{"id":6487,"date":"2017-04-03T07:25:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6487"},"modified":"2017-04-03T07:25:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T11:25:08","slug":"jade-dragon-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6487","title":{"rendered":"****Jade Dragon Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Red

photo: Jakob Montrasio, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Elsa Hart \u2013 This charming debut mystery hits my personal buttons, set as it is in China, 1708, and incorporating many of the conventions of novels of Old China. Elsewhere<\/a> I\u2019ve written about my admiration of the Tang Dynasty\u2019s quasi-historical Judge Dee, made famous by the detective novels of Dutch author Robert van Gulik.<\/p>\n

Of course, the romantic vision of historical China in novels\u2014A Dream of Red Mansions<\/em> and those written by Westerns alike\u2014and movies\u2014from Raise the Red Lantern<\/em> to The Assassin<\/a><\/em>\u2014bears no resemblance to China under Communism, nor to the everyday lives of poverty and privation of most Chinese of the past. The novels, even the mysteries dealing with lust, avarice, and murder are generally set among the nobility and the scholars. The tea may be poisoned, but it\u2019s served in a translucent porcelain cup.<\/p>\n

In Hart\u2019s debut, exiled former librarian in the Forbidden City Li Du (already we encounter a scholar), traveling in a remote southern area, enters a town where his cousin is the magistrate to register his presence. On his arrival he learns that the Emperor of China is visiting the town in six days! He will preside over (and pretend to instigate) an eclipse of the sun. This visit accounts for the enormous bustle and elaborate preparations Li Du observes.<\/p>\n

The town and the magistrate\u2019s compound, including its impressive library, are evocatively described. Hart took me right to those places. For me, a delightful return. Although the Emperor\u2019s visit will be a great honor for the magistrate and the town, it creates great risk as well. Many people, including foreigners, are anxious to influence what the Emperor sees and believes.<\/p>\n

The magistrate, beset with difficult decisions and details, would prefer to dismiss the untimely murder of a Jesuit astronomer as simply the work of a group of Tibetans camped in the nearby mountains. But Li Du knows these men and believes them innocent. As an exile, he cannot afford to create any difficulties, yet he cannot let the false accusation rest and a murderer go free. His cousin allows him just a few days to solve the crime, as the Emperor\u2019s visit comes ever-nearer. But is a worse crime in the making?<\/p>\n

Hart has woven an intricate plot, drawing on real-life politics: the historical isolationism of China versus European pressure to open trade, conflicts between the Jesuits and the Dominicans, the friction inherent in the rigid Chinese class structure. These elements make the story both fascinating and subtle.
\n<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elsa Hart \u2013 This charming debut mystery hits my personal buttons, set as it is in China, 1708, and incorporating many of the conventions of novels of Old China. Elsewhere I\u2019ve written about my admiration of the Tang Dynasty\u2019s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Jade Dragon Mountain - murder mystery evocatively set in China, 1708","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,54,40,3,126],"tags":[468,925,128,924],"class_list":["post-6487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-detective","category-fiction","category-mystery","category-reading-2","tag-china","tag-elsa-hart","tag-history","tag-jade-dragon-mountain"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1GD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6489,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6487\/revisions\/6489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}