The Village of Eight Graves

 

The Village of Eight Graves, edition published in 2021.

Seishi Yokomizo (1902-1981) wrote very compelling murder mysteries, mainly featuring private detective Kosuke Kindaichi. In The Village of Eight Graves, which was first published in 1950, Kindaichi, with his usual strange appearance in raggedy cloths and his quirky habit of scratching his head, hovers in the background, but is very much essential to identifying the perpetrator of a series of very grizzly deaths, mainly by vicious rapid-acting poison. Here is the narrator's first impression of Kindaichi:

"He must have been thirty-five or thirty-six. He was of slight build and had shaggy hair, and no matter the angle at which you looked at him, he seemed distinctly unimpressive. To make matters worse, he was wearing an old and threadbare serge hakama: at best, he looked like a village clerk or a primary school teacher. And to top it all off, he seemed to have a slight stutter." (The Village of Eight Graves, p. 87). 

I enjoyed reading the descriptions of a village in Japan in around 1950. Unlike several of the other novels by Yokomizo, this one doesn't have a lot of detail about the recent war and its desperate aftermath: the characters seem to have returned to a more normal way of life, though there are mentions of some of their wartime experiences and traumas. Among the details are many food references, but most of them are obsessively related to the painful sudden deaths at the hands of the unknown poisoner! Eventually every innocent rice ball or dish of pickles is suspect. For example, after one of the victims, a Dr. Kuno, is found to have been poisoned from eating rice balls, his wife explains why she couldn't have been the one who gave him this food:

"Dr Kuno’s wife testified that his flight had been so sudden and unexpected that nobody could have prepared any food for him to take. Furthermore, he was so unskilled with these things that there was no way that he could have prepared them for himself. Even assuming, at a stretch, that he had tried to prepare them at home, somebody would surely have noticed. After insisting on all of this, Mrs Kuno blushed to add that her family, large as it was, always worried about not having enough food to put on the table. In recent years, they had lacked the money even to cook white rice, let alone to make rice balls." (p. 256). 

 

The narrator of this novel is a kind of innocent bystander who is drawn in by a variety of coincidences and mysterious connections with the people in this story. Until he received a call from a lawyer in the city where he lived and worked, he thought he knew his own identity — but he has nothing but surprises in store for him as he becomes enmeshed in the terrible history of the village to which he is called. The prologue to the novel describes a horrific crime spree by a murderous man which occurred around 25 years before the action of the novel, and which preoccupies the villagers throughout the story.

The atmosphere of this story is particularly chilling because so much of the action takes place in a labyrinthine network of limestone caves beneath the village. Twisty passages connect to one another in a very scary way, and a deep pool of water is the object of superstitious avoidance. The narrator is constantly having to hide in these passages, and he makes several surprising discoveries as he explores them with a lovely young woman from the village.

As in several other works by Ykomizo, Japanese traditions and folklore, like goblins, are often part of the story. For example, various rock formations in the caverns have names from folklore -- particularly a formation called “The Goblin’s Nose.” To illustrate a goblin's nose, I've selected a woodblock print of a goblin with an elephant, by Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861). 

Other traditions that the narrator mentions include the Noh drama: a particular Noh mask turns out to conceal a spy hole in the wall of a family home. Japanese religious traditions are also part of the story, and several Buddhist priests and nuns play an important role in the village and in the suspenseful drama of the murders and attempts to find the perpetrator.

Having read several other mystery novels by this lastingly popular writer, I can see why his works continue to be so successful in Japan. Every one is different from the others, and surprising in plot, setting, and characters, though Kindaichi appears in most of them. Yokomizo’s mysteries have been dramatized in a variety of TV shows in Japan, and even in video games.

Review © 2023 mae sander

The Setting Sun

About the corrupt and idle noble family, whose life in 1947 is portrayed in his book The Devil’s Flute Murders, mystery writer Yokomizo wrote:

"This was all before Osamu Dazai wrote his work Setting Sun, about the decline of the aristocratic class after the war, so we did not yet have ready terms like 'the sunset clan' or 'sunset class' to describe these people, newly bereft of their noble privilege and falling into ruin. But, if we had, then I think it likely that this case would have been the first to see the term used." (The Devil’s Flute Murders, p. 17).

I quoted this in my review of  Yokomiso’s book earlier this week, and then decided to read Osamu Dazai’s very famous book The Setting Sun, which in a way defined the postwar era as Yokomizu said. Luckily, I already owned this book, along with many other classic Japanese novels. 

Wonderful Japanese classics that I might read again, based on Haruki Murakami’s list.

