If you want to read a novel written originally in English about China and Chinese culture, you can't do better than start with this book. Qiu Xiaolong (in Chinese, the family name comes at the beginning) is not only China born and bred but, as a poet and translator of ancient Chinese Tang poetry and former teacher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is also a bona fide member of the Chinese literati. As an immigrant to the United States where he chose to stay on after the Tiananmen incident, he is, however, writing a police procedural novel for a Western audience. What you get therefore is an authentic look at modern China (not the vomit-inducing yellow-face often found in other works), steeped in Chinese cultural and literary tradition but explained for the Westerner. It's not a translation, so you don't get those awkward constructions that can arise when translating from Chinese into English. And it's a cracking police procedural to boot. Qiu's Inspector Chen is the newly appointed head of the Shanghai Police Bureau's special case squad. The squad, itself a new creation, was formed to handle cases that have a political angle. This allows Qiu to use the crime novel genre to explore the social and political changes sweeping through China, as Chen has to conduct his investigations all the while taking care not to step too hard on powerful political toes. This makes Chen a direct literary descendent of the iconic Chinese figure, Justice Bao (包拯), a semi-historical semi-fictional personage of mythic proportions, legendary for investigating corruption in high places while being wholly incorruptible himself: He is also, however, literary kin to characters such as Simeon's Inspector Maigret or James's Inspector Dagliesh, right down to having his own trademark quirk, in his case, being a poet and having a penchant for quoting Tang Dynasty poetry:He went out to the balcony, but he failed to catch a glimpse of her slender figure retreating into the night. He heard only a violin from an open window above the curve of the street. Two lines from Li Shangyin's "Zither" came to his mind:The zither, for no reason, has half of its strings broken, One string, one peg, evoking the memory of the youthful years.A difficult Tang dynasty poet, Li Shangyin was especially known for this elusive couplet. Certainly it was not about the ancient musical instrument. Why, all of a sudden, the lines came rushing to him, he did not know. The murder case? A young woman. A life in its prime wasted. All the broken strings. The lost sounds. Only half of its years lived. Or was there something else?The use of literary allusions is also very much in line with classical Chinese works where such references were de rigueur to show one's learning. Here, Qiu unpacks the allusion for us, explaining its provenance and musing on the meaning of its use. Qiu does this work of unpacking in other ways as well, and does this reasonably discretely, explaining only when he feels he has to:Chen did not answer the question. He had a ready excuse in busily unwrapping the [dish,] beggar's chicken. It smelled wonderful. The recipe had supposedly originated when a beggar baked a soil-and-lotus-leaf-wrapped chicken in a pile of ashes. The result was an astonishing success.But Qiu also omits explanations when these are not needed, such as in his use of four-character Chinese idioms, a quintessential feature of the writing of any educated Chinese person. In this following passage he uses the phrase 雨后春笋 [yǔhòuchūnsǔn] ("bamboo shoots after a spring rain"), used to indicate rapid and plentiful growth and equivalent to saying in English "sprang up like mushrooms":A small fishing village during the Ming dynasty, Shanghai had developed into one of the most prosperous cities in the Far East, with foreign companies and factories appearing like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, and people pouring in from everywhere.Chen's repeated references to Tang poetry are either your cup of tea or not, but before you decry them for being nothing more than pretentious sound and fury think of how often Western novels expressly or implicitly reference earlier foundational cultural works, all without having to directly acknowledge the debt because the reference forms part of the Western world's cultural capital. In this we are all borrowers and lenders. The only difference here is that the cultural referents Qiu is working with have to be explained to his Western audience, which he obligingly and not too disruptively does. The references, moreover, anchor Qiu's work, setting modern China in the framework of its political and cultural past, via the use of this cultural and social resonance. And this brings me to the one aspect of this novel that pushed it from three all the way to five stars for me. A key and explicit reference in the novel is made multiple times to the great Chinese classic, 红楼梦 (hóng lóu mèng) (The Dream of the Red Chamber, also known as The Story of the Stone). Its author, Cao Xueqin, used his story of the wealthy Jia family to criticise the corruption and materialism of Chinese society in his time. This too is a running theme in Qiu's novel. Qiu's reference is not merely to recall China's historical problems with corruption and materialism, however, but to provide a counter to the message of this canonical work. In The Dream of the Red Chamber, the protagonist, Baoyu, struggles between fulfilling his duty to his family—by successfully taking the Imperial examinations and becoming an important and wealthy court official—and his own desire to write poetry. The struggle is also mirrored in his love life. His family want him to marry Baochai, a girl with wealth and family connections whom he does not love, and he wants to marry the spiritual and artsy Daiyu, his soul mate and a poor orphan girl who the family has taken in. The story culminates with Baoyu being tricked into marrying Baochai, while Daiyu is left to die of heartache (also known as tuberculosis). Disgusted with the greed and deceit that surrounds him, the novel ends with Baoyu renouncing the material world and taking on monk's robes. This tension between the demands of principle and idealism versus the demands of real world politick are at the heart of the mystery and its resolution. (view spoiler)[Chen does, of course, catch his murderer. Justice is done, but it also transpires that Chen's investigation has been part of a larger political game of which he was unaware. Bringing the murderer to justice has also meant victory for certain political interests, and defeat for others. In disgust, Chen contemplates quitting the police force, but ultimately changes his mind. It is this difference in response, his decision that "if you believe you can do something for your country, you should persevere. It helps a little if there are a few honest policemen around, even though it may not help much.", that marks this novel out from Cao Xueqin's own answer to the same problem. (hide spoiler)]
