None of the threats constitute an existential threat to the imperial dynasty of the dimensions of, say, the An Lushan rebellion, which lasted more than seven years and saw An Lushan capture the Eastern Capital, Luoyang, and declare himself emperor of the new Great Yan dynasty. The most serious challenges are those posed by the Uigers and their Chinese confederates in The Chinese Maze Murders and by the White Lotus conspiracy in The Chinese Lake Murders, and even in these cases the threat is limited. The aim of You Kee and the Uigers is merely to sever Lan-fang from the empire and establish a small new independent kingdom. The goal of Liu Fei-po’s revival of the White Lotus is indeed grand, but the conspiracy has already been discovered by the imperial court and counter measures have already been prepared. Judge Dee’s contribution is to identify the specific center of the rebellion.
It cannot, therefore, be said that Judge Dee in his role as magistrate saves the empire. (It can—and has—been said that in his later role as imperial councilor, the historical Judge Di did save the empire for the Tang dynasty.) But, five times, his criminal investigations do contribute to the saving of the empire. In securing order within families and within cities, Judge Dee explicitly also helps to secure order in the Middle Kingdom as a whole.
Buddhism
A Buddhist temple again plays a significant subversive role in The Chinese Gold Murders. The abbot and most of the monks are ultimately declared innocent, but Hui-pen, the temple’s prior, Tzu-hai, and ten other monks are implicated in the conspiracy to smuggle gold from Korea to the imperial capital, first in the walking sticks carried by itinerant monks, and then in what appears to be a large cedarwood statue of the Lord Maitreya. There are several interesting aspects to this “smuggle” plot.
Lord Maitreya is a millenialist figure in Buddhist eschatology: after a period in which the teachings of Gautama Buddha are forgotten, Maitreya will appear on earth to herald an age of complete enlightenment. Although van Gulik identifies Maitreya as “Lord,” the gender of the returning bodhisattva is unspecified, and during the reign of the Empress Wu, there was an extensive effort to identify Wu with Maitreya, and one of the titles the Empress adopted was “Maitreya the Peerless” (Cawthorne 158). The chief proponent of this identification of Wu with Maitreya was Xue Huaiyi, the one-time peddler of cosmetics who was transformed by the Empress into a Buddhist monk in order to establish the propriety of his visits to her chambers. Xue initiated the translation of sutras that supported this elevation of Wu to divine status.
The Empress not only made Xue a monk; she established him as abbot of the venerable White Horse Temple, famous as the first important Buddhist temple in China (68 AD). The White Horse Temple is located 12 kilometers east of Luoyang, the capital of the empire under Empress Wu. It is to this temple that the smuggling conspiracy in The Chinese Gold Murders plans to send the gold-filled stature of the Lord Maitreya.
Confucius
After Fan Choong rapes Mrs. Koo, her husband, the wealthy shipowner Koo Meng-pen, repudiates her: “According to the code of honor observed in my humble family since generations, she should have killed herself immediately after the rape” (15.169). Her father, the philosopher Tsao Ho Hsien, makes the same judgment: “I cannot take back a daughter who has offended against our sacred moral codes” (15.170). Judge Dee himself declares for traditional values: “According to our Confucianist doctrine … woman should indeed keep herself pure and undefiled.” But he immediately proceeds to draw a more compassionate conclusion: “Our Master Confucius has also said, ‘Let humanity be your highest standard.’ I for one am firmly convinced, Miss Tsao, that all doctrinal pronouncements must be interpreted in the light of these great words” (15.171). He therefore refuses to condemn Miss Tsao, and when she declares her aversion to sexual relations and proposes to enter a nunnery, the Judge advises her not to be precipitant and to consult his First Lady. (In “He Came with the Rain,” van Gulik will show Judge Dee deciding to make Miss Tsao his third wife.)
