Andy
One
The last article in Yu Pingbo's Miscellaneous Works on Poetry and Songs, published in October 1983, was written on May 15 of that year: "The Usage of the Word 'Dan' in Peony Pavilion (with the English word 'dog')".
In the sixteenth fold of the "Peony Pavilion" volume, there is such a sentence in the "Criticism":
Then (only) in addition to the eight needle needles broken soft cotton feelings. Afraid of the nine Dan Dan not (get) pickled certificate.
"On Poetry and Song Miscellaneous Works", Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, October 1983
Yu Pingbo explained that the "needle" and "dan" in these two sentences are both nouns in the previous word, and the next word is used as a verb, just like the use of "spring wind wind people, summer rain and rain people". There are also nouns in English that are used to convert nouns into verbs, such as dog is "dog", and when used as a verb, it is the meaning of tail. Yu Pingbo gave an example:
…… as he dogs Aaron Cohen’s footsteps.
Translated as: "Like he follows A. C. Footsteps. (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 800 pp.)
A footnote is added here: "See Aksy, Orczy: The Regent's Park Murder (1932). ”
Orczy is Baroness Orczy (1865-1947), now translated as Baron Orheez, a Hungarian-British writer, and the Murder in Regent's Park is part of her "Old Man in the Corner" detective series. This series is about a mysterious old man sitting in the corner of a café on the day of the town, playing with a thin rope, analyzing the case according to the crime news in the newspaper and the report on the trial, and finally solving the case. "The Old Man in the Corner" has a variety of Chinese translations, the author read the Shandong Literature and Art Publishing House published in December 2015 Wu Yijun, Tang Ting translation, "Regent Park Murder" is included. The sentence quoted by Yu Pingbo does not appear as "dog" in the Chinese translation, which may be the sentence on page 190: "Now try to follow Ashley, just like he followed Elon Cohen..."
The Old Man in the Corner, Shandong Literature and Art Publishing House, December 2015
Two
In his book "My Maternal Grandfather Yu Pingbo", Wei Said that Yu Pingbo read many original English books, "especially like to read detective novels, especially interested in 'Sherlock Holmes', 'Yasen Luoping' and 'Father Brown', but not very fond of the works of modern female writer Agatha Christie" (Unity Press, June 2006 edition, 111 pages). Wei Yu's mother, Yu Cheng, the eldest daughter of Yu Pingbo, is also a fan of detective novels, "On her bookshelf, the most placed is the original detective novel, especially like the British female writer Agatha Christie, and will also recommend what she thinks is good to her grandfather, and the father and daughter will have a discussion, reasonable, unreasonable, relish" (Wei Yu: "Old Moonlight: People and Things Around Yu Pingbo", China Overseas Chinese Publishing House, January 2012 edition , p. 50).
Yu Pingbo's discussion of detective novels with his daughter has not left a record, and his correspondence with his son Yu Runmin will also exchange experiences of reading detective novels, and a letter to Yu Runmin on January 11, 1982 said:
I think the novel is very meticulous, writing girls' school characters, the atmosphere is good, at first glance it looks messy, but it is resistant to scrutiny. That is, the first paragraph is not irrelevant to the merits of the case. The last chapter is especially good, than the national detective novel I have read three times, this is better. Detectives don't show much skill. In another book, "Elephant Can Remember", the dialogue is trivial and lengthy, and the detective only listens to people and does nothing, but the mystery itself (the relationship between a man and two women) is extremely delicate, and it is impossible to end it, and it is possible to write another novel alone. You read it and know it. (The Complete Works of Yu Pingbo, Huashan Literature and Art Publishing House, November 1997, first edition, volume 74)
The letter mentions "Elephant Can Remember", which should be Agatha Christie's Equals Can Remember, which has been translated as "The Mystery of the Cliff" or "The Shadow of Old Sin", translated by Xin Kejia published by the People's Literature Publishing House, and the title of the book is translated as "The Elephant's Testimony" (first edition in July 2009). It is a type of Christie's "Poirot Detective Series", published in 1972. It's about Poirot's novelist friend, Mrs. Oliver, who has a goddaughter getting married, and her fiancé's mother approached Mrs. Oliver to find out the truth about the girl's parents who both died in a gunshot twenty years ago on the cliff side of Cornwall. Mrs. Oliver finds Poirot and asks him for help in solving the mystery of the old unsolved case. In Christie's novels, several are old cases, the so-called "long shadow of old crimes", the most famous of which is "Five Little Pigs" (1942). In the process of investigation, we can only find the insiders of the year to inquire one by one, indeed, as Yu Pingbo said, "The dialogue is trivial and lengthy, and the detective only listens to people and does nothing", and finally synthesizes everyone's words to find out the flaws and solve the mystery. The title comes from the words of one of the book's interviewees: "There is an old saying that elephants will not forget." At the end of the novel, Mrs. Oliver murmurs, "Elephants will remember, but we are human beings, and good people can forget the past." (ibid., p. 220)
The Elephant's Testimony, People's Literature Publishing House, July 2009, first edition
From this, it can be seen that the "Belgian detective" mentioned in Yu Pingbo's letter refers to Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. In The Poirot case, the case of the girls' school may be "Cat Among The Pigeons" (1959; translated by Shi Xiaojie and Lu Naisheng, translated by The People's Literature Publishing House, November 2006, the first edition), a girls' school called Yerba Buena Meadow Middle School, where three murders and a kidnapping case occurred and involved international incidents— the novel begins to tell a revolution in the small Middle East country of Ramat, that is, Yu Pingbo's letter said that "the first paragraph is not unrelated to the case.".
