be traditional and handle cases in a down-to-earth manner. It is best to like to eat ramen." Shoji Shimada accepted the editor's suggestion, so today we see a handsome Takeshi Yoshishiki wearing a windbreaker looking for clues and occasionally sitting down to eat a bowl of ramen. The story is interesting, but the symbiotic relationship between author and editor it reveals is thought-provoking.At present, Chinese publishing houses are still keen to spend sky-high prices to compete for the copyright of foreign reasoning works, making the already bubble reasoning market more fragile.Just imagine, will there be a future in a market that has no local creations as its foundation and only relies on sky-high prices for "exotic products"?But the problem is that if you don’t invest in this frothy market, building a local reasoning culture will become an even more distant dream—how sad it is! Perhaps, only time can settle everything; perhaps, one day in the future, Chinese reasoning can usher in a real glory of its own.Before that, we can only do everything we can grasp.