Editor's note: Since Zhang Kunde first translated Sherlock Holmes detective novels in The Times in 1896, detective novels have been introduced to China as "imported products" and have taken root and developed in China for more than 100 years, in the process, Chinese detective novels have formed their own unique development context and genre characteristics. This series of articles will focus on some interesting details in Chinese detective novels in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, such as early photography and PS technology, female detectives and child detective images, "experiments" and "tests" in detective novels, and "spoof Sherlock Holmes" series of novels, etc., intended to outline the interesting content and basic appearance of the birth of Chinese detective novels in the past century.
"Young Detective (Volume 1)" book shadow (author Zhao Junqi, shanghai Golden House Bookstore, first edition in June 1947). (Courtesy of Wasby/Photo)
With the release of the movie "Detective Conan: Crimson Bullets" in China, the "CP fans" of Xinlan and Ke Ai have begun a new round of "quarrels". Detective Conan manga began serialization in Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1994, the anime of the same name premiered on Yomiuri television on January 8, 1996, and the first theatrical version of the anime "Detonating the Skyscraper" was released in 1997. A series of cultural products, including games, etc., may be called a complete set of cultural industries.
Detective Conan has been with us for almost thirty years, but Conan still hasn't graduated from Didan Elementary School, and his real identity, Kudo Shinichi, is still a high school student. In Conan's "Detective Universe", many detectives are just teenagers or even children, such as Hattori Heiji, Detective Hakuba, Seiryo Makoto, and even the strange thief Kidd, etc. are high school students, while Conan's friends "Junior Detective Corps" Kojima Motota, Mitsuhiko Marutani, and Yoshida Bumi are even elementary school students, which of course is related to the "Famous Detective Conan" "Juvenile Manga" itself positioning, and it seems to remind us that the line of detectives can be described as "heroes from ancient times".
<h3>Start with the "First Sherlock Holmes Case"</h3>
Through the introduction of his friend Stamford Jr., Holmes met Dr. Watson in 1881, when Holmes was 27 years old, and together they solved the famous "Blood Letter Study" case. The most famous series of detective novels that have influenced the world for more than a hundred years began. However, it should be noted that "The Study of Blood Letters" is the first novel in the "Sherlock Holmes Detective" series, but it is not the first case involved in Holmes's life. In fact, The Adventure of the Gloria Scott, included in The Memoirs, is the "First Case of Sherlock Holmes" in the true temporal sense. The story takes place in 1873, when Holmes was just a freshman, visiting a friend's house during the summer, and at the reminder of his friend's father, Holmes "felt for the first time, maybe, I can turn something as purely a hobby into a profession", and then he cracked a set of code notes and the truth of a case of criminal rebellion that occurred decades ago and killed the crew. Holmes embarked on a career as a detective, and this year he was 19 years old, just two years older than Kudo Shinichi, who would never graduate from high school.
After Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, another of the world's most prestigious detective novel writers, seems to be older, such as Poirot, who quit his police job and started his career as a private investigator when he was nearly 40 years old. And Grandma's other detective, Miss Marple, when she first appeared in "The Mystery of the Apartment", she was nearly 70 years old and "Grandma Detective" image. Of course, this does not mean that "Grandma" has not written the image of a juvenile detective, and her most complicated juvenile detective undoubtedly first promoted the "detective fan" Josephine in the novel "Crooked House", a little girl who has read many detective novels and is the granddaughter of the deceased Leonie the elder, who was "about eleven or twelve years old" when the case occurred. Josephine was convinced that she could be a good detective, and in fact she did possess some of the basic qualities of a detective—being observant, eavesdropping frequently, actively searching for clues and reasoning about them analytically. What's more, she had a strong desire to become a detective, in her own words: "I'm going to write everything down in a notebook, and when the cops are completely overwhelmed, I'll come up to them and say, 'I can tell you who did it.'" But at the same time, Josephine is also a little worried, especially her "cold" and "superiority-filled" voice and the fact that she seems to be in constant danger of being killed by the killer. Although this book is far from "Grandma's" most famous detective novel, she believes that "this book is my own favorite book" and "this is the best book I have ever written".
<h3>A juvenile detective during the Republic of China</h3>
In the early Chinese detective novels, the most famous detective image is the great detective Hawthorne by Cheng Xiaoqing (1893-1976). Hawthorne's talent for investigating and solving cases has also been reflected from an early age. In "Hawthorne's Childhood", the author introduces the first case of Hawthorne's life with the help of handbags, when Hawthorne was still in elementary school, lost his newly bought brush at school one day, and asked Teacher Wang to help investigate, not wanting to be rejected by the teacher. Later, through his own wit and cleverness, Hawthorne "found his lost pen" within a few minutes, and "the teacher Wang, who rejected him at first, not only did not rebuke him, but also rewarded him a few times." This has a lot to do with Hawthorne's later career. Because of his agitation, Hawthorne's will and interest were greatly aroused." Even Hawthorne himself admitted that "the first time I experimented with detective behavior, I actually got the sympathy of Teacher Wang." So I feel excited and interesting, and I have today's career."
