Translator: Nathan Collins
Date
of Publication: September
21, 2010
Memorable Quotation: “What are these?” “They’re shoes my friend left. He had
this strange habit of saving all his shoes and never throwing them out. He died
and these shoes are all that he left behind…the ones on the left end he wore as
a child. The ones to the right he wore just before he died. See these guys
here, the leather ones?” He pointed at a pair of small shoes near the left end
of the row. “He was wearing those when we first met.” He pointed at a pair on
the right. “He was wearing these when the café first opened…” History lived in
that row of shoes. They were like a timeline.” (From Black Fairy Tale, pgs 263-264)
Lasting
Impression: Otsuichi
created three suspenseful tales, each filled with magical realism and a
description of death that is almost eloquent in its execution.
*NOTE: In
rating a collection of short stories, I look at each one overall and combine
all of their positives and negatives into one rating, as shown below.*
Story-line: A
Pace
of Story: B+
Characters: A
Ending: A-
Overall
Grade: A
For those of you who looked at the title and cringed,
please do not be deterred. Although it
is true that the three tales in this short story collection are grotesque at
times, the idea behind each story is very creative, deserving a chance to be
enjoyed. I have always found the
Japanese to be risk-takers in their writing, never having any shame or worrying
that they will offend someone, like Chuck Palahniuk, which is why I love
reading their literature and always looking past the obvious content to find the
deeper meaning.
There are three stories in this collection: Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse; Yuko; and Black Fairy Tale.
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Summer, Fireworks,
and My Corpse is about three children;
siblings Ken and Satsuki and their friend Yayoi and how an innocent
conversation and honest confession soon turns into murder. (SPOILER ALERT: One of the children dies.)
The description of the death is graphic but the deceased child lives on by
being the narrator of the events that occur (Similar to the narration of Alice
Sebold’s The Lovely Bones). In terms of theatre, the term dramatic irony
works well here because in a sense, the reader is aware of what happened to one
of the children as the other two main characters try to hide the evidence, but
the other characters are not aware as to why the siblings have been acting so
strangely.
Honestly, I was very disappointed with the ending until I
read the epilogue. I cannot say the ending left me warm and fuzzy but the
epilogue had a crazy twist that I was not expecting, almost making up for my irritation with Otsuichi
for ending the story in such a way.
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The 2nd story, Yuko, is about a young woman named Kiyone and her new position as
housekeeper for Master Masayoshi and his wife, Yuko. The couple seems ordinary until the meal
ritual Kiyone must follow is set into place. As Kiyone begins to talk to the
neighbors and their rumors begin to mess with her mind, things become stranger
by the minute.
At first, the story reminded me of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, but soon different
elements came into play that made that comparison not as viable as I had
thought. The twist he gives us in this
story is very clever but there is a lot of explanation behind it, making the
impact not as much of a ‘wow’ factor as I had hoped. Regardless of the ending,
the story was brilliant.
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The 3rd and final story, Black Fairy Tale, was the longest of the three stories but still
packs a pretty good punch in the end.
The story focuses on Nami, a high school girl who loses her left eye in
a freak accident and causes her to have amnesia. Not long after she has amnesia does she get
an eye transplant that brings her more than vision in her left eye; she can
also see the memories of its previous owner at sporadic times of the day. As Nami becomes more comfortable with these
memories to take the place of the ones she lost, she discovers the hometown of
the previous town and the secrets, both good and bad, are waiting for her.
This story has an alternating narrative, in which a writer
named Miki tells us his story as well.
He has a terrible gift, one reminiscent of John Coffey in The Green Mile, in the respect that both
men can prolong life or take it away.
Miki becomes a serial killer not out of thirst for blood, but out of
curiosity for what the human body can become; since everyone he kills stays
alive without feeling pain. Miki and
Nami eventually meet as fate would have it, but Miki is only a penname and his
real idenitity comes to light as Nami’s gets involved in a situation that may
be over her head.
The best part about this story is
the subtle detail in the alternating narratives; you think the two narratives
are happening at the same time but as the story goes on, we see just how clever
Otsuichi is when he delivers a second twist out of nowhere without skipping a
beat.
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When I read a book as ‘different’
as this one, I am not expecting a huge following of people to read this. At times it was not easy for me to read
because of the gory detail and the images that came with them but I challenged myself and made it through those difficult parts to enjoy the rest. I am not asking you to have the same
appreciation of Japanese Horror or ‘J-Horror’ as I do, in the same respect that
I cannot appreciate the film, ‘Melancholia,’ as much as a friend of mine does. My point is that sometimes it is nice to challenge yourself; and if you are someone who likes Stephen King, enjoys writers that challenge the way their reader’s think, and you have an open mind towards different cultural literature, Otsuichi’s novels will be a joy to read.
~Shelly-Beans
~Shelly-Beans
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