Le mie pur limitate esperienze con la letteratura giapponese hanno tutte un punto in comune: a prescindere dal valore letterario della singola opera sono letture asettiche, che non riescono mai a coinvolgermi fino in fondo. Ne ho dedotto che sia un problema culturale e questo romanzo forse è l'esempio migliore di quello a cui mi riferisco.
Al di la della considerazione ironica ma non troppo per cui in Italia un giallo incentrato sulle coincidenze ferroviarie precise al minuto non sarebbe stato mai neppure concepito, è proprio il modo di pensare e di agire dei personaggi che è lontanissimo dalla mia sensibilità: un iper-razionalismo che portato alle estreme conseguenze diventa schizofrenico e mi causa un senso di estraniazione.
La trama assomiglia più ad un rompicapo che ad un giallo perché manca quasi del tutto la suspense: capiamo ben presto sia noi che gli investigatori chi sia il colpevole, il resto del tempo serve a scoprire il movente e soprattutto le modalità di esecuzione del crimine. Un modus operandi che a noi lettori più stagionati potrebbe ricordare quello del tenente Colombo, ma senza un briciolo dell'ironia e del carisma che ne hanno decretato il successo mondiale. Infatti l'altro grande problema del libro è che si prende troppo sul serio, è completamente privo di umorismo.
Per fortuna la scrittura è piacevole e le atmosfere suggestive, quindi nel complesso ne risulta un romanzo che fa il suo compitino ma non spicca in nessun modo. ( )

Un bon polar à l’ancienne qui, plus que de chercher whodunit va s’attacher à how, tant le coupable semble être désigné d’emblée. Mais, bon sang-de-bon-soir, comment a-t’il pu ? alors qu’il se trouvait de l’autre côté du Japon, sans cesse de train en train ou en bateau ?

Une histoire de corruption au ministère X et de deux suicidés au cyanure retrouvés sur une plage.

Un chouette bouquin pour les amateurs du genre avec une enquête un peu complexe mais qui se dénoue petit à petit et avec suffisamment d’explications pour que tout reste clair, même pour qui ne connaîtrait absolument pas le Japon et ses horaires de trains à la précision légendaire (oui… difficile de transposer ça au pays de la SNCF) ( )

A wonderful read from an author who is new to me.

Written in 1958 and apparently previously published in English under the title "Points and Lines", this is a new translation issued by Penguin Modern Classics with a wonderful cover!

Having read the book, I think the previous title is more suitable, but I can understand how meaningless it would appear to someone unfamiliar with the storyline.

Some have described it as "cosy crime" or a "procedural", but to me it is an intriguing masterpiece, concerning what at appears to be a double suicide of two young people (Toki and Sayama), with two quite different detectives, one older regionally based (Jutaro), the other younger Tokyo based (Mihara), with quite different approaches.

You "know" from almost the very beginning that business man Yasuda has to be involved with the suicides somehow, but he seems to have iron-clad alibis (being located at the very north of Japan days before and after the likely time of the deaths, with those deaths occurring at the very south of Japan.

Most of those investigating have written off the deaths as indeed being suicides, but Jutaro thinks that, with Toki and Sayama having been seen animatedly talking to each other when alighting a long distance train in Tokyo, it is curious that a receipt for a single train mealis found on Sayama's body if indeed the two were travelling together.

Mihara is with the white crime division in Tokyo, and becomes interested in Jutaro's thoughts when Sayama is identified as a middle ranking executive within a Government Ministry, that is racked with rumours of corruption.

What makes the book so interesting is how the 2 detectives support each other, as they piece together not only how, but also why, these crimes are effected. Such is done by interrogating train and plane timetables, the sending and receipt of telegrams and passenger lists.

As they investigate, the facts seem to confirm that Yasuda has manufactured various events, but those very events (if to be believed) seem to confirm that Yasuda was at the wrong end of the country at the time of the deaths.

The writing is clear and spare. The denouement is a cracker.

An authorial note states that all of the train and plane times mentioned in the book are as per the relevant 1957 timetables in use in Japan (being the time set for the novel).

I will bee on the lookout for more by Matsumoto.

Big Ship

24 July 2023 ( )

Il tempo obbliga i treni a incontrarsi, le persone a bordo, invece, si incontrano solo per caso.
(73)

Quando il senso comune diventa un dato di fatto spesso ci induce in errore.
(119) ( )

I fully applaud the recent trend to publish translations of Japanese mystery novels, often books that were key to the development of the genre.

This one is short, but entertaining. As reader you are not directly told who the guilty party is, but it becomes obvious very quickly. The tension in the story comes from the struggle that the detectives have to prove it. And this all about perseverance, as there is no dramatic breakthrough. A careful reader should probably be a step ahead of of the slightly plodding investigators. You then are seriously disappointed about your conclusions, again and again — it is a neat literary device.

There are, in my opinion, a few plot holes, affecting key events, and the wrap-up is a bit hasty. The story survives such flaws because of its atmosphere and its sober but effective style. ( )