The Longer Bodies

This is supposed to be a blog about books in Japanese; but since half the books I write about are detective stories, and since I've been too busy to finish the two Japanese books I'm reading at the moment, I thought I'd put up a review of an English detective story, The Longer Bodies (1930) by Gladys Mitchell.

Gladys Mitchell is a familiar name to detective story enthusiasts, but hardly known to general readers. In the late twentieth century, much like John Dickson Carr, a few of her books were sporadically reprinted, so that a well stocked bookshelf might have one or two of them. Currently quite a few are in print, including the one I'm writing about today. I've read six or seven of her books. Each was a little different from the others, in the kinds of things that she was trying to do in them. All of them had in common that they were identifiably classic puzzle detective stories, but at the same time very eccentric, with an emphasis on outrageous elements, often humorous, sometimes horrific.

There's not so much horror in The Longer Bodies and a lot of humour. Great-aunt Puddlequet is a rich old woman, who has been on more or less bad terms with her nearest relatives. Now, as she feels death approaching, she arranges to visit one of her nephews.

'Write to him, Companion, and say that I am going to visit him on Thursday. I want to have a look at his children.'

Godfrey Yeomond guffawed when he read the letter.

'She wants to see the children before she dies,' pronounced his wife. 'Poor thing. I expect she's very lonely and unhappy right out there in the country. Write back quickly, dear, and tell her how very welcome she is.'

'I'd better tip the boys the wink to be civil to her,' said Godfrey, pursuing a different train of thought. 'Her money's got to be left somewhere, and she was never one to be fond of cats.'

Mrs Puddlequet's search for an heir takes on more concrete form when she happens to see English athletes putting on a poor show at an athletics competion. Summoning her great-nephews from various families, she sets them to learn various sports. The one who wins for England will inherit her money. She has at great cost changed part of her estate to make a practice ground, and hired a German trainer. The contestants are followed by their sisters, so that the house is full of young people. The cousins do their best to humour their great-aunt, without seriously aiming for athletic excellence; but someone seems to be up to something more sinister. Great-aunt Puddlequet's rabbits are disappearing, and the javelin is found discarded, with blood on its point. Soon we have the first murderer, a local labourer known for drunkenness and domestic violence (which, since this is 1930, is regarded as something regrettable about which nothing can be done).

That progression, perhaps deliberately, resembles the classic horror and mystery progression, where we start with more disposable victims (in the author's opinion) and only gradually progress to those that the author takes seriously.

Mitchell's series detective, Mrs. Bradley, does solve the murders; but she only appears in the last third of the book. Until then the investigation is carried by an inspector from the local police, who seems reasonably intelligent up to the point where Mrs. Bradley appears, then suddenly turns into a rural Lestrade.

The story and characters are certainly interesting, particularly the ruthlessly selfish and imperious great-aunt. The working class characters tend to be an exercise in broad comedy; but Mitchell is at least aware that they have their own interests and allows them a reasonable amount of good judgement. The cousins were more of a problem for me. There are three families from different backgrounds; but my ears are not attuned to the subtle variatons within the upper reaches of the middle class that a reader in thirties might have found. So most of the cousins sounded much the same to me. The puzzle too was not really one of Mitchell's best. This may be partly my fault. There were a lot of complications in the middle part of the book, which obviously were going to have be shown as red herrings before the end. In those circumstances I tend not to really concentrate my mind on the problem until I can see the full hand; but by then I had lost track of too many details. In the end the definite proofs that Mrs. Bradley offers are only a couple of fairly weak indicators, that take up less than a page of the book.

All in all this is certainly an entertaining mystery; but it wouldn't be the first one I'd recommend, if I was trying to get someone to try Gladys Mitchell.

God Save the Queen

森 博嗣 (MORI Hiroshi, born 1957) is a prolific and successful detective story writer, perhaps best known outside Japan for The Sky Crawlers (2002), the basis of an anime film with the same title (2008). I had read one book by him before I started the blog, his first novel すべてがFになる (Subete ga F ni naru, Everything Becomes F or The Perfect Insider, 1996). The first English title is the literal translation, the second is the English title printed on the book. Japanese detective stories often have an English translation of the title on the cover, even when the book itself has never been translated into English. In Mori's case, the English titles are often not literal translations, but a different, new title. The post title is the English title provided for 女王の百年密室 (Joou no hyakunen misshitsu, God Save the Queen, 2000); a more literal translation would be The Queen's Hundred Year Locked Room. Neither of these books has an English translation; but both had a manga adaption, which seems to have been published in a French translation by Soleil Manga. I haven't seen these myself, but the titles are F, The Perfect Insider (2006) and God Save the Queen (2006).

