Since the beginning of the Republic of China, China has not developed much in the field of mystery novels, and there is a big gap with Europe and Japan, and some people even think that Chinese people do not have reasoning genes in their bones. But in fact, there were a lot of excellent mystery novels in ancient China.
For example, the two ancient detectives that the people are most familiar with, Bao Gong and Di Renjie, have gradually become popular all over the country by relying on a novel about solving cases.
The novels about Di Renjie even moved foreigners, for example, the Dutchman Gao Luopei admired Di Renjie very much, studied it for 22 years, and wrote a large number of detective novels with Di Renjie as the protagonist, making it popular all over the world.
I have admired oriental culture since childhood
Born Robert Hans van Golick, he was an internationally renowned sinologist.
Most people may be relatively unfamiliar with this name, but when it comes to "The Case of Tang Di Gong", many people must be very familiar with it.
This novel is not only very popular abroad, but also famous in China in recent years, and has also been remade into a popular film and television work.
It's a pity that the film and television road of this novel has gone extremely poorly, and the quality of the remake is not good, not only the plot is full of loopholes, but also many common-sense errors, which have attracted countless complaints.
Even the original author, Gao Luopei, was misunderstood for his lack of understanding of Chinese culture, which is really unwarranted.
The start of the broadcast caused a lot of complaints about the "Tang Di Gong Case"
In fact, Gao Luopei has a thorough understanding of ancient Chinese culture, especially the guqin, and many of his scholarly articles on ancient China are still cited today.
His interest in Oriental culture stemmed from his childhood experiences.
His father was a military doctor who spent his early years in the army on the Indonesian island of Java, where he spent his elementary school years.
At that time, there were many immigrants from China on the island of Java, and after coming into contact with these people, Gao Luopei gradually fell in love with oriental culture.
Faced with this civilization, which is completely different from the West, the young Gao Luopei was very curious and became interested in it.
A Chinese settlement in the Nanyang area
However, he did not stay here for long, the Dutch army and doctors rotated regularly, and after graduating from primary school, he followed his father back to the Netherlands.
What he didn't expect was that Gao Luopei's family actually had a porcelain vase from China, and the text engraved on it left a deep impression on him.
After entering secondary school, Gao Luopei gradually showed a talent for literature and language, and he gradually perfected his learning of Chinese and studied Chinese culture in depth.
Faced with their son's "different" interest, Goropei's parents not only did not stop him, but also encouraged him to explore further.
Interest is everyone's best teacher, and soon, Gao Luopei got the linguist C· C. Ulanbeck became his most valued student and assistant, and the two of them jointly published a number of scholarly articles.
Gao Luopei in his youth
In 1930, he was admitted to Leiden University. It was chosen because of its long history in sinology and its reputation in Europe.
It is reported that Gao Luopei had excellent grades during his university years, and obtained a bachelor's degree in Chinese and Japanese in a row.
After graduating from university, he chose to study at Utrecht University, which established the Oriental Institute in the 20s and became famous throughout Europe, attracting many students interested in Eastern civilization.
University of Utrecht
A few years later, he graduated from Utrecht University with a master's degree in Oriental Studies.
In the process, he not only practiced a good character, but also gave himself the Chinese name "Gao Luopei", mainly referring to the pronunciation of "Gu" and "Rob" in the original name.
Gao Luopei achieved excellent academic results during his university years, and his academic papers such as "Research on Improving the Legal Provisions of the Dutch East Indies on Overseas Chinese" and "Ma Ming Wang's Yuanliu Examination" are quite recognized, and are still required reading in the field.
Gao Luopei's superb calligraphy
First contact with Di Renjie
In order to better get in touch with the oriental culture, Gao Luopei chose to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating from graduate school.
And on the one hand, he can give full play to his language advantages, and on the other hand, he can also meet his parents' expectations for his career, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone.
Fluent in Japanese, Gao Luopei was assigned to Tokyo as a translator shortly after entering the diplomatic service.
On the way to work in Japan, Gao Luopei deliberately stayed in Harbin for a week. In just seven days, he browsed a large number of local scenic spots and historical sites, and was deeply intoxicated by the splendid Chinese civilization.
In this process, Gao Luopei came into contact with a very popular public case novel "The Four Strange Cases of Wu Zetian", which was born in the Qing Dynasty and tells the story of the famous minister Di Renjie repeatedly solving strange cases and winning the appreciation of Emperor Wu.
Among them, Di Renjie left a deep impression on Gao Luopei.
After coming to Japan, Gao Luopei became acquainted with many well-known scholars, and often took the opportunity of business trips to Beijing to visit the Forbidden City and various museums to learn about Chinese civilization.
In the process, he became more and more aware of oriental culture, and also mastered calligraphy, seal carving, painting, drum and piano and other skills.
If you don't look at appearance, just talk and temperament, Gao Luo Pei is like an ancient doctor than many Chinese.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Netherlands and Japan severed diplomatic relations, and Gao Luope had to leave Tokyo.
Over the next year, he travelled extensively in East Africa and South Asia, and through a series of operations, he was elected Dutch diplomat in Chongqing.
