Chapter 61 "The Strange Tale of Panorama Island" Problem Solving

This article involves the puzzle of the work, it is recommended that readers read the work first, and then read this article. It is the fifth volume of "Edogawa Ranpo Works Collection".Contains the second novel of Ranpo and the first novella "The Lakeside Pavilion Incident".All of them were serialized in magazines starting in 1926. 1926 was the year when Ranpo’s creativity was the most vigorous. In addition to the above two works, two other novels were serialized in magazines starting from January. The first full-length novel of the whole year (January to December), "Stilling in the Dark", and "Two Detective Novelists", which was serialized four times in the ten-day magazine of "Photo Hochi" starting from January 5th, were interrupted later. The work was included in the collection of works in the form of short stories, and was renamed "The Fraudster and the Air Man".

In addition, his third novel "Master One Inch" was serialized in "Tokyo Asahi Shimbun" from December 8th of that year to February 20th of the next year. The feature of the novels in the early stage of Ranpo is to novelize the Utopia Taoyuan Township in my mind. (パノラマ岛奇谈): From October 1926 to April 1927, under the title of "パノラマ Island Strange Tan", it was serialized five times in the monthly magazine "New Youth" (October 1926 February, closed April 1927).The original text is about 93,000 words, and it is the second longest novel of Ranpo (excluding "The Deceiver and the Air Man", which was interrupted after four serializations).When Ranpo serialized this article, he didn't have much confidence. After being praised by the poet Hagiwara Sakutaro, he confidently called it one of his five masterpieces.

In January 1927, when Chunyangtang was about to publish Luanpo's "One Inch Master", it changed the income from "Fantastic Tan" to "Fantastic Tan".By June 1931, when Pingfansha published "The Complete Works of Edogawa Ranpo", the first volume was included in this book, and "Strange Tan" was changed to "Qitan".After that, the pre-war versions all used "Panorama Island Strange Tan". However, after the war, the Japanese government carried out a text reform, restricting the use of some Chinese characters, and the word "Qitan" was canceled, so "Qi Tan" was used again until today.

I don't know how readers feel when they see the three different expressions of "Qi Tan", "Qi Tan" and "Qi Tan".There should be no difference in the meaning of these three different "strange talks".However, if you look at "Qi" and "Qi", "Tan" and "Tan" separately, you must have different feelings.Why did the author point out this issue specifically?Because the content of this book is a "strange story". The story uses a third-person single perspective to describe the realization and disillusionment of the protagonist Hirosuke Hitomi's dream.

After graduating from university, Hirosuke Hitomi has not been looking for a job for more than ten years. He lives in a dilapidated apartment and is accompanied by daydreams all day long.His favorite reading is utopian novels, utopian works with political or economic themes, which he has no interest in.His concern is the paradise on earth. He believes that musicians use musical instruments, painters use canvas and paint, and poets use words to create different types of art. The art of nature can use mountains and rivers—a stone, a tree, a flower, a bird and an animal. Even insects, etc. are used as materials—created.In other words, he himself becomes a "god" to transform nature, which is his only dream.

One day, Hitomi Hirosuke finally had the opportunity to realize his dream. To see how he transformed an isolated island with a diameter of less than two miles into a Taoyuan Township is the theme of this article. Please read this article for details.If the story ends like this, it can only be regarded as a chaotic utopian novel.However, Ranpo arranges a murder incident in the second half, so that readers can enjoy the taste of this mystery novel while visiting Ranbu Taoyuan Township.Among all Ranpo's works, this is a masterpiece that best expresses his "dream". "Hupan Pavilion Incident" (Hupan Pavilion Incident): From January to May 1926, it was serialized in the weekly "Daily Sunday" for twelve chapters, with seven chapters resting in between. Compared with the number of words, the difference is less than 10,000 words, so it may be regarded as a long novel.In fact, some Japanese critics regard it as a novel, but some researchers classify it as a novella.This way of categorizing works by word count is mostly just to tell readers the length of the work.

The short, medium, and long lengths also have an important mission, which is to imply the simplicity and complexity of the story structure.Short stories are suitable for the narrative of a single event, but if a long story wants to describe a single event, it needs supplementary materials to strengthen it, otherwise it will definitely fail.For example, the reason for the incident, or adding some metaphysics that is not directly related to the incident, etc., are all supplementary materials.The description of artificial paradise can also be considered as supplementary material. In addition, Japan does not pay much attention to the length comparison of works. The fundamental reason is that most of the works are first published in magazines and newspapers, and then published as a collection.The long story can be published immediately after the serialization is over, and the advantage of the short story is that readers can read the story at one time. The shorter novella of about 40,000 words may be published at one time, and the longer novella needs to be serialized. The single book cannot be published immediately, and the economic benefits are not very good, so many magazines do not publish novellas.This phenomenon was especially evident before the war.

The protagonist of "The Lakeside Pavilion Incident" is "I", a boy from a rich family, and the story unfolds through first-person narration.Five years ago, I witnessed a murder through a lens. "I" has been obsessed with lenses since I was a child, and this hobby has intensified since I grew up. I have tried to make all kinds of voyeur mirrors, peeking at other people's privacy, and feel supreme fun from them. One day "I" went to Lake A in H Mountain to recuperate and stayed at the Lakeside Pavilion Hotel. "I" designed a set of lenses to peep into the bathroom and observe the life in the bathroom.One night, I saw a man assassinate a woman in the lens...due to the angle of the lens, I couldn't see their faces.

Afterwards, the body mysteriously disappeared, as if no murder had happened, "I" fidgeted, and told what I saw to a painter Kono who was also staying at the lakeside pavilion...