 Saeba Michiru is a reporter (or report writer) in the 22nd century, travelling with his 'partner' Roidy, an android. A navigation system breakdown leaves them stranded, unsure even exactly what country they are in. Luckily, there is a town nearby, one that has lived isolated from the world around it for a hundred years. The town is strangely peaceful, ruled ceremonially by a queen, who is said to be over fifty, but looks as if she is in her twenties. But the town has many oddities; and beyond its own mysteries it harbours a man who has some connexion to terrible events in Michiru's past.

During Michiru's visit, the queen's son is found strangled. As far as Michiru is concerned, he has been murdered, but the town's people see death as sleep and store the bodies in freezing chambers. Only Michiru sees the incident as something to investigate, and gets no helpful answers from the incurious witnesses. The book treats the murder as a locked room mystery, but really that depends on the witnesses and we get no encouragement to treat their answers as trustworthy. Neither the murder mystery nor the mystery of the town and its purpose is pursued in a purposeful way. In the end, the not very surprising answers are simply given to us. (Some incidental mysteries are hinted more subtly and may come as a surprise.) The book is probably best seen more as an extended exercise in melancholy than as a detective story or a work of science fiction.

You can read another blogger's opinions of the book here.

Travellers to the North

北へ行く旅人たち (Kita e iku tabibitotachi, Travellers to the North, 1977) is a children's book by KAWAMURA Takashi (川村たかし, 1931-2010), a historical novel set in Meiji Japan, the first in what became a series of ten books, published between 1977 and 1988. The story follows the internal migration of villagers from Totsukawa in Nara prefecture, to Shintotsukawa (New Totsukawa) in Hokkaidou. In 1889 after torrential rain, massive floods and landslides killed 168 villagers in Totsukawa and destroyed hundreds of houses. The Japanese government was trying to develop Hokkaidou at the time, and the homeless villagers were offered new homes in the uninhabited country north of Sapporo.

For most western readers, the most comparable books will probably be the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The main difference is that Wilder's book is a fictionalised account based on her own childhood experiences, but Kawamura's book is straightforwardly a historical novel. It is also probably aimed at slightly older children, probably a little older than the main character, who ages from nine to eleven in the book. This is Fuki (フキ), the youngest of three children who are orphaned in the catastrophe described in the first chapters. This is the first of several partings for Fuki. Her older sister stays in Nara, making a hasty marriage to the man she had been promised to. Fuki goes to Hokkaidou with her older brother, Terukichi (照吉). They share the journey with a neighbouring family, NAKAZAKI Kikuji (中崎菊次) a friend of their father, his wife Shina (しな), son Toyotarou (豊太郎) and daughter Yukino (ゆきの).

In Hokkaidou the new homes are not ready for the settlers; and they spend their first winter there in communal huts across the river from the land they will be taking. Many of the migrants start to despair and think of running off (a dangerous desperation, as they are far from any town). Others spend the waiting time gambling away their money.

'It's not there,' Fuki rubbed her eyes. 'The one yen that sister gave me is gone.'
Everyone folded up the futons, and opened everything, even Terukichi's carrying cloth, looking for the money. It was nowhere to be found.
'Stolen,' Matsukichi said angrily. 'Gone, is it? If it's a thief, he'll likely have taken more than one yen.'
But Fuki seemed to be the only victim. Yukino came to her where she sat despondent on the floor and whispered, 'Yesterday evening, Terukichi was looking in your bag.'
'Eh?'
'I'm sure I saw him.'
Toyotarou pulled at his sister's sleeve, 'You sure about that? Not got something confused? Maybe you forgot it somewhere, Fuu?'
Fuki was sitting there dazed. She knew that Terukichi was gambling every day. It was hard to believe, but maybe he had taken it out without telling her.
'Oh yes. I just remembered. It wasn't stolen,' Fuki forced herself to smile. 'I forgot I told Terukichi he could have it, didn't I? I'm such an idiot.'
Nobody answered. The undried wood it the open fireplace split open with a sizzling sound. The gruel in the pot was boiling.
Fuki bowed to Yukino, 'Thank you,' and ran outside. She checked that no-one had followed her, then kicked the snow up with all her strength.
'Eei, idiot brother!'

