Summer of Bird Catching is the first novel by Japanese writer Xiayan Kyoko, and also the first series of mystery novels of "Gyeonggi Hall". In this work, the protagonist Akihiko Nakamura, known as "Gyeonggi Hall", uses extensive folklore knowledge, complex psychological knowledge and meticulous reasoning ability to solve a series of seemingly incredible events in Jiuyuan Temple Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital.
Content summary:
During the rainy season, the writer Guan came to the home of his old friend Akihiko, a Zen temple. Qiu Yan is a second-hand bookseller and shrine secretary, who works part-time to exorcise evil spirits for people. He is knowledgeable, eloquent, and able to exorcise evil spirits. Acquaintances often call him "Economic Hall", the name of the bookstore. About the gossip anecdote that came from Jing Jitang's sister Dunzi during this period-a woman was pregnant for 20 months but didn't give birth, and the pregnant woman's husband also disappeared. Gyeonggi Hall found that the rumored "husband" was him and the senior student Fujino Mulang. So Jing called Guan to find their friend and private detective Mu. Coincidentally, Liang Zi, the eldest daughter of Jiuyuansi family who runs a maternity hospital, also went to Mimujin for help. Her sister is pregnant for 20 months, but there is no sign of delivery. Moreover, her brother-in-law, Jiuyuan Temple Mulang (Fujino Mulang) mysteriously disappeared in a room similar to a secret room a year and a half ago. She hopes Mimujin can find Mulang. With the motto of "There is nothing strange in the world", Jingjitang, Guankou and Mu began to investigate the matter. The disappearance of the secret room, prolonged pregnancy and infertility, successive infant deaths, the curse of the Jiuyuan Temple family and the mysterious shell are all wrapped in sad and helpless stories.
Character introduction:
Qiu Yan Zhongchan Temple (Jingjitang)
The owner of the second-hand bookstore "Gyeonggi Hall" in Tokyo, the palace minister of the Musashi Mystery Society in the shrine, is a prayer teacher (that is, a teacher of Yin and Yang) who helps people exorcise ghosts. Acquaintances call him "Jingjitang" by the name of the store. Always wear black on weekdays. I am addicted to books and think that "there are no boring books in the world". Because I read widely and have an amazing memory, I have a wide range of knowledge. I have a very in-depth study of Japanese folklore, especially monster culture, and have a good understanding of Christian culture, Buddhist culture, psychology, psychiatry, physics, politics, sociology and so on. But I have no religious belief. Keen observation, the mantra is "there is nothing incredible in this world, only possible things, only possible things." He can say good things, especially likes to explain the truth at length. These words are the key to solving the case.
Guankouxun
A writer who makes a living by writing anecdotes in third-rate magazines is also an old friend of Jing Jitang. He is often called an "idiot" by Jing Jitang and a "monkey" by Mi Jin Mu. I have suffered from depression, and I often have a lingering sense of inferiority. I am weak-willed and vulnerable to psychological hints.
Enokidu Reijirou
Detective, Rose Cross Detective Agency, Shenbao Town, Tokyo. The second son of Viscount Mu Jin Mu was born in an ancient China family. He was handsome, naive and eccentric, and often called others by the wrong name. In the second world war, because of an accident, I had the ability to see other people's past memories, so after the war, I ignored my family's social status and founded the Rose Cross detective agency. With the special function of seeing other people's memories, we can use Jingjitang to solve the mystery.
Jiuyuansi Liang Zi
28-year-old, the eldest daughter of Jia Qin, the temple of Junai in Jiuyuan and the temple of Waiyuan, was in poor health and seldom went out and had little contact with outsiders. When a series of strange things happened at home that were unimaginable to ordinary people, she resolutely sought the help of a private detective. She is pale and slender, and has a beauty that "human beings" seem to be unworthy of. When I was young, I was drugged and sexually assaulted by the attending doctor Jianye, which led to a split personality.
Jiuyuan Temple Mulang (Fujino Mulang)
The husband of Jiuyuan Temple Terrier, the senior of Jingjitang and Guankouxun, was nicknamed "Tengmu". He lost his father in his early years and was deeply influenced by his mother. When I was a student, I happened to meet the stalk of Jiuyuan Temple on Ghost Festival. Love at first sight, let Guankou pass me a love letter. Because of the wrong name and mark, my secret meeting with Liang Zi led to her pregnancy, but I always mistakenly thought that the object of communication was terrier, so I proposed it to the Jiuyuan Temple couple and went abroad to study according to each other's requirements. After returning home, I became the son-in-law of Jiuyuan Temple. After studying in Germany, she was injured and lost her sexual ability. After marriage, she devoted herself to artificial insemination, turned a blind eye to his wife's affair because of being left out in the cold, and then mysteriously disappeared into the room.
