Patriarchy and Puzzle Variation in "DV8" Detective Novel

Disclaimer first, this book review is absolutely thunderous, even poisonous.

After reading " DV8 " for the first time, it is not as enjoyable as the predecessor " Private Detective " ten years ago. Ji Bo's specialty is: directly attacking the embarrassment of the middle class, wrapping his anger against the world in exquisite language , and seeing the trees in the sequel Forest. "I don't like this novel, except that I can't find the angry middle-aged back then, " DV8 " is too not a detective novel." As soon as I had this idea, I turned to myself and asked myself, what is a detective novel? As a one-day detective fan, I embarked on a journey of discovery.

what is detective fiction

At this time, we have to take out one of the most well-known detectives in Japan: Conan/Shinichi, hahahahahahaha, we can find several common features of detective novels,

• Puzzle solving : This...a detective novel without puzzles and cases? Puzzle solving is the "only necessary" factor in detective fiction .
• Smart detective : In most cases, we need a detective who is observant and meticulous like Sherlock Holmes and Conan. While we are flipping through the book, we will sort out and find clues at the same time. If we are lucky, they will give us unexpected surprises at the end. .
• Incapacitated police system : If the police can solve the case, then the detective does not need to appear! For example, the police officer Mumu, although he has a positive outlook, often ignores subtle clues, his marksmanship is poor, and he is a 3C idiot, which gives the detective a lot of room to play.
• Victims : Everyone jokes that Conan is the god of death, and if there are crimes (puzzles), there will be victims.
• murderer
• Romance : Because I don’t read many detective novels, this is just an assumption at present. Like Xiao Lan to Shinichi, the detectives are mostly male, and they want to rescue the erotic objects (women) who are in trouble, or save the victims.

In other words, detective novels are narratives that solve puzzles . They usually start with a crime. The client (the police or the victim) finds the detective. .

It is generally believed that European and American detective novels originated from the Morgue Street murder by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, and were pushed to the top of the first wave by writers such as Conan Doyle and Christy in the United Kingdom . called the works of the first wave of the 1920-1930 peak as classical detective novels. The rationalism and the rising middle class in the 17th and 18th centuries gradually weakened the power of the church. The industrial revolution and the rise of big cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries made religion go away. The spiritual vacuum made people in the cities try to find new pillars. , modernist artists began to ask what is the art of our time, some turned to mythology, some turned to the emerging psychology, detective fiction became a kind of consolation or escape as Lin Wanxuan called it, allowing readers to follow the rational superman (detective) ) together with the deductive method (scientific) to solve the case, so that disorder can be brought into order by the detective’s rationality. We can get the following story prototypes for detective novels:

DV8 as a detective novel

First of all, the purpose of drawing the prototype is to see the similarities and differences between "DV8" and the classical detective novel, not to check the standard of whether this novel is well written.

Synopsis

Since I said it will explode, let me briefly describe it. An An, who works in a law firm, went to the bar DV8 and wanted to entrust detective Wu Cheng to find someone. An An started from a case the firm was dealing with, talked about her mental state, and gave the psychiatrist's advice: When the people related to the murder met, she came to entrust Wu Cheng to find the related people.

After the detective found the relevant person, he found that the murderer of the murder case was wrong. There was another person, but there was no evidence. Seeing that the time limit was approaching, it was difficult to find the key evidence and bring the real murderer to justice. When celebrating, An An had a sixth sense. Upper body, he felt that the case handled by the original office was suspicious.

Well, it fits perfectly into the prototype of a detective novel, so he is a detective novel with nothing new?

Variations of "DV8"

What life cannot do, let the novel do it.

Ji Weiran mentioned in an interview: "What life can't do, let the novel do it." As I alluded to earlier, in the age of rationality, the dominant men in detective novels will save disadvantaged women or victims. Such plots are constantly being staged, strengthening the moral structure of patriarchy. Even if another masculine police system collapses, there are still men who are left alone or enter the system to save society. "DV8" is a (middle-aged?) man's paradise, The detective is accompanied by a beautiful woman (Emma), and the uncles and brothers (Xu Sang, Lao Zhuang, Aji) are the partners in the process of solving the puzzle. They can achieve justice and fall in love, but this is also the first variation. In the story, it is not It seems that Conan/Xinyi always rescues Xiaolan in a critical moment. We can see that Wu Cheng (the detective) and Emma are more like a supportive relationship in life. When Emma suffers because the police cover up the perpetrator of the car accident, Wu Cheng takes action Help each other; when Wu Cheng overworked the case and panic attack, Emma was by his side. What's more interesting is that the two people are more than friends. When they started dating, Emma was the relatively active party. Besides, Wu Cheng didn't have many romantic affairs.

Of course, you can't find a female/transgender rational superman in this novel. Everything is a copy or stereotype of the current situation in Taiwan. The retired police officers are all male, civil servants are male and female, technology industry bosses are male, and law firm executives are male. , The psychiatrist is a woman, I think the author has his considerations.

