Goodbye So Soon

To say goodbye is to die a little

Just like a beginning of dying for a moment 

So long amigo

I won’t say goodbye

「さよならを言うことは」 ("To Say Goodbye"), Fukushima Rila

This is one of those rare times where I use the hardboiled tag on something that is not a review of a Detective Jinguuji Saburou game.

1950s Tokyo. The country is well on its way in its recuperation of World War II, signified by the enormous economic growth. But not everyone enjoys as much of the recovery as others. Take for example private detective Masuzawa Banji. His month is filled with work like looking for lost popular singers who are eloping with handsome men or locating wealthy, cheating husbands for even wealhtier wives, but Banji himself just makes enough to get him through the month with a few drinks as his only pleasure. One day, Banji becomes acquainted with Harada Tamotsu, a drunk with a limp leg, with whom he quickly becomes drinking pals, maybe even friends. Their bond is tested when one day Tamotsu's wife is murdered and Tamotsu turns up literally redhanded in Banji's office. Banji decides to ask no questions whatsoever and drives Tamotsu to the harbor, who flees to Taiwan. Back in Tokyo, the police thinks Tamotsu killed his wife and that Banji helped him escape the country, but Banji believes Tamotsu is innocent. While taking on a new case involving a writer, Banji also tries to find evidence of his friend's innocence in the mini TV series The Long Goodbye.

And people might have noticed from the title and despite the Japanese character names, the somewhat familiar summary above, but yes, this is indeed a TV series based on Raymond Chandler's famous The Long Goodbye, but set in Japan. The Long Goodbye is a five-part mini TV series which was broadcast on NHK from April 19 until May 17, 2014 and starred Asano Tadanobu as Masuzawa Banji, the Japanese counterpart to the original's Philip Marlowe.

One might be tempted to suspect The Long Goodbye is a cheap, loosely interpreted adaptation of the original story because the setting is changed, but The Long Goodbye is actually a very faithful adapation and a fun one too. Granted, there is a lot of US imagery in the Marlowe novels that obviously isn't present in this Japan-set adapation, but the actual plot of the TV series is very close to the original and the post-war setting works perhaps even better in the TV series' setting of Japan than the original novel's the United States. Anyway, despite the changed setting and characters names, I'd say that The Long Goodbye is a great adaptation of the book.

To be totally honest though, I am not that big a fan of the original novel's plot, one of the reasons for that being that I never got why grumpy, wise-cracking tough guy Philip Marlowe got involved with Lennox (Tamotsu) and the writer in the first place: Banji isn't the most cordial fellow around, but it does seem more likely for him to get involved with everyone compared Marlowe. Another reason I didn't like the original novel's plot that much was because it tends to meander a lot. This is partly solved because The Long Goodbye is very clearly written as a five-part series, and the episodic format does help smooth out the presentation of the plot, so again, I am tempted to say that it works better in the TV series. Overall, I still think the mystery plot is not very interesting though, as the plot jumps to the writer-case pretty fast and little happens until the end and the same holds for the TV series, though, like I said, it's a bit better here than in the original novel, I think.

So I wasn't that impressed by the original novel's plot, but I did like the way it was written. In fact, I have written a not-really-a-review of The Long Goodbye in the past, where I basically only stated I thought the atmosphere was good. The same holds for this TV series. The slightly different protagonist and the different setting does give this series a different atmosphere, but I love what they did for The Long Goodbye! It looks great as a TV series (and it obviously has a good budget as an NHK-produced mini-series) and sounds even better: the jazz soundtrack is absolutely amazing. Add in good direction and acting and you have a very solid series.

The Long Goodbye is a surprisingly well-made and faithful adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel. I am not a big fan of Chandler's novels anyway, but I had fun with this TV series anyway and I think that Chandler-lovers will appreciate NHK's The Long Goodbye despite the changes in the setting. The home release is scheduled today, by the way.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ロング・グッドバイ』

The Sign of Four

『真偽の狭間』

"The treshold of truth and lie"

Having handed in my research proposal, it's finally, finally vacation. So there is finally time to work on my reading/watching backlog.

A fine start was R. Austin Freeman's The Eye of Osiris, which was once recommended as a must-read for the reader of Japanese detectives. And verily, it was so. With the bones of a chopped up body popping up here and there and a dispute regarding an inheritance (is there any other?), this 1911 novel is not only a great early work in the Golden Age style, it is decidely very proto-Japanese-detective-ish. In a very dry, English way. This is strangely enough my first Freeman novel, but his reputation precedes him. He is indeed a very, very sober writer. It suits the investigative style of his detective dr Thorndyke. And while the solution was quite easy to see, I think that's more because countless of other works are based on the same pattern set in this book.

And while The Eye of Osiris wasn't translated in Japanese till in the '50's, I wouldn't be surprised if Edogawa or some other early Japanse detective writer hadn't read it. Edogawa had certainly read Freeman's The Singing Bone and was quite content with it, so The Eye of Osiris might well have been a inspiration of works like Mojuu ("The Blind Beast").

Somewhat the inverse of Freeman's style is Raymond Chandler's The Lady in the Lake, a novel in his hardboiled Philip Marlowe series. While I'll admit The Long Goodbye was written wittier and more pleasant to read, there actually is a real puzzle plot in this novel. While it's not very surprising (especially not after reading The Eye of Osiris), it somehow feels good. Hardboiled and puzzle plots can work (see the Tantei Jinguuji game novels.) and this is a good example.

