When it comes to detectives, who do you think about for the first time? Some people may think of Kudo Shinichi in the Japanese anime "Conan", "there is only one truth" is the mantra of countless young boys and girls in the second middle school period; some people may think of Di Renjie and Bao Zhengbao in Chinese history; but more people may think of the great detective Holmes who lives in 221B Baker Street in the United Kingdom. Ever since Conan Doyle created the image of Sherlock Holmes as a detective, the charismatic character of Sherlock Holmes has quickly become popular around the world, so much so that it has been continuously adapted to the screen. So, how did Holmes "come" to China? What are the legends of his arrival?
How did Holmes come to China?
Detective fiction is a product of the Western Enlightenment era, and in 1841, the American writer Edgar Poe published his debut detective novel, Murder on Mog Street, which pioneered the basic paradigm of Western detective fiction. Strictly speaking, before the 20th century, there were no detective novels in China, some were just public case novels, such as "Di Gong Case" and "Shi Gong Case", which were all public case novels.
In the 1880s, physician Arthur Conan Doyle completed his debut novel in a series of detective novels, The Study of Blood Letters, the first in the Sherlock Holmes series. In the years that followed, Conan Doyle based on the image of Sherlock Holmes, created four long stories and more than fifty short stories, and the image of Sherlock Holmes was also popular all over the world, and was constantly put on the screen, such as the British film "Sherlock Holmes" and the British drama "Sherlock", as well as the American drama "Basic Deduction", etc. Sherlock Holmes fever has not yet cooled down.
Conan doyle
So, how did Holmes, who was in Britain, cross the ocean to China? Holmes's journey to the east, in fact, there is a little "good wind with force, send me to the clouds" feeling.
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, China was like a big girl who was shyly answered, and was pulled into the wave of globalization by the violent means used by Western powers. The country's doors are gone, and things that were once regarded as fierce water beasts are pouring into China. As Lu Xun said, people inside the iron room finally began to wake up and start shouting.
After the Sino-Japanese War and the Gengzi Incident, the wave of awakening became more and more unstoppable, and more and more people of insight began to dissect themselves and learn from the West, including the criticism of old novels. Ancient China has always had a trend of banning books, and those novels that do not conform to the official ideology, such as "Jin Ping Mei", are among the banned books, and those who advocate banning books believe that the people will "drown in evil spirits, turn to imitation, collude and form alliances, and wantonly commit adultery" when they read these books.
Stills from the British drama "Sherlock"
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, some Enlightened people also joined the ranks of criticizing the old novel, and they blamed the sluggishness of the general style and the lack of popularity on the influence of the old novel, which is the so-called "novel is good, can save the evils of customs, and novels are not good, and they are enough to be thieves of customs." Liang Qichao also believes: "If you want the people of a new country, you must first make a novel of a new country." ”
At the same time, they also believe that Western novels "are all for the benefit of the reader's physical and mental wisdom, exhaustive study of physics, insight into the world, and then full of excitement and vigor, and robustness", which is exactly what our people need. Under the tide of this era, a wave of introduction and translation of Western novels began to rise on the mainland, and detective novels were also mixed in and introduced to China.
Introduced Western novels
Second, detective novels are popular in China
At that time, in order to expand the influence of the new novel on China and to accommodate the existence of the new novel, major newspapers made room for the new novel. Liang Qichao specially founded a newspaper called "New Novel", and he also published new novels in the "Current Affairs Newspaper" under his supervision. After the "New Novel", there is also the rise of the "New Novel" and "Novel Forest", and large newspapers such as "Sino-Foreign Daily", "Declaration", "Ta Kung Pao", "Shenzhou Bao" and so on will publish new novels as a means to promote sales.
Detective fiction, as a fledgling form of fiction in the West, is naturally on the list of imports. It was at this time that Holmes, mixed with other fictional characters, crossed the ocean to China. In 1896, Shanghai's "Shi Ji Bao" first published Zhang Kunde's translation of "Notes on Sherlock Halms", including "The Case of the Secret Contract of the Yingbao Exploration and Investigation (now translated as the Naval Agreement)", "The Revenge of the Servant (now translated as The Hunchback)", "The Case of the Stepfather and the Daughter (now translated as the Fen Shen Case)", and "The Murder of the Robbery of the Hornes (the last case of the current translation)". Holmes is Holmes, which is the first Chinese translation of sherlock Holmes novels, three years before the Japanese translation of Sherlock Holmes at that time, when Conan Doyle had just emerged in England, so it is not too early to calculate that the mainland contacted Holmes.
