Birds of a Feather

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! 

 Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! 

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” 

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

"The Raven"

So the title of this books refers to crows and not ravens as we start with a scene of a murder of crows (and ravens usually move in pairs). The same kanji character is also used in Soanoshiro/Soanojo, a location in Maya Yutaka's first novel and the title of Kyoto University Mystery Club's annual publication, but there the same kanji refers to a raven...

Wanting to learn the reason why his younger brother got himself murdered, Kain travels deep in the mountains to locate a small, isolated village without a name and not indicated on any maps. Abel disappeared soon after Kain got married, but returned half a year ago, but soon met his death. Abel had been living in this village for some time, and Kain suspects the reason for Abel's demise may lie in his stay here. Kain eventually manages to make his way to the hidden village, but barely: on the way, he's nearly killed by a murder of crows, pecking viciously at him and even making him pass out as he tried to flee from the attack. When he awakens, he finds himself being taken care of in the village, as Senbon Kashiragi found him lying heavily injured in the outskirts of the village. Kashiragi is a kind man, and lets Kain stay in his home and Kain also meets his wife Fuyuhi, son Kazura and daughter Semiko. Kain keeps the true reason for his arrival at the village a secret for now, but he soon learns the peculiarities of the village where Abel spent some months living. The village is completely isolated from the outside world, with about 1000 inhabitants of whom most are of course farmers. A river seperates the village in an east and west side, and the two sides don't mingle too much, and there's even a bit of a power struggle going on between the two sides. But there's an absolute authority that stands even above these sides: in the north of the village stands the palace of Ookagami, the god of flesh and blood who reigns over the village. The whole village worships Ookagami, who watches over them. His authority is absolute, which is one of the reasons why the village is so isolated: while there is no rule saying villagers can't leave the village, the mountains are considered holy territory belonging to Ookagami, and save for sanctioned hunters, nobody is allowed to enter the mountains, and it just happens the whole village is surrounded by mountains. 

The village has developed for generations without real contact with the outside world, though they are aware of it existing, and in the past some "Outsiders" have made their way to the villages just like Kain and Abel. While the village is usually not very welcoming to outsiders, some have managed to settle in the village. Abel too himself had become a well-respected member of the community and even became a Guardsman to Ookagami, one of the most respected functions in the village. Pretending to be interested in other Outsiders in the village, Kain asks more about Abel's life here, and learns that he suddenly left the village about half a year ago, even though he was a Guardsman and quite beloved by people on both sides of the river. Kain starts suspecting Abel being a Guardsman might be the reason why he got killed, though he can't understand why. Meanwhile, Kain himself isn't really making himself popular in the village by him poking around and while the Senbons are glad to have him, many are not shy to tell him to leave. When one man, who had a rivalry with Abel, is found murdered in the village, people naturally start to look suspiciously at Kain, but on the other hand, they also are fairly sure he didn't do it. Why? Because if someone murders someone else in this village, a mark will appear on the hand of the murderer. It is the will of Ookagami, and while Ookagami will not judge upon the murderer, everyone else will be able to identify the murderer because the appearance of the mark is fact and nobody dares to murder someone else in this village. But is that really so? As Kain tries to figure out Abel's death and his connections to the village, he finds the village perhaps far more dangerous than he first suspected in Maya Yutaka's Karasu ("The Crows", 1997).

Karasu is the fifth novel in the Maya's Mercator Ayu series. The last Mercator novel (not short story collection) I read was the second one, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata ("A Sonata for Summer and Winter" AKA "Parzival" 1993), which was a fever-dream-esque catastrophic deconstruction of the closed circle murder mystery on an island. It was for me, the "books you don't to read but do want to have read"-type of book. Karasu shares some themes with Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, but in a much more subdued way, being closer to a conventional detective story, without ever forgetting the deconstructive modes Maya specializes in. The result is a book that is perhaps not as powerful and memorable as Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, but probably a lot more enjoyable as a conventional detective story.

The most memorable part of this book is definitely the village: it is a creepy, isolated community which has human aspects to it, but also horribly, cold sides as one would perhaps expect from such a introverted community hidden in the mountains. There is a distinct, almost fantasy-like atmosphere, which is certainly not idyllic or pictoresque, but it feels very detached from our reality, and yet very real in how feudal the whole village dynamics work. It is a very different mood compared to more (fever-)dream-like atmosphere of Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, but this "detached from reality" feeling is certainly one reason why I was very much reminded of that book.  But with the story also focusing a lot on the political power struggles between the various chieftains in the village, you are quickly reminded of the Kindaichi novels, or a village where Toujou Genya would do his folklore research. Indeed, the latter is the series I was reminded of the most, as the absolute belief in Ookagami and his rules are what make this village so unique. Indeed, a lot of the mystery arises from the fact the rules are considered absolute in this village, which in turn influence the (possible) actions of the suspects. How could someone have killed Abel after he had left the village and returned to the outside world, if nobody is allowed to set foot in the mountains and everyone believes in that rule and does not violate it? Why would anyone risk killing someone else, if they know a mark will appear on their hand, branding them a murderer? These are elements that usually are not at play in a normal detective story, but this is not a normal setting, and these religious rules thus create a very interesting and original setting for a mystery.