Lu Zhan'an Xiaoying. (Courtesy of Wasby/Photo)
Another Series of Detective Novels of the Republic of China that can be compared with the "Hawthorne Detective" series is Lu Zhan'an's (1894-1980) "Detective Li Fei", according to Zheng Yimei, "Cheng Xiaoqing is famous for the Hawthorne Detective Case, but Lu Yuan'an is famous for the Li Fei Detective Case, and Sun Yihong has the number of Oriental Yasen Luo Ping" ("The Old School Literary and Art Periodicals of the Republic of China: The Detective World"), which regards the Hawthorne, Li Fei, and Lupin series as the three peaks of the Republic of China detective novels, which is true. In the "Detective Li Fei" series of novels, detective Li Fei cracks the first case when he is seventeen years old (the same age as Kudo Shin), when Li Fei "studied in a middle school, which is private, the school name is Yadong Public School, and the address is in the middle of Jing'an Temple Road." The school is divided into two parts, one is the middle school and the other is the preparatory department of the middle school." ("Cotton Needle", published in 1922) The whole case is relatively simple, but it is a case of roommate theft in the same dormitory, and the suspects involved are only four roommates. The young detective Li Fei finally found out the real thief through rigorous reasoning and the method of wanting to get away with it. Adhering to the principle of no spoilers, the author will not introduce the truth and cracking process of the entire case here, and interested readers can pay attention to the upcoming "Detective Li Fei"," written and arranged by Lu Xian'an, Edited and arranged by Wasby, Beijing United Publishing Company, 2021), and get a glimpse of this chinese detective novel and the style of the juvenile detective in it a hundred years ago. It is still worth mentioning here that from the perspective of the relatively enclosed space and the limited number of suspects to find the real culprit, the basic unit story structure of the early episodes of "Detective Conan" is very close to the detective novel "Cotton Needle" published by Lu Chan-an in 1922. At the time, Agatha Christie, who was recognized as the best writer of this type of story model in the world, had just published her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), and Eastern and Western detective novel masters basically created a similar story structure of detective novels at the same point in time.
The Collected Cases of Detective Li Fei (by Lu Yuan'an, printed by the Shanghai World Book Company, first edition in August 1924). (Courtesy of Shanghai Library/Photo)
<h3>"Confused Detective" of "Three Years Old Look Old"</h3>
According to the character and plot setting of detective novels, the protagonist often has some qualities that he later became a detective when he was a teenager, and correspondingly, stupid detectives can usually "look old at three years old". Zhu Qiujing, another famous detective novelist in the Republic of China period, once wrote a series of "confused detective cases" that "specializes in the failure history of detective Bai Mang", the protagonist of the series of detectives is named "Bai Mang", and all his investigation efforts with a harmonic pun will eventually be "busy in vain". And Bai Mang's portrayal of a funny, confused, and failed detective can also be seen during his youth study. At that time, "Bai Mangnian Fang Seventeen" (also the same age as Kudo Shin) was "working as a student at the Western University of Xiafeilu in Shanghai". But unlike Kudo Shinichi or Li Fei, who are full of sense of justice and wisdom, Bai Mang's motives and ability to investigate the case are very questionable. For example, in the novel "The First Time to Break the Problem", Bai Mang chose to investigate the emotional life of his classmate Lin Shicheng, but it was because "It turned out that Bai Mang had a competitive temper, and every time he took an exam, he always wanted to get the first." But that first always belongs to others, and this Lin Shicho is the one who often gets the first, so indirectly he has become an enemy of Bai Mang. He was not convinced, and always wanted to find a loophole to attack him for a while, and he waited for a long time." And this jealous motive for investigating the case is not only unjust and unnecessary, but also makes the detective himself greatly embarrassed.
