The Angel Wakes

君の心の中へすべり込めるなら

哀しい記憶を奪ってゆくたい

迷わずに君が思い描いた場所へと

辿り着けるように 

「君の思い描いた夢　集メルHEAVEN」 （Garnet Crow）

If I can slide into your heart

I'll take away your sad memories

So you can make your way without any hesitation

To the place you dream off

"The Heaven That Gathers The Dreams You Imagine" (Garnet Crow)

I've been holding up writing this review for almost a month! And even now I have trouble writing my thoughts down. Anyway, once again a good lesson I should occasionally learn a little about the books I'm going to read.

A whole new life starts for Sakamoto Yuuko, when she finally enters the Junwa Girl Academy, a prestigeous convent-style boarding school. The absolute queen of her new environment is Asakura Maria, a third-year student who is the head of the student council and the idol for basically all at the school. Yuuko too becomes entranced by Maria, and is thus the more schocked when one day, Maria is found dead in her room. She appeared to have been pregnant and had a miscarriage, the blood loss causing her death, but for some reason the fetus was not found in her room. Meanwhile, Maria's parents hire private detective Rindou "Black Cat" Mineko to investigate Maria's death: Maria's big sister, Yuria, had actually died under the same circumstances, including the missing baby. Both Mineko and Yuuko discover that someone or someone called "Jack" is involved with what happened to Maria and some other mysterious events at the academy and the search for Jack is the main catalyst for the plot of Inui Kurumi's J no Shinwa ("The Myth of J"), also carrying the English title J-Girls Mystery.

Inui Kurumi debuted as a writer with J no Shinwa in 1998, having won the fourth Mephisto Prize with the novel. And as always with the Mephisto Prize, opinions on the book are quite varied (for more about the Mephisto Prize, see this review). The winners are usually mystery novels in a very broad sense of the word, some "normal" detective novels, while others lean more towards horror/entertainment. Of the few Mephisto Prize winning books I've read, J no Shinwa is definitely the first one where I really hesitate calling it a detective novel.

The story starts out as a detective story with an okay, be it a bit predictable horror vibe: an all-girls school with mysterious meetings in the night, the nuns walking around, the mystery of "Jack" and all. And Mineko starts off with a fairly normal investigation in the deaths of Maria and Yuria and the disappearances of the fetuses. J no Shinwa is an okay, but not particularly inspiring read in this first quarter of the book.

But then the book very quickly moves to the horror and science-fiction side of things. The solution to the deaths of Maria and Yuria is basically science-fiction, and sadly enough, not in a good way. Science-fiction can work perfectly well with the detective novel, like Asimov proved. But J no Shinwa gives the reader something close to "aliens did it and that explains everything". It is not in the least satisfying. The same goes for the horror aspect. Gothic horror has always been best of friends with the detective novel, but when it goes into Resident Evil-territories, you need to be at your A-game if you want to preserve a good balance between the logic of a detective novel and the insanity of a horror novel. It doesn't work here. The detective plot gets crushed between the horror and the science-fiction. And to finish things off, there's a good dash of the erotic novel to be found in J no Shinwa too.

I know a lot of people describe Inui Kurumi's novels as making them feel uncomfortable (kimochi warui as the Japanese would say) and indeed, the other Inui Kurumi book I read, Shitto Jiken, turned into something unexpectedly dark at the end, leaving a bad aftertaste. In a good sense of the word: a lingering taste of despair obtained from a piece of mass entertainment. I guess that one could say the same for J no Shinwa, but it's a bit more extreme here and I myself did not enjoy it very much.

In short, J no Shinwa is more a horror novel than a detective novel, and read as such, it's okay I guess, though Inui is doing his best at making you feel uncomfortable reading the book. Which I guess is the idea of horror. I myself didn't really like the book, but that's perhaps because I had expected a traditional detective novel from it. Go in with the right expectactions, and J no Shinwa might well be an enjoyable horror novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 乾くるみ 『Ｊの神話』

Psychological Recovery...6 months

「でもこうやって部屋に置いたままにしていたら、それこそ犯人にとって思惑どおりっていうか　―　これだと被害者側から自ら、被害に遭い続けるようなもじゃないですか」

 (...) 

「僕は先輩のいうことも分かります。殺人事件で言えば、死体にあたるものですから。汚いからってすぐに捨てちゃうのもどうかと」 

「嫉妬事件」

 "But leaving it here is precisely what the culprit wants! It's like the victims themselves choose to continue to be victims!" 

(...) 

"I do understand what he means though. If this was a murder case, this would be the body. We can't just throw it away because it's filthy..." 

"The Jealousy Case"

Following the example of many, many Japanese students, I tried to study in a restaurant yesterday. Partly because I hadn't eaten anything besides cookies around two thirty, also because I had always found it strange to see so many student studying in a restaurant. Wouldn't it be more effective to study in a place more quiet?

In my case: yes. It is much more effective. Studying in a restaurant does not work for me. A result which I had expected already actually, considering I can't even study in an university library.