Homosexuality
Judge Dee’s compassion for the violated Miss Tsao is echoed in his sympathy with the homosexual Tang. In The Chinese Maze Murders, van Gulik had first introduced the theme of homosexuality in the person of Mrs. Loo, a sadistic lesbian who captures beautiful young girls, beats them with a cane, murders them, and preserves their severed heads. In Sexual Life in Ancient China, van Gulik observes that “sadism in men is rare” (161), but that “sadism perpetrated by women on other women is, on the contrary, frequently mentioned, the motive being mostly jealousy and revenge on a rival in love” (162). Mrs. Loo’s motive appears to be pure sadism; she cannot claim jealousy or revenge as a motive. In The Chinese Gold Murders, a homosexual relationship between two male members of the tribunal, Tang, the senior scribe, and Fan Choong, the chief clerk, is presented much more positively. When Fan is murdered, Tang is discovered weeping by the corpse. The Judge visits Tang after hearing that the scribe has swallowed poison. He comforts him: “I know about you and Fan…. We go as nature directs us. If thus two adults find each other, it is their own affair. Don’t worry about that” (15.173–74). The Judge’s tolerant attitude is evidently appropriate for a “staunch Confucianist” (11.120). In Homosexuality and Civilization, Louis Crompton observes, “Confucianism seems to have been little concerned with sexual relationship [sic] between men. Though it promoted marriage, its insistence on the seclusion of women and their inferiority, the high value it placed on male friendship, and the closeness of the master-disciple bond it fostered may have subtly facilitated homosexuality” (221). Certainly it imposed no religion-based taboo upon homosexuality.
There are, however, two odd qualifications to Dee’s show of tolerance for homosexual attachment. The first lies in Fan’s violent rape of Tsao’s daughter. And the second occurs when the dying Tang confesses to a sort of psychotic impulse that transforms him into a were-tiger, in which form he has attacked Tsao’s son. On the one hand, there is the sentimental relationship between two homosexual men; on the other hand, both men are presented, in different ways, as inhuman brutes.
Reviews
The Chinese Gold Murders was the second Judge Dee novel to be published in America by Harper’s, and it too received a strong endorsement in the Times: Van Gulik’s Chinese detective stories are “one of the most habit-forming drugs exported by the Orient” (“Report on Criminals At Large,” 28 May 1961: BR28). Equally positive was the Springfield Republican: “This fascinatingly unusual suspense story, spiced richly with the full exotic flavor of ancient Chinese ways and wisdoms, is the complete equal of the best of modern detective tales and has the added advantage of being uniquely different from almost anything else being offered in this genre” (11 June 1961: 5D).
Reviewers in England and India continued to praise the series. “Their solution involves the reader in a good deal of incidental information about the ways of old China” and it is reached “with a refreshing gusto” (Anthony Lejeune, “The Hunter and the Hunted,” Times Literary Supplement 6 March 1959: 134). “The Judge Dee novels of Mr. Robert van Gulik … may be something of an acquired taste, but they are an easily acquired one” (Francis Iles, Guardian 29 April 1960: 11). “Judge Dee … is involved in the most disreputable society, but emerges unscathed and with his reputation considerably enhanced” (“Thrillers with Cold War Slant,” Times of India 19 July 1959: 6).
Elaboration: From The Haunted Monastery to Judge Dee at Work
In the first five original novels, van Gulik established the framework of the five stations of Judge Dee’s service as magistrate. As he moved into the next series of Judge Dee stories, van Gulik began experimenting with his creation. Between 1961 and 1966, van Gulik published seven more volumes of Judge Dee fiction that constitute a second series of Dee stories. They are a diverse lot in several respects.
Five volumes were novels (The Haunted Monastery, The Emperor’s Pearl, The Lacquer Screen, The Red Pavilion, and Murder in Canton), one collected two novellas (Monkey and Tiger), and one collected eight short stories
(Judge Dee at Work).
