Similar The Three Sui Quash the Demo, The Sing‑song Girls of S, The Travels of Lao Can, Officialdom Unmasked, The Scholars | ||
Jiuming Qiyuan (C: 九命奇冤, P: Jiǔmìng Qíyuān, W: Chiu-ming ch'i-yüan, "The Strange Case of Nine Murders") is a murder mystery novel by Wu Jianren (Wu Woyao). The book, as of 1982, is not available in English.
Contents
Plot
The novel opens within an action scene, where a group of men trying to burn their victim are engaged in a conversation. Bruce Doar, who wrote a book review of the The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, wrote that "Such an opening was unprecedented in Chinese fiction."
Analysis
Gilbert Fong, the author of "Time in Nine Murders: Western Influence and Domestic Tradition", published in The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, documented shifts in time. Fong argued that the manipulation received inspiration from foreign models, Cantonese ballads, and traditional Chinese crime stories (gongan). Fong also stated that the "time inversion" technique appears more often than the previous literature about Jiuming Qiyuan indicates. Robert E. Hegel, author of a book review of The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, wrote that Fong corrected an opinion about Jiuming Qiyuan that had been written by Hu Shi. Doar wrote that Fong's writing was "an especially solid piece of scholarship."
Reception
Bruce Doar, who wrote a book review of the The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, stated that Jiuming Qiyuan was "regarded as one of the finest novels of the late Qing period." Doar argued that "due to the opening, it was "one of the most innovative" novels.