Due to the slow pace of the book and the focus on depicting the village in such detail, it does mean the reader has to be patient if they want to focus on the mystery. It takes a lot of time for the murders to occur, so the first half or so, we're just exploring the village, its beliefs, customs and rites and meeting some of the important faces here. Even after the murders have occured, it's not like Kain can play detective openly all the time, as a lot of people suspect him, as the Outsider, to be the murderer, so it's definitely not an investigation-focused detective, and at times, I was even reminded of Yatsu Haka Mura (The Village of Eight Graves), which felt similar with Tatsuya appearing in an isolated village, murders happening and him slowly turning into the main suspect. Only this book is still more mystery-focused compared to the more adventure-focused Yatsu Haka Mura. There is a secondary plotline which follows a young boy living in the village also trying to learn more about the deaths in the village, which adds a bit more suspense and adds a nice different view on the events, working very well as a contrast to Kain's POV.

I already mentioned this is a Mercator book by the way, and Mercator Ayu's appearance in this story was quite surprising. He appears roaming around in the village, even though it appears only Kain has seen him, and of course, Mercator is still wearing his tuxedo and tophat in this village. His appearances are very sparse, though still more substantial than the extremely short appearance in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, and he's not very actively involved with solving the mystery, though again, more than in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata. We also learn via him that there's a very interesting connection between this book and the first Mercator novel, Tsubasa aru Yami ("Darkness with Wings") and people who have read that book thus might want to check this one out too.

When it comes to the actual mystery plot, I'd say the books has some really interesting ideas, some of them very ambitious even, and even though I don't think every element works as good as another or is executed perfectly, I'd still say this was a book worth reading and incredibly fun. After the first murder, other dead bodies pop up, but there is also the matter of a supposed suicide half a year earlier, which happened in a house surrounded by untrodden snow when the body was discovered, meaning a murder would have been impossible as the murderer couldn't have escaped without leaving footprints. The underlying motive behind these murders is a very ambitious one. I love the idea, as it turns a somewhat cliched idea from mystery fiction and turns it completely inside out. It is actually hinted at quite fairly: some of the hints were perhaps even a bit too "in broad daylight" as I kinda started suspecting it'd involve that trope one way or another, but some of the other clues were better hidden, and in hindsight quite clever. I do wish the underlying reason for the motive was explained in more detail as to why it was so important to be like that, but still, I love the audacious idea to use that one trope in such a daring manner. Other parts similarly had both good, and less impressive elements to them. I for example didn't really like the parts involving Abel's involvement in the mystery, though I think there are things done with that, that are executed quite cleverly, and even in a way that ties very impressively back to the greater story. And while Maya's basically also deconstructing classical puzzler mysteries, he usually does rely on Queen-esque set-ups for his stories, so here too we are treated to false solutions with deductions based on physical evidence, the state of the crime scenes and the actions a murderer took, and it works very well with the main idea behind this book. There are certainly parts where I think Maya should have worked some elements out in greater detail, but on the whole, this was very enjoyable. The ending also reminds of the catastrophic climax of Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, though leaving more room for some catharsis. We basically witness a complete breakdown of both the setting and our main protagonist and like always, Maya leaves you with an undescribable feeling even after "solving" the mystery.

So I really did enjoy Karasu. In a way, it felt to me as a more "traditional mystery" take on themes Maya also tackled in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, but I feel infinitely more comfortable recommending Karasu as a mystery novel than that one. The book has fantastic atmosphere and while the execution is not completely perfect, it genuinely has some interesting ideas and tricks to play mystery-wise, so on the whole, I can safely recommend this as a good Maya mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『鴉』

Murder as a Fine Art

「真実はいつも一つ！」

『名探偵コナン』

 

"There is always only one truth!"

"Detective Conan"

I don't think I have many books with a grey cover...

Maya Yutaka is not an author you're going to read if you want something conventional. Ever since he made his debut in 1991 with Tsubasa Aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken ("Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu"), you can detect a theme in his works, and that is deconstruction. Maya obviously loves the mystery genre, but it's his love that also allows him to deconstruct the familiar tropes and themes of the genre. Post-modernist themes like the Late Queen Problem are subjects that play a big role in Maya's work, and notions like the truth or the detective, which seem like very "obvious" themes in the mystery genre, are transformed, transfigured and molten into new shapes in Maya's books. His books are seldom straightforward, and will turn the conventions of mystery fiction around just to mess with you, whether it's by not providing a clear truth at all (like in the infamous Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata) or just delving into Late Queen themes like multiple truths/interpretations in Sekigan no Shoujo.

