The Great Darkroom

大暗室 (Daianshitsu, The Great Darkroom, 1938) is a thriller by EDOGAWA Rampo (江戸川乱歩). I've not read any of his novels except for a couple of children's adventures, The Fiend with Twenty Faces (1936) and The Boy Detectives' Club (1937). Rampo's writing has quite a range, including children's stories, classical detective stories and "erotic grotesque" stories, which vary in tone from satire to horror.

I don't know where The Great Darkroom belongs in all this, but it's basically an adventure story with a supervillain and a righteous hero combatting him. In many respects it's very similar to the children's stories I mentioned above; but there is quite a lot that would not be acceptable in a children's book, to put it mildly. While in those the antagonist is above spilling blood, the villains in this readily murder women, children and innocent bystanders. There are occasional scenes of sadism, including sexual threats and threats of torture. A small child tortures a puppy in the prologue. The mix of horror and adventure elements is similar to many comics aimed at older children (of the kind that used to attract congressional investigations in America); and it is easy to imagine the readers of the children's stories graduating to this as they become teenagers, but probably without their parents' approval. Apparently there is a rewriting of the book (made after Rampo's death) in the Boy Detective's Club children's series, with AKECHI Kogorou vs. the fiend with twenty faces. Presumably the more offensive elements will have been removed as well.

The first section of the book is a long prologue set twenty odd years before the main events. Adventuring baron ARIAKE Tomosada (有明友定), his friend OOSONE Gorou (大曽根悟郎) and his servant Kurusu (久留須) are adrift in a lifeboat after escaping from a sinking ship. Sure that he will not survive Ariake writes a letter to his wife asking her to marry Oosone, who he hopes will look after her if she becomes a widow. When they spot land unexpectedly, Oosone, who has kept two bullets for his pistol, takes the opportunity to marry a rich and beautiful widow by shooting the other two passengers. A few years later they are married with two children, Ariake's son Tomonosuke (友之助), born after his last departure from his wife, and Oosone's infant son Ryuuji (竜次), who seems to have inherited his father's evil nature. When Kurusu unexpectedly returns from the dead, Oosone attempts to kill the whole household while making his escape with the family's transferable wealth and his son. But Kurusu again survives, though horribly disfigured by fire, along with Tomonosuke, whom he raises in secret to be the righteous avenger of his parents.

With that we move forward to present day Japan where two young men, going by the names ARIMURA and OONOKI, have won a great reputation for their varied ability and daring. When they meet, unaware of each other's true identity, they become a kind of friendly enemies. As Ryuuji starts setting his megalomaniac plans into action, Tomonosuke is there to combat him, mostly with mixed success, so that the villain gets away each time.

The book is much more interested in its villain than its hero. Like a Bond villain, Ryuuji has a vast underground base of interconnected caverns; and the narrative stops for fifty pages towards the end of the book while he gives captive journalists a tour of his kingdom. This is both unpleasant (megalomaniac villains are not people you want to spend time with) and tedious; and I imagine the original series readers must have been wondering when they could get back to the story.

Compared to the two children's books I mentioned in the first paragraph, the plotting of some of the episodes is allowed a little more complexity, although they still work on the same principle of constant surprising reversals. In particular the kidnapping of the "prince" in an all female musical revue is written as a kind of impossible crime. The description of this theatre genre is surprisingly similar to the way that the same thing is described today in the case of the famous Tarazuka Revue, with a club of fans, all young women, devoted to the protection of their idol.

The Boy Detectives Club

少年探偵団　(Shounen tanteidan, The Boy Detectives Club, 1937), is the sequel to　二十面相 (Nijuumensou, The Fiend with Twenty Faces, 1936), making it the second in a series of juvenile detective stories by  江戸川乱歩 (EDOGAWA Ranpo), featuring the great detective AKECHI Kogoro (明智 小五郎), his young assistant, teenager KOBAYASHI  Yoshio (小 芳雄), and a group of primary school aged boys, the boy detectives club of the title.

Tokyo is in terror of a black figure, who merges into the night and is seen only when he shows the white teeth of his mocking smile. The strange figure's appearances come close to the house of a wealthy Japanese family, and wake in the memory of the father an association with a jewel that he once bought. The jewel had seemed a bargain at the time; but he later learnt that it had been stolen from an idol in an Indian village, and two Indians were said to pursue the stone relentlessly, taking the life of the owner's daughter, just as an Indian girl of the village had lost her life at the time of the theft.

The mystery runs along similar lines to Twenty Faces. Akechi is again away on business and Kobayashi steps in for him. This time the villains seem a bit more ruthless than Twenty Faces, who did not care for killing.

Straining his eyes he looked up at the ceiling. It was hard to make out; but it seemed that a small hole was opening there and through that something like a thick pipe was being pushed inside. Its diameter was about twenty centimetres.

Hey, what's this you're playing at? What on earth is that? Kobayashi braced himself, prepared for whatever might come, and kept his eyes fixed in that direction. As he did so, he thought he heard a "ga, ga ga" sound. And in that moment, suddenly, out of the mouth of the thick pipe, something white and foaming started to pour down like a waterfall. It was water. Water.

