What We Talked About This Time
Keigo Higashino has just died. In this livestream, I put forward a judgment that will probably offend quite a few fans: Higashino is an extremely good, truly outstanding writer, but he isn’t a genius-type writer. His novels are among the best things an ordinary brain can come up with, whereas something written by a genuine genius makes you feel that no normal human brain could possibly have thought of it.
Starting from that standard, I first talked about the only two of Higashino’s works that I’ve ever given a perfect score: Malice and The Miracles of the Namiya General Store. I also discussed why Journey Under the Midnight Sun and The Devotion of Suspect X, his most famous novels, actually get lower ratings from me, and why the core idea of Malice may not be entirely original. In the second half, I introduced three Japanese mystery novelists who carry more weight in my mind: Ryu Hayasaka, Yasuo Maya, and Otsuichi — the writer who welds adult-only material onto orthodox mystery, the writer whose story gets even more chaotic once the detective appears, and the writer with so much talent that he had to split off another pen name to write a different kind of novel.
This was a personal livestream reading list of Japanese suspense and mystery novels, with lots of audience Q&A woven in: how I manage to read so many books, why AI-sounding prose ruins the pattern “not … but rather …”, and at which part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure things start turning metaphysical.
Highlights
- My standard for calling someone a genius: genius has to make you despair. After finishing it, you should feel that maybe you might as well give up on this life.
- Why I consider Malice the high point of Keigo Higashino’s career, and why its core idea is almost exactly the same as one of Mikihiko Renjo’s short stories
- As far as I’m concerned, the trick in The Devotion of Suspect X doesn’t actually hold up. My verdict: “All that devotion for nothing.”
- Ryu Hayasaka’s Kamiki Ritchi series: remove the adult-only material from the case, and the entire book completely falls apart
- Yasuo Maya may be the only mystery novelist in the world whose story gets more chaotic after the detective enters
Jump to a section
- 00:00 Opening and equipment setup
- 02:56 Talking about Keigo Higashino and the Japanese mystery writers I like even more
- 05:43 Apologizing to Keigo Higashino’s fans: he’s excellent, but not a genius-type writer
- 07:39 My standard for genius: genius has to make you despair
- 10:06 Malice: the frightening thing isn’t the killer, but the motive that kills the heart
- 13:28 Doubts about Malice’s originality: Mikihiko Renjo wrote the same idea
- 14:32 The Miracles of the Namiya General Store and The Ultra-Murder Case
- 17:31 Journey Under the Midnight Sun: twisted enough, but it doesn’t resonate with me
- 19:17 The Devotion of Suspect X: all that devotion for nothing
- 24:21 Ryu Hayasaka: welding adult-only material and orthodox mystery together
- 26:14 Rainbow Toothbrush and The Double-Snake Locked Room
- 30:31 The Detective AI series, and a debut novel whose title itself is the answer to the mystery
- 35:19 Yasuo Maya: once the detective appears, the story gets even more chaotic
- 40:52 The One-Eyed Girl, Sonata in Summer and Winter, and MacArthur
- 45:13 Otsuichi: he has so much talent that he had to split off another personality
- 51:12 Black Otsuichi and White Otsuichi, and his connection with JoJo
- 1:01:21 Next time: Kotaro Isaka — why does he resemble Giddens Ko?
- 1:05:13 Audience Q&A: how I read so many books, AI-sounding prose, and JoJo
Leave a Reply