It is difficult for novelists to critique novels objectively—and a towering novelist who continues to lead the pack in the mystery genre even more so. Or, should I say, it’s beyond me. So when I took on the job of writing the analysis for this book, I honestly felt intimidated. But I resolved to pick up my pen with the idea that perhaps I might be able to convey something in my role as a part-time novelist who wears the mask of a businessman by day. Half of me works a desk job and is a reader of these books, and so I write of Mr. Ayatsuji not as a colleague, but as a mentor.
In searching for a visual metaphor of Mr. Ayatsuji’s novels, I think first of all of optical illusions.
Famous examples of what I mean include the “Young Girl/Old Woman” and the “Rabbit/Duck.” But there are some pictures, the mysterious ones, in which people above a certain age see one thing, and the young see another. Take the picture “Message d’Amour des Dauphins” by the Swiss artist Sandro Del Prete. When I visited the R&D center for a certain home electronics manufacturer as part of my work, someone engaged in research into illumination and the brain told me about it.
The subject of the painting is a corked bottle. If you show the picture to a young child not yet in adolescence, all the child will see in the bottle is nine dolphins. But people past adolescence won’t see the dolphins no matter how hard they look. What they see instead is an image of a naked man and woman in a sensual embrace, which doesn’t occur to the young child. For those interested, I offer the URL of the artist’s home page: http://www.sandrodelprete.com/index.php/home/
I believe that Mr. Ayatsuji’s novel has a similar form. In the metaphor of the optical illusion, readers turn the picture on its head and try looking at it from different angles hoping to discover a different way of interpreting the image. But because they lack the information necessary to see it as a different image, or because they haven’t picked up on it, they are unable to recognize the hidden picture. Artful foreshadowing allows readers to get as far as an uneasy feeling, but they crane their necks again and again doubtfully. Then in the closing scenes where the conclusive information is provided, everything ties together and a different picture emerges that they never could have imagined from the picture they saw at first.
I need to go back over ten years to say when I first experienced such a “he got me” moment. It was when I read Mr. Ayatsuji’s debut story, Murder in the Decagon Hall, whose influence still lingers in Japanese mystery fiction. It’s no exaggeration to say that I still vividly remember the shock it gave me, greater even than Ellery Queen’s book Drury Lane’s Last Case. I fell into a panic at that part. It’s true. I was shown a completely different picture and, for one second, I couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Those who have read it will sympathize, I’m sure. In my experience of reading many books, I believe that the sensation of losing your cool and sighing in ecstasy after finishing a story, and the hunger that comes after, are privileges that only a well-made classical mystery can give.
Another is a school-based horror and classical mystery novel with a right to be called Mr. Ayatsuji’s new masterpiece. I’ll discuss the story itself soon, but an editor at Kadokawa Shoten told me that a wide-scale media expansion is planned for 2012, including an anime TV series and a live-action film. This is welcome news for longtime Ayatsuji fans. At last, his time has come. Go ahead and do a little dance. The ranks of people intrigued by this author, and the number of people in the younger generation who will consider reading this story, will increase. What’s so great about that, you ask? I read this in a magazine article long ago: There was once a person who had the following words for someone who had never listened to the Beatles. “I’m jealous of you. You get to have the amazing experience of hearing the Beatles and being moved for the first time.” Those are words I could say to a person who might become interested in Mr. Ayatsuji’s works through the anime or movie. “I’m jealous of you. You get to have the experience of reading Yukito Ayatsuji’s novels for the first time and having your jaw drop.” In being taken up by the next generation of readers, from one fan to another, the role this book has to play is a great one.