In reading both Yokomizo’s detective novel and Dazai’s work of literary fiction, I learned that Japan before World War II had a class of titled aristocrats as well as an Emperor, and these aristocrats had much inherited wealth and did not perform productive labor. Noble families lived on large estates with a number of houses, sometimes designed in both Japanese and Western style. Like European aristocrats, the Japanese nobility relied on numerous servants, who cooked for them, served their meals, took care of their beautiful silk kimonos and other clothing, aired and folded their bedding in the morning, and filled their large bathtubs in the evening. The new Japanese constitution outlawed titles and hereditary peerage. The constitution took effect in May of 1947: the characters in both novels are highly aware of this official loss of status that they have experienced, or are experiencing during the events of the two books.

Also in 1947, conditions in bombed-out, burned-out cities were disastrous for rich and poor Japanese people. All necessities, including food, were very scarce for everyone, with black marketeers creating even more problems. Neither of these authors describe the plight of poor people, though one knows they existed, and in fact many lacked not only food but also shelter. Despite being somewhat better off than the poorest citizens (to whom they were suddenly equal before the law), the aristocrats in the novels felt very deprived: their former unearned standard of living simply could not be maintained. In both stories, the noble families include one relative with a bit of his fortune remaining — and the entire family wants to depend on this person. However, that doesn’t last long. 

In The Setting Sun, Dazai’s narrator is a 29 year old woman, Kazuko, who has formerly lived a completely idle and undemanding life with her mother and her recently deceased father. Her brother is missing in action somewhere in Pacific theater after the war, and when he appears, he’s quite a mess. 

Kazuko suddenly finds that she and her mother must move from their rather luxurious home in Tokyo to a small house far from the city they knew. At the insistence of her uncle, who more or less takes responsibility for them, she and her mother, and later her brother, must figure out how to live with no servants, and how to cope with postwar food shortages and other challenges. Her mother is good-natured, very passive, and doesn’t even try to understand what has happened, but assumes that she will continue to be cared for, fed, nursed, and be handed whatever she needs despite her sudden loss of status, money, and servants. She loves her son and her daughter, but fails to understand what they are going through.

Kazuko tries to insulate her mother by doing heavy farm labor to keep them supplied with vegetables, and by selling their valuables one by one: clothing and jewelry, etc. While her uncle tries to help them, he too is rapidly losing his sources of income (the details are vague: we don’t really ever know where their wealth came from previously). Her brother, after being repatriated from the former war zone, spends most of his time drunk; he becomes addicted to opium, takes any money they have, and often goes to Tokyo where he has disreputable friends with artistic careers but little moral character.

Choices are limited, and Kazuko descends into self-destructive behavior, attempting to become the mistress of a dissolute artist who maintains a Bohemian and corrupt lifestyle. Quite a bit of the short novel consists of the long letters she writes to this man, attempting to explain her position in society (or her lack of a position). It’s a very dark book, with an even darker ending. Her efforts to find herself are very fascinating, and I haven’t really captured the spirit of the book in these few paragraphs. It’s a portrait of a person deprived of the environment she had been accustomed to expect. At the same time it is a portrait of a society that has changed drastically and for the complacent aristocracy, has changed catastrophically.

My impression, based on both The Setting Sun and The Devil’s Flute Murders, is that Japan was lucky to be rid of the idle and unproductive nobles, who were effectively living as self-indulgent parasites. This impression is based solely on the two books, and I think this was the intention of both authors. It’s amazing to imagine this long-ago and very alien era compared to dynamic and democratic life in Japan today — if I am not misinformed! I wonder if the few nations on earth that still maintain such an idle class would be lucky if some catastrophe had rid them of these parasites. Finally, I wonder about our own billionaires and how their excessive lifestyle will be able to continue!

Review © 2023 mae sander.

“The Devil’s Flute Murders”

 

The Devil’s Flute Murders by Seishi Yokomizo is a very creepy murder mystery, full of sinister, desperate, and unscrupulous characters. Detective Kosuke Kindaichi is called to work with a family of former nobles just after the end of World War II, in 1947. The country is in terrible shape because of the wartime bombings and fires that have destroyed many houses and entire neighborhoods. The formerly wealthy and idle members of the family have all moved into buildings on one estate, where destruction has been only partial. Kindaichi finds them full of resentment. unpleasant rivalries, old feuds, and emotional dysfunction. Clearly, he hates working with them to solve a mysterious suicide, a locked-room murder, and then other murders in the family. 

Discussing the family's corrupt and idle habits, Yokomizo wrote:

"This was all before Osamu Dazai wrote his work Setting Sun, about the decline of the aristocratic class after the war, so we did not yet have ready terms like 'the sunset clan' or 'sunset class' to describe these people, newly bereft of their noble privilege and falling into ruin. But, if we had, then I think it likely that this case would have been the first to see the term used." (The Devil’s Flute Murders, p. 17).

