Introduction

Title: 『リバース』
Author: Kanae MINATO (湊かなえ)
Published by 講談社文庫
338 pages

リバース has been adapted into a drama series featuring Tatsuya Fujiwara (藤原竜也).

Review

Overall, I enjoyed reading 『リバース』, but I somehow had a hard time to connect with the protagonist and to feel involved in his mission.

It took me two attempts to read this book as the beginning is very slow, and I gave up after 50 pages the first time I tried to read it. The main thing that discouraged me from reading this book