THE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X by Keigo Higashino
(translated by Alexander O. Smith)
I debated with myself for a long while over whether to give this detective novel a 9. I haven't given any book a 9 here yet. I worry that if I start giving out high scores, like a 9, I won't stop. The Blitz Rating system will become diluted. My carefully constructed edifice of infallible book analysis will come crashing down. The Devotion of Suspect X will then have become a Japanese tsunami obliterating this blog. It could happen!-- if I'm not careful about giving out high scores.
Plus, there's a case to be made against the book. Not a strong case, mind you, but it's there.
For one thing, the pacing of the novel is deliberate , even slow. There are two detectives, one official and one unofficial, Kusanagi, veteran detective of the Tokyo Police, and his friend Yukawa, a genius physicist at the local university. It's a classic pairing of professional and amateur. Much of the narrative involves undramatic discussion between Yukawa and Kusanagi, over the case they're pondering, and also the related question of intuition versus logic.
There aren't a lot of fireworks in the book. No car chases or melodrama. I can't say there's no emotion. No, I can't say that, though a good part of the book is almost clinical in tone. Our two analysts spend much time analyzing the case, and their opponent, a mathematics teacher who's something of a genius himself. It's a chess game, with much positioning of pawns.
What else?
Well, the names of the characters can be confusing. Kusanagi and Kishatani. Yasuko and Yukawa. What up with that?
What of the book's strengths?
The novel, and thus the mystery, is written with great clarity. It's right there in front of you. Right there! The language, the description, the narrative-- nothing is hidden. Or if it is, it's hidden in plain sight. I loved the clarity. You feel after awhile that you're looking at a chess board. Keigo Higashino has total control over his material.
That material is in perfect balance. How rare this is! The sections of the book, beginning, middle, and end, are in proportion. No overblown finish with dead bodies everywhere, or five different climaxes. Nothing goofy. No authorial desperation to find a way out. Higashino knows the way out. He understands that less is more.
This is a detective novel, but it's also literature. This is the kind of thing long-ago genre authors like Eric Ambler used to accomplish. The proportion gives the overall work aesthetic impact beyond the mere words of the book.
Two other points should be mentioned. In Agatha Christie fashion, Higashino pulls off an unexpected solution. You can't believe it's coming, but Higashino does it. A genuine surprise, if surprise is the right word. I can't tell you-- or if you're a long-time reader, maybe I can-- how unusual this is. How difficult, at a time when all stories have been written.
Second-- and this is as much of a surprise-- Keigo Higashino approaches Simenon level with his understanding of people, his portrayal of character. He nears the highest level. It's a surprise because for much of the novel the characters don't seem particularly deep at all. Aha! Higashino sneaks up on the reader. And he makes it so believable! This isn't a "psychological" detective novel. It's too smart, too subtle, for that designation. It never hits you over the head. The book's impact sneaks in elsewhere. Maybe into your soul. You're left at the end shaking your head, feeling the impact. How does he do that? There are no over-the-top action sequences, yet the novel closes with an emotional bang. This is fine, fine work.
I believe I'll give it a 9 after all.
PUBLISHER: Minotaur Books
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 9.0
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Why the Short Story Is NOT Dying
Awake Till the End by Alysse Aallyn
"Crime Stories"
No, it's not true that I'm too tough on writers. I'm not tough at all. I'm waiting to be enthusiastic. I ask only, ONLY, that the author meet a few minimum requirements. Such as, that the writing be readable. Don't insult my intelligence with self-indulgent verbiage best meant for yourself. If you do write only for yourself-- or a professor-- with no thought of involving the reader, keep it in a journal.
I'm not talking now about Alysse Aallyn, whose modest volume of stories is surprisingly good.
Fifteen engaging tales that aren't really crime stories, since many of them merely hint at crime, or the crime takes place offstage. They're pop stories, meaning, highly readable. Aallyn adds touches of wry humor. On occasion, surprise and pathos.