Maya Yutaka's 2011 short story collection Mercator Kaku Katariki ("Also Sprach Mercator") collects five stories that basically are all about Maya deconstructing the classic mystery tale with a great detective. As the title suggest, we are once again treated to an appearance by Mercator Ayu, who first appeared in Maya Yutaka's debut novel Tsubasa Aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken ("Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu"). And yes, that is a very suggestive title. The very arrogant and self-centred private detective Mercator Ayu has since returned in several novels and short stories and in the past, I had read the first short story collection, but that one was actually still quite like a collection of normal mystery stories. Not the case with Mercator Kaku Katariki however. I can tell you right away: if you want to read a conventional mystery story, you need to walk away now, as you won't find anything remotely like that in the pages of this book. Maya plays with the reader in these stories, and does everything you won't expect of a mystery story. 

And in a way, it's incredibly fun. But you definitely need to be in the right mindset for this.

It's also very difficult to write about these stories, precisely because more often than not, they're not really meant to be normal mystery stories. They almost feel like punchlines, building on Late Queen problems and other post-modernist themes regarding mystery fiction and taking their conclusions to the extreme. So while the stories start out in familiar ways, the part that is usually the "solution" to a mystery is changed in these stories, concluding in very surprising and subversive ways.

The opening story Shisha wo Okosu ("To Wake the Dead") for example starts very conventionally: Mercator is hired to investigate the death of someone, who died one year ago, while he was staying with some friends in an old house up for sale just outside the town. They had been drinking, and he had been resting in another room, and it appears he just fell out of the window, killing himself. Mercator is now to see whether it was really an accident, as the friends still feel something was off. While they are waiting for Mercator and Minagi (a mystery author who acts as Mercator's Watson/slave), they quickly realize the death wasn't quite normal, and they start to suspect each other, but then Mercator arrives and he... solves the case? I do really like some of the deductions Mercator presents in this story. They do remind you that Maya was indeed a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and he utilizes some clever Queen-like deduction chains to slowly point towards a surprising truth behind the death one year ago. Only... that's not all. Once the dust has settled, Mercator basically turns everything around in a way that completely renders this a non-mystery story in essence. I like the idea, but this first story proves right away this isn't really a mystery collection.

The second story Kyuushuu Ryokou ("A Trip to Kyuushuu") does something similar: Mercator forces Minagi to open a file on his own computer, which turns out to contain a virus. Because Minagi's manuscript has been wiped, Mercator offers to present Minagi a plot for a new story. They walk out of Minagi's apartment, but just near the stairs, Mercator notices a weird smell from one of the neighboring rooms, and when he peeks inside, it turns out someone's dead inside. Mercator and Minagi look around the room, trying to figure out why Minagi's neighbor is dead, as this will serve as Minagi's new story. Again, this story features a few nice short deduction chains based on the physical evidence they find, but ultimately, it's all building up to a climax that can only be described as a punchline, and any feeling of catharsis of learning the solution is washed away immediately. It's quite funny and I do think this particular story is the closest to a "normal" detective story, but still very subversive. 

The third and fourth story Shuusoku ("Convergence") and Kotae no Nai Ehon ("A Picture Book Without Answers") can't even be explained properly, as both are truly something you have to experience yourself. In Shuusoku, Mercator and Minagi are invited to a small island with a mini-cult to investigate a break-in, while in Kotae no Nai Ehon, the murder on a teacher is the subject of an investigation. While again both investigations do feature clever deductions that would've been great in straightforward detectives, Maya then decides near the end to tie explosives to the story, blow it up, gather the pieces and then set fire to them just to finish them off. The conclusions of both stories will infuriate you if you want a normal detective story, but that's what makes them so interesting as experiments regarding the set rules and tropes of mystery fiction. Kotae no Nai Ehon in particular is daring with what it tries to do, and truly something you can only pull off once, though I like the surprising elegance of what is done in Shuusoku better. These two are the must-reads of the collection, just for their craziness.

The final story Misshitsusou ("The Locked Room House") is a short short, involving just Mercator, Minagi and a dead body they find one morning in the house they are staying at. What follows is a short conversation-only story that once again ends with a ridiculous resolution if you'd think about it from a "mystery genre" point of view, though at this point, I think a lot of readers can guess what Mercator will do considering how outrageous he's been behaving all this time. The title of the collection is Also Sprach Mercator, and that is certainly a theme running through all these stories: ultimately, it's Mercator who decides what the "truth" is and how each story will end.

I did enjoy Mercator Kaku Katariki a lot, but it's not something I would want to be reading all the time. It worked for me, precisely because I had been reading a lot of formal mystery stories at the time, and so I had a lot of fun seeing those same tropes played with in such a daring way. I do think this collection is the most accessible work written by Maya where he addresses these deconstructive themes. Something like Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata just requires a lot more dedication from the reader, while Mercator Kaku Katariki is actually a very short and light-weight read. This is not a book I can unconditionally recommend to mystery fans, but if the idea of playful deconstruction appeals to you, I think this will be a very fun read.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『メルカトルかく語りき』:「死人を起こす」/「九州旅行」/「収束」/「答えのない絵本」/「密室荘」

Hidden Pictures

"Why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?" 