I really am jealous of the people who will read Mr. Ayatsuji’s many novels for the first time because of this book. What unifies his work is a commitment to the unpredictable conclusion. There’s the newest entry in the nine-volume “Hall” series, Murder in the Hall of Unearthly Faces, slated for release in January 2012; the great Mystery at Kirigoshi Estate, which uses the will of the hall itself as a metaphor; The Murder Equation series, that unthinkable thing, a mystery with mathematics; the Slaughtering Spirit series, done up in the splatter horror genre; A Whisper of Scarlet, which runs in the same vein as Another; and many, many more. Aside from these, two stories included in the short story collection Dondon Bridge Came Falling Down—the title story and Fall of the House of Isono—are shocking in every meaning of the word. The collection is a must-read. The grit and conviction of Mr. Ayatsuji to give his life for the mystery story, ready to do anything to catch the reader off guard—yes, even that comes across clearly. I recommend it to anyone who dreams of writing a novel themselves. Also worthy of consultation because Mr. Ayatsuji is so gifted at differentiating his characters. They are easy to place as “pieces” constructing not reality, but a mystery. It makes clear what is most important in fiction.
Let’s move on to an introduction of the books.
The story turns on the “curse” (though it’s nowhere as simplistic as that. We could swap the word out for “irrational phenomenon” or “superstition.” But in this analysis, the word “curse” will become necessary at the end, and so I use it here) plaguing third-year Class 3 at Yomiyama North Middle, the protagonist, “Koichi Sakakibara,” who transfers into the class, and the mysterious girl in the eye patch, “Mei Misaki.” One after another, people with a connection to the class are pulled into misfortune and the characters struggle to resist it.
What leaves the greatest impression in the early stages of the story is, perhaps, Mei Misaki’s line when the protagonist first encounters her: “Half my body is waiting there, the poor thing.” I read this part in the mind-set of a novelist and thought to myself, “Ah, so this character is the type that won’t act selfishly.” Thinking about it more, the same could be said for all of Mr. Ayatsuji’s novels. I don’t think he ever creates a novel where the characters act selfishly. I believe this is a critical element in creating the optical illusions I discussed earlier. It saves the worlds so meticulously created from destruction. It causes the reader to not empathize overmuch. He draws a clear line. Telling the reader, Please enjoy the show from your seat in the audience. A fitting conclusion is being prepared.
When a murderer has appeared in Mr. Ayatsuji’s past work, answers to the questions of why (the “whydunit”) and how a murder was committed (the “howdunit”) and who the murderer was (the “whodunit”) come out in a logical progression (even to the point of using mathematical equations) to reveal the truth, but the trick to this book is different. No murder with a clear motive ever occurs. There are accidents and suicides, but these occur not because of the will of a third party but due to a curse.
Another shares this aspect, in which “people living in a specific range may become targets of an indiscriminate death,” with Slaughtering Spirit. In that sense, it is possible to identify the book as a work of horror; however, the story also includes an element that resembles the search for the suspect. The origins of the curse become clear in the middle section of the story, but the foreshadowing up until the truth is revealed is intricate, allowing the reader to experience an unabashed sensation of “he got me!” Thus I believe these books must be characterized as “a melding of horror and mystery.” Plus, one can even glimpse an aspect of the tale of adolescence in the perverse and inexplicable nature of the curse. Thus does it become a masterpiece in Mr. Ayatsuji’s catalog, serving a wide range of readers. Those who have yet to read it absolutely must, and join us in our Ayatsuji addiction. I apologize, but of course there is no cure.
I’ve come this far in my analysis before glancing at the clock, and I see it’s almost time for me to go to work. I recall now that I have an appointment with an initiative client all morning…These are the troubled thoughts of a part-time novelist. I’ll try to ride my momentum to close this out.
At the ceremony for the Seishi Yokomizo Grand Prize for Mystery, sponsored by Kadokawa Shoten, there are times when Mr. Ayatsuji, who has long served on the selection committee, will put a genuine curse on the winner. Speaking very frankly and kindly, the man will throw out both hands and present a message implying, “I hope someday you write at least one story that lets you say, ‘This is my definitive mystery.’” Since this occurs in public, in the middle of the reception surrounded by journalists, recipients who are unprepared have hastily thrown their chests out and replied, “I do, too.” For the record, I was one of the recipients he laid this curse on.
Even in a novel, I believe that the creation of a classical mystery in particular is an endeavor without end. I write and I write, but it’s not quite there. Next time, for sure. The difficulty of giving life to a work that could serve as my introduction is something I became starkly aware of after becoming a professional. His curse is one to keep us from losing our taste for the challenge, even after ten or twenty years. It’s a curse I pray is never broken.