I found the family and their ugly history to be just as distasteful as Detective Kindaichi did. Their arrogance and inability to cope with the recent loss of privilege, which happened to all the Japanese nobility in 1947, isn’t amusing at all. What I did find very interesting was the detailed description of life in immediately postwar Japan as experienced by the detective and his police colleagues. For example, at a family meal which Kindiaichi shares: "Tokyo still struggled with food shortages in 1947, so lunch was a very modest affair, but it managed to satisfy." (p. 122). The few details about food show it to be pretty sparse, such as a lunch of "salad and finger sausages." (p. 295)

Kindiaichi had to make several trips to search out witnesses in other parts of Japan, which in the postwar chaos was also difficult: 

"Travelling was a still a hardship in the autumn of 1947. Even getting a train ticket was no mean feat. Luckily, Kindaichi’s connections with the police simplified that issue, but since the trains tended to be packed with black marketeers and their buyers, they were not places where public displays of police presence were welcome, and his connections did not go as far as securing him a proper seat. So now, Kindaichi found himself squeezed into this sardine-can of a train car looking like a crumpled handkerchief and gasping for breath."  (p. 141). 

As Kindaichi's search for needed answers to more and more questions about the past of the family, he uncovers more and more unsavory details that have created their murderous present-day situation. It's a suspenseful book, and interesting also because he finds them so revolting, and because the final explanation is, of course, quite surprising.

Seishi Yokomizo (1902–81) was a famous and much-loved Japanese mystery writer. I have read three other books of his: The Honjin Murders, The Inugami Curse, and Death on Gokumon Island. His best-known creation is Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, who appears in many of the author's novels. Yokomizo’s mysteries have been dramatized in a variety of TV shows in Japan, and even in video games. The novels are currently being republished in English: this is a recent edition.

Review © 2023 mae sander

"Death on Gokumon Island"

Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo, was originally published in Japan in 1948. The action of the novel takes place in 1946, during the painful era just after World War II. At the beginning of the novel, private detective Kosuke Kindaichi, very recently discharged from military service, has traveled to a small island to bring to a family the news of the death of their son Chimata, formerly his comrade.

 

Kosuke was with Chimata when he died of malaria; they were on a troop ship taking them home from the war. Chimata's last words were:

“I don’t want to die. I… I… don’t want to die. I have to get home. My three sisters will be murdered. But… but… I’m done for. Kindaichi-san, please… please go to Gokumon Island in my place. You know that letter of introduction I gave you?… Kindaichi-san, I didn’t mention it until now, but I’ve known for a long time who you were… The Honjin murder case… I read about it in the newspaper… Gokumon Island… please go there. In my place. My three sisters… My cousin… my cousin—” (Death on Gokumon Island p. 28). 

And these last words set the stage for the series of murders just as the dying man had predicted. Almost immediately after Kosuke arrives and delivers the tragic news and the final letter, the predicted murders begin. They are very ritualized, including visual references to famous haiku poems, to Noh drama, and to similar cultural norms. The arrangement of the bodies of the three sisters reflect these references, meaning they are strange and rather grisly. The sisters had been very silly teenagers, dressed in elaborate and elegant kimonos and always giggling, even at inappropriate times; this makes their deaths even more grisly.

The setting of this novel dominates the impression it makes. Gokumon Island life is very old-fashioned, with a hierarchy of power held by the owners of fishing rights. The homes and the temple are furnished in a traditional manner, some of the people continue to wear Japanese rather than western clothing, they use old-fashioned artifacts, and their relationships are essentially feudal. Reading this can be challenging, but it's very fascinating.

The war has impoverished everyone, as well as having taken away most of the young men for service; their slow return from the many war locations -- or their families' constant search for information about them -- is a recurring theme of the novel, and very tragic. Rice and other food is scarce. For example, when Kosuke arrives, he says “I hope it’s not too much trouble to you. I’ve brought a little rice with me, but—” and the reply is “No, no. Don’t worry about that at all. However poor we islanders may be, we can always find enough to feed one extra mouth." (p. 16). In a later scene, an intruder steals half a pot of rice from the temple kitchen -- and this is seen as significant! (p. 90)

Nevertheless, there was food for the detective during his investigation; for example, "Breakfast at the temple was a simple affair. Steamed rice with barley, miso soup and a couple of slices of pickled daikon radish." (p. 106). Such simple food was essential; for example, a band of robbers had taken from the wealthy house: "a cooking pot, a bag of rice, a jar of miso paste, several daikon radishes, dried fish, a cooking knife, a rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks." (p. 198). 