"Picasso Speaks"

The books you want to have read, but don't want to read: I don't remember who first mentioned this to me, but the often-used phrase has stuck with me ever since. The moment I heard it, I knew what it meant. I could immediately think of a few titles that would fit the description, and in the many years that have passed since this first contact, I have of course read quite a few books that I'm glad to have read because they help create context for reading other works, or because they address interesting issues or themes, but of which I also did not enjoy the actual reading process, for example because of frustrating writing styles. Reading is for me mainly a source of entertainment, so my tolerance for deeper reading experiences may not be very high in the first place, so it's very much a "your mileage may vary" thing, but I do think some books are better read with some context, with the foreknowledge of "this might be a book that will be challenging to get through, but it's worth it once you're able to turn over that final page." For someone like me is likely to give up early and just move on to another book if I don't enjoy a certain book and am not told it might be important for context for other books. By the way, I am also the kind of person who will easily drop an anime series halfway through the first episode if I haven't seen anything appealing by that time.

At this point, it should not come as a surprise that the book in today's review falls into this category, or at least, it doesn't for me. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata ("A Sonata for Summer and Winter" 1993) , which also has the alternative English title Parzival on the cover, was the second novel by Maya Yutaka, released two years after his debut work Tsubasa Aru Yami, a powerful novel that embraced, but also fully deconstructed the tropes of the puzzle mystery genre, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata goes even a step further, almost feeling like a fantasy novel that at times takes on the shape of a mystery novel, but if you pay very, very much attention, you'll notice the story is definitely built on the cornerstones of the mystery genre. I am not by any means a very experienced Maya reader, but in the works I have read of him, I have always noticed the urge to deconstruct the genre, to tackle The Classic Mystery Novel from a post-modern angle and asks Big Questions about what a detective is, what a clue is, what a mystery is. Of the works I have read so far however, none of them go even remotely as far as Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, and it's in that context that it is definitely an interesting work to read. The book had been out of print for many years now, but I had heard a lot about how controversial this book was. In the years since I first heard about it, I had seen it described as an anti-mystery, a book that explored the theme of catastrophy in a detective novel, a novel without ending, and more. It was not the type of mystery novel I am usually interested in, but I was aware of its importance, not only as a pivotal work in Maya's oeuvre, but also as part of the 'bigger' picture: Maya Yutaka was the shin honkaku novelist who really dived deep into the post-modern themes of detective genre in the early nineties, and is therefore a must-read if one wants to read more about post-modern themes in modern Japanese puzzle mystery fiction, The book had been out of print for many years, but  got a revised re-release a few months back, which seemed like me the perfect time to read: usually I read Maya Yutaka's work like once every two, three years, but I had just finished the great Sekigan no Shoujo, so I was still in the mood when I started reading Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata.

Magazine writer Uyuu is given a special assignment by his editor to visit Kazune Island, together with high school student Touri, a friend of his who will act as his photographer (though she seems more interested in just enjoying he trip). Mamiya Kazune was a budding actress who starred in an indie film twenty years ago. While she had not become a big star yet, six young men and women became completely entranced by Kazune and with the financial powers of the oldest (richest) of them, an island was bought where they'd all live together. Kazune Island was where the seven of them would live for a year. Kazune was their idol, and the others worshipped her on the island, convinced that one day, Kazune's brilliance would shine not only on the island, but across the country, no, the world. But one day, Kazune fell into the sea and was never found again. That was the beginning of a swift end: one of the remaining people soon followed in her steps in despair, and save for the owner of the island, the others eventually left the island, going their own paths. But it's beeen twenty years since the death of Kazune, and now the remaining people will gather at Kazune Island once again to mourn the death of their idol. Uyuu is to write about this curious gathering, and the members' island life twenty years ago with Mamiya Kazune. Arriving on the island, Uyuu is confronted with surprise after surprise. The house being built in a Cubist style is perhaps a relatively tame surprise, but as Uyuu tries to strike up conversations with everybody, he slowly realizes everyone is very evasive about their lives on the island twenty years ago, and the accounts he gets to hear about Kazune seem slightly disturbing. This being a rush assignment, Uyuu had no time to do prior research, so everyone being evasive isn't really handy, but the big surprise comes at dinner, when a dressed-up Touri manages to shock everyone at the table: no wonder, for she looks exactly like the portrait of Mamiya Kazune hanging at the top floor of the house! Uyuu gets a bad feeling about this, not sure how these people who once worshipped Kazune will react to his protoge Touri. The following morning, the group wakes up to another surprise: it's snowing, in August, on what is basically a tropical island! But this surprise is soon turned into horror, when they find the corpse of their host in the garden. However, the whole garden is covered in snow, and there are no footprints to be found anywhere on the snow in the garden! A quick search also tells them that the two servants are gone and that the one motor boat on the island is gone When they eventually find out the phone isn't working either, they realize they'll have to wait for help to come, which will be after the day Kazune died, but will they be safe until that time? And what has all of this to do with the events that occured on this island twenty years ago?

