delayer donno "In purity, what is your greatest fear?" "fast." ——Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" is the famous Japanese detective Kosuke Kindaichi described by Yokomizo Masashi. One of the most striking features of his investigation is the serial killings that are weird and threatening with fate, which is the selling point of the novel. But what is helpless is that this also brings ridicule to this famous detective with messy hair-how does it always happen that everyone is almost killed before he solves the case? In contrast, the British queen of classical reasoning Agatha Christie became more self-conscious and humorous, and she laughed at herself before others opened her mouth: In one of her novels, she said through the female reasoning writer Mrs. Eight people died before the detective got the inspiration."

Of course, those of us who read mystery novels are not difficult to understand why human life is like a mustard in mystery novels.Death, from the perspective of reading, is an instant orgasm, which can guarantee that the reader will not fall asleep immediately. If the refreshing effect of one death can last for thirty pages, then eight evenly arranged deaths can indeed make people It’s no problem to finish a 240-page novel: From the point of view of plot arrangement, death is the abrupt end of old clues, which simply creates the effect of a dead end in a maze, and is the most convenient way for reasoning writers to lure readers ——So both the writer and the reader know it well.In fact, more candid reasoning authors do not shy away from this, like s. s.Van Dyne once said, "The crime without murder is too thin and the weight is too small. It is too much to write three hundred pages for such an ordinary crime. After all, the time and energy spent by the reader must be rewarded. .”

However, to be honest, the worry and persuasion in Van Dyne’s words is really too much to worry about. Whether we look at the professional psychological state of reasoning writers or the results that are constantly presented in real works, in reasoning novels, death will only happen. Used too much instead of too little, too heavily instead of too lightly.It is a special medicine, but like all special medicines, its biggest danger is that it is overused and has not very good side effects.When there are more deaths, more bizarre deaths, or more brutal deaths, the more important the dead, the higher the status, and the greater the wealth, the novel itself is often relatively thin and bad, and the two cause and effect each other, forming a vicious circle.

Therefore, I personally often think, which famous works in the history of reasoning do not rely on death to stand out? Or, among the many classification rankings, should this very interesting column be added: the most important work of "non-death" The best mystery novels and top ten rankings? The reason why I personally think that mystery novels without death are interesting, first of all, is that they imply the author's confidence and courage, daring not to rely on the sensory stimulation that death inevitably carries to attract people. ; then, if this confidence and courage don't fail (of course it could fail, failure means this is a boring novel that no one reads), it will be more interesting, because the writer has to fill in the lost drama of death's absence Effects and magnetic fields, which represent the fullness and richness of this mystery novel itself, in other words, it must be more ingenious, deeper, or more imaginative.

Tei Yi's novel is such a novel. If it has the above ranking, I believe that even if it is not the first, it must be ranked in the top three. As a defending soldier, Tie Yi was actually just a trivial matter. The "victim" was just a teenage female student at school. She was abducted by the mother and daughter who let her hitchhike, imprisoned in an old big house, and forced her to work as a maid; the only injuries she suffered were whipping and starvation. The name of the big house where she was imprisoned was " Franchise". Reasoning readers who are used to seeing big scenes and bloody murder scenes will not be able to adapt to such a small case at once—however.The mighty Tie Yi dares to challenge readers' reading habits and expectations in this way. She really doesn't look like a writer of popular novels.

But bravery is different from blood. It is usually not a result of character, but the persistence of a certain belief or something that is considered valuable, so it is the will and determination to risk its disgrace.So what we have to ask is, what exactly is Tei trying to do? What is she really trying to convey in the shell of a mystery novel? What are the firm beliefs that support her? When reading Tie Yi's novels, what is most likely to be felt is a strong anger that can be seen everywhere and is not intended to be concealed (the last thing a writer of genre fiction should have, and even if there is, it should be hidden). I think this is why she writes novels. The alternative motivation shows that she is the kind of writer who has opinions on everything and has something to say instead of just trying to sell books.What's even better is that a large part of Tie Yi's anger is directed towards the masses who are her parents.At the beginning of the first chapter of her magnum opus, she says, through the mouth of Inspector Grant trapped in the hospital room, "Too many people have been born into this world. Too many words have been written. Millions of words every minute It’s all in print, and it’s scary to think about it.” Then, taking advantage of the situation, he sarcastically and ironically repaired a bunch of popular novels; and we know that after seriously and seriously reviewing the falsity and error of legends and history, To a considerable extent, Tei attributed this to people's ignorance, cowardice, passion and all kinds of selfishness that hide their own interests and so on.

In this book, Tei continues or expands this resentment.In Tie Yi's writing, this suspected kidnapping case, which Scotland Yard originally decided not to transfer for prosecution, became a prairie fire that erupted throughout the UK after the gossip tabloids reported it. , there is a pair of innocent schoolgirls with baby blue eyes and eyes that have been abused, and on the other side is a combined over 100-year-old girl who lives in a big house in Franchise (although it is actually quite poor) and does not follow There are rumors of witches between mothers and daughters, and the outraged public of course side with the former.So words of justice—abuse—resistance—harassment—attack are like a one-way street that no one can stop, and violence appears without hesitation under the call of justice.The walls of Franchise were first painted with dirty words, then the walls were broken into and the glass was smashed, and finally it was set ablaze.Readers who are familiar with human history should not be surprised, let alone think that this is just Tei’s exaggerated remarks. This is a formula behavior that human collective behavior often presents—here, Tei borrowed a small kidnapping in a small British town The case is directly connected to the memory of human beings who are violent and can never repent.

From Tie Yi's angry throwing of the gun, we can trace back to the things she cherishes and seriously defends: she believes in knowledge, experience, and progress is the possible result of human beings using their brains seriously.Time is a necessary price. Passion and rage are not enough to make good results appear faster, but only bring harm and staggering deviation of pace; she believes in various virtues, but be careful not to let any one of them be too high to be sacred so as not to violate other moral principles: she even believes that values ​​and virtues are not necessarily natural and harmonious, and they inevitably conflict with each other in the real world. edge.

A Return to the British Intellectual Tradition Robert Barnard, in his preface, calls it a certain middle-class dilemma, but I personally prefer to call it the British intellectual tradition since Locke. From the 18th century, the French simply held "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" (They never cared that these are actually three separate things, and they are often incompatible in practice.) After the Great Revolution, the modernization process of the whole world is always accompanied by fanatical passion.In this regard, Americans boast that they are uniquely blessed. They believe that the vast land of the New World in North America provides a safety valve for social development conflicts, avoiding the cruel price paid by such as the French Revolution and the fascist upsurge in Germany and Italy.

If we say that the United States relies on space to dilute enthusiasm, then Britain relies on time to control enthusiasm. As we all know, Britain is not only the mother country of the Industrial Revolution, but also the origin of social civilianization and political democratization. Like other countries that have surpassed the United Kingdom and caught up with the United States, they have compressed the huge project of human transformation into a very short period of time, including political, economic, social, family and other major issues "all in one effort"; on the contrary, they started early and had a chance They only deal with one problem, so they can use reason calmly and accumulate experience reliably. Intellectuals like Britain are like engineers of thinking, not like ideological revolutionaries. In the voice, Burke's calm, worried, slightly hesitant and conservative criticism on the English Channel side can best appreciate such characteristics of British intellectuals.