Gao Luopei, who strokes the qin
Gao Luopei was thrilled by this appointment, and he could finally stay in China in the open and study Chinese culture seriously.
In fact, there are many surprises waiting for Gao Luopei in Chongqing, and soon after he arrives, he meets a very cultured lady who perfectly matches his imagination of oriental women.
The woman's name was Shui Shifang, and she was the granddaughter of the famous minister Jang Zhidong, whom Gao Luopei pursued for a long time, and finally married her in 1943.
Not only that, at that time, Chongqing was the capital of the Kuomintang, and a large number of outstanding scholars were concentrated. By virtue of his status as a diplomat, Gorope became friends with them.
These people often get together to discuss Chinese culture, and each time Gao Luopei benefits a lot. They even set up the "Tianfeng Organ Society", which specializes in the study of guqin techniques.
Gao Luopei and his Chinese wife
At a certain party, someone happened to mention the book "Wu Zetian's Four Strange Cases" and sorted out the contents. This gave Gao Luopei a new understanding of the book, and he immediately turned it out and read it carefully when he returned home.
After reading it this time, Gao Luopei was deeply fascinated by the public case novel, and he admired Di Renjie more and more.
He carefully analyzed the reasoning logic and detection techniques in the book, and believed that Di Renjie was an excellent detective who was not inferior to Sherlock Holmes and Sheriff Gray, and many of the descriptions of criminal psychology in the book made him even more amazed.
狄仁杰画像
Under the influence of this book, Gao Luopei read a number of excellent ancient Chinese crime novels and studied them in depth.
He was surprised to find that in the field of mystery novels, China not only did not lag behind, but even advanced many years before Western countries.
At this time, Western countries have denigrated such novels in China, which made Gao Luopei very indignant and determined to justify it.
22 years to write "The Case of Tang Di Gong"
In fact, the more he studied it, the more Gao Luopei admired Di Renjie.
This famous minister can not only reason and solve cases, but also has noble sentiments, profound literary attainments and love for the guqin.
This made Gao Luopei have a deep resonance, and regarded Di Renjie as an idol, and he sometimes felt that he had a certain combination of Di Gong's body, and even once thought: Di Gong is himself.
Slowly, Gao Luopei had an obsession in his heart, he hoped that more people would know Di Renjie and understand this excellent minister.
Therefore, starting in 1946, Gao Luopei began to translate "Wu Zetian's Four Strange Cases".
For others, this can be a daunting task because there are a lot of obscure idioms in it that are difficult to translate accurately into English.
However, Gao Luopei is a language genius who has a very thorough understanding of Chinese culture and has translated many excellent Chinese books before.
Therefore, after several years of hard work, he successfully completed the translation of "Wu Zetian's Four Strange Cases", and also wrote the English detective novel "The Bronze Bell Case" with Di Renjie as the protagonist, and translated it into Chinese and Japanese.
However, these two versions of The Bronze Bell Case have not been taken seriously in both countries, and publishers are not very optimistic about them.
However, the English version of "The Bronze Bell Case" was recognized by European readers because of its unique perspective and innovative detection methods, and it was once sold out of stock.
The success of the book gave him the recognition of European publishers, who urged him to write new novels.
In this way, many novels such as "The Strange Case of the Labyrinth", "The Strange Case of Gold", "The Strange Case of the Iron Needle", "The Strange Case of the Lacquer Painting Screen", and "The Strange Case of Chaoyunguan" were born successively.
And each one of them has achieved very good sales results, which makes Gao Luopei very satisfied.
Therefore, when he learned that he was seriously ill and could not be cured, he was still unwilling to stop writing, and still struggled to complete "The Strange Case of Guangzhou" in the last few months.
The cover of the English version of "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty".
In the end, European publishers integrated these novels together and published them together, which was the classic masterpiece that later swept Europe and the United States for many years - "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty".
The book consists of 15 medium-length and 8 short stories, with a total of more than 1.3 million words, and is written in the genre of imitation of Song and Yuan dialects.
It is reported that this book is all the rage in Europe and the United States, and the cumulative sales are as high as millions of copies. Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands admired him so much that he even translated the Spanish version himself.
In the 70s of the last century, American film companies also bought the adaptation rights and filmed a movie called "Di Renjie's View of Chaoyun".
This is Di Renjie's first appearance on the big screen, and like Mr. Liang Guanhua, the actor who plays Di Renjie in American movies is also fat.
It is precisely under the influence of these two classic film and television dramas that most people subconsciously believe that Detective Di Renjie is a chubby "cute old man".
The American movie version of Di Renjie
epilogue
Because of his childhood experience, Gao Luopei fell in love with the vast and profound Chinese civilization at an early age, and devoted his life to studying Sinology and understanding Chinese culture. Gao Luopei's admiration for Chinese culture is not a superficial taste, but a deep and devout exploration.
Her wife, Shui Shifang, said in an interview that her husband Gao Luopei has a deep love for Sinology, and he is an authentic Chinese.
Reference:
The Complete Biography of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty - One - Black Arrow of the Rain Master
- Gao Luopei
Essays on the Chinese Piano
- Gao Luopei