I like the book but I am also glad it is over. It was really hard in some places to understand the stories and there was lots of Japanese terms that are specific to Japanese houses or objects. Nice book, nice story, nice twist but I’m not a huge fan of the narrator breaking the fourth wall. I will probably read the other stories another time but now I want a break from this book.
I hopes to hear all your opinions
I also liked the book! One of the more accessible, older writing styles in my limited experience so far. Excepting specific words for common building parts and clothes that people at the time would have been very familiar with, the grammar and vocab used was really quite approachable.
I particularly liked the way the fourth wall got broken here, haha. The narrative voice was really nice imo.
About the case itself: I was a bit disappointed almost that it turned out to be a suicide and none of my suspects had been it, but then we learned about how 三郎 had helped… And that soothed me a bit, haha.
I don’t know about tragedy having to befall the whole house like that, but I guess the author wanted some sort of poetic justice to happen? Something to show that life was never quite the same… though I imagine the people of that household might very well have acted as is nothing ever happened.
I’ll also be taking a break from this book until I’ve read 獄門島, however. I mentioned in the home thread already that I’m planning to read more by this author. If anyone would like to tag along, that’d be great. Maybe not in a very ‘strict’ book style fashion, but just having a rough structure and a place to come to discuss about the story and language would be cool.
Here’s the post I wrote at the time when I finished the book. I think I still agree with what I said then!
I’d also second what I said in the home thread and recommend anyone who enjoyed this check out 獄門島 some time. It portrays Kindaichi’s next mystery, and you’ll find the same style, but much expanded in scope from well, a 本陣 to an entire 島!
I took it not as poetic justice but as a way to underline the tragedy of the whole thing. Like, if what drove the guy to murder-suicide was the feeling of nobility - that he and his family were too prestigious to endure a marriage to someone lower class and non-virginal, then I think Yokomizo double underlines how pointless and awful that is by depicting that nobility as the last remnant of a feudal system that has no meaningfully relevant basis at the time, and definitely isn’t going to be more relevant once the war hits and further changes everything.
He threw away human lives for the sake of an intangible concept of name and prestige. The deaths that follow in the war show just how misguided that was - lives are far more precious and precarious and worth protecting. And the prestige associated with owning a lot of land in a small village doesn’t protect you from atomic bombs or dying in battle. If he or the family had been able to see that more, maybe at least one more innocent person wouldn’t be dead for no reason.
Interesting take indeed. When I read your posts rodan I always think you must’ve had great grades in [native language] class. I wasn’t a huge fan of this part of the ending but I didn’t think about the meaning much.
I liked the book overall, it was a little bit hard to get into at the beginning but then it was action packed and the difficulty is manageable once you get used to it (and a lot of the Japan specific vocab repeats).
The story is a bit far fetched but it all kinda makes sense when Kindaichi explains the psychology of the characters and little details that made him figure it out.
The main thing I don’t buy is that a super fishy looking stranger would just happen to die of natural causes right next to a house were an intricate murder/suicide masqueraded as a double murder was being planned. And then it snows. I’ll allow the snow but the guy’s death is just too lucky.
Maybe not in a very ‘strict’ book style fashion, but just having a rough structure and a place to come to discuss about the story and language would be cool.