Novels about Sherlock Holmes at the time
At this time, Holmes was not yet called Sherlock Holmes because of transliteration, and Holmes appeared only in later translations. Of course, there are also passages on the Internet that say that Holmes's original name was "Sherlock Holmes", of which "Holmes" should be pronounced as "Huo", while Chinese is translated as "Fu". Therefore, some people speculate that the translator is not a Fujianese? It just so happened that at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, there was a famous translator Lin Shu who was a Fujianese and had also translated Sherlock Holmes, so many people put this "pot" on Lin Shu's head.
Stills from the British sherlock Holmes
But this is not the case. Zhang Kunde's translation of Holmes's novel caused a strong response as soon as it was published in the "Current Affairs Newspaper", and Liang Qichao said that the "Shiwu Bao", which published The Sherlock Holmes novel, "was popular in the sea for a while, and within a few months, it sold more than 10,000 copies, which was unprecedented in China's newspaper, and the whole country flocked to it, such as drinking a wild spring", and its repercussions can be seen.
American version of Sherlock Holmes
In 1899, the Shanghai Suyin Book House combined four Sherlock Holmes novels translated by Zhang Kunde and another novel of unknown translators into a book called "Detective Xinyinbao", which was widely welcomed as soon as it was released. Since then, the translation, publication and publication of novels related to Sherlock Holmes in China has formed a wave. In 1901, Huang Ding and Zhang Xin jointly translated "One of the Series of Taixi Sayings", which included seven Sherlock Holmes novels, including "The Jewel Case", "The Red Hair Society", "The Case of the Viper", etc. At this time, the two translated Holmes as "Hugh Rock Fu er Mos", but Huang Ding and Zhang Xin were not From Fujian, so Lin Shu was the one who translated "Huo" into "Fu".
Lin Shu translated Holmes until 1907, when Lin Shu translated the name of Holmes as "Sherlock Holmes", but before that, that is, from 1903 to 1906, a series of Sherlock Holmes novels published by the Commercial Press and the Novel Lin Society had begun to use "Sherlock Holmes", and since then, the name "Sherlock Holmes" has been used, but it is impossible to know who translated it in this way.
Lin Shu in film and television dramas
Novels about Holmes since the late 19th century and early 20th century into China, has been favored by translators and readers, many famous translators and scholars, such as Lin Shu, Liu Bannong, Cheng Xiaoqing, etc., have translated Holmes's novels, and in May 1916, the "Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes Detectives" co-translated by Cheng Xiaoqing and others was published by the Zhonghua Book Company, including 44 cases, becoming the best version of Holmes novels before the May Fourth Movement. By 1936, the Complete Sherlock Holmes Detectives had been reprinted 20 times, showing how popular it was.
In 1927, Cheng Xiaoqing retranslated 54 of Holmes's detective novels in the vernacular and named the book "Sherlock Holmes's Exploration Collection". Holmes has since become the most popular fiction figure in China at that time, and Conan Doyle became the most popular writer at that time, and it is no wonder that Tieqiao will say: "The groundbreaking of the new novel in our country is the "Relic of the Traviata" and "The Biography of Tomatoes"; if his bed is in the blazing era, then the translation of "Sherlock Holmes Detective Case" by this museum is also." "A master of modern European and American novels, the author of which is Conan Dali."
Cheng Xiaoqing
3. Holmes handled cases in China
The fate of Sherlock Holmes novels in modern China is actually closely related to the new novel boom at that time, and the Western detective novels represented by Sherlock Holmes have also become the first stage of the development of detective novels on the mainland, that is, the vigorous introduction of Western detective novels, at the same time, a group of scholars deeply influenced by Sherlock Holmes novels began to imitate works, which also entered the second major stage of the development of Chinese detective novels - the imitation stage.
