Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

NicoleIsEnough · October 30, 2019, 1:46am

Having browsed through my stack of 積読 books, I’d like to nominate one of them:

ifの悲劇 (if no higeki)

Summary

Japanese

北海道・網走に住む小説家の加納豪は、かわいい妹の彩を溺愛していたが、彩が商社に就職して夕張でひとり暮らしを始め、やがて同期の奥津と結婚することになり悲嘆に暮れる。しかし婚約者・奥津の浮気が発覚し、彩はショックで飛び降り自殺してしまう。奥津への復讐を誓った兄は、奥津を網走に誘い出し殺害する。奥津の遺体を車に隠しアリバイを構築するために夕張に向かう途中、加納は交通事故を起こしてしまう――。

ここから物語はふたつに分岐していく⇒

A：交通事故で人身事故を起こし、殺人が露呈した場合

B：交通事故を起こしたものの事なきを得て、殺人が露呈しない場合

……果たして加納の運命やいかに。

ふたつのパラレルワールドがひとつに結びつくとき、衝撃の事実が明らかになる。

English

The novelist Kano who lives in Abashiri, Hokkaido, loves his cute sister Aya, but when Aya got a job at a trading company, she started living alone in Yubari. However, when it was discovered that her fiance Okutsu had an affair, Aya committed suicide by jumping off of a building. The elder brother who vowed to revenge on Okutsu invites Okutsu to Abashiri and kills him. On the way to Yubari to hide the body of Okutsu in the car and build an alibi, Kano causes a traffic accident.
From here the story splits into two ⇒
A: The murder is revealed through the traffic accident
B: The murder is not revealed through the traffic accident
… and how about Kano’s fate?
When two parallel worlds are combined into one, the impact becomes clear.

Availability

Amazon
Bookwalker
ebook Japan

Personal Opinion

I think it would be nice to read a criminal story, especially in the dark part of the year (for those in the northern hemisphere at least). I especially like the idea of the split story, and I’m curious to see how this is done in the book and what it leads to.

Pros and Cons for the Book Club

Pros

It’s a different genre for a change
Not too long (240 pages)
Vocabulary is available on FloFlo
FloFlo claims it has 4080 individual words, that’s a manageable size imho (slightly more than Kitchen, slightly less than Kino no Tabi)