TWIB-III: 25 (3/30-4/5)
Apr. 11th, 2009 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanYes, I know I'm both way behind on TWIB and posting out of order. Unfortunately, I've recently read a string of books so bad I'm having a really hard time writing intelligently about why they suck without descending into long, profanity-laced tirades about the insults to my intelligence. At any rate, I read five books between March 30 and April 5; the one I'm going to discuss is:
1) 容疑者Xの献身 – 東野 圭吾
The Devotion of Suspect X - Higashino Keigo
I enjoyed the Suspect X movie but was irritated by several very obvious plot holes, which I hoped would be explained in the novel (winner of the prestigious Naoki Award). After all, movie adaptations are famous for making messes of their source material.
Well, as one Amazon Japan reviewer put it, the financial donations Suspect's publisher made to the Naoki Awards have paid off handsomely. Be it the flat prose, nonexistent characterisation, or the frequently fantastical leaps of logic made by characters who supposedly pride themselves on their superhuman reasoning faculties, this is one ho-hum novel. It's also Exhibit A in the case for why regular joes should not write stories about geniuses: they tend to believe that genius means choosing the improbable and convoluted over the simple and elegant, when all said choice really does is lead to gaping plot holes that destroy the author's credibility when he claims that these characters are Much Smarter Than The Rest Of Us...No, Really.
For all the intellectual ability Higashino ascribes to his characters, he seems to doubt the intelligence of his readers. His is an extremely basic style that also (for the Japanese readers out there) relies far too heavily on 「のだ」--indeed, relies on it to such an extent that I found myself mentally replacing the clause with an unfortunate English homophone while reading. "Character A went into the restaurant. He was going to eat lunch--no duh. It was lunchtime. So the restaurant was crowded with people eating--no duh."
I can't explain my issues with this novel any more concretely without giving away pretty much all of its twists, so let me end on this note: the major reveal had the potential to be compelling, but the novel sadly lacks the narrative appeal, internal consistency, and character development that would have made it believable
That will be all.
1) 容疑者Xの献身 – 東野 圭吾
The Devotion of Suspect X - Higashino Keigo
I enjoyed the Suspect X movie but was irritated by several very obvious plot holes, which I hoped would be explained in the novel (winner of the prestigious Naoki Award). After all, movie adaptations are famous for making messes of their source material.
Well, as one Amazon Japan reviewer put it, the financial donations Suspect's publisher made to the Naoki Awards have paid off handsomely. Be it the flat prose, nonexistent characterisation, or the frequently fantastical leaps of logic made by characters who supposedly pride themselves on their superhuman reasoning faculties, this is one ho-hum novel. It's also Exhibit A in the case for why regular joes should not write stories about geniuses: they tend to believe that genius means choosing the improbable and convoluted over the simple and elegant, when all said choice really does is lead to gaping plot holes that destroy the author's credibility when he claims that these characters are Much Smarter Than The Rest Of Us...No, Really.
For all the intellectual ability Higashino ascribes to his characters, he seems to doubt the intelligence of his readers. His is an extremely basic style that also (for the Japanese readers out there) relies far too heavily on 「のだ」--indeed, relies on it to such an extent that I found myself mentally replacing the clause with an unfortunate English homophone while reading. "Character A went into the restaurant. He was going to eat lunch--no duh. It was lunchtime. So the restaurant was crowded with people eating--no duh."
I can't explain my issues with this novel any more concretely without giving away pretty much all of its twists, so let me end on this note: the major reveal had the potential to be compelling, but the novel sadly lacks the narrative appeal, internal consistency, and character development that would have made it believable
That will be all.
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on 2009-04-14 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2009-04-15 05:58 am (UTC)