The narrative moves between three viewpoints, Fuki, Kikuji and a more detached, historical, narrator, particularly in the description of the disaster in Totsukawa. The focus on Fuki increases after the settlers get to Hokkaidou and again when they get to their first homes.

For Japanese learners, I suspect that this might be more difficult reading than many books for adults (it was for me). There is a lot of dialect, and a lot of historical and rural vocabulary. Also, like books for adults the book is printed with minimal furigana.

The House in the Wood

林の中の家 (Hayashi no naka no ie, The House in the Wood, 1959) is the second detective novel by NIKI Etsuko (仁木悦子), following her prize winning debut, 猫は知っていた (The Cat Knew, 1957). The narrator, NIKI Etsuko, and her older brother Yuutarou, are still students. Although not especially rich themselves, they have fallen on their feet with the chance to house sit (and maintain the cactus collection) for a rich couple who are currently living abroad. This gives them a home and the use of a little Renault car and a television. The book came out in the same year as the OZU film お早よう (Ohayou, Good Morning), whose story turns on the gradual spread of television.

Etsuko is watching television when the story starts (the more serious Yuutarou is cataloguing plants). A telephone call comes from a woman who greets Etsuko and asks to speak to her brother. Then, before she can call him, the woman screams in horror and the phone is cut off. She had mentioned the address she was calling from, so Etsuko, accompanied by her brother, sets out to investigate. They find the victim, a former tango singer, clubbed to death in the titular house in the wood, the home of a successful television and radio scriptwriter. The victim was married not to him, but to a businessman, the manager of the business belonging to the victim's parents.

The story spreads out to cover a very large number of suspects, the victim's parents' family, her husband's household, the scriptwriter, his estranged wife and her employees, and so on. There are more crimes too, a suspicious heart attack, an apparent attempted murder, and the kidnapping a small child. The brother and sister again play amateur detective, with the improbable advantage that both the investigating deputy inspector (who knows them from the earlier case) and many of the suspects are very ready to talk to them. Occasionally there are more realistic moments where their lack of official standing leaves them unable to investigate something. Occasionally too they show an awareness of the various ethical problems that come with their role.

I mentioned the large number of suspects. I think there are at least fifteen people, who (sometimes only formally) are considered at some point as suspects. That means that there are a large number of red herrings. The reader has little chance of really knowing who did it till near the end, when most of the distractions have been cleared up and the picture has settled. The actual solution is well clued, though only parts of it are interesting: there are a few too many clues that rely on trivial contradictions that the reader is supposed to spot for my taste.

I said in my last review that Niki is the polar opposite of YOKOMIZO Seishi; and that's true of this story too. There is not much intense emotion on display. Several characters are wealthy in a normal middle class way; but there are no powerful families with special social influence. The setting is modern and urban and close to everyday life.

Our Hats

わたしたちの帽子 (Watashitachi no boushi, Our Hats, 2005) is a children's book by TAKADONO Houko (高楼方子, born 1955), aimed at older primary school children. Takadono is not well known in the west. There is a recent German translation of her picture book for young children, まあちゃんのながいかみ (Maa chan no nagai kami, Maa's Long Hair, 1989), published by Edition Bracklo (Wenn meine Haare lang wachsen, 2013).

Our Hats is a kind of fantasy, with a modern, urban setting. Saki and her mother move into an old apartment building while their home is being renovated. At first, Saki feels downcast at living in the old building; but soon she comes to feel an interest in it. In a cupboard in the apartment she finds a patchwork hat, made of bits of cloth with flower and leaf patterns. She tries the hat on and is still wearing it when her pet bird, Chiruru, gets out of its cage and flies out of the open door of the apartment. Chasing the bird, she climbs the stairs to the fifth floor, where she finds the door of another apartment open and hears a voice quietly singing inside.

In the middle of the all white, empty, bright room a girl was standing, facing to one side. She was wearing a white blouse and a fluffy round green skirt. Not just that, on top of her shoulder length curly hair, wasn't that the same hat as Saki was wearing? And then, sitting on her fingertip, there was Chiruru. He had his head on one side, just as if he was listening to the girl's song.