People in a closed circle situation on an island? A strangely designed house? A "no footprints in the snow" scenario (in the middle of summer!)? Mysterious deaths in the past, and people being evasive about said past in the present? At first glance, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata takes on a familiar form. Even people not particularly familiar with the genre will recognize these tropes, but looks definitely deceive here, for nothing is as it seems in this novel. The fact the first (yes, first) murder happens so late is perhaps already a hint this is not a conventional mystery novel. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a very long novel, but the first actual mystery (the impossible murder) doesn't occur until the halfway point, which is really, really late: I've read completely fleshed out mystery novels with the same page length! The first half of Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is filled with slow dialogue between Uyuu and the people who returning to the island, trying to find out about the lives they had twenty years ago, and the banter between Uyuu and Touri. Touri is a rather unique high school student (who always skips school) with an interesting view on life, who does offer a lot of fun dialogue to read, but you really have to be patient this first half of the book, for little happens. The second half of the book moves faster, but even there you will find a lot of pedantry in this novel: it might not be as excessive as in that other famous Japanese anti-mystery Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but let's say it'll feel like you just got through a whole semester course on Cubism by the time you're done with this book.

Even after the first murder occurs, the book doesn't really feel like a detective novel. While Uyuu realizes they are trapped on the island, he feels reluctant to play detective, feeling it will only stir up trouble: his single and one concern is to protect Touri and get her off the island alive, back to her parents. There are other minor mysteries that bother him and Touri, like Uyuu seeing a Kazune-like figure roaming the building and some minor comments dropped by various people about the death of Kazune twenty years ago, but most of the time, Uyuu doesn't want to actively detect, and most of the time, he's just there to prevent the inquisitive Touri from being too rash and to find out just enough to be able to protect her. This again strengthens the concept of this book of taking on a detective novel's form, but not being quite like the novel you'd expect it to be initially. One of the biggest examples of this is how the impossible crime is handled. After some initial investigation soon after the murder is discovered, it's more or less put away in a drawer until the very end of the novel, where it's basically explained in three sentences and then forgotten again. The solution, on its own, is both ridiculous and memorable. And nobody is going to guess it based on the hints in the book, because there are no clues or hints and the solution suddenly comes out of nowhere, with the probabability of it ever happening infinitely small, but it's certainly one you'll never forget. But the whole thing is barely touched upon in the end, with the solution just mentioned very briefly in the final few pages of the book. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a detective novel, but it's not really a detective novel.

While that part of the mystery is explained and it is also revealed who is the actual killer on the island, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata actually leaves a lot of the events that occur in this book completely unexplained. After a feverish, catastrophic finale that even takes on fantasy elements, you're left with a sense of utter disbelief and confusion, that is only strengthened by a curious, two-page appearance by series detective Mercator Ayu, who asks Uyuu, and the reader, one simple question  It's here where the book ends, but where the reader is challenged to go on. For Uyuu's answer turns everything around, and that combined with the countless of unanswered events of the novel, leaves you with nothing but more questions as you turn over the last page. As you think back, you will notice a lot of questions the book drew attention to where never addressed again, from actual physical evidence seen and examined by Uyuu, to suggestive remarks made by the various characters or the almost fantasy-like finale that Uryuu experienced. Where did that character appear from, what was the meaning of that small object they kept finding, what about the painting, where did they go, why was this put in motion anyway and A LOT more: a genuine mystery novel would never leave all of this unanswered, but Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata does. It leaves the reader with a heap of unanswered question and challenges them: can you figure how all of this is connected, and how Mercator's question relates to all of this? This might sound interesting, a detective novel that doesn't actually tell you the whole answer, but leaves you with the clues necessary to solve it. Last year, I played Umineko: When They Cry which takes on a similar form. Only.... Umineko: When They Cry is Sesame Street in comparison to what Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata does. For the latter, doesn't really provide the reader with clear clues and evidence for them to build theories upon. I finished reading this book just before I wanted to go asleep, which was a big mistake, because it left me with all kinds of questions. The following morning, I decided I'd just look around online to see what the conclusions were: it's 2022, so almost 30 years after the book's initial release, so surely there was consensus now, right?

There wasn't. 

I have read at least five or six different theories that build upon similar ideas, but ultimately all go different directions or explain the details differently. And they all sounded plausible, making good use of the few clues we do have and trying to contextualize their solutions within the framework of the whole book. And yet, they all differ. This made it clear to me: Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is not a mystery to be solved. It is a story that takes on the form and tropes of the mystery novel, and it does tell a mystery story, but at the same time, it is also a distinctly post-modern take on the mystery story, where not everything is explained, where there's room for multiple explanations and where ultimately you're left with questions and unprovable theories. Concepts I know of Maya's other works, but never explored as extremely as in this work. This book is experimental and with the way it ends so open-ended, I can easily understand the arguments of both the sides who see this book as either a success, or a complete failure.