And I might be the stupidest reader ever, because not once, not once since I have known about this title, did I imagine that the story would in fact feature a lady. In a lake. Only when someone made a comment that the title was kinda scary while I was reading it in the International Student Center, did it hit me (at that time, no murder had occured yet). Somehow, when reading the words the lady in the lake, my head automatically connects it to Arthurian legend. Which is of course the lady of the lake, but I am no expert on Arthurian legends.

But yeah. Sometimes titles are just too obvious, so you suspect it means something else.

Most pleasant of the bunch was the American TV series A Nero Wolfe Mystery, based on the Nero Wolfe novels by Rex Stout. Having the slightly hardboiled (halfboiled?) Archie Goodwin work together with thinking machine / heavyweight food lover Nero Wolfe results in the-best-of-both-worlds concept, with puzzle plots spiced up with some hardboiled dialogue and scenes. Except for the milk drinking by Archie. While I have only read Some Buried Caesar, I quite like the '50-'51's radio drama The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe and having finished that, A Nero Wolfe Mystery piqued my interest.

And what a fine show it is! The music, the backgrounds, the acting is all a bit more gaudy than in real live and that really makes this show. Scenes of a slick Goodwin and an immensive Wolfe bouncing comments on each other are fantastically dynamic. Interesting for a TV production is how a small cast is used for this show. Like a theater troupe, the same cast members play the non-recurring roles for each episode, resulting in the actor playing the victim in one episode turning out to be playing the murderer in the next. While it adds a decisive flavor to the show, the fact I'm bad with names and faces does sometimes makes the show very confusing.

And today I finally watched the in Japan recently released Sherlock Holmes. Which was kinda like Arsene Lupin. In England. With explosions. And fights. And steampunk. And fights. And stuff. Arsene Lupin. Well, Arsene Lupin and Batman Begins. Especially the ending was quite Batman Begin-ish.

While I did like the effort to portray a Holmes never shown before, I think Downey Jr.'s Holmes was somewhat too Bohemian. And stuff. I fear that if I really delved into it, it would ultimately end on a negative note. I did like the Watson as a foil to Holmes though.

Wait. It suddenly hit me. The movie was kinda Detective Conan-ish. With explosions. And stuff.

"To say goodbye, is to die a little."

"I do not care to be in love with myself and there is no longer anyone else for me to be in love with.", "The Long Goodbye"

For me, a detective has to be logical and rational. At the end of the book, I want the detective to tell me who the murderer was and how he commited it. The more logical, the more rational, the more mathematical the explanation, the better. A + B = C and therefore X has to be the killer. Especially Ellery Queen's early novels excel in the logical deductive explanations (for example, to include even more letters, in The Tragedy of Z).

And then, we have the hardboiled detective. With the private eye as the protagonist. Slow investigations are not his thing, he'll go out and hunt for clues in the city wilderness. He faces danger and will be double-triple crossed several times during the story by everyone, he will fall in love with some smart dame, but he'll probably not end up with her and with some optional bits of social criticism here and there, the detective will in the end solve the case, usually by a healthy mix of (verbal) violence and his sharp wits and tongue. It is a detective all right, but it could hardly be further away of the logic school than this. And that's why for me, hardboiled detectives are very low on the read list. Actually, I had not even read one till last week. Except for that one book that started out as a classic detective in a great setting, but cheated me with a hardboiled solution.

But I digress, so, Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, featuring his private eye detective Philip Marlowe. It managed to confirm everything I thought about hardboiled detectives. Which is partly good, partly bad. The bad for me is that hardboiled detectives aren't about challenging the reader, they are about following the quest of the knight/detective in search for his Holy Grail (which might be in the form of anything), vanquishing all kinds of small bads on his way there. A hardboiled detective story is just a knight's tale. There are no great puzzle plots to be expected here, no fact A + fact B = fact C mathematical explanations. Just a piling up of trouble. I suspect a lot of readers of the logic school might have the same 'problem' with hardboiled detective fiction.

The good though is the atmosphere of a hardboiled detective story. Which is very, very awesome. You'll get sucked in right away because of the piling up of trouble. It is a knight's quest and because you'll never know what's around the corner you keep reading. And in the case of Chandler, it's also written very good and very, very quotable. Witty, flowing dialogue that everybody should've read once in his/her lifetime. And I guess, the lack of a complex puzzle plot makes it more accessible for readers not acquainted with detective fiction.

Still, I think the genre works a lot better in other media than books. Because I have been enjoying the genre in movies a lot (also heavily influencing film noir). The Maltese Falcon, with Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade hunting for the titular bird is a great movie. Matsuda Yuusaku as the private eye Kudou Shunsaku in Tantei Monogatari ("Detective Stories") managed to inject the hardboiled genre with a healthy dose of comedy, which made it a great show. Games? Even better. Grim Fandango is one of the best and one of the best quotable games ever. Period. Tantei Jinguuji Saburou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou"), a long Japanese adventure game series featuring a private eye situated in Shinjuku, Kabuki-chou (where else?), even manages to slip in some Golden Age puzzles within its hardboiled stories. For me, the hardboiled genre benefits greatly of audiovisualization (...that's probably not a real word) and it's then when I can forget it's not a 'proper detective', as the atmosphere is just too great to ignore.

Naturally though, if we would combine the best parts of all detective subgenres in one story, the Earth would instantly cease to exist.

Today's song: 大内義明 (Oouchi Yoshiaki) - Ballad of the Silver Bullet