Saki becomes friends with the mysterious girl, Iku. Wearing their nearly identical hats, the two explore the building, with its strange corridors and stairs, and observe the even stranger residents. Saki keeps her friendship a secret from her mother, as she suspects that there is something strange about Iku.

The book keeps a balance between reality and fantasy, using the mysterious feeling that a strange older building has for young children. Saki's interpretation of the building and the people in it is informed by the expectations of a child who has read fantasy stories; but most of what she witnesses could be interpreted as part of the (not very) normal world. She has competing desires, for a normal friendship with a real girl her age, and for mysterious and magical events. The resolution of the various puzzles satisfies both her wishes in an unexpected way and links the friendship across the building's history.

[I borrowed the illustration from the JBBY web site that I link to. Mostly I put up a scan of the cover of the books I discuss. But since in either case the copyright belongs to someone else, I hope that if anyone has a problem, they'll let me know, so that I can remove it.]

The Case Files of Young Kindaichi, Files 12 and 13

I don't write much about manga:although I know it's a useful supplement for learning the kanji, I don't read it very much; and since there are a lot of blogs out there on the subject, I don't think I have much to add. I did write about one of the 金田一少年 (Young Kindaichi) manga last year. That one, The Vampire Legend Murder Case, like all those I had read, was from the more recent series, by AMAGI Seimaru (天樹征丸). In the early years the main series was written by KANARI Youzaburou (金成陽三郎). Some people are not big fans of Kanari (here for instance are the blogger TomCat's reviews of several of the translations); but the main reason I had read nothing by him is that in the original, the stories are published so that most start in one volume and end in another. That means that if you want to read every story you pay for, you have to buy a set of three or more volumes between the points where the break between stories and the break between volumes coincide. I didn't care to spend that much money on a writer I might not enjoy, but in Japan recently I picked up a short stretch of three volumes second hand, Volumes 16 to 18 of the series, containing File 12, 蠟人形城殺人事件 (Rouningyoujou satsujinjiken, The Waxworks Castle Murder Case, 1996) and 13, 怪盗紳士の殺人 (Kaitou shinshi no satsujin, Mysterious Thief The Gentleman's Murder, 1996). Both of these have an English translation (with one story per volume, unlike the Japanese), the first as The House of Wax (2006), the second as The Gentleman Thief (2006), both translated by Matt Varovsky. The publishers have changed the file numbers, so that they now number 13 to 14 rather than 12 to 13.

In The Waxworks Castle Murder Case, Kindaichi and his rival Superintendent AKECHI are invited to a mystery solving competition along with other leading crime experts at a lonely castle. The whole castle had been transferred from Germany, intended as the centre of a tourist attraction. That had failed and now the castle stands alone in the mountains. The castle has the nickname "wax figure castle", because it is peopled by life sized waxworks. Among those, they find a line of figures perfectly reproducing all the guests at the mystery solving competition, including Kindaichi, Miyuki and Akechi. The setup of the story is very nicely done. We have a play murder puzzle in which the competitors find one of their number apparently stabbed in the back, but then realise that it is only the wax model that has been stabbed and this 'murder' is their first mystery. Then, when this is solved, they wonder where the real person whose waxwork had been killed is. This is the start of a series of murders in which the murder is announced by the 'murder' of the victim's waxwork figure. Trapped in the castle and unable to contact the outside world, the detectives must solve the case before they become the victims.

The trick in this one is not new, but it's a neat variation, very well prepared. In general Kanazari makes very good use in various ways of the atmospheric, window dressing elements, both to deceive us and to keep us interested as the story is unfolding.

Mysterious Thief The Gentleman's Murder is a much weaker work. Inspector KENMOCHI has called in Kindaichi to help him catch a master thief, who goes by the name "The Gentleman" and always sends a calling card announcing the coming theft of a work of art. The Gentleman also always "steals" the subject of the painting, by changing it in some way. Japan really likes mysterious thieves; and this sounds like a promising opening, with the prospect of a double mystery, theft and murder, connected in some way, or unconnected. Somehow it doesn't come out as interesting as one might hope. The solution to the murder mystery involves a variation on a very standard trick (with perhaps one small interesting innovation, which I'd have liked to see used in a better story).