After reading Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, I wrote a little bit about it elsewhere and how it was a book I didn't want to be reading, but wanted to have read, and a friend asked the rhetorical question whether this was the kind of book you'd wanted to have read "real-time", getting confused/frustrated with everyone together, or the kind of book you'd want to read later, with more context/sudies available. Personally, I am glad I read Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata now, thirty years later, knowing the context of this book, how it was received (a great 63rd place in the 2012 Tozai Mystery Best 100!) and what theories people came up with. Some people might have wanted to go in blind, some people will perhaps just give up right away after reading this or other reviews. I think I would have just given up halfway without the context, and having read the book, I do think there are a lot of neat ideas mystery-wise to be found in the book, though I would never recommend it to anyone as a mystery novel.

Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a book I'm glad I done with, and I'm also happy I finally wrote this review. It's a strange book, and it's the kind of book I needed to know was strange before opening it or else I would have thrown it on the floor at some point.  But having read the book, I do have to admit it has all kinds of neat, thought-provoking ideas that I'd like to see in other mystery stories too, and seen in the context of Maya's other works, I can see it being an important step. It is not a perfect experience, at least not for me, and I'll be the first to admit it took me some dedication to read, but I think that if you get to the point you're considering whether to read this book or not, there's definitely enough interesting concepts to be found here that may enrich the experience of reading mystery fiction, ranging from its post-modern take on mystery tropes to simply the types of trickery used in the core mystery plot that warrant a read.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『夏と冬の奏鳴曲』

Trouble is my Business

「昨日までなら喜んでたさ。こんな単純な事件でもないよりましだしな。どうせならもっと早く死んでくれれば良かったんだ」

高松の遺体にぺっと唾を吐き掛ける。

「明日はどうしても外せない用があるというのに」

「化粧した男の冒険」 

"If it had been yesterday, I would've been glad. Even a case as easy as this is better than nothing. If only he had died earlier". He spitted at the dead body of Takamatsu.

"But I have an important appointment tomorrow"

"The Adventure of the Man with Make Up"

  
I often take a walk around the neighborhood if it's good weather and I was quite surprised about two weeks ago when a man walked past me whose face was very familiar. It took quite some while for me to arrive at the name of Maya Yutaka, a writer I've haven't spoken to, but seen on several occasions. But I'm pretty bad with faces, so it might also have been a mistake on my part. And then, the same day, I came across the same man again at the local supermarket. And I still think it's Maya. And that was my not-very-interesting story that acts as a bridge to today's book.

Mercator to Minagi no Tame no Satsujin ("Murders for Mercator and Minagi") is the first short story collection starring Mercator Ayu, the great detective who you'll always find wearing a tuxedo and a silk hat (unlike a policeman, a great detective is never on holiday, so he's in that outfit even in the summer). He first appeared in Maya Yutaka's debut novel Tsubasa aru Yami, which features the telling subtitle The Last Case of Mercator Ayu. Yes, Mercator's first appearance was also his last, and this short story collection is thus set before Tsubasa aru Yami. But he is the same great detective. In fact, he is such a great detective that he is actually better suited for short stories according to himself, as his presence is so big that cases are solved the instant he appears, meaning that for novel-length stories, he can't appear until late in the game. Do note that while Mercator is indeed brilliant, he is not a nice person by any means, having such faith in his own talents that he for example willingly allows people to die, just so the case becomes more interesting/impressive to solve. In the end, it's all about how he benefits from a case. Working with (for?) Mercator in this collection is the detective writer Minagi Sanjou, who usually gets involved with Mercator's schemes unwillingly and deep down, Minagi actually wishes Mercator was dead.

Tooku de Rurichou no Naku Koe ga Kikoeru ("Hearing the Cry of a Blue Robin Faraway") has Minagi staying at a mountain villa, where he finds himself to be in a sticky spot because during the night, one of the guests was shot in the room next to his. The door to the hallway was locked from inside, leaving the connecting door that leads into his room as the only way out of the crime scene. Minagi swears nobody went through that door during the night, but this effectively means that if it the shooting wasn't an accident, then Minagi was the only person capable of committing the murder. An interesting start of this short story collection, and I am using 'interesting' as an euphemism for a probably more negative word. I won't say that the story was devoid of proper hints, but it is pretty much impossible to solve for the reader because the solution requires a lot of imagination, which is only backed up by vague evidence. Maya tries something different with a common trope in the genre, but this is going a bit too far, in my opinion. I do like that when the solution is revealed by Mercator, some events and actions early in the story suddenly turn out to be something very different and darker than you'd initially expect.