Creative background:
Xia Yan Kyougoku likes Japanese traditional culture very much and has been fascinated by shrines, temples and folklore since childhood. He was deeply influenced by the pioneer of Japanese mysticism, Edgar Watt Lapol, the famous Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio and the monster cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki, and was keen on monster research, involving ethnology and ethnology. He found that the writing of mystery novels is actually very similar to monster novels. The author of a mystery novel creates a mystery and then solves it reasonably, which is the same as the process from formation to expulsion when writing a monster novel. Therefore, he combined the two, rewrote the story that he had planned to draw into a cartoon many years ago, and created the Summer of Bird Hunting, which not only inherited the new mystery novel style since Ayatsuji Yukito and Soji Shimada, but also created a unique "monster" mystery novel mode.
Theme of the work:
The story of Summer of Bird Hunting is set in 1950, which is between anti-science and science. Japan is in the post-war period. Mysterious cases occurred in gloomy maternity hospitals in the depths of the forest, interwoven with monster stories such as the shadow of war, mysterious family legends, "caught birds" and "fertile girls". The rhythm is compact and there are four mysteries. Xia Yan Kyougoku's reasoning is not to collect evidence to find the murderer. No one will collect fingerprints, hair and strange mysteries. He loves it and describes it from beginning to end. It is people who lack this confidence. The fact exists from the beginning, but the stakeholders can't see it and the readers can't think of it. There is a strange relationship between human thinking and facts. People are blinded by subjective emotions and only believe what they want to believe and see what they want to see. For example, the past hidden in the depths of memory will make people lose their judgment and see the facts clearly; Or the irrationality of those people in history led to the misunderstanding of reality, which gradually turned into a folklore aimed at a certain person or family, and it was unclear whether it was a person or a demon, which caused more tragedies. The author points out that the "monster" that really needs to be removed is the weak and dark heart.
The core of Summer of Bird Hunting is to drive away the evidence. In order to explain the inevitability of Liang Zi's possession, the author draws people's attention to the rise and fall of the whole ancient temple family and its incredible legend. Closed and self-disciplined villages, on the surface, emphasize the same sex and cooperation, but in fact, the rights and obligations of group members are clear, the overall interests of the group are fixed and the distribution is average. Therefore, the inequality between the rich and the poor will lead to other members' anxiety and fear of losing their own interests, thus generating hatred for the rich. The directionality of this understanding is reflected in the belief in things. People are hostile to the rich but can't explain why they become rich. Finally, it comes down to something that is possessed, which distinguishes them from themselves, pushes them out and imposes social sanctions. Xia Yan integrated these Japanese understandings into his novels. The curse of Jiujiu Temple is the direct reason why the protagonist Liang Zi is possessed by property, which embodies the content of traditional Japanese property legends, and the understanding of the social phenomenon of inequality between the rich and the poor is the basis of property legends. The book "Summer of Bird Catching" focuses on expelling birds, and the triple attributes and double structure of bird catching act on the characters, making the case both confusing and reasonable. The successful layout of all this is due to the Japanese traditional belief in material reflected by the curse of Jiuyuan Temple, and the directivity of anger caused by the imbalance of interest structure is its profound root and the source of the creation of Summer of Bird Catching.
Artistic features:
Xia Yan's setting and description of criminal psychology does not stop at the analysis of criminal psychology, but actively combines complex and profound psychological theories with the characters in his works. The psychological phenomenon of Liang Zi, the protagonist in Summer of Bird Hunting, is deeply influenced by Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. The author described Liang Zi's beauty and temperament by other characters many times, thus giving Liang Zi two identities: one is a "human" who lives normally in the world, and the other is an "inhuman" who lives in another unreal world-a "bird catcher". As the story comes to an end, all the mysteries are solved by the hands of Jingjitang, and readers also know that Liang Zi of Jiuyuan Temple has three personalities: the first personality is Liang Zi's initial and original personality, that is, "Liang Zi"; The second is the personality whose mind is completely controlled by animal instinct, looking for babies everywhere and taking them away, which is the "Kyoko" like a beast; The last one is that Kyoko freed herself from the pain in order to gain the abuser's approval, so she had to have the same personality as the abuser, that is, the "mother" of the Jiuyuan Temple family. The setting of Kyoko, Liang Zi and his mother perfectly realized his intention to apply Freud's three egos (i.e. ID, ego and superego) to his works.