A police procedural set in Shanghai in 1990, Death of a Red Heroine has a rather mundane and straightforward plot which normally would not be enough to fill 484 pages. BUT the value of this book, and the very justifiable reason for its length, is the way the author has interwoven everyday life in china at the time, Chinese politics, some history, a wonderful selection of Chinese poetry from the song and Tang dynasties, references to Chinese classics such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, and a terrific up-close view of Shanghai, where most of the action takes place. The protagonist, Chief Inspector Chen Cao, is an earnest rather young man for his position; it is through him, a poet as well as a policeman, that we are introduced to ancient poetic couplets.[return][return]Because of all the subtext, the book is really rich, a marvelous introduction to the post-Mao era in China, when the reforms of Deng Xiaoping which included a market rather than state economy, started a loosening of the rigid restrictions the Communist Party had imposed on everyday life. Through the characters, we get a good look at the damage done by the Cultural Revolution but also at the curious benefits it had as well not many, but they existed.[return][return]There are many more such revelations in the book, for which a murder plot is a good excuse. After reading it, I am very much interested in delving into Chinese history and poetry, which normally would not grab me at all.[return][return]The only drawback to the book is the writing style, which is very formal English in short, declarative sentences, for the most part. Intriguing is the lack of common contractions, for example.[return][return]However, that s a minor flaw the book reads well and is extraordinarily informative in an entertaining way. This is the first book in a series, and I intend to read further.[return][return]Highly recommended.
What do You think about Death Of A Red Heroine (2003)?
The time and place of the Inspector Chen books are great. It's refreshing to read about the intricacies and complaints about other governments. It was interesting to read about the lives of normal people in Shanghai during the 80s and 90s. In some ways, it made me miss my hometown but in other ways, I'm glad my parents immigrated when they did.As far as the mystery goes, it's not all that great and nothing comes as a surprise. The book plodded on in some parts and I couldn't really appreciate the many, many sections of poetry as well as I could appreciate all the parts about food and tea.
—Louise
I am a mystery reader. We read this in a bookgroup. We all found it very interesting. The time period is early 1990's in China. The protagonist is a young Chinese inspector who studied English literature in college but was assigned to the police force. While investigating the crime of a party member, one has a view of the changes going on in the Chinese buracracy and society. The protagonist is a poet and often quotes poets of post communist China. It's a good commentary on chinese society as well as a good mystery.
—Christine Schindler
There is a lot to be liked in this debut novel, set in post-Tiananmen Shanghai, where people still cook in communal kitchens, personal phones (landlines!) are a rare privilege, and private enterprises are just beginning to sprout like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Qiu Xiaolong, a Shanghai born-and-bred émigré, ably --- and at times evocatively --- captures the sights and sounds of his native city for a foreign audience, while sprinkling his narrative (originally written in English) with just enough tidbits of Tang/Song poetry and allusions to The Dream of The Red Chamber (one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature --- five if you count the much-maligned The Golden Lotus or Jin Pingmei --- and also the one that I never seem to be able to finish) to give authentic cultural touches to what is essentially pulp fiction. In this respect, he is similar to wuxia writers such as Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng who purposely embed nuggets of Chinese culture in their sprawling swordsman epics. As Qiu writes in English, he explains these allusions, but restrains himself so that they don't turn into clunky info dumps that clutter up the police procedural routine of the story. That said, the police procedural aspect is the weakest part of this novel. The mystery is hardly mysterious and Inspector Chen treats it almost like an afterthought, to be indulged in after he is done with his poetic, gastronomic and romantic pursuits. Likewise, Qiu seems to be much more interested in writing a social commentary about, among others, 'educated youths' during the Cultural Revolution, corruption among high-ranking cadres and urban communal housing, than a mystery. The resolution of the tepid murder 'mystery', as well as Inspector Chen's political problems, is extremely abrupt and seems to come from nowhere. Obviously, Qiu is trying to make a political point here, but it seems to be a pretty ham-fisted one. The main ingredients of this first novel ---Tang poetry, Chinese culture, both traditional and modern, social commentary on contemporary China, mystery, romance --- are interesting and hopefully Qiu will be able to make more of them in subsequent books.
—Grace Tjan