Kesshou Shita Otoko no Bouken ("The Adventure of the Man with Make Up") has Mercator and Minagi staying at a hotel, where a man in a party of six also staying there is found murdered. With make-up on his face. And not the I-am-a-metro-type-of-man make up. Mercator decides to solve the case because he needs to catch a train (note: that is the sole reason he decides to solve the case). The premise of the story is reminiscent of Queen's short story The Adventure of the Bearded Lady, where the victim left a dying message by adding a beard to a painting of a lady, though the reasons behind the enigmatic actions are quite different. Kesshou Shita Otoko no Bouken is by no means a remarkable story, but it is a fun enough puzzler, which you can solve with a bit of the good old fashioned elimation method.

Shoujin Kankyo Shite Fuzen wo Nasu ("Idleness is the Mother of Evil") starts with Mercator telling Minagi of his recent advertising campaign and precisely as he predicted, an elderly rich man comes to consult him fearing something close to him might kill him. The story takes some hints from Holmes and Poirot with clients coming in and a bit of armchair detecting and the attentive reader will pick up on the hints to arrive at the same conclusion of Mercator. The most interesting part of the story, in my opinion, is the way how Mercator, in the literary role of a detective, is a major influence on crime. Don't they say that Batman is also in a way responsible for creating the weird supercriminals in Gotham City? The same can be said of Mercator, who with his absolute confidence in his role as a detective, actually helps creating crime.

In Suinan ("Flood"), Mercator and Minagi stay at a hotel in the mountains (I'm sensing a pattern!), where they meet with the ghost of the sole victim of a flood 10 years ago whose body wasn't found. And in the process also find two new bodies locked away in a shed with the word death painted on it. The solution is weird: part of the solution requires you to know that in this story supernatural phenomena can happen. Which is something that hasn't been discussed at all in any of the stories before this one. I can definitely live with supernatural elements in my detective fiction, but I need to know in what way they can influence the story, or else it isn't fair! Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban gave us proper rules to what was possible and not regarding witchcraft, and I recently read Nishisawa Yasuhiko's Nenriki Misshitsu! ("Psychokinetic Locked Rooms!"), which indeed features psychokinesis, but you are told beforehand what is possible and it is made a crucial element of the story. In Suinan, the whole supernatural thing however only works as a distraction and I couldn't enjoy this story.

I have written several times about Guess-the-Criminal short stories, one of the fine tradictions of the Kyoto University Mystery Club,  and Nostalgia has Minagi taking on a script written by Mercator himself. I won't go into the details of Mercator's script, though it does feature locked rooms and such, but I do want to mention that the writer (Mercator, and so by proxy the real writer Maya Yutaka), went all out. In the year I've spent here I've read quite some Guess-the-Criminal stories, meaning I've also seen quite some narrative tricks (by which I mean, tricks/tropes used by the writer, not per se tricks using narration). Some are quite popular, but it seems like Maya put pretty much all the tricks he could think of in Nostalgia. Which explains the title, as it almost certainly refers to the custom at the Mystery Club. On the other hand, it also means that if you are familiar with these kind of stories, you'll catch quite a few of them quite easily (I didn't make it all to the final solution though). I enjoyed this story the most.

Samayoeru Minagi ("Wandering Minagi") has Minagi indeed wandering in the mountains, after being kidnapped and finding himself in who-knows-where. He finally makes it to a house, which turns out to be the parental house of his friend Daikoku. According to his brother, Daikoku apparently disappeared, even though his friends from a painting circle all gathered here. Daikoku's brother suspects one of these friends is responsible for the disappearance and wants Minagi to help him find out who did it. Minagi however thinks it might be better to wait a bit, which later on turns out to be not a very wise decision because Daikoku's brother is found dead the following day. Realizing that this is serious business, Minagi asks Mercator for help, who quickly solves the case. The story takes some cues from a Queen radio story and is a well-constructed story that also explores Mercator as a person a bit and in the Mercator-and-Minagi-in-the-mountains series of this volume, it's definitely the story that finds the best balance in complexity and surprise. The main hint is also expertly hidden in the story.

Siberia Kyuukou, Nishi he ("Siberia Express, to the West") isn't set in mountain villa, but in a luxary train in Siberia, thanks to Mercator's probably shady connections. During the trip, the train is brought to a sudden stop due to an accident (which, by the way in the original, unpublished version was a meteorite, I've been told). The train moves on after the stop, but the next day a writer is found dead in his compartment. Mercator solves a case which I personally didn't really like that much, but it is definitely a very well planned story: the hints that lead to the solution are placed with much care for detail within the story and the reader has to be very attentive if he wants to solve the case. Furthermore, Maya makes very good use of the above mentioned train stop, giving him the space to go quite some interesting ways with deductions.