"Confused Detective Case" book shadow (by Zhu Qiujing, issued by Liangchen Friends Club in New Wharf, Shanghai Nanshi, distributed by Dadong Bookstore, first edition in February 1924). (Courtesy of Shanghai Library/Photo)
In another novel, "XYZ", Bai Mang appears in a way that is ridiculed by everyone: "Just walked to the bedroom door, there were four or five classmates sitting there, one of them saw Bai Mang come in, and he was busy pointing and laughing: 'Okay, okay.'" The Great Detective is coming. Bai Mang asked, "Don't make fun of it, what accident happened in the school?" I could hear you talking outside the window. I also mentioned my name, but why? The crowd smiled at him, but didn't say anything. "In the process of investigating the case, Bai Mang was obviously instructed, manipulated, and teased by the thieves from beginning to end, but in the end he still had to brag about himself, and he boasted: 'Thanks to the commission, fortunately, I did not make a mistake.'" Although it took a lot of effort, I still got the gold watch back'." So that the detective's original chivalrous spirit, sense of justice and seriousness are gone here in Bai Mang. Here to say more, there are many funny detective novels similar to Bai Mang in the Republic of China period, Bao Tianxiao, Liu Bannong, Zhao Yuanfan, Xu Zhuoduo and other well-known literati have creative attempts, the content from "spoof Holmes" to create a series of local "failed detectives" and so on, trying to make people feel nervous in the reading process of detective novels and funny novels that make people spit or laugh all the time together, which is also an interesting phenomenon of detective novels at that time. And this kind of writing is probably only a little similar in the "humorous speculative fiction novels" such as "The Key to the Secret Room" and "Reasoning Must Be After Dinner" by the Japanese writer Toshikawa Tachibana a hundred years later, of course, the cultural resources on which the two rely are completely different.
<h3>From child detectives to children's education</h3>
Most of the detective figures introduced above are teenagers, such as 19-year-old Holmes, 17-year-old Li Fei and Bai Mang, and of course, the younger Josephine, who is "about eleven or twelve years old", and Hawthorne in childhood. In fact, during the Republic of China period, there were many more young detective images, the most famous representative of which was the "Zuo Lin and Zuo Tao Brothers Series", "Cong'er Series" and "Fu'er Series" created by Lu Boyou and Wu Keqin.
The series of children's detective stories created by Lü Boyou and Wu Keqin are all based on children as detective protagonists, and their ages are roughly similar to those of Conan, Yuantai, Mitsuhiko, Bumi and others. For example, "Little Detective Cong'er", "A child from my neighbor's family, whose name is Cong'er; he is still studying at the nearby Daren Elementary School" ("Little Detective (I) Canned Lychee"). At the same time, the expected readers of these detective stories are also children (most of them are published in children's magazines such as "Little Friends", "Children's World", "Children's Stories" and so on), and most of the cases are relatively easy and simple, such as who stole the teacher's canned lychee ("Canned Lychee"), who broke the bicycle ("Who broke the bicycle"), why the lights in the house suddenly went out ("Night the Lights Went Out") and so on. The case in no way involves murder, and the limit of the so-called "crime" degree is nothing more than stealing someone else's dog and raising it himself ("Laifu Disappeared"). Now re-watching these novels, you will feel that most of them are too simple and plain, far from exciting enough, but there are also some works worth circle, such as "Red Rose in the Garden" with the help of a flower theft case to popularize a chemical common sense of "chlorine gas and water combined to produce chlorine water, with bleaching", if it is placed in the chemistry textbook at that time, as a pre-class story that leads to experiments, it is really entertaining. Another example is "Strange Letters" is a children's version of the "Yassen Luoping-style detective challenge book", which can be said to be full of childlike fun. One of my favorites is "How The Chicken Died." In such a simple daily detective story, it not only conveys the "detective professional spirit" of finding out the truth and making decisions, but also infiltrates the animal protection concept of not abusing cats, and at the same time can also be read against Lu Xun's novel "Rabbit and Cat", so that we can more clearly understand the difference between simple children's enlightenment stories and profound spirit of revenge, which is really a rather interesting text.
Lu Boyou wu keqin and his wife, writers of the Republic of China period who wrote many children's detective novels. (Courtesy of Wasby/Photo)
It is particularly worth mentioning that Lu Boyou, one of the authors of these children's detective stories, is also a famous children's educator and children's literature researcher in the Republic of China period, who once edited 100 kinds of "sub-textbooks for various subjects in the lower grades of primary schools", which is probably similar to the current recommended books for primary school students to read outside the classroom, and the reason why he chose to create these children's detective novels is also to do some basic literary education and scientific popularization work to children through these interesting detective stories.
In general, in the history of detective novels in the world, there are not few novels with teenagers and even children as the protagonists of detectives, which can either be traced and recalled as the career starting point or previous history of famous detectives on the road of detectives, or can also be used to create a set of detective stories suitable for children to read. And to revisit these juvenile/child detective novels from a hundred years ago, it is also intended to remind that in addition to the imported works such as "Kaneda Ichi Juvenile Incident Book" and "Detective Conan", can we create some local detective novels and film and television animation works for teenagers or children, so that children can appreciate the plot fun, rational quality, justice and bravery in detective novels from an early age?
(The author is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chinese, Fudan University)
Southern Weekend Contributing Writer Zhan Yubing