I have a few chunskter size crime novels by Japanese authors that I have wanted to dig into, but their near door stop size does make me hesitate. With a really good read, the longer the better. But the hesitation on my part is more a matter of carrying the book about. Since most of my reading time doesn't take place at home, one hefty book can make my tote bag and daily walk something of a slog (the solution is to only carry that book with me . . . not three . . . what a thought!). The Japanese crime novels I have been reading have been especially satisfying of late and I think at least one or maybe even two might make my best read of the year list.
Miyuki Miyabe is one of my great finds this year (as is Seicho Matsumoto who I wrote about not long ago). All She Was Worth (Kasha in Japanese and translated into English by Alfred Birnbaum) is a crime novel that was a best novel of the year in Japan when it was published in 1999. It is not only entertaining and interesting but quite timely, too, as it deals with identity theft and consumerism and the banking crisis. I know that might sound a little boring as mysteries go, and there are a few places in the story where there might be more explication of how the financial world operates than some readers might like, but I found it all fascinating.
Perhaps it was the exotic nature of reading about how it all works in Japan. Similarities to here but how the mystery pans out and how the stealing of identities was done was very foreign and particular to the place. The story opens with a request to find a missing person. Honma is a Tokyo detective on leave due an accident that has him limping and recuperating. He is a single parent (his wife died) with a young son, Makoto. Isaka is an older friend who does the cooking and helps take care of Makoto. I must admit that part of the enjoyment of this mystery was the likable qualities of these characters. They seem such a tight family unit. Makoto worries about his dad and how he should be resting and not walking without his cane.
A nephew of Honma's deceased wife shows up asking him to look into the disappearance of his fiancé. Things were going along just fine until they decided to marry and he discovers she had declared bankruptcy and was in all sorts of financial difficulties. Looking into the disappearance is no easy matter when Honma discovers that the girlfriend was living under an assumed name. She took the identity of another woman close to her in age and appearance. Now both women are not to be found and it becomes quite a twisty turny investigation. One of the things I found fascinating was the use of a family register, which in the story anyway, appears to be a standard practice in Japan. A family has a register of births and deaths and residences and the woman's name would be removed and added to her husband's when she marries. In the case of the missing woman she had established a brand new one when she took on a new identity. In every respect this was a wholly satisfying read and I wish the author would write more stories featuring Honma.
I found Banana Yoshimoto's Moshi Moshi (Moshi Moshi Shimokitazawa in Japanese and translated into English by Asa Yoneda) much more satisfying by story's end than I was expecting. I was enjoying it with some reservations, but it all came together in the end. The full Japanese title actually makes more sense now that I have finished the book than the English title, but I didn't know the reference to Shimokitazawa until I was reading the story.
This is a coming of age story of sorts. Yoshie's father has died in a weird accident. He was part of a lover's suicide pact, only he was not a willing victim, which makes it all the more strange. The woman drugged him and then took him with her into death. He had been having an affair with her and on the night of his death he left his cell phone at home. That phone will make an appearance later in the story in the dream's Yoshie has. She dreams her father is calling her on the phone. Her mother is having similar dreams. I am finding that it is not unusual for their to be ghostly appearances in Japanese stories (at least in the handful of books I have read). I think there is something very different culturally with family and ancestor respect and the idea of the spirit or soul not necessarily being at rest at death.
In order to make a clean start Yoshie moves to the neighborhood of Shimokitazawa, which is (or was--maybe now it has gone somewhat touristy or lost some of its bohemian flair?) where she begins working in a restaurant (another theme I am coming across--food and cooking) and trying to regain her equilibrium as she was quite close to her father. Her mother soon follows her and moves into her small apartment, which Yoshie initially resents. But this is a story about coming to terms with grief and finding this new environment--filled with good friends, good food and potential new loves both healing and life affirming.
I have a nice healthy stack of books set in Japan and by Japanese or Japanese-American authors at my fingertips. I think I have read about seven or eight now and hope to at least get to ten before I think about 'finishing' this project. Or maybe I will just keep pulling books from the stack as I am finding Japanese culture and literature and film so very fascinating. I am now trying to decide on a new read and am contemplating either something by Gail Tsukiyama (an American author of Chinese-Japanese heritage) or Nobel Prize winner The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata. The choice is, of course, so hard as they all sound so good.