Natsuhiko Kyogoku

Story: 5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 3
Prose: 5

Probably a good book, if you are into mysteries. Sadly, I am not. Only read it because my house-mate had it lying around and I had been wanting to read more Japanese books. Nevertheless, the author introduced me to a lot of Japanese mythology. That was extremely interesting. Otherwise, the mystery itself was quite obscure. The final explanation was completely out of nowhere. I'll have to be more selective about which Japanese books I read in the future...… (meer)

This book was a real drag to get through and if it had been any other book I would have put it down. In fact, I did put this down several times but it kept calling to me. Partly because the scenario and mystery were intriguing, and partly because I really liked the film version I watched years ago.

What made it a difficult read has to do with the nature of the society in the book. Everyone lives in isolation, only interacting with others through monitor screens. The children, in particular, lead extremely sheltered lives, don't learn about history, and are ignorant of many things we take for granted. Things like looking up at the open sky or even the act of crying are alien to them. So the book is filled with long (pages and pages) conversations about these mundane aspects of life. I understand why they are there, and it makes sense, but it's still tedious.

In the end I didn't really find it rewarding but I'm glad I finished because otherwise I would always be wondering about it.… (meer)

Finished this a while back. Wow, this is a pretty crazy read though - trying to describe it is a little tricky, partly because it packs so much in, and partly because discovering what it's "about" seems like part of the fun.

Basically a mystery story, but tied in with psycho-magical theses and a driving, intriguing narration. Intense, clever - but I can't say if it's *too* clever or not. All I can say is that it worked for me, and that I found myself tearing through the second half to uncover everything.

Some people have complained about the first 80 pages or so, which is probably the main part which might be "too clever". But if you can stick with it, or if you love that kind of semi-scientific conjecture on the cognitive origins of magic, ritual, belief and ghosts, (oh, and if you can skip over some of the slightly-overly-American translation ;) then this is a ghost/detective/fairy story definitely worth picking up.… (meer)

Tokyo, summer 1952. A journalist picks up some rumours of strange goings-on at a medical clinic - a man has vanished from inside a locked room, his wife has been pregnant for 20 months, there are dark hints of Nazi experimentation and stolen babies. Freaked out by the stories but seeing a publication opportunity, he goes to talk it over with his smartest friend, a secondhand bookseller who is also a shaman. The friend warns him off from publishing, but also becomes interested in the story, and in the end, joined by a private detective with a sort of second sight and the bookseller's equally clever sister, they are drawn into trying to 'solve' the mysteries.

So, it's a crazy story, told by the (rather susceptible) journalist, but leavened by the staunch rationalism of the bookseller/shaman, who starts the book with a long discussion of how the supernatural - ghosts, curses and spirits - 'exist, but are not real' - that is, people believe in them and therefore they have an impact on people's behaviour, despite the fact that they are total fiction. An atheist shaman (as he is) might seem like a contradiction in terms, but in fact it gives him the ability to play with the language and images of different religious beliefs, until he finds the one which resonates with his 'patient'. The whole story plays out as a demonstration of his argument: there is, in the end, a rational explanation for everything, but it's filtered through the imaginations and psyches of the different characters.

I found this a very interesting concept, although the story itself was occasionally too dry (much too much of the bookseller's philosophical disquisitions) and the mystery story became so baroque that I was very confused even after all the explanations.… (meer)