"Kyoko" is equal to "ID", which is not restricted by rational and logical norms, nor does it have any value, ethics and moral factors. It is dominated by only one desire, which blindly follows the principle of happiness and meets instinctive needs. In Kyoko's mind, the desire for children is her irreplaceable instinctive need. When someone takes away a child's life, Kyoko, whose original desire energy can't be satisfied, can't restrain her uncontrollable desire for the child, and then she completely loses her normal mind, causing her uncontrollable desire to burst out, leading her to look for a baby in the hospital like a "beast" according to the "happy principle". This character, acting on the "beast instinct", not only ignores the right and wrong of society, but even cares about his feelings like a "normal person".
"Mother" is equivalent to "superego" (it concentrates all lofty moral concepts and is the subject of pursuing ideal desire or noble lifestyle). Parents' words and deeds make children have no doubt and no room for argument, which naturally turns into a "moral concept" of superego. After suffering for more than ten days in succession, Liang Zi finally accepted the concept of mother through the role of identity, and also accepted the concept that Ju is the mother of the ancient temple passed down from generation to generation. At this time, Liang Zi is kyoko. She brought this "rule" guarded and observed by the ancient temple family, that is, moral concept, into her own consciousness, and then gave birth to a "mother" personality equivalent to "superego". In essence, the killing behavior of her mother, Ju Nai of Jiuyuan Temple, is a kind of "moral concept" that has been respected and guarded by "mothers" of Jiuyuan Temple since ancient times. Liang Zi's superego "mother" seems to be like an inanimate machine ordered to "carry out" that rule-it doesn't contain any human love and sympathy. Afterwards, she took similar behaviors of monitoring, guiding and threatening.
As a lubricant to adjust the balance between id and superego-the embodiment of "ego" personality, when a series of strange things happened at home, "Liang Zi" assumed the obligations and responsibilities as the heir of this long-established family and resolutely sought the help of private detectives. However, the fragile physique and mind hidden under the beautiful appearance cannot fulfill the duty of "self", neither can it solve the puzzles in reality and save the fate of the ancient temple family, nor can it avoid the bleak tragedy caused by other personalities and save their fateful fate.
Therefore, the root of the tragedy that happened to Liang Zi is the extreme fragility of self and the extreme imbalance of "three selves" caused by the untimely rapid expansion of "ID" and "superego", that is, the disharmony among Liang Zi, Kyoko and mother. Personality "Liang Zi" can't communicate with "Kyoko" and "mother", so the final result is that personality is constantly distorted and tragedies are constantly staged.
The clue character "I" (that is, Guan Xun) in the book is neither a foil nor a recorder of the case for a detective like Watson. "I", in the whole story, has rich thoughts and emotions, thinking, feeling, dealing with the information coming to me with readers, and conspiring with the author to keep some secrets. At the end of the reading, I will find that this "I" is so crucial that it affects the direction of the whole story. Xia Yan Kyougoku is talking about a deeper problem of human thinking. Taking "I" as the representative, it shows the logic of ordinary people and gives the author room to think.
Evaluation of works:
Summer of Bird Catching is the first and the most famous one in the Gyeonggi Hall series. Xia Yan Kyougoku seems to have deliberately set a threshold. In the first chapter, he arranged Jingjitang to give readers a solid theoretical lesson. This paper quotes a large number of ancient books and examples, and expounds the cognition and understanding of religion, mysterious experience, science and consciousness in Economic Hall. This also laid the foundation of the world outlook for the later novels. (Sina.com evaluation)
The shortcomings of Summer of Bird Hunting are also obvious. There are quite a few stereotyped dialogues, stupid dialogues and complicated theories and explanations that can be simplified. Even if there is a deep truth in it, 5 13 pages are a little too thick for any book except dictionaries. (Evaluation by Southern Metropolis Daily)
The influence of the work:
The publication of 1994 Summer of Caught Birds has caused great surprise in Japanese mystery literature. The author was once praised as "the mystery novelist who is most likely to win Nobel Prize in Literature" in Japan. Summer of Bird Catching was not only adapted into a comic book, but also into a movie of the same name in 2005, directed by Akio Jissoji and starring Shinichi Tsuga, Masatoshi Nagase, Hiroyuki Miyasako, Hiroshi Abe and Rena Tanaka.