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1950s mystery from the pioneer of Japanese socially realistic crime fiction
(Review date: April 2011)
This is a mystery story; it was first published in 1959, so it's more than 50 years old now. I picked it up because I'd previously enjoyed another book by the author (点と線).
The book is written in a 'tight third person' style; we follow the viewpoint of Teiko, a 26-year-old woman who has just got married. It's an お見合い marriage, so she doesn't know much about her new husband, Uhara Ken'ichi. During their honeymoon Uhara seems to sometimes behave a bit oddly, but he definitely seems to care for Teiko, and so she resolves that they will gradually find out more about each other as they begin their life together. Uhara has spent the last two years posted to Kanazawa on the northern coast of Japan, but is returning to his company's main Tokyo office so he can live in Tokyo with Teiko. However, first he has to make one final trip to Kanazawa to tidy up loose ends and hand over to his successor. Teiko goes to the station to see him off -- and that's the last she ever sees of him.
When her husband fails to come back from his trip on schedule, Teiko travels to Kanazawa to try to find out what has happened to him. She isn't a professional detective, so her progress in trying to find out what might have happened is slow; we spend much of the book, like Teiko, with no clear idea of what has happened -- has her husband run off somewhere, had an accident, or something worse? This plot structure worked better for me than 点と線, which is a murder story where it's fairly clear right from the outset whodunnit and mostly the detective is trying to break an alibi.
I liked reading about Teiko, who is thrown into this situation where her new husband has disappeared, she has no idea what's going on and half the people around her don't seem to quite take her seriously; yet she manages to cope, and to put together the pieces of the puzzle. I also enjoyed the late-fifties setting (which of course was contemporary at the time the novel was written): a glimpse of an earlier Japan where some people still wore kimono and the war and subsequent American occupation were still fairly recent memories. There's also a slight flavour of travelogue (although nowhere near as much as in Uchida Yasuo's detective novels) and the novel plays up the contrast between the gloomy snow country of Kanazawa and the occasional returns to a sunnier and warmer Tokyo. There is a slightly clunky section near the end which is extended exposition of what's happened and what Teiko thinks and has managed to work out, but it's not too bad.
I found this a generally straightforward read; the language is not obscure, and the plot is easy to follow. However at 320 large-format pages it's not a quick read.
The other interesting thing about the language in this book is that it uses the word 外人 (not in dialogue, but in simple descriptive text); I suspect that that wouldn't get into print these days. There's a note in the back of this edition saying that they've reproduced the original text despite it having some phrases that might be considered discriminatory from a modern viewpoint. My Japanese isn't good enough that I spotted any others, although I did wonder whether a modern author would use 部落 to mean 'hamlet, tiny village'.