At this time, Holmes was no longer limited to books, but really drifted east to China, and also handled cases in China!
At that time, there were two scholars, one named Chen Jinghan and the other named Bao Tianxiao. The two were both famous translators, newspapers and novelists during the Republic of China period. After seeing Sherlock Holmes, they also wrote two short stories about Sherlock Holmes with Holmes as the protagonist, Chen Jinghan wrote "The First Case of Sherlock Coming to China" and "The Third Case of Sherlock Coming to China" under the pseudonym of cold blood, and Bao Tianxiao wrote "The Second Case of Sherlock Coming to China" and "The Fourth Case of Sherlock Coming to China".
Novelist Bao Tian laughed
Although Chen Jinghan and Bao Tianxiao also wrote novels with Holmes as the protagonist, most of them wrote comical detective novels, which are both related and very different from the original, and although they are interesting to read, they are full of irony and admonition.
For example, Chen Jinghan's "Sherlock's First Case in China" tells that shortly after Holmes arrived in Shanghai, a person came to visit, and this person knew that Holmes was good at peeking the truth from the details, so he asked Holmes to see what he had done all day yesterday. Seeing Holmes bow his head for a moment, he told the man all about the man's playing cards, smoking opium, and prostituting yesterday, and the man clapped his hands in disgust, but he said to Holmes that he could also glimpse the truth about Holmes like Holmes.
Holmes was very curious, and let the man vomit quickly, only to see that the man said that Holmes had limbs and five features, could speak and drink, could eat and breathe, Holmes was puzzled, and asked the man, is it not everyone who you say? As a result, the man laughed and asked Holmes, isn't what you say that everyone in Shanghai would do now? Then he flew away, leaving only Holmes stunned.
Immediately afterward, Bao Tianxiao followed Chen Jinghan's head to write "Sherlock's Second Case of Coming to China", which was basically the first case written by Chen Jinghan.
"Sherlock's Second Case in China" tells that soon after Holmes sent the man away, another young man in a suit and gold-rimmed glasses came to visit, and the young man also wanted to try Sherlock Holmes and let Holmes guess what he was doing. Holmes judged by the details of the young man that this young man was a man of lofty ideals who had returned from Japan, worried about the situation, busy with sports, and worried about state affairs.
Unexpectedly, Holmes, who had no defeat in Britain, lost again. It turned out that this young man was not a man of lofty ideals who was worried about state affairs, but a degenerate teenager who came from Japan and was extremely disappointed in the situation, and the details that made Holmes misjudge were left by his garden tours, cards, and prostitutes, and Holmes was once again stunned.
"Sherlock's First Case in China"
The subsequent "Sherlock's Third Case in China" and "Sherlock's Fourth Case in China" are related to opium, the third case is about Holmes wanting morphine, but mistakenly bought opium, and the fourth case said that Holmes assisted the Shanghai police in tracking down guns, but did not expect to mistakenly use opium guns as guns.
All in all, the image of Sherlock Holmes borrowed by Chen Jinghan and Bao Tianxiao is very different from the original work, and their intention is nothing more than to borrow Holmes, a well-known detective, to satirize the current situation and lash out at the degenerate people who smoke opium, play mahjong and recruit prostitutes. As a result, Holmes was repeatedly defeated in China.
4. Detective novels in modern China
Detective novels represented by Sherlock Holmes poured into the Chinese market in large quantities at the beginning of the last century, not only due to the wave of new novels introduced at that time, but also from the influence of the urbanization process and social trends at that time. Detective novels represented by Sherlock Holmes are the products of the Western Enlightenment era, the background is mostly centered on the city, and the knowledge involved in it, such as sound, light, electricity, etc., is very much in line with the wave of restoration that has begun on the mainland at the beginning of the last century. At the same time, the ups and downs, twists and turns of the plot arrangement of the detective novel itself are very attractive and readable, and the curiosity is always one of the nature of people, so the detective novel is also very tempting.
Old Shanghai
As mentioned earlier, the introduction of Western detective novels is the first stage of the development of mainland detective novels, imitation is the second stage, and then the mainland detective novels enter the period of self-creation. But these three stages are intertwined at the same time, back and forth, and there is no strict boundary.
