Quote:
Originally Posted by haguruma
Actually it's exactly how you write certain kinds of mysteries. Especially when it comes to description tricks, which are huge in Japan's mystery fiction genre, you are expected to doubt what is given to you as much as what is kept from you. Only because you are witnessing a story as a first person narrative it's not at all given that you will gain every information concerning the solution. Just think of a certain Agatha Christie story where the whole reveal centered around the narrative mode being unreliable.
I agree that it stands on the boundary of a fair mystery, but the question is whether this was meant to be just that. The genre is, even by the author himself, categorized as horror and is clearly seperated from his pure mystery novels. But I admit that Ayatsuji Yukito tends to be a little bit too experimental with narrative unreliability and description tricks. Half of the time it works (e.g. Murder in the Waterwheel Mansion, Murder in the Labyrinth Mansion) and at other times it simply does not work out for me (e.g. Murder in the Decagon Mansion).
Yet I would rather group another with similar novels he wrote which tend more into the horror direction. Like Scarlet Whispering which is clearly inspired by Dario Argento's 70's movies. Those in turn were inspired by detective mystery fiction as well and some of them actually were quite clever mysteries (e.g. Profondo Rosso - Deep Red) but they are still grouped as horror or slasher films first.
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If the Agatha Christie Novel you have in mind here is S******* Mu****, then I can just agree. The difference between said Novels is that Kouichi hs both the narrative as well as the detective role, while Mrs Marpe does not have the former in mentioned Novel.
It is still a very good example for a few things that were bothereing me in this Novel too, actually even led me to the question whether Chibaki/original Misaki might be faking the pehnomenon. Namely the fact that S******* Mu**** is imho a very good example that both witnesses and culprits are allowed to twist the truth to their bidding as long as there are clues to the contrary.
Its just too bad that there is no official english translation for Another... Well hopefully once will come with Another 2....
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