I am not sure who designed the cover for Inui Kurumi's Shitto Jiken ("The Jealousy Case"), but people might be pissed upset if they bought this novel based on the cover alone without reading the description. 'Casue it is is about something quite different. 1984, a few days before Christmas. Jourin University's regular classes have ended and most clubs have also entered their winter break. One of the few clubs still active in this time is the Mystery Research Club. This small club dedicated to the detective novel has a tradition of a 'Guess the Criminal' event, where one of the club members writes a short detective story which the other members have to solve. If well-received, the story is included in the annual magazine the club publishes. This particular day however, the 'Guess the Criminal' event is cancelled because of unforeseen circumstances. Because as the members of the club assembled in their club room, they noticed something terrible. Horrible. Grotesque. On top of the books on the top row of one of the bookcases in the clubroom, some unknown person had placed... human feces. Who did this, and why?

This might sound a bit disgusting, but reality is stranger than fiction, for this is actually based on a real incident that happened within the Kyoto University Mystery Club. Many, many years ago, someone did really leave human feces on top of some books in the Mystery Club's BOX room. And it remains an unsolved case. It happened before members like Ayatsuji Yukuto and Abiko Takemaru joined the club, but even they confirm that this was an actual incident. The case was made 'famous' for outsiders through the following passage of Takemoto Kenji's Ouroboros no Kisoron ("The Foundation Theory of Ouroboros"):

「ええ。まだ僕が入学する前の話らしいんですけどね。あるときミステリ研の部員がボックスに言ってみたら、本棚に並んでいる本の上にうんこが乗っていたんですって」
「本の上に」
僕はやっぱり笑ってしまった。綾辻君は身振り手振りを加えて、
「ええ。こう、何冊が縦に並んでいる上に。それも人の背より高い本棚、上から二段目だったかな。その上の横板との隙間もそんなにないし。だから、何冊か本をゴソッとひっぱりだして、その上にウンコをしておいて、またもと通りきちんと直しておいたと考えるしかないんですよ」
『ウロボロスの基礎論』　（竹本健治）

"Yeah. It happened before I got into university though. A member of the Mystery Club went into the BOX and found shit on top of the books in the bookcase there"
"On top of the books"
I sneered. Ayatsuji started to add gestures to his talking.
"Yes! Like this, on top of some books standing next to each other. And on the second shelf from the top of a bookcase larger than anybody. So there was hardly any space between the books and the shelf above. So the culprit must have taken out some of the books, placed the feces on top of them and then placed them back"
"The Foundation Theory of Ouroboros" (Takemoto Kenji)

Neither Takemoto nor Shitto Jiken's Inui originate from the Kyoto University Mystery Club, meaning they must have heard the rumors from other members. Inui's take on the case is like the summary suggest a fictionalized version of the incident, with the members of the club trying to deduce whodunnit. In true 'Guess the Criminal' fashion, based on the process of elimination of who could have entered the room, when and for what cause the material was placed on top of the books. And while most of the thinking is done by the members of the mystery club, the role of the detective is actually reserved for outsider Tendou Tarou, the binding factor of Inui's Tarot series (Shitto Jiken is the fifth book in the series by the way, which features stories with (vague) references to tarot).

The subject matter might seem a bit strange, but Shitto Jiken (which incidently means Jealousy Case, but sounds like Shit Case) is quite fun to read. It's not really a daily life mystery, but the case is less horrible than a dead body. Or is it? In some ways, it almost seems more horrible than a stiff. I mean, having to investigate a dead body for hints or... that for hints... The conclusion is also a bit darker than one would expect and not what one would have expected after the somewhat silly discussions on how one would have to act to actually put feces on top of books and whether people who love books would be able to do this.

Two little points I didn't like though: the final deduction of Tendou is kinda comes out of nowhere and even though he points out one important hint in particular, no normal reader would have been able to pick that up. The second is the length of the story, which falls a bit between a long short story and a short long story. I would have preferred it shorter.

Because of the somewhat strange length of the story, Inui added an original story for the paperback release, which is actually the 'Guess the Criminal' script which was cancelled because of the shit case. Mittsu no Shitsugi  ("The Three Questions") feels like an orthodox Kyoto Mystery Club 'Guess the Criminal' script, with a puzzle which can be solved mostly through the process of elimination, but it also includes a particular trick I have seen quite often now, in English and Japan, but I still get fooled by it. One of these days, I will actually learn from my experiences.

I had quite some fun with this book, as it is so strongly related with 'my' club, but it also conveys quite a realistic image of a Japanese mystery club I think and despite the nasty contents, the story works out as a fairly entertaining detective story. Which manages to be more horrible than a story with a bloody, cut-up corpse. And yes, walking in the club's BOX this morning was kinda scary, having read this book yesterday. The BOX room is still pretty much the same as it used to be all those years ago: a number lock on the door, the inside a bit cramped because of all the bookcases full of books and manga inside it. But luckily no nasty surprises today.

Original Japanese title(s): 乾くるみ 『嫉妬事件』:  「嫉妬事件」 / 「三つの質疑」