Translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Robert van Gulik (Dover Press)
ISBN: 978-0-486-23337-5
I’m straying a little far from my customary path today and reviewing a prose book with traditional Chinese illustrations (only nine, but they are eerily effective) that impressed me mightily when I picked it up. That happy event was itself inspired after seeing the Hark Tsui movie Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame on television – so don’t believe people when they say there’s nothing good on the box…
Both film and book are based on the fictionalised exploits of a genuine crime-fighter named Ti Jen-chieh (or maybe Di Renjie – we inexplicably called their capital city Peking for centuries so us westerners are playing safe these days with anglicised names…) who lived between 630-700AD during the early days of China’s Tang Dynasty (approximately 600-900AD).
The role of Regional Magistrate then encompassed the roles and duties of intelligence-gathering detective, enforcing policeman and prosecuting attorney as well as judge – although he was by no means the final arbiter, as all legal pronouncements had to be ratified by the Imperial Court and legislature – and this seemingly impossible conflict-of-interest and apparent rat’s nest of a legal system is engagingly and elegantly addressed in the ‘Translator’s Preface’ by Sinologist, diplomat, historian, musician, researcher and latterly dramatist Robert Hans van Gulik, who even provided the majority of the illustrations in this volume.
Van Gulik (1910-1967) was born in the Netherlands and, as the son of an Army medical officer, spent most of his early life in the Dutch East Indies (today’s Indonesia). Growing up in Batavia (modern Jakarta) he learned Mandarin as well as many other languages and after graduating from the University of Leiden in 1935 joined the Dutch Foreign Service, and was posted to Japan, China and other Far-Eastern nations. His studies at Leiden (1929-1934) encompassed Dutch Indies Law and Indonesian Culture, and the tireless young man was awarded a Doctorate for his dissertation on the “horse cult†of Northeast Asia, and even whilst working as a junior civil servant continued his researches, publishing privately and becoming an acknowledged European authority on Chinese Jurisprudence.
Van Gulik was actually in Tokyo when Japan formally declared war on the Netherlands in September 1941 and, after a brief period of diplomatic internment, was evacuated in 1942, spending the remainder of the war in South-West China as part of the Dutch Mission to the Chinese Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, based at Chongquing.
The scholar married Shui Shifang, daughter of an Imperial Mandarin of the Manchu Dynasty, and once the war ended lived with her and their four children as Dutch diplomatic personages in locales as varied as Washington DC, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Beirut.
In 1965 he became Dutch Ambassador toJapan, a post he held until his death.
As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he also found the time to resurrect a venerable Chinese hero, reinvigorate a nearly lost art-form and create a fascinating cross-cultural genre…
Judge – or variously and as often, Detective – Dee‘s Tang Period exploits were recounted and largely fictionalised by many later Chinese authors (as were quite a few other historical figures), particularly during the Ming Period (1368-1644), and many of Dee’s cases – real and made up – were still being bastardised and rewritten as late as the 1920s, but he got his shot at global stardom thanks to the Second World War.
The conflict erupted through the Pacific East (beginning either withJapan’s invasion ofChinain 1931, its attack on French possessions in September 1940 or the infamous bombing ofPearl Harborin 1941, depending on which historian you read) and after Van Gulik’s detention and reposting toChinaserious research was impossible.
Constantly on the move during the war years yet with plenty of time on his hands, van Gulik famously began translating an old copy of Dee Goong An he had found in a second-handTokyo bookshop. The task occupied much of his time between 1941-1945 and, after privately publishing the result in 1949, the translator became deeply enamoured of the character and the potential of combining the deeply disparate disciplines of Western and Eastern crime fiction.
Fuelled by inspiration, he determined to combine the two poles-apart forms into something fresh, ancient and truly magical.
Soon van Gulik’s wholly original stories began appearing, starting with The Chinese Maze Murders in 1951 (originally only published for Japanese and Chinese speakers), promptly followed by The Chinese Bell Murders and The Chinese Lake Murders. Sales were strong and in 1957 the novels were at last released in English and thereafter English editions of successive books preceded Oriental iterations.
There were six more novels and a collection of short stories until his untimely death from cancer cut short the mythical mystery tour, but his hybridisation of Eastern and Western detection fiction into a wholly new species of story continues to capture the attention and imagination of readers everywhere…
The cases in this initial groundbreaking volume are historical ones – if not perhaps actual exploits – of the flesh-and-blood Imperial Magistrate of Chang-Ping, whose many brilliant successes led to his promotion to the Emperor’s Court, where Dee served as a valued and esteemed statesman for the remainder of his days. Thus, Van Gulik spends a generous amount of time setting the scene and providing invaluable background on the incredibly complex but astoundingly bureaucratic and hierarchical feudal society which Dee moves amongst, aided only by his crack team of servant/investigators, all fully described in the ‘Dramatis Personae’ section, as are the suspects, witnesses and guilty parties, whilst the ‘Translator’s Postscript’ at the back provides all the specific detail an enquiring mind could possibly need to know…
So as to the meat of the matter: the esteemed adjudicator Dee is a perfect servant of the Emperor: dutiful, diligent, hardworking and honest, spending his days keeping the complex human machinery of civilisation constantly working. His task is to settle disputes, root out endemic corruption at both humble and high levels and, when necessary, vigorously enforce the State’s laws, operating as both reactive Judge and proactive Agent of Enquiry. Some glaring differences you’ll need to know from the start: torture is legal and encouraged, no one can be convicted unless they confess, and evidence obtained from ghosts, magic or dream premonitions is usually true and fully admissible in court…
The drama, involving three separate cases which somehow become infuriatingly interwoven, begins with a ‘Double Murder at Dawn’ wherein two travelling silk merchants’ bodies are discovered and an innkeeper is framed for their deaths.
After some preliminary investigations it is found that one of the corpses is neither of the merchants but a complete stranger, leading to a vast manhunt across some of the region’s roughest territory…
Adopting a disguiseDeethen accidentally uncovers another killing: one which nobody even realised had been committed…
At almost the same time a prestigious retired Prefect seeks retribution for the motiveless assassination of ‘The Poisoned Bride’ on her wedding night, but the most troubling dilemma involves the formidable widow Mrs. Djou whose husband passed away from a mysterious malady a year previously. Dee is convinced a murder has been committed even though his own coroner can find no sign or means of murder upon ‘The Strange Corpse’ and the arrogantly wilful woman refuses to confess even under the most stringent interrogation. It will take guile, dedication and heavenly intervention to prove motive, means and opportunity, but Dee is prepared to sacrifice his own life, soul and honour to finally bring justice to a forgotten dead man …
Exotic, intriguing and absolutely addictive, these preliminary adventures of Judge Dee are a sheer delight that no fan of comics or fantasy fiction should miss…
© 1949, 1976 Robert van Gulik. No modern copyright invoked for this 2003 Dover Book Edition.