Alysse Aallyn shows her characters as human beings, with emphasis on human. She understands their weaknesses and quirks. She presents a parade of unique personalities. Though she can be scathingly cynical-- usually is, come to think of it-- she loves life and enjoys people. Aallyn gives you first herself; her smart and personable voice.
A few of the stories border on excellent.
"Scathed," about secrets between a mother and daughter, is painfully knowing about men and women.
Alysse Aallyn is best at depicting children. She makes them thoroughly believable, as in "Cold Huntsman," about a sensitive girl and her flaky aunt, and most of all, "Violet," which at the end delivers a kick.
A few of the endings are too hurried, too abrupt. One or two of the works seem like fragments more than stories. But hey, she keeps you wanting more.
PUBLISHER: The Midnight Reader
http://www.midnightreaderpublishing.com/
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 8.0
"Crime Stories"
No, it's not true that I'm too tough on writers. I'm not tough at all. I'm waiting to be enthusiastic. I ask only, ONLY, that the author meet a few minimum requirements. Such as, that the writing be readable. Don't insult my intelligence with self-indulgent verbiage best meant for yourself. If you do write only for yourself-- or a professor-- with no thought of involving the reader, keep it in a journal.
I'm not talking now about Alysse Aallyn, whose modest volume of stories is surprisingly good.
Fifteen engaging tales that aren't really crime stories, since many of them merely hint at crime, or the crime takes place offstage. They're pop stories, meaning, highly readable. Aallyn adds touches of wry humor. On occasion, surprise and pathos.
Alysse Aallyn shows her characters as human beings, with emphasis on human. She understands their weaknesses and quirks. She presents a parade of unique personalities. Though she can be scathingly cynical-- usually is, come to think of it-- she loves life and enjoys people. Aallyn gives you first herself; her smart and personable voice.
A few of the stories border on excellent.
"Scathed," about secrets between a mother and daughter, is painfully knowing about men and women.
Alysse Aallyn is best at depicting children. She makes them thoroughly believable, as in "Cold Huntsman," about a sensitive girl and her flaky aunt, and most of all, "Violet," which at the end delivers a kick.
A few of the endings are too hurried, too abrupt. One or two of the works seem like fragments more than stories. But hey, she keeps you wanting more.
PUBLISHER: The Midnight Reader
http://www.midnightreaderpublishing.com/
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 8.0
Monday, December 12, 2011
Why the Short Story Is Dying
THE SPOT by David Means
stories
David Means learned his creative writing class lessons too well. This book is the literary standard. Finely-crafted sentences, long paragraphs of them, sentence after sentence without a break, like a salesman who gets you on the phone and keeps talking without pause and it's all babble. It's not scene. It's not really narrative. It's just writing.
From "Reading Chekhov":
"Behind them the office building, with its reflective glass, collected and cubed the vista. The terminus of parting; the deep, elegaic tragedy of it."
There's scarcely a sentence in the entire book that's not this kind of pretentious shit. But then, when the title of a story has "Chekhov" in it, you know it's literary output intended to be pretentious. Someone is sucking up to someone. The objective is to impress. Not to entertain, not to move or thrill, not to enlighten. Impress-- and not the general reader either.
This book is literary writing at its worst.
The characters are interchangeable. They run together even within the bounds of a single tale, as in the title story, "The Spot." Every character is soulless. Every one is stupidly violent or apathetic, without conscience and barely conscious. Organisms helplessly caught in a flow of nature or a flow of stupidity. It's not that Means doesn't like people. His characters aren't people. They're not even caricatures.
The settings are uniformly grim. The sentences run together and the paragraphs run together. The characters and situations run together as the words run together. The plots are buried under sheer wordiness.
One of the stories lists three ways someone copes. Here's one of the ways:
"Assume a protoplasmic mobility; the creep of the protozoan, one-celled hydra, primal and original and eager to consume itself for lunch."
Sounds great. Not exactly positive. What does it mean?
It's bullshit writing. Means is basically just shitting the reader.
Since I can't quote the entire book, it's impossible to convey here how bad it is.
