'Let All Things Pass Away'
Written: Apr 04 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Atmospheric, tightly-plotted, moving: well-nigh perfect
Cons: Um ... nope
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| mshawpyle's Full Review: Robert Hans Van Gulik - The Chinese Nail Murders: ... |
Order, stability, and equality before the Law: these familiar (and fundamental) principles need not always wear Occidental garb. In fact, until it began to break down in the XVIIth Century, Imperial China did rather a better job at these than had the Greeks, Rome, or Christendom. And these are the themes of R. H. van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries, of which The Chinese Nail Murders is a representative example – and the basis of tonight's Write-Off.
Yep. If today's Tuesday, this must be China. The following epinion is the latest in the series of Read-Offs / Write-Offs between alleged book experts caconti [Chris Conti] and mshawpyle [Markham Shaw Pyle, JD], who are joined tonight by guest contestant cornelia [Cousin Cornelia Read, bless her]. (And about that modifier, 'alleged': my young friend Mr Conti may well be an expert; I am just a teense uncomfortable with that designation, myself.) Note, too, that the great merit of these Write-Offs is that even should we all agree on the rating for a book, we shall doubtless reach that conclusion by very different paths: you are getting a 3-D picture here….
Please access caconti's and cornelia's reviews by using the All Opinions on this Item link at the end of this page, or via their respective profile pages. And please note that due to exigent circumstances, there may be a time lag in the posting of cornelia's review, but possess your souls in patience, all will be well.
R. H. van Gulik was a Dutch diplomat specializing in tidying up the fragments of the Dutch presence in Asia after the Second World War, and a noted Sinologist. He was also a bit of a mystery buff, who noted that the Chinese and Japanese markets were being flooded with low-grade Western paperbacks to the detriment of their own longstanding tradition of detective tales. His remedy was to write mysteries set firmly in the Ming tradition, and combining the best elements of East and West.
I think he succeeded.
To begin with, van Gulik writes 'English as a Second Language' as clearly, sparely, and concisely as did Conrad. (Go re-read Conrad's immortal ivory cameo of a novella, Typhoon, if you doubt me here.)
Van Gulik also borrows from the traditions of Baker Street in hewing rigorously to logic and the sharp quillets of the law: Judge Dee is perhaps the most coldly incisive detective since Holmes himself (and streets ahead of a certain Belgian…).
Yet Judge Dee – the magistrate who rises from his first post to the highest judicial office in the Empire over the course of the series, as indeed Dee Jen-djieh did historically – is here humanized, in a way the traditional Chinese stories never allowed for. He has an interior life; he knows fear, doubt, and perplexity; and he is one of the most fundamentally decent men in all fiction.
Not that van Gulik slights the traditions of his sources. One of the most compelling and realistic elements of The Chinese Nail Murders is its proto-'police procedural' quality, borrowed directly from the Chinese tradition. As in real life (whatever that is), the magistrate (and again, Dee Jen-djieh like all Chinese jurists is, as is true on the Continent and under civil law systems, investigator, prosecutor, and judge: the difference from Anglo-American common law practice is vast, but it is that way in France as it was in China) – the magistrate, I say, has not the luxury of working one case at a time. The docket is realistically full, and there are always three or so mysteries to solve at once (linked though they generally are). From my perspective as a happily-ex lawyer, this realism is alone worth the price of admission.
Equally, while van Gulik always 'plays fair' in the traditions of the Golden Age and the (British) Detection Club, temp. Sayers, Christie, and GKC, he is admirably able to use the very strangeness (to Western eyes) of his background as a red herring. Just as Judge Dee's prejudices (those of the Confucian literary class, with their hostility to Taoists, Buddhists, and foreigners) themselves actually humanize him, his milieu and van Gulik's very strong sense of place puts turns and twists in the plot itself.
I am also deeply engaged by van Gulik's ability to render in a few economical brush-strokes his villains and secondary characters, especially the series characters such as Judge Dee's wives, staff and judicial colleagues.
Yet none of these things are allowed to overwhelm, whilst they so greatly enhance, theme and plot. As you may know, I am fanatically opposed to 'spoilers' in a mystery review. I will say this: in keeping with the traditional Chinese attitude towards justice and order, the themes as expressed in the plots involve the restoration of the social pattern. (This is Confucianism in action.) Whether the disturbance arises from overweening feudal landlords, barbarians, rebels against the Dragon Throne and the Son of Heaven (the recurring White Lotus Society in particular), or as in The Chinese Nail Murders from uppity womenfolk (this being the darker side of Confucianism in action), it is Dee's role to restore and reweave the silk brocade that is Chinese society.
Here especially in this work, it is not without grave personal cost. Among van Gulik's great strengths, to my view, is his ability to convey a deep, yet remote, sadness and sense of loss in so minimalist a fashion. A single fallen blossom upon the snow. The technique can really only be described as the prose equivalent of some of the greatest scroll-paintings of the Chinese masters. (Oh, and about the title of this piece: it is a line, very appropriate here, attributed to the great duke of Chou in a poem by W. B. Yeats.)
It is Dee's duty to be one among the multitudes, drawn via the civil service exams from every class and station in the Empire, who uphold by their work the Throne and validate the Mandate of Heaven; it is his duty, but it costs him, regularly. And he does his whole duty nonetheless: it is hard not to admire such a character.
It is equally tough not to admire the sheer ingenuity of plot incident in The Chinese Nail Murders, and in the series as a whole. When it comes to cunning murder, and still more cunning detection, van Gulik deserves a place in the front rank of puzzlers.
Yet in the end, that is not why I return again and again to these works. I admit a prejudice: in a fashion very different from the usual Luce-like, Buck-ish 'China Lobby' view, I have been hooked upon China and her ancient culture for three decades and more, thanks equally to my 'courtesy aunt' from St Christopher's, Auntie Wanda, God rest her; to Mumsie's dear old friend Debra Paget Kung; and to the works of (speaking of unjustly forgotten authors) Harold Lamb. Yet even the chance to wallow and revel in the atmosphere of a beloved and vanished culture (for all that I cannot readily forgive the Manchus and Mao for successively destroying it) is not what brings me back to the Judge Dee series. It is the spare elegance of the writing, the incommunicable sense of place, loss, and duty, the characterization, and most of all, Judge Dee himself in all his profound decency and goodness.
Y'all might find that worthwhile yourselves.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
mshawpyle
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Member: Markham Shaw Pyle, JD
Location: Houston, Texas
Reviews written: 539
Trusted by: 390 members
About Me:
Historian, baseballing bon vivant, Boll Weevil, W&L man; and the Walter Mitty of field sports
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