Oh, readers, what must our Kobayashi's surprise be at this moment?

The novel follows very much the pattern of the first book and has similar virtues. The villain is hilariously irritating, crowing like a child in his victories and mocking his opponents. The narrator moves between different viewpoints and attitudes, often addressing the readers and inviting them to speculate about what is going on, sometimes pulling the camera back and seeing events through the eyes of the people of Tokyo. The passage of time has perhaps given the story more interest, for the glimpse of Japan in the thirties that it offers. That includes such suprisingly modern items as burglar alarms with infrared sensors and helicopters. It also shares the fault, if you care, that all the surprises are much too obvious. An adult reader will work out almost everything that is going on immediately; and probably children are expected to spot most of it for themselves before the revelation.

The boy detectives club, which had a small role in the first book, is the title character this time; but its role is only slightly larger, and almost restricted to the first part of the book.

According to the Japan Foundation's translation database, there is an English translation by Gavin Frew, The Boy Detectives Club (Kodansha International, 1988).

The Fiend with Twenty Faces

If you've read any of the other reviews here, you've probably been irritated by the upper case surnames. They irritate me too, to be honest. So I only put them at the first occurrence of a name in a post. The problem is that the form that a Japanese name gets known in the west is mostly Given name -> FAMILY NAME, but for some writers it's the Japanese order FAMILY NAME -> Given name. When I started learning, that sometimes made me unsure which was which. So I was hoping to spare other beginners the same problems.

The pseudonym EDOGAWA Rampo (江戸川乱歩 1894-1965) is one of those exceptions, known abroad with the Japanese name order, perhaps in order to preserve the punning reference. (Or is there some reason I don't understand? The Japanese Wikipedia regularly refers to him as Rampo, which would be an unusual use of the given name; but apparently obvious pseudonyms are treated differently.) He is one of the most influential figures in Japanese crime writing, with stories in a variety of subgenres. The best known are probably those which have an emphasis on horror and abnormality, a trend in Japan at that time. I have only read two short stories, both more classical mysteries (and both excellent): D坂の殺人事件 (The D-Slope Murder Case 1925) and 二癈人 (Two Invalids 1924).  The first of these is a locked room mystery of sorts, at least it is presented as such by the narrator, whose judgement is not terribly reliable. But in a few pages it runs assuredly through innumerable familiar tricks of detective fiction, turning them on their heads. (Often when reading puzzle detective stories, I've thought, 'You know, there've been some quite thorough demonstrations of the unreliability of eye-witnesses. Someone should write a story with awareness of that research.' I hadn't realized that it had already been done in 1925.) It's also the first appearance of Edogawa's series detective, AKECHI Kogorou (明智小五郎), who is also the hero of the book in the title to this post.

The Fiend with Twenty Faces (怪人二十面相 1936) is the first in a series of adventure stories for children. The title character is a brilliant thief, able to disguise himself perfectly. He is currently busy collecting the fine art and other treasures of the richest families in Japan, always sending a letter ahead of his attack, to let them know that they are about to be robbed. Appropriate to a story for children, he has a strong dislike for shedding blood; and the gun he carries on his first appearance is a toy. For the first half of the book Akechi is out of the country, but his assistant, the twelve year old KOBAYASHI Yoshio (小林芳雄) stands in for him, with incredible self assurance.

Soutarou entered the room and found a boy of twelve or thirteen, with apple like cheeks and large eyes.

"Mr. Hashiba? Pleased to meet you. I'm Kobayashi of the Akechi Detective Office. Since you were so kind as to telephone us, I've come to discuss things."

The boy spoke distinctly, his eyes large and alert.

"Ah, you're Mr. Kobayashi's assistant? It's a rather complicated case, you know. I would prefer to speak to the man himself ...."

The boy put his hand up as if to stop Soutarou, and replied, "No, I'm Kobayashi Yoshio. There's no other assistant but me."

The self confidence is fairly well justified, particularly as, in contrast to the villain, Kobayashi is equipped with a real gun. But of course Twenty Faces remains at large to escalate his threats in the second half of the book, with an attempt to steal all the art works of the National Museum.

This is broadly written adventure aimed probably at readers slightly younger than Kobayashi. Towards the end of the book, Kobayashi gains a group of allies, the Boy Detective Club, who are about ten years old. It's easy and amusing reading, though the twists are signalled more obviously for the book's young readers. The gleeful lack of sophistication in the writing is one of the book's strongest qualities, emphasising the writer's awareness of his readers, who are addressed directly, and invited to speculate or react to the events described. In addition, the background of prewar Tokyo adds an extra interest for modern readers. For instance, the suspicious figure of a kamishibai man is actually one of Twenty Faces henchmen, observing Akechi's house.

For once, there is an English translation. I haven't read it; so I can't speak for its quality. (I will say I hate the cover, which is not my idea of the book at all.) At least the few reactions to it that I can find online are positive.