Mercator to Minagi no Tame no Satsujin is a fine collection overall, though there were some stories I didn't really like. Mercator as an almost evil detective is a fun character though, so I'll probably read more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩  『メルカトルと美袋のための殺人』：「遠くで瑠璃鳥の鳴く声が聞こえる」 / 「化粧した男の冒険」 / 「小人閒居為不善」 / 「水難」 / 「ノスタルジア」 / 「彷徨える美袋」 / 「シベリア急行西へ」

Swan Song

 「・・・やめられるかよ・・・ 真相を解き明かすのが探偵のサガなんでね！」

『名探偵コナン：　水平線上の陰謀』

"How can I stop? Revealing the truth is what makes us detectives"

"Detective Conan: Strategy Above the Depths"

And as an answer to the question I posed myself in the previous post: Yes, playing on a PSP connected to a TV does feel different from playing normally on a PSP. For one, I play longer on a TV than on a handheld. I am just borrowing this TV temporarily, so I should clear as many games I can in the following few weeks...

Maya Yutaka's Tsubasa aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken ("Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu") is a novel I should have read earlier, right? I mean, Maya's an old member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club and an important writer in the New Orthodox movement, with Tsubasa aru Yami being his debut work. But actually, it's not that strange I never got around to him properly (I have read some short stories by him). I've never been that interested in what critic Kasai dubs the second stage of the New Orthodox movement as a movement, to which Maya belongs to (also Mori Hiroshi and Kyougoku Natsuhiko, amongst others. And technically, Nikaidou Reito too). It might be because of my 'classic' education (from English Golden Age to Rampo, Yokomizo and then New Orthodox) in detective fiction, but I have always had more affinity with the early stages of New Orthodox (Ayatsuji, Arisugawa, Norizuki, Abiko amongst others), which are much more closely related to English Golden Age fiction. Heck, my thesis (I really should work on that harder) is focused solely on early New Orthodox. So, that's my excuse for not having read Tsubasa aru Yami earlier. Not sure when I'll get around to Subete ga F ni Naru (The Perfect Insider)!

Tsubasa aru Yami starts with detective Kisarazu Yuuya and his companion Kouzuki Sanetomo arriving at Souajou, the mansion of the wealthy Imakagami family. Kisarazu was apparently hired by the head of the family, but he has been already been murdered by the time they arrived at the mansion. As well as his son. And they were not just murdered: they were both decapitated and one of them was found inside a locked room! Just like Poirot, Kisarazu is not too happy about losing a client before actually being hired, so he decides to investigate the mysterious murders in the castle-like Souajou.

Like I said, I don't have a particular interest in later stages of New Orthodox and I have been intentionally been avoiding reading secondary sources about it (mostly because I have plenty of other sources I need to read!), but I can definitely make an educated guess to why Maya, and Tsubasa aru Yami are considered important. I could throw around with terms like post-modernism, the 'meta-physical detective story', deconstruction and subversion, which would all apply to this novel to a certain degree. Maya knows the classic tropes of Golden Age detective fiction and he simultaneously critizes and honors them as he plays around with them in this novel.

One example would be for example Maya's use of literary stereotypes in this novel. In a detective novel, the most obvious would be 'the great detective'. Tsubasa aru Yami actually features two of them (Kisarazu Yuuya, and Mercator Ayu appears in the second half of the novel), which is already a strange happening. But both detectives also have surprisingly little succes with their investigations, thus undermining their position as a great detective. Which is slightly different from what Queen did in his later novels: Queen questioned the ability of the detective and the feasibility of finding out the truth by having Ellery make mistakes and angst over it. However, Ellery does win at the end. In Tsubasa aru Yami however, there is no salvation at all for both of Maya's detectives.

What makes this novel also interesting is that both detectives in the novel are used as series detectives by Maya. Tsubasa aru Yami is like the title suggests Mercator Ayu's final case, so all the other stories are set before Maya's debut novel. There are also several remarkable revelations made about the detectives in this novel, which should making reading other stories quite interesting (because of foreknowledge and the mentioned shaky literary positions of the two detectives).

There are some other Queenian motifs to be found here, but Maya also plays around with more abstract tropes of the genre, the most obvious being the final solution to the locked room murder, which is quite blatantly a sort of criticism to the genre and its particular puzzles. But not in a mocking way, definitely not. But Maya does try to look more critically at tropes taken for granted in the genre and seek out the genre's boundaries and limitations.

The novel does surprise as a story that simultaneously criticizes the genre and honors it. Which is why Tsubasa aru Yami is not 100% post-modern, as it at least offers the reader a sense of salvation by having a a properly hinted solution and a denouement scene. It could also have ended with just the detectives losing their literary identities and the mystery of the murders playing second fiddle to that in 'true' post-modern detective style.

I haven't read that much of Maya, so I am not sure how this 'experiment' develops in in later novels. Maya has quite a following among certain readers and I can sorta see why, I guess. Might try some other novels in the future. And I apologize for the somewhat chaotic review. I sorta felt, in the context of this blog, the need to expand on Maya's place in Japanese mystery world, but like I said at the beginning of this review: I don't actually that much about him and later New Orthodox as a movement (to the extent we can call it a movement).

And now, to play more videogames!

Original Japanese title(s): 『翼ある闇　メルカトル鮎の最後の事件』