There are certain elements common to almost all Young Kindaichi mysteries: a closed circle of suspects in an isolated setting; a chapter at the end which explains the motive of the murderer. This can be a little tedious. I remember as a child feeling a bit impatient when I read the ends of the Sherlock Holmes books with the same structure (A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear?). We know who did it now, who cares about the backstory? The Waxworks Castle Murder Case at least provided a new plot idea.

I've read five of the mysteries written by Amagi, and only once (that I noticed) was there a clue which was only in the artwork, not in the text. By contrast, both the mysteries here had clues which were in the pictures and not in the text, although in each case there was something in the text to draw your attention to the fact that there was a clue to be found. The art is by さとう ふみや (SATOU Fumiya), as in the later series. The characters are much the same, but there seem to be subtle changes. Kindaichi's face often looks plumper than in the revived series, and the area of Miyuki's chin and lower jaw is larger. The latter change seems to be part of some more general change in taste in what kind of female faces are judged attractive, even though the volumes here were published only eight years before the start of the new series.

The Book of Happiness

 Lector intende: laetaberis.

There are probably not many comic novels that deserve the name. But however good or bad a comic novel may be, it is mostly better, or at least less crass, than the cover suggests. English publishers used to like to signal to readers "this is a comic novel" by putting what looked like a pneumatic Punch and Judy show of bulging red faced figures on the cover. The comic Indian that the publishers put on しあわせの書　迷探偵ヨギガンジーの心霊術 (Shiawase no sho, meitantei yogi ganji no shinreijutsu, The Book of Happiness, Stray Detective Yogi Ganjī's Mind Reading, 1987) by AWASAKA Tsumao (泡坂妻夫) is in a different style, but gives the same misleading impression of a painfully misplaced attempt at very broad comedy. Both the Awasaka books that I've written about so far (乱れからくり and 喜劇悲奇劇) have a lot of humour in them, and this is very similar. But for the most part the humour is in mild incongruities and waywardness of conversation and choice of action.

The book comes with a warning, 'For the Happiness of Readers: Please do not reveal the secret of "The Book of Happiness" to those who have not yet read it.' I suspect with this preparation, warier readers will be on the lookout for the big surprise, and may well have a good idea what it is by the end. One way or the other, I think readers will be impressed (the book is a "tour de force" both in the negative and the positive sense). But, avoiding spoilers as well as I can, here's a little bit about the contents.

The story starts with a description of "The Book of Happiness", a religious text given out to adherents or potential converts to a large cult. It is the cult leader's account of her life and philosophy. The rest of the novel follows various mysterious events occurring in the cult, many of them involving this cult text. The detective figure here, Yogi Ganjī, is one of Awasaka's series detectives. He had already appeared in a collection of short stories, which I haven't read. Evidently in the earlier book, he picked up his two disciples, 不動丸 (Fudoumaru), a man counterfeiting psychic powers, and　美保子 (Mihoko), an actress. Ganjī is a teacher of yoga and casual practicioner of a variety of psychic arts. When we first see him, he is on Mount Osore, at the northern tip of Japan, regarded as an entrance to the underworld. Those wishing to contact the recently deceased go to the yearly festival there. Mistaken for an itako (a Japanese medium), Ganjī does an impromptu communication with a popular singer, who had died in a plane crash. The singer was an enthusiastic member of the cult, as was another recent accident victim, the sister of a man who questions the itako sitting next to Ganjī. In fact several members of the cult have died in recent accidents, and, more unusually, quite a few of them seem not to want to stay dead. Ganjī's curiosity is awoken by the copy of "The Book of Happiness" that one of the victims left behind, and he starts investigating the cult.

The story wanders about in various directions, and I don't think I can give much more of a summary than this, without starting to tell too much of the plot. Like its detective, the story is one where the reader wonders where exactly this is all heading. There are a lot of little mysteries that accumulate through the book, but if there's a major crime, it's not clear what it is. In general, my impression of Awasaka's books is that he's better at tricks (either his or the criminal's) than deductions; and that's probably true of this book too. But the lack of an explicitly posed single mystery until the solution makes for an impressive ending. I had spotted quite a lot of what was going on and had a fair idea of who was doing what and how; but the larger story was a complete surprise.