The first five novels each contained graphic maps of the five rectilinear cities to which Judge Dee had been posted, marking the various public and private buildings that Judge Dee visits and the streets and canals that he and his lieutenants perambulate. The first novel of the second series, The Haunted Monastery, includes a schematic map of the monastery, but it is a functional diagram designed to help the reader visualize the location of the mysterious rooms. The Judge and his lieutenants will, to be sure, continue to perambulate the streets in the later novels, visiting crime scenes and restaurants, temples and flower boats. But most of the novels of the second series will be set outside the cities to which Dee was posted as a magistrate, and maps of Peng-lai, Han-yuan, Poo-yang, Lan-fang, and Pei-chow are no longer required.
The first series emphasized the development and the functioning of Judge Dee’s team of lieutenants, recounting the occasion of their recruitment, demonstrating their individual strengths and weaknesses, and displaying their cooperation and their camaraderie. In each of the first four novels of the second series, van Gulik isolates each of the lieutenants: three of them are, for various reasons, elsewhere, and the Judge works with just one of his four lieutenants—Tao Gan in The Haunted Monastery, Sergeant Hoong in The Emperor’s Pearl, Chiao Tai in The Lacquer Screen, and Ma Joong in The Red Pavilion.
In the second series, van Gulik also abandons some of the peculiarly Chinese flourishes that he sustained through the initial series. He no longer provides a summary couplet at the beginning of each chapter. He also abandons the device of opening every novel with a scene removed in time (the first four novels of the first series) or space (the fifth). For the novella volume and the short story volume, van Gulik dispenses with the “Case of the….” formula that he used for all of the titles of the three internal subplots that constitute each novel of the first and second series. Although he nominally retains the convention of having the Judge investigate three cases in each novel, the boundaries between the cases begin to blur, and a more unified effect is achieved.
6. The Haunted Monastery
(20 Chapters)
Scene: The Taoist Monastery of the Morning Clouds, in the mountains of southern Han-yuan (The Chinese Lake Murders), Judge Dee’s 2nd posting. The Judge and his three wives are compelled to seek shelter in the monastery when a violent storm and a broken axle conspire to prevent them from completing their return to Han-yuan.
The Magistrate’s Lieutenant: Tao Gan
The Cast:
Jade Mirror, former abbot of the Monastery of the Morning Clouds
True Wisdom, current abbot
Sun Ming, Taoist sage and former Imperial tutor, living in retirement
Mrs. Pao, a widow
White Rose, daughter of Mrs. Pao
Tsung Lee, “a poet of note”
Kuan Lai, director of a theatrical troupe
Miss Ting, an actress
Miss Ou-yang, an actress
Mo Mo-te, morose itinerant monk, itinerant actor
“The Case of the Embalmed Abbot”
Victim: Jade Mirror, poisoned
Villain’s motive: avoiding exposure of earlier crimes
Jade Mirror, the former abbot of the monastery, had died two years prior to Judge Dee’s visit. By examining the abbot’s last painting, Judge Dee determines that the abbot was murdered and identifies the murderer.
“The Case of the Pious Maid”
Victim: White Rose, tortured
Villain’s motive: sexual perversion
As a result of the death of her fiancé, White Rose has chosen to commit herself to a life as a Taoist nun. Her brother hopes to intervene. White Rose disappears, but in Chapter 16 is discovered by Judge Dee in the monastery’s statue gallery, bound to a sculpture, naked and painted white.
“The Case of the Morose Monk”
Victim: none
Villain’s motive: revenge
The monks have invited Kuan Lai’s troupe of actors to assist in the performance of mystery plays as part of a commemoration of the founding of the monastery. A recent addition to the troupe is Mo Mo-te, a onetime vagrant Taoist monk and a master swordsman. He does not appear often, and only late in the story does Judge Dee, suspecting him of committing crimes, declare that he “usually looks rather morose” (15.117). Judge Dee discovers he is the brother of Miss Liu, a young girl who died at the monastery a year ago.
