Talk:The Money Demon

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:42, 28 December 2025 (UTC)

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

• Chen Diexian
• The Money Demon

)

• ... that Chen Diexian's 1913 autobiographical novel, The Money Demon, mainly details his own love affairs?

• Source: Bauer, Daniel J. (2000). "Review of The Money Demon: An Autobiographical Romance". Asian Folklore Studies. 59 (2): 330–332. doi:10.2307/1178927. JSTOR 1178927.

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Skimmia japonica Template:Did you know nominations/Trial of Sean Dunn Template:Did you know nominations/Framoi Bérété Template:Did you know nominations/Mary and Eve

Created by Generalissima (talk). Number of QPQs required: 4. DYK is currently in unreviewed backlog mode and nominator has 131 past nominations.

Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 05:06, 22 November 2025 (UTC).

• I take.--Launchballer 10:30, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

@Generalissima: Long enough, new enough. All QPQs done and Earwig is clean. Not seeing any reason why this might deserve a maintenance template. As for the hook, I must ask for a quote from the source.--Launchballer 10:48, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

• Oh yes, forgot about that.

The autobiographical novel breaks free of its shaky foundations when the I-narrato ("Cousin Shan") begins to share increasingly incriminating detail with readers on his movements from adolescence to young adulthood. The engines that drive this aspect of the story forward most vividly are his relationships with two sisters, the older of whom is the love of his life and next door neighbor from childhood, named after a musical instrument Koto. The enchanting younger sister, appropriately named Orchid, functions at times as a go-between for the would-be lovers, and at times as saucy temptress in her own. Bauer 2000, p. 330.

I realized that this might not fully satisfy "mainly"; The Money Demon (Huangjin sui), written in 1913, is an autobiography—and also a novel about a youth’s amorous and erotic development during a period of hectic social and cultural change. is how the translator introduces it in his preface (Hanan 1999, p. 1) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 13:45, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Alright, I'm satisfied.--Launchballer 06:24, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Reason for the title of the novel

Interesting article, but having read it, I realise that I still don't know exactly why the novel has the title 'The Money Demon'. I understand that the author declares that 'money has bedevilled him at every turn', but how is this relevant to his amorous problems that the article details? Is it that he was forced to marry a woman other than the one he loved because of money considerations? If so, that should be stated explicitly, but also, this is just one 'turn' so far, not many; given the title as well as the author's declaration, I suppose that there are other ways in which money is relevant for this story, which should then also be mentioned or summarised, however briefly. ~2025-43840-74 (talk) 02:49, 5 January 2026 (UTC)