Translation sequence In Taiwan's reading circles, Matsumoto Seichang's name has long been no stranger.There are quite a few Matsumoto mystery novels that have been translated and introduced over the years; movies adapted from his works have also been shown here.In our impression, Matsumoto is the top writer of Japanese mystery novels, and there seem to be quite a few readers who like his mystery works.In particular, he has become a high-income figure comparable to several big entrepreneurs with a pen many years ago, which is familiar to everyone.These seem to be the comprehensive impression he gave to the people in the society here.

In Japan, he is so famous that he has become a household name.However, it is worth mentioning here that his mystery novels have attracted countless readers who have never read mystery novels before or even hated mystery novels in the vast Japanese reading circles, and they have become reasoning novels. Novel fans, it should be more appropriate to say Matsumoto Seicho fans.Because of these countless Matsumoto fans who are attracted by Matsumoto and have unanimously eliminated their prejudice against reasoning, a large part of them are readers who do not read Matsumoto's works and must read Matsumoto's works.From this point of view, Matsumoto is indeed a writer who brought a new look to the Japanese reasoning world, and then formed a key writer in the heyday of reasoning novels in today's Japanese reading circle.

But where is the magic of Matsumoto's mystery novels?The first is novelty.Mystery novels are inherently based on riddles and puzzle solving, which is well known to us.However, the mysteries in the world are limited after all, and it is not an easy task in the field of mystery novels to innovate.The natural result is to create riddles for the sake of solving riddles, or even making riddles for the sake of riddles. Reasoning writers are only trying their best to design whimsical and unimaginable riddles, as if only by surprises can they win.When mystery novels have reached this point, naturally they can only be lost in a dead end, and there is no way out.At this moment, Matsumoto abandoned his usual reasoning style and took his steps based on the novel.In other words, his mystery novels still have a literary foundation.It is no wonder that Matsumoto was originally a writer of pure literature. He has won the Akutagawa Award, the highest honor in Japanese pure literature, and has a solid literary foundation.This is why Matsumoto can be unique in the field of general reasoning, and the reason why his works can withstand the appreciation of high-level readers.

Second is everydayness, or cloud reality.Since the main content of mystery novels is murder and other crimes, common mystery novels have unique design of scenes and situations, and even the characters are often unique.In other words, the world of reasoning novels is mostly fictitious and overhead, which is also the natural result of making mysteries out of mysteries.Matsumoto changed his style, no matter whether it is a mystery or the way to solve it, it is based on daily life and reality, that is to say, his events are always common in society and in daily life, and can even be seen around the readers. occurring.

In particular, the authenticity of the characters is more important to Matsumoto. The previously common characters without souls and personalities led by the author, that is, characters designed for riddles and riddles, are not taken by Matsumoto. of.Matsumoto himself has the following self-report: From before the war to the post-war detective novels, the characters have not been well written.No, rather, the author has no intention of portraying and describing characters at all.Thinking about it, Matsumoto should have said these words from the bottom of his heart.This style of reasoning with Matsumoto as the arrow was later named by critics as the Social School. Whether this name is appropriate or not is open to debate, but it can also be seen that Matsumoto has indeed brought a new style to the Japanese reasoning circle.

Although Seicho Matsumoto's reasoning works are mainly long novels, such as the wall of dots and line eyes (Chinese translation of the net of death), etc., the number is extremely considerable, and there are also many works that focus on solving puzzles.However, this is to maintain suspense, and I have to, but the style of investigating the motives of crimes, analyzing psychological mysteries, and focusing on living characters is consistent.However, when Matsumoto writes, he does not stick to one style, and is always exploring and trying the possibility of mystery novels.This is also the reason why Matsumoto's works are popular and enduring.

These characteristics of Matsumoto, I think, are most obvious in his series of short stories.There are quite a few of his works, such as novels, Japanese art Tan, black painting collection, film car, black painting collection, black style, etc., at any one stroke.Although these groups of short stories are independent, they seem to form a ring, tightly buckled together, becoming a strong chain, unified under one theme.This book is one of the works in this series of short stories. The subject matter dealt with in the first car accident death is a kind of force majeure car accident, needless to say, it is commonplace. Naturally common car accidents, the taxi driver who caused the accident was also sentenced and is currently in jail.However, a year later, a doubt that happened to pass through the employee's mind made him start the investigation again.It turned out that this was a murder designed by taking advantage of the usual psychology of the police and ordinary people. The truth finally came to light and the driver's grievance was vindicated.This type of reasoning work has always been about the appearance of famous detectives and other characters immediately after the incident, using ingenious reasoning techniques to solve the case.Matsumoto's unconventional writing style can also be seen from this article.

In Jiawenli, the children whose parents were murdered grew up, and the real culprit was deduced only 18 years after the incident; while in Shisu, it took seven years for local historians to deduce the murderer.It takes ten months for an old book to show clues, and it takes seven months for an absent party to reveal the truth unintentionally; The definite evidence of the murder appeared.Matsumoto changed his practice of solving cases quickly and quickly, and adopted this realistic approach, which is exactly where he came up with the idea. Generally speaking, in real cases, it is rare to successfully solve a case in a short period of time, but in mystery novels, everything is usually resolved in a clear situation.For this reason, most reasoning writers need a keen detective to handle the case.This is the typical style of mystery novels since Sherlock Holmes.But after this method is abused, whether it is a famous detective or a smart criminal, they all become puppets manipulated by the author, and they cannot exist in reality.This is where Matsumoto thinks a different approach is needed.Therefore, under the strict realistic arrangement, many cases come to an abrupt end after the real murderer is hinted.Subsequent procedures such as the arrest and interrogation of suspects are unnecessary.Therefore, Matsumoto's short reasoning has a clean and refreshing feeling.There are many examples of this in every chapter of this book, and the only one that brings the murderer to justice is the murder of a fake lunatic.

In this article, the murderer wants to avoid criminal responsibility after the murder, which is why the murderer pretends to be a madman.This situation also happens to break the usual pattern of reasoning novels, that is, the novel begins with hints of murders and mysteries, and then there is the reasoning of the solvers.Matsumoto did the opposite.A scholar who suspected history wanted to steal precious documents was discovered, committed murder for self-defense, and caused adultery with passion, planting the seeds of solving the case; among the young lovers was an old maid in order to maintain self-esteem; The writer with braids; the class chief in the Persian planetarium because of love disputes;In Haiwan's memory, there is even a man who took his sister-in-law and lover back to his hometown. While recalling faint childhood memories, he finally revealed his intention to commit a crime unexpectedly.

In short, all the chapters in this book describe the sinister side of human nature, such as human desire, love and hate, etc., because they all come from human nature, so they are all unknowingly caught in a situation of doom, so it is different from the common The reasoning pattern of arranging puzzles to attract readers is quite different and interesting.However, all these various characters suggested by Matsumoto have their daily nature, and every reader can find similar characters around them, so their motives and methods of committing crimes are neither strange nor impossible.This should also be the biggest reason why the world of Matsumoto's works gives people a sense of intimacy.

It is eclectic and avoids typification, but each branch hangs a piece of dead fruit, which is what Matsumoto has painstakingly managed in this series of short stories. December 1986 Translator's Note