In localization

As a one-day detective fan, I gathered information to know that there is a "group" of detective novelists in Taiwan, and there is even the Taiwan Mystery Writers Association . It may be a bit rude to say this, but I don't think there is currently a model of detective fiction in Taiwan. Therefore, when the detective novel was transplanted to Taiwan, the first big problem was solving the mystery. How to make the crime happen? As Ji Weiran said in the interview, Taiwan is one of the countries with the most surveillance cameras, and the speed of solving cases is fast. If the police did not fail, there would be no need for detectives. In other words, detective novels are a puzzle game between authors and readers. How does the author convince readers in Taiwan that this crime can be established in Taiwan, and solving the case requires something other than a monitor: there is a need for reasoning.

Geographically, the areas where the mystery is solved in the novel are from Tamsui, Sanchong, Xinzhuang to Luzhou. In terms of time, Wu Cheng handled the case in 2012, and the murder happened in 1990. The police are very good at investigating, but they are trapped in the murderer's pretense of mystery. The physical evidence was due to the lack of identification technology at the time; the case of the firm happened around 2012. The first car accident happened on a mountain road with few cameras. The murderer was well versed in technology and was able to manipulate the communication records to forgery. Wu Cheng also directly attacked Huang Longcai. Evidence recorded to the confession.

The cases are logically reasonable and in line with the current situation in Taiwan, and the disorder is not entirely attributable to the incompetence of the police. The police and public servants in the novel are both fraudulent and just, and there are people involved in the process of disorder and order. , as a rational superman detective, in "DV8", he is more like a rational mortal , and is assisted by a think tank composed of retired police officers and local tour guides, police and public servants, lover Emma, civil credit bureaus and regulars in bars. There is no superman and no absolute stereotype of good and evil.

Extraordinary Intuition for Panic Disorders and Depression

We see in the variation that detective Wu Cheng is not a rational superman. As a rational mortal, Wu Cheng's superpower comes from his extraordinary intuition triggered by his mental condition. Let's unify Wu Cheng's case-solving process:

Most detective novels describe the crime in detail, or make everyone's statement conflict, or make the crime process contradictory or omission, in order to emphasize the process of reasoning, in "DV8", it can be seen more Wu Cheng was shocked or stimulated, suddenly inspired, or because he took the intuition of others seriously (even if the police said that it is not recommended to accept it), and got good clues. In addition to rationality, the solution of the case is more about chance and destiny, less sand table. Deduction or the dilemma of thinking stalemate. As for the details of the intuitive judgment, I recommend everyone to read the novel hahahahaha.

What's more, we look back at the beginning of the disorder, why did An An entrust Wu Cheng instead of other detectives? She said, "The Internet says you (Wu Cheng) has a mental condition." An An was therefore discouraged, thinking that she had a mental illness and should not find another "abnormal" detective. The name of the store, she decided to come to Wu Cheng, she said:

The name of the shop is interesting, deviate means off track, but soon after I walked in, my gut told me I was in the right place.

When a detective faces more than a case

As an intellectual product of the modernist era, detective novels naturally become experimental places in the postmodern trend of thought. As we can read in Paul Auster's " New York Trilogy ", the detective as a rational superman can't find clues, can't complete the case, and order has its unrecoverable desolation, as if to say to the reader, look, Knowledge has its limits, there are places that reason cannot reach, and 1+1=2 (prior knowledge) cannot solve all the things in the world.

When "DV8" satisfies readers' thirst for order, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, it adopts a different path. The detective does not need to be omniscient and omnipotent. He can judge the case with intuition, and he can be a mentally ill patient, which is different from the stereotype: a mentally ill patient is a Terrorists are " violent, unpredictable, bizarre, emotional and incapacitated ". A big mistake, Wu Cheng can not only reason rationally, but also has an intuition that is different from ordinary people, and can maintain social order. In the novel, Wu Cheng went through Xinzhuang (Fu University) in college, Luzhou (Xuhui Middle School) and Sanchong (playing place in middle school) in high school, facing the process of growing up and facing panic disorder. After walking these three points for the first time, Wu Cheng had a panic attack in the underpass, curled up on the ground, tried to calm himself down, returned to the ground to hire a taxi, and met a driver who reassured him and let him In the back seat, he changed his posture and accompanied him to Danshui's residence. Regardless of literature or puzzle games, we find what Deleuze calls a singularity , vaguely seeing how DV8 differs from classical detective novels and metaphysical/postmodern detective novels, and opens up a new paradigm possible.

Epilogue

Just as Wu Cheng recalled the past of panic attacks in high school, at that time he was stuck in various "between", between self-rented house and home, between lies and truth, between classmates and roommates, between day and night, making him I don't know what to do, I don't like "DV8" so much, maybe it is also its various identities, there is no high level of gameplay and nostalgia of classical detective novels, no violence and suspense of crime novels, no socialist psychoanalysis or character profiling, There is no omnipotent rational superman and hero, and no ultimate reasoning that affects the whole body. It walks between detective novels and realism. When building a novel paradise, it analyzes itself to give readers a different detective.

Looking forward to the next private detective book!

💃Personal Homepage |Work Girl Jennifer

🎙Listen to the latest Podcast : EP3 | Playing high-end is patriotic?

🤷Follow nonsense IG

💵 Support Me Appreciate Citizen | Firstory | Checkered