The Phantom Fingers

"You don't stand a ghost of a chance, Yugi, because..."

"How many times are you going to use that line?!"

"Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged"

Almost through my backlog of Japanese translations of (originally) English novels! I'll probably still occasionally get one if the original release is hard to get, but I have to say, it feels good to see the pile disappear, as it usually takes a lot more time / effort to go through a translated book.

The return of actress Vera Vane from Hollywood to her husband's side, the famous best-selling author Amos Cottle, is reason for a little party at his publisher's. To be exact: everyone who knows Amos is desperate to keep Vera away from Amos, because she has a rather negative influence of the drinking kind on him and they try to keep her happy with the party. A game of 'two-thirds of a ghost' is played (a quiz parlour game), but the guests discover at the end of the game that Amos Cottle has written his last word and has gone to join the heavenly scribes. Unwillingly though, it seems, as someone slipped some cyanide in his drink. Among the guests is the famous psychiatrist/criminologist Dr. Basil Willing, who will act as our detective in Helen McCloy's Two-Thirds of A Ghost (1956).

Through A Glass, Darkly was the first McCloy I ever read, about two years ago, and I quite liked the mystery with a supernatural twist. Two-Thirds of A Ghost has been in my to-be-read pile for a long time now, as I think I bought my used copy not long after reading Through A Glass, Darkly, but you know how things go. The first thing that I thought interesting was that the series detective, Dr. Basil Willing, actually acts as a series detective! Might sound strange, but I tell you, Willing's appearance in Through A Glass, Darkly is rather bland and subdued and during a book club discussion on the book, we found that actually most people didn't realize that Through A Glass, Darkly was a series novel starring Basil Willing ('wait, he's the protagonis?!'). Anyway, this time we actually see Dr. Basil Willing employing his grey cells from a relatively early stage in the story on and he keeps in charge throughout, so no confusion there.

What might seem a bit confusing, is the direction of the investigation in the early parts of the story. With a poisoning and a parlour game, I thought Two-Thirds of A Ghost would be about figuring out how someone managed to poison Amos during the game, but the main focus of this novel lies not there, but on a different problem that I'd better not reveal here. Willing's investigation is instead focused on literary detection: we follow him as he reads memos, notes, letters, book reviews of Amos' books and other texts, which also appear in the novel itself. And of course, through a close reading of these documents, Willing will discover something shocking that leads to the murderer of Amos. Literary detection is not an extremely rare thing in mystery, though the whole literary background of Two-Thirds of A Ghost does add to the experience. Literary detection is also usually not the most prominent mode of detection in most mystery novels, but I quite like the somewhat meta-method of mystery-solving.

Other examples I've discussed on the blog are the bibliomysteries Biblia Koshodou no Jikentechou ("The Casebook of the Antiquarian Bookstore Biblia") and Murderer's Items, which are often about the contents of the books in the spotlight. The most extreme example is Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogura Magura, which might be about a madman trying to unravel a mystery through documents written by himself. Or another madman. Or maybe it was all a dream. Let's stop talking about Dogura Magura now before I get sucked into its spiraling madness once again.

McCloy makes great use of the literary background and it's not only just the mode of detection. There's also room for some literary criticism and topics like 'true literature', authorism and 'what sells' are featured quite heavily during the discussions between the actors of this story. Yet these discussions never feel unnatural, nor does Two-Thirds of A Ghost feel too much as a vehicle for McCloy to spout her thoughts, as these topics are naturally of importance to characters like literary critics, agents and publishers. I liked the final confrontation with the culprit also connected with these themes at some level, just like how Through A Glass, Darkly's ending also interacted in a meaningful way with its overal supernatural theme.

I like the overall themes of Two-Thirds of A Ghost, though I have to admit that especially in the first half of the novel, I was kinda bored as the story didn't seem to move at my prefered speed. But I guess your mileage may vary on that. On a thematic level, this is a good novel though.

『霊視る（みえる）』

"You enter a room, a street, a country road. You see a figure ahead of you, solid, three-dimensional, brightly coloured. Moving and obeying all the laws of optics. Its clothing and posture is vaguely familiar. You hurry toward the figure for a closer view. It turns its head and - you are looking at yourself. Or rather a perfect mirror-image of yourself only - there is no mirror. So, you know it is your double. And that frightens you, for tradition tells you that he who sees his own double is about to die..."

"Through A Glass, Darkly"

I already said it in my review of Roger Scarlett's Murder Among the Angells: reading English novels translated to Japanese taxing. The inherent difference between the two languages, plus the fact that the original text was already 'dated' English (as in not contemporary English), made for a reading challenge that was distinctly different from reading books that were originally Japanese. And a lot more tiring. So I really wanted to avoid reading more books translated to Japanese. On the other hand, you should imagine the temptation whenever I see translated versions of old (and out of print!) English classics in a neat row at any large bookstore. It's still strange to realize you can get most Queens new here in Japan at any decent bookstore.

Anyway, today's topic: Through A Glass, Darkly by Helen McCloy. Because apparently it is going to be discussed at the Mystery Club in a week or two. And because it was available new at the local bookstore. And it is quite a famous novel. And because I should read more McCloy. I think. Actually, this is my first McCloy (my writing has become more chaotic? It's been a while since the last post...). Anyway, young teacher Faustina Crayle is fired from her position mid-term at a girls' school for reasons the head of the school does not want to tell her. Faustina's colleague Gisela von Hohenems fears there might have been a big mistake and confides in her fiance Basil Willing about this affair. Willing discovers that students (and teachers) at the school have been seeing Faustina appearing at places she could not have been unless she could teleport, split herself into two images or something like that. Willing suspects a sinister plot surrounding Faustina and this turns out to be reality when another teacher is found dead, apparently having fallen of a staircase. One student claims to have seen Faustina pushing the teacher of the staircase, but Faustina was in another city at the moment of the accident!

One of the first notes I made while reading this book was "Carr". Because this story feels really like a Carr story, with the supernatural element of a ghost/doppelganger. The novel's theme is also reminiscent of Dorothy L. Sayers' short story The Image in the Mirror, which is actually one of the few Sayers stories I like. There is just something romantic, and horrifying about the theme of doppelgangers and Helen McCloy manages, as far as I can judge from the translation, to convey a really creepy atmosphere even though the prose is quite dry and down to earth. Maybe that is why it feels all the more creepy: everybody tries to think logically about it, but the supernatural events still happen.

There's apparently also a short story version of this novel, which might actually work better for this story, I think. Through a Glass, Darkly is certainly an entertaining detective story, but most of its charm, for me, was derived from its atmosphere, which would have worked just as well, or maybe even more powerful in a more condensed, shorter version. So I might want to try out the short story version in the future.

I was less impressed by the overall trick, but that might be because the solution seemed so obvious. Ignoring the 'supernatural' card, that seemed like the most likely solution. Which might be a problem with a lot of 'supernatural' settings/plot devices in detective novels. As a plot device, there is something magic to the classic locked room though that prevents it from becoming as obvious as the supernatural plot device in Through a Glass, Darkly. Usually. But like I said, the atmosphere is really good and McCloy's plot-structure really manages to support that atmosphere. Personally, I found the ending to be quite interesting too and quite fitting to the tone of this novel, but I can imagine people not being content with the last few pages.

Awful review? Yes, I know. I really should write more often again. By which I don't mean that I write masterpieces when back in a proper writing rhythm, but it would probably be a lot better than this post. Which reminds me, I really should try writing a short story myself this year, as several semi-interesting situations have been popping up in my head lately (of course, solving those situations is another problem...)