When China's detective novels first started, they were deeply influenced by Western detective novels and local culture, and Chinese detective novels benefited from both of them and were long limited by both. In the decades since Zhang Dekun translated four Sherlock Holmes novels in 1896, mainland detective novels have been influenced by foreign detective novels. For example, in 1908, Zhang Qichen's "Two-Headed Snake" was actually a parody of Conan Doyle's "The Case of the Spotted Tape", and in the same year, there was a detective novel called "Book Stealing", which imitated Poe's "The Stolen Letter".
A large part of the dependence of Chinese detective novels on Western detective novels was due to the ignorance of the law, medicine, ethics, psychology, chemistry, and physics involved in detective novels at that time, and it was impossible to construct a detective novel plot in line with the Western sense. At the same time, the local culture with great stickiness also made the writers at that time hesitate in their creation. At that time, a writer named Wu Zhaoren collected 34 detective stories and compiled them as "Chinese Detective Cases", and another writer named Zhou Guisheng compiled a "Shanghai Detective Case", but the second book still belonged to the mainland tradition of public case novels in the final analysis.
The difference between Chinese public case novels and detective novels is that public case novels are "judges adjudicate cases", while detective novels are "detective judgments", the former is public, the latter is private. Although Wu Zhaoren is full of confidence in the book "Chinese Detective Case", it is still limited to the mire. However, there is no doubt that at that time, China's detective novel creation did enter a golden period, and in the 1920s, there was also a group of detective novels in the Chinese literary circles, including Cheng Xiaoqing, Sun Zhihong, Liu Bannong, Chen Jinghan, etc., of which Cheng Xiaoqing was also known as "the first person in Chinese detective novels".
Chinese detective novels are also under the efforts of many detective novelists, which not only absorb the advantages of Western detective novels and Chinese public case novels, but also break free from the shackles of the two and achieve real transformation. The localization of Chinese detective novels not only retains the confusing and ups and downs of Western detective novels, but also integrates into distinct national characteristics, mostly like to stand on the perspective of the proletarian, focus on the bottom of society, reflect social problems, "robbing the rich to help the poor" and "doing heroic deeds" are the themes that the novel wants to express, and at the same time has a distinct ideological tendency.
Taking Cheng Xiaoqing's "Hawthorne Detective" as an example, although a large part of Hawthorne's detective image is a depiction of Sherlock Holmes, Hawthorne is also a detective image full of wisdom, brave and careful, and even the two have the same hobby - playing the violin, and some people also say that Hawthorne is actually an abbreviation of Holmes's english name. But in contrast, Holmes is a "Frankenstein" and a "cold superman", while Hawthorne is a "passionate mortal", who likes to do chivalry and righteousness, and likes to learn to be a clean official, and is a very civilian, altruistic, and dedicated person. For example, Hawthorne said bluntly in "Case within Case" that if a person dies without doing a few things for people, what is the point of that person living? It is estimated that Holmes would never say such a thing.
After carefully reading this novel, you will find that Hawthorne has actually broken free from the shackles of the ghost of Holmes and become a real local detective!
Hawthorne stills
Wen Shijun said
Holmes's journey to China is actually a journey to the development of Chinese detective novels. Thanks to the revival atmosphere of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, Holmes crossed the ocean to China, and the detective novel represented by Sherlock Holmes also opened the process of Chinese detective novels. Chinese writers began to imitate and create themselves, from this point of view Holmes, he is not only a detective, but also an "enlightener" who has been used by many parties, providing a paradigm for the development of Chinese detective novels, and Chinese detective novels have also found the best balance in the Western and local observations, and thus have the glory of the future!
bibliography
Guo Yanli, "An Outline of Modern Translated Novels", Foreign Literature Studies, No. 3, 1996.
Li Oufan, "Sherlock Holmes in China", Contemporary Writers Review, No. 2, 2004.
Mao Li, "A Study on the Translation, Reception and Influence of Sherlock Holmes's Detective Novels", Social Science Journal, No. 5, 2008.
Ren Xiang, "The Occurrence and Significance of Chinese Detective Novels", Chinese Social Sciences, No. 4, 2011.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Jingsu)
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