"The Flower of the Sea of Iniquity"
【Qing】Zeng Pu wrote Bian Qi finishing
Phoenix Press
December 2020
Introduction
In the late Qing Dynasty, under the joint influence of Chinese and Western cultures, the novel developed a new branch - the condemnation novel. Among them, quite representative is the work "Evil Sea Flower" by Zeng Pu, a famous novelist of the Qing Dynasty.
There are 35 times in total. Those who like this novel believe that it is a masterpiece that reveals the style of modern society. People who resent this novel believe that this novel is a "hodgepodge" that lacks the beginning and turning and logical context that a novel should have. A work, with two very different evaluations, is destined to be full of legends.
There are two authors of "The Flower of the Iniquity", one is named Jin Songcen and the other is named Zeng Pu. Zeng Pu was originally a man in the officialdom, and after he failed to take the imperial examination, he spent money to donate a small official. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the land of China was invaded by great powers, and Zeng Pu, as a literati who had a sense of the current situation, felt that he should change his tragic fate through the study of culture.
Around 1904, Zeng Pu decided to take over the creation of "The Flower of the Evil Sea". Jin Songcen originally planned to write 60 times, but the story was not well structured, and he was unable to complete the creation. After Zeng Pu took over, he added and deleted several times, and it took more than 20 years to finalize, which is now the common 35-time version of "Evil Sea Flower".
The protagonists of "Evil Sea Flower" are Suzhou Zhuangyuan Jin And the famous prostitute Fu Caiyun, zeng Pu wants to reveal the ugly and incompetent faces of feudal officials and their extravagant and lavish lives by describing their experiences.
The most successful and glorious character portrayed in "The Flower of the Sea of Iniquity" is the heroine Fu Caiyun. Clever, beautiful, sophisticated, and decisive, Fu Caiyun has greatly broken through the shackles of tradition, almost comparable to Becky in the Western classical novel "Vanity Fair" and The Wallerie in "Aunt Becky".
Since ancient times, Chinese literati have said that "they are true celebrities and self-style". In "The Flowers of the Sea of Iniquity", many anecdotes and anecdotes are told in great detail, Mi Xiaoting married the daughter of Fu Rong, the head of Yangzhou, and developed a habit of fear of the inside because of the repeated frustrations of the science field, and later won the lift, but because he misunderstood a sentence, he actually knelt in front of the court for one night; when the Manchu Qing Emperor Zhu Baoting was doing the Zhejiang Xuetai, he did not understand the local customs, was blackmailed by the boatman, and had to marry the beautiful and clever boat lady Zhu'er, simply resigned, and roamed the rivers and lakes.
Qing Yuan Yao Four Views of Yangzhou
The book also involves the empress dowager's party struggle, palace secrets, princess privacy, excellent prostitutes, jianghu chivalrous guests, etc., and reflects the life outlook and customs of all social classes at that time. With the help of traditional white painting techniques, the author makes this novel "well-structured and brilliantly written" (Lu Xun). Positive and negative figures who played an important role in the history of that time, such as Wei Yibo (alluding to Li Hongzhang), Tang Changsu (alluding to Kang Youwei), Sun Wen (alluding to Sun Yat-sen), and Zhuang Shouxiang (alluding to Zhang Zhidong), were specially described and evaluated.
However, because the protagonists of the novel, Jin and Fu, were only peripheral figures in the political struggle at that time, this innate deficiency was also clearly exposed in the work, but nevertheless, its richness and variety can also help us understand the strange Chinese society a century ago, which has a high artistic appreciation value and cognitive value.
About the Author
Zeng Pu (1872-1935), a native of Changshu, Jiangsu, was originally too simple, later changed to Meng Pu, and the number was Mingshan, and his pen name was The Sick Man of East Asia. Zeng Pu had a wealth of experience in his life, and he was not only a famous writer, novelist, translator, but also an influential industrialist.
Modern Express + reporter Song Jingwei sorted out
(Edited by Fan Wenjing)