The plot is very convoluted, and detective Kosuke's eventual unravelling of who is responsible for the murders is ingenious and surprising. At times it's hard to follow, but the author provides occasional summaries of what's known, which are helpful to the reader. I have read one other novel in the series, The Inugami Curse, reviewed here: A New-Old Mystery Novel from Japan.

Seishi Yokomizo (1902–81) was a famous and much-loved Japanese mystery writer, and Detective Kosuke Kindaichi -- who appears in many of the author's other novels -- has been in a variety of TV shows in Japan, and even in video games. The novels are currently being republished: this is a recent edition.

Review © 2023 mae sander.

A New-Old Mystery Novel from Japan

"Let it be a lesson to us all that even good intentions can lead to great tragedy if not executed with the utmost care."  -- Seishu Yokomizo, The Inugami Curse p. 10.

 

Seishi Yokomizo (1902–81), author of The Inugami Curse, was a famous and much-loved Japanese mystery writer, according to the biography accompanying the recently re-published novel. 

What I find highly interesting about the novel is its setting in a small rural city in Japan immediately following World War II. Two central characters are just-returning soldiers who were part of the Japanese troops in Burma, and who suffered greatly. They are shocked to find new attitudes of defeat and conciliation instead of the spirit that prevailed before: "pride and sense of responsibility had supposedly been ingrained in all Japanese people before the war." (p. 313).  I've read very little about this era, which must be very uncomfortable to remember. Interestingly, while the effects of bombardments and destruction of the war are mentioned, there is no reference whatsoever to American occupiers.

The plot  of The Inugami Curse is very involved, with an unusually large number of characters, both victims and suspects, as well as a quirky detective brought in before even the first murder occurs. Private Detective Kosuke Kindaichi is baffled by the events throughout most of the novel, but works it all out in the end. The ten members of the Inugami family — along with a few individuals from connected families — are mourning the family founder, a rich industrialist who made a fortune in silk manufacturing. The elderly Inugami leaves a puzzling and contentious will to dispose of his large industrial holdings to his very complicated family, including three daughters each by a different mistress. 

The will gives every one of them a motive to do away with at least some of their close relatives. Wow! Let the killing begin, and so it does, with plenty of suspense and torment.

An Inugami Dog Spirit (Wikipedia)

Many very Japanese details make The Inugami Curse fun to read. For example, three symbols: an ax, a chrysanthemum, and a koto (Japanese zither) represent the family and its founder's identity and become important clues in the murders. Kabuki and Noh dramas are often mentioned. And the name Inugami itself means a type of supernatural dog in Japanese folklore, suggesting the mysterious origins of the founder, who started life as a wandering orphan. This meaning looms over the increasingly accursed family. 

Beautiful descriptions of the landscape and the weather contrast with the constant sense of foreboding and the grizzly details of the murder victims; for example:

"The autumn had grown deep in this mountainous region, and a pleasant breeze swept shimmering over the azure-green surface of the lake. It was high noon, and across the way, the autumn sun glittered on the stained glass windows of the Inugamis’ European-style villa. Everything was peaceful, a moment caught in a painted landscape. Yet, as he gazed at the enormous building on the lake, Kindaichi could not help but feel a chill run up his spine." (p. 48). 

The Japanese mystery novel traditions in the twentieth century owe much to the classic traditions of English mystery stories, including those that take place in lavish country houses similar to the one in this novel. Seishi Yokomizo was one of the founders of this tradition. I was a bit surprised that one feature of British novels -- the use of food and meals as a way to advance the story and characters -- was missing here. The members of the family never eat a meal together: they are too hostile to one another. And the detective isn't big on meals either. There are only brief mentions like these, showing the indifference of the detective to food (not at all like Poirot!) --

"A car from the Inugami estate arrived not long after Furudate’s phone call, so Kindaichi wolfed down his bowl of rice and hurried outside." (p. 96).

"'Chief Tachibana, Mr. Furudate, Mr. Kindaichi, I have some food prepared for you in another room, so please help yourselves.' ... Guided by the maid, the three men retreated to another room. They had just finished eating when two detectives, soaked to the skin, came bustling in. They were two of the men who had gone to find the missing boat." (p. 122). 

The Inugami Curse, also called The Inugami Clan, was  originally published serially in Japan in around 1950, published in book form in 1972, and translated into English in 2007 or maybe earlier. It's also been made into a film (IMDB link), and Detective Kosuke Kindaichi -- who appears in many other novels by Seishi Yokomizo -- has been in a variety of TV shows in Japan. For a detailed book review see this post at Pretty Sinister Books: https://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2011/11/inugami-clan-seishi-yokomizo.html