The Cat in the Flock. People's Literature Publishing House, November 2006, first edition
Judging from this letter, Yu Pingbo still had a lot of fun reading Agatha Christie. Wei Yu said "not very liked", probably only compared to Sherlock Holmes, Yassen Ross and Father Brown.
Two months later, Yu Pingbo's letter to Yu Runmin mentioned another stroke: "The "Last Case" novel, the detective failed. (p. 75) Most likely referring to the British writer E. Thompson. C. Bentley (E. C. Bentley, 1975-1956), the first detective novel Trent's Last Case, is translated into Chinese as The Last Case of Trent (translated by Wu Xingfen, Yilin Publishing House, first edition, February 2006), and also translated as "The Last Case" (translated by Wang Meimei, the first edition of Mass Publishing House, April 2014). Published in 1913, the original is a unique detective novel, the author "to explore whether there is a possibility of 'logically reasonable but not the truth' (Zhan Hongzhi Private Murder", Taiwan Yuanliu Publishing Company, 2001 edition, 22 pages), that is, the detective's reasoning is completely logical, but the real murderer is not found. In the book, the murder was solved three times, and each time new evidence came out to overturn the conclusion of the previous one. Yu Pingbo's evaluation was: "The detective failed. ”
By June 24, 1983, Yu Pingbo's letter to Yu Runmin also said: "Still have no interest in writing, reading English detective novels for recreation, good books." (p. 86) In fact, more than a month ago, he had just written "the use of the word 'Dan' in 'Peony Pavilion'", and it is estimated that he also read baroness Ositz's detective novel, saw the use of "dog" in English, so he thought of the similar use of "Dan" in "Peony Pavilion", and then he began to write.
"The Last Case", Mass Publishing House, April 2014, first edition
Three
Yu Pingbo read Holmes, the earliest reading may be the Commercial Press published "Watson Bao Detective", Yu Pingbo has this book, January 13, 1986 to Yu Runmin's letter said: "I intend to give him the 1903 "Watson Bao Detective" to him (grandson Yu Changshi), shallow and recent words, reading novels is also quite useful, difficult to understand can ask me. (p. 128) According to the information provided by Mr. Zhang Zhi, this "Watson Bao Detective Case" was not signed with the name of the translator, and was selected by the Commercial Press to translate six articles from the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and was published in guangxu in the twenty-ninth year of Guangxu, that is, in 1903, as a kind of "Shubu Series".
Detective Watson's Bag, Commercial Press, 1903
In 1922, Yu Pingbo went to the United States to investigate, and when he returned to China, he brought with him a lot of books, "there are Shakespeare's drama stories and Sherlock Holmes detective collections", etc., and gave them to Xu Baoqi and Xu Baoqi's two brothers (Xu Baoqi's "Song of heavy round flower candles", reprinted from "The Moonlight of the Old Times: People and Things Around Yu Pingbo", p. 221).
The fragment of the diary, "The Diary of Qiu Liting", on February 24, 1938, has a record of "purchasing Holmes novels to Xuannan" (the first volume of the "Complete Works", page 305), and I do not know whether I bought the English version or the Chinese translation, or the above-mentioned "Watson Bag Detective Case".
In 1985, the "Sherlock Holmes" series was broadcast on television, and according to Wei Yu in "My Maternal Grandfather Yu Pingbo", Yu Pingbo rarely watched TV, but this series refused to let go of every episode. Sometimes because the playback time was too late, he simply slept first and then got up to watch. In order to be able to hear the dialogue clearly, I plugged in a pair of headphones for him, because he could hear clearly and enjoyed it. Because he was so familiar with Holmes's story, he had to make some comments after watching each episode, commenting on the merits of the TV script adaptation. (Unity Edition, pp. 111-112) Wei Did not record Yu Pingbo's comments, but in a letter to Yu Runmin dated March 31, 1985, Yu Pingbo said:
Watching Sherlock Holmes Story TV up close, have you ever seen it? Although it is not very good, there are seven kinds, which I am familiar with, close to the original, but there are few descriptions and more narratives. The protagonist as Fu is not very similar (seems to be fat and young), is a major shortcoming, has not seen the great taste, has watched "back dazzling people", and "sapphire" is better, smelling of seven episodes. (The Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 124)
Stills from Sherlock Holmes: The Sapphire Case
The television series "Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection" was produced by Granada Television in the United Kingdom, which aired seven episodes in 1984 and a total of forty-one episodes by 1994. Jeremy Brett,played by Holmes, is known as the most authoritative actor, but Yu Pingbo thinks that he is "fat and young" and "not very much like". Most of the Sherlock Holmes in his mind is the image of Sidney Paget in the original English version. Wei Yu's book also said that Yu Pingbo's brother-in-law mathematician Xu Baolu was also a Sherlock Holmes fan when he was young, and once his home was stolen, he called himself Holmes, while Yu Pingbo played Watson, and he worked hard to investigate for a few days, but failed to solve the case. "I think they are tall and thin, and the other is short, it should be very similar!" (My Maternal Grandfather Yu Pingbo, p. 112)
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