"You are young yet, my friend," replied my host, "but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see."
"The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether"
Talking about stories of the past: the new television drama based on Yokomizo Seishi's Yuri Rintarou series looks pretty good! Sure, the story has been moved to a contemporary Kyoto setting and assistant Mitsugi is now a novelist instead of a newspaper journalist, but it retains a light gothic and somewhat pulpy atmosphere befitting this series. It was about time we got more adaptations of Kindaichi Kousuke's older brother...
Yamataikoku wa Doko Desuka? is a really weird book to explain. The stories collected in this volume are not really proper puzzle plot mystery stories like the ones I usually discuss here, but I think they are best described as extremely well researched experiments in deduction with a history theme. In a way, they remind me of Kemelman's famous short story The Nine Mile Walk. The stories all follow the same basic formula, themed after the 5W1H questions: Who, What, When, Why, Where and How. At the start of each tale, Miyata will present a statement that sounds absolutely ridiculous at first, considering the consensus about historical facts, like claiming that the Meiji Restoration had been planned by one single man or that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, in fact did not reach enlightenment while meditating beneath the Bodhi Tree. While both Shizuka and the reader will at first dismiss Miyata's claim as utter nonsense, Miyata then explains the reasoning process behind his claims, usually by focusing on contradictions in the actual historical sources presented and showing his own interpretation of those contradictions.
While the mysteries discussed in this book are not carefully planned fictional mysteries, I think Kujira does a great job at showing how the reasoning process in a mystery story should work, and that is why I think this is a good example of experiments in deduction, and why this is a book that should be discussed here. Obviously the theories proposed in this book are very likely not true at all and thus fiction: the theories proposed by Kujira are not meant to be taken as historical studies that want to bring forth a paradigm shift. But in these stories, Kujira does show how the deduction process in a mystery novel should pick up on all clues (in this case historical sources and the contradictions found there), how to interpret and explain clues/discrepancies and finally construct a theory that explains everything, while incorporating all the clues/sources. Each of these stories shows how you can construct the most fanciful, yet convincing tales as long as you build properly on the clues and use some imagination, and in that sense, I think it's definitely worth reading this book to see how a tale focused solely on the deduction process could work. The stories are also quite easy to read, as it mostly consists of banter between the four characters, with the discussion slowly, but surely providing the proof for Miyata's theories.
But as you may guess, the book does require you to have some historical knowledge to truly appreciate the tales here. The title story Yamataikoku wa Doko Desuka? ("Where is Yamatai-koku?") for example probably doesn't sound really interesting if you have never heard of Yamatai-koku, but if you do know it's the name of an ancient country in Wa (Japan) which was only referenced in historical sources and that historians still don't know/don't agree on where it exactly was, you can imagine how interesting this can be. Kujira quotes a lot of genuine historical sources in his stories, which can be a bit boring, but he uses those sources to show contradictions, and from there deduce what the real meaning of those texts must be. In the case of the Yamatai-koku story for example, the focus lies on the question whether the directions to Yamatai-koku as written in the historical sources were actually correct: Kujira quotes several different sources that help him establish how and why these sources could've been wrong, and then builds on that to arrive at his (Miyata's) proposed location of Yamatai-koku. While the final story, Kiseki wa Dono You ni Nasareta no ka? ("How Was The Miracle Accomplished?") is about the Biblical resurrection of Jesus, the other stories are about Japanese/Asian history and if you're completely blank on those topics, you'll have a very hard time getting through this book. Shoutoku Taishi wa Dare Desu ka? ("Who is Shoutoku Taishi?"), Bouhon no Douki wa Nan Desu ka? ("What Was The Motive For The Betrayal?") and Ishin ga Okita no wa Naze Desu ka? ("Why Did The Restoration Occur?") deal with major incidents/figures in pre-modern Japanese history, while Satori wo Hiraita no wa Itsu Desu ka ("When Did He Attain Enlightenment?") is about the historical Buddha, so Indian/religious history. The stories expect you to have some basic knowledge about these events, as the author quickly starts quoting historical sources to move on to the alternative interpretation (so it assumes you know the accepted versions). I do have admit that these stories do feel a bit alike after a while: they all follow the exact same story structure and with the abundant quoting of historical sources, they do sometimes feel a lot longer than they actually are.
I suspect that people who like the Professor Munakata series, or Katou's Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou and/or C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku will have a blast with this series though, as they all have similar stories, based on actual historical sources, pointing out contradictions between them and then presenting an alternative interpretation of historical events (often caused by very human motives). I personally have an enormous weak spot for these kinds of historical mysteries, so I really enjoyed this book, but I can imagine that people who like more conventional mystery stories will feel less positive about these stories.
Still, I think Yamataikoku wa Doko Desuka? is a good example of an experiment in deduction and it does a great job at recontextualizing (fantasizing about) well-known historical events. It's actually fun to see how the author uses the known historical sources to turn everything around and arrive at completely different conclusions than the accepted consensus and in that sense, it's a very unique type of mystery story. Personally, I think this is one that will become one of my highlight reads this year exactly because it's so different.
Original Japanese title(s): 鯨統一郎『邪馬台国はどこですか？』: 「悟りを開いたのはいつですか？」 /「邪馬台国はどこですか？」/ 「聖徳太子はだれですか？」 /「謀叛の動機はなんですか？」 /「維新が起きたのはなぜですか？」 /「奇蹟はどのようになされたのですか？」
No comments :
Post a Comment