Plot
The three cases coalesce around a single crime. The central murder mystery of The Haunted Monastery is, in fact, the specific object of none of the three named “cases.” Over the past two years, three young women have died at the Monastery of the Morning Clouds: a Miss Liu died after a lingering illness, a Miss Huang committed suicide with poison, and a Miss Gao fell to her death while exploring the nooks of the mountaintop monastery. “The Case of the Pious Maid” presents an interrupted continuation of this series of misadventures, with White Rose intended as the successor to Misses Liu, Huang, and Gao. “The Case of the Morose Monk” brings Miss Liu’s brother to the monastery, intent upon avenging his sister’s death. And “The Case of the Embalmed Abbot” concerns the elimination of an obstacle to the conspiracy that brought young women to the monastery and that covered up their deaths. The solution to this central mystery—who is killing the young women—is well-concealed by these subsidiary “Cases.”
The Haunted Monastery provides a schematic map of the monastery in which Judge Dee has sought refuge. The baffling corridors and stairways of monastery become a metaphor of the mysteries that swirl around the central problem of the missing girls. And the first “Case” Judge Dee encounters is, in fact, built into the fabric of the monastery: through the window of the room to which he has been assigned, Judge Dee looks into a window of the building opposite and sees a military man embracing a naked one-armed woman. He is told that there is no window and no room in that building, and when he and Tao Gan investigate, they seem to confirm this. The explanation of this physical mystery will coincide with Dee’s explication of the solution to all the crimes.
Having outlined Judge Dee’s detective career by devoting a novel to each five diverse districts in which he served as magistrate prior to his promotion to the presidency of the Metropolitan Court, van Gulik begins in the sixth novel to revisit the districts, but now locating the action in outlying regions. The Haunted Monastery emphasizes this shift: the monastery is isolated on a steep mountainside. The wind and the rain keep everyone indoors. There are no crowds and markets, no visits to taverns and brothels, no noodle shops and mansions. Ma Joong and Chiao Tai are absent; their vigorous (and perambulatory) actions are absent. Judge Dee has only Tao Gan to assist him, and Tao Gan’s primary function in this novel is to listen to the Judge’s speculations. It is a role that might more naturally have been played by Sergeant Hoong. Tao Gan’s expertise at conjurer’s tricks does make his inability to solve the mystery of the vanishing room more baffling.
And finally, Judge Dee speculations take on an additional layer of political and metaphysical thought. The contrast between the Confucianist Judge Dee and the Taoist Master Crane Robe in The Chinese Maze Murders had been something more than “a much-chastened version of the deus ex machina” that van Gulik had described it as in his postscript in that novel. Master Crane Robe’s philosophy of “a life of non-action jenseits vom Guten und Bösen, in complete harmony with the primordial forces of nature” (Postscript 328), constituted a provocative alternative to Judge Dee’s commitment to a life dedicated to administering justice under imperial auspices in an unjust world. In The Haunted Monastery, the former Imperial Tutor, Sun Ming presents a quite different provocation; his Nietzschean jenseits vom Guten und Bösen is neither passive nor harmonious (nor natural). It does not tempt the Judge. Where Master Crane Robe lived his philosophy, Sing Ming argues his, and as a result, Judge Dee is compelled to formulate his response in some detail. Tao Gan is the receptive auditor of much of the response.
Taoism
&
nbsp; The Monastery of the Morning Clouds is a Taoist retreat. The previous abbot, Jade Mirror, seems to have been a genuinely decent man, though Judge Dee’s reconstruction of his final hours somewhat diminish his aura of holiness. What had been taken as an exalted lecture in the hours before his translation to the higher realm, the Judge explains, was mere nightshade-induced babble. The current abbot, True Wisdom, is an unimpressive figure whom Judge Dee suspects of having committed murders and then, when accused of the crimes, of having committed suicide. The really impressive Taoist is Sun Ming, the former tutor to the Imperial Prince.
The Judge Dee Novels of R.H. van Gulik Page 14