Yet pillars of the literary establishment love it! The back cover contains flatulent blurbs by The New York Times, London Review of Books, Jeffrey Eugenides and James Wood. On the dust jacket right inside the back cover is the author photo, which makes David Means resemble his characters. He appears to have all the intelligence of a ripe squash.
stories
David Means learned his creative writing class lessons too well. This book is the literary standard. Finely-crafted sentences, long paragraphs of them, sentence after sentence without a break, like a salesman who gets you on the phone and keeps talking without pause and it's all babble. It's not scene. It's not really narrative. It's just writing.
From "Reading Chekhov":
"Behind them the office building, with its reflective glass, collected and cubed the vista. The terminus of parting; the deep, elegaic tragedy of it."
There's scarcely a sentence in the entire book that's not this kind of pretentious shit. But then, when the title of a story has "Chekhov" in it, you know it's literary output intended to be pretentious. Someone is sucking up to someone. The objective is to impress. Not to entertain, not to move or thrill, not to enlighten. Impress-- and not the general reader either.
This book is literary writing at its worst.
The characters are interchangeable. They run together even within the bounds of a single tale, as in the title story, "The Spot." Every character is soulless. Every one is stupidly violent or apathetic, without conscience and barely conscious. Organisms helplessly caught in a flow of nature or a flow of stupidity. It's not that Means doesn't like people. His characters aren't people. They're not even caricatures.
The settings are uniformly grim. The sentences run together and the paragraphs run together. The characters and situations run together as the words run together. The plots are buried under sheer wordiness.
One of the stories lists three ways someone copes. Here's one of the ways:
"Assume a protoplasmic mobility; the creep of the protozoan, one-celled hydra, primal and original and eager to consume itself for lunch."
Sounds great. Not exactly positive. What does it mean?
It's bullshit writing. Means is basically just shitting the reader.
Since I can't quote the entire book, it's impossible to convey here how bad it is.
Yet pillars of the literary establishment love it! The back cover contains flatulent blurbs by The New York Times, London Review of Books, Jeffrey Eugenides and James Wood. On the dust jacket right inside the back cover is the author photo, which makes David Means resemble his characters. He appears to have all the intelligence of a ripe squash.
For a minute, looking at the photo and reading the book, I wondered if the thing was one big put-on. A mock collection. A satirical joke. But no, they've been charging $23 for it, and the blurb writers are serious. They truly believe it's good. Which says a lot about the higher levels of the literary world.
The New Yorker, flagship publication of that world, originally published the title story with its depiction of rural Neanderthals stumbling vacantly about middle America. Likely because the story confirms a Manhattan stereotype.
David Means anyway, within the open spout of words, briefly becomes honest about what he does:
"--we'd meet just as we're meeting now. Except it would go on forever. The story would end and then it would just keep going, the way this one does. That's what it's about. It would keep going onward, like the light from a star. We know they're not going to find a way out, around it, and we know they're just going to continue--"
You've been warned.
PUBLISHER: Faber and Faber, Inc.
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 2.0
The New Yorker, flagship publication of that world, originally published the title story with its depiction of rural Neanderthals stumbling vacantly about middle America. Likely because the story confirms a Manhattan stereotype.
David Means anyway, within the open spout of words, briefly becomes honest about what he does:
"--we'd meet just as we're meeting now. Except it would go on forever. The story would end and then it would just keep going, the way this one does. That's what it's about. It would keep going onward, like the light from a star. We know they're not going to find a way out, around it, and we know they're just going to continue--"
You've been warned.
PUBLISHER: Faber and Faber, Inc.
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 2.0
Monday, December 5, 2011
Psychotherapy Insanity
NETSUKE by Rikki Ducornet
My actual at-the-moment thoughts about the author's viewpoint while I was reading this novel:
"I'm a very talented whacked-out man-hating obsessed-with-sex but very talented bourgeois woman writer with a lot of time on her hands to ponder/wonder/worry about sexual relationships while writing with sparkling prose this obsession about men as sexist self-involved manipulative monsters expressed through the character and voice of a smug smiling well-depicted self-destructive psychotherapist dominating others victims hapless naive putty-in-his-hands sheep including his wife plus a transvestite it's not general truth it's my truth at least it's art at least arty at least it's readable and not too long you may enjoy it."
PUBLISHER: Coffee House Press
http://www.coffeehousepress.org/
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 7.0
My actual at-the-moment thoughts about the author's viewpoint while I was reading this novel:
"I'm a very talented whacked-out man-hating obsessed-with-sex but very talented bourgeois woman writer with a lot of time on her hands to ponder/wonder/worry about sexual relationships while writing with sparkling prose this obsession about men as sexist self-involved manipulative monsters expressed through the character and voice of a smug smiling well-depicted self-destructive psychotherapist dominating others victims hapless naive putty-in-his-hands sheep including his wife plus a transvestite it's not general truth it's my truth at least it's art at least arty at least it's readable and not too long you may enjoy it."
PUBLISHER: Coffee House Press
http://www.coffeehousepress.org/
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 7.0
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Lethally Bleak
THE LETHAL INJECTION by Jim Nisbet
Many writers try to be bleak. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, authoress of bleakness, recent recipient here of a Blitz Rating, tries hard to be bleak. Not all who try to be bleak achieve it.
Jim Nisbet has been hyped as the bleakest and darkest-- most "noir"-- of all noir writers. It's not an exaggeration.
This is a problem from the reader's standpoint. Lethal Injection is an unrelieved depiction of a crude world populated by assholes. It's bleak.
There are four chief characters.
The ultra-violent black prisoner on death row in Texas is a heavily idealized homoerotic projection of the author's liberal ideology. The doctor who injects the prisoner is impressed by the condemned man's Nietzschean violence. He seeks to discover if the man was in fact innocent. This path leads the doctor to two depraved druggies, rounding out the quartet.
The doctor is so weak, characterless, and stupid, he gives the two druggies more power than they would otherwise have. This is the crux of the plot. Doctor or no, he's inferior in body, intelligence, and will even to them. They use that power.
Nisbet does this kind of thing very well, creating a world without hope-- an environment without humanity, only animalistic warped misfires of human beings operating across an inescapably ugly landscape.
At bleakness combined with violence, Nisbet has no peer. The noir experts are right. In the entire book there's not a single ray of light.
Lethal Injection is the kind of fiction Joyce Carol Oates wishes she could write!
PUBLISHER: The Overlook Press
www.overlookpress.com
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 7.0
Many writers try to be bleak. Joyce Carol Oates, for instance, authoress of bleakness, recent recipient here of a Blitz Rating, tries hard to be bleak. Not all who try to be bleak achieve it.
Jim Nisbet has been hyped as the bleakest and darkest-- most "noir"-- of all noir writers. It's not an exaggeration.
This is a problem from the reader's standpoint. Lethal Injection is an unrelieved depiction of a crude world populated by assholes. It's bleak.
There are four chief characters.
The ultra-violent black prisoner on death row in Texas is a heavily idealized homoerotic projection of the author's liberal ideology. The doctor who injects the prisoner is impressed by the condemned man's Nietzschean violence. He seeks to discover if the man was in fact innocent. This path leads the doctor to two depraved druggies, rounding out the quartet.
The doctor is so weak, characterless, and stupid, he gives the two druggies more power than they would otherwise have. This is the crux of the plot. Doctor or no, he's inferior in body, intelligence, and will even to them. They use that power.
Nisbet does this kind of thing very well, creating a world without hope-- an environment without humanity, only animalistic warped misfires of human beings operating across an inescapably ugly landscape.
At bleakness combined with violence, Nisbet has no peer. The noir experts are right. In the entire book there's not a single ray of light.
Lethal Injection is the kind of fiction Joyce Carol Oates wishes she could write!
PUBLISHER: The Overlook Press
www.overlookpress.com
REVIEWED BY: King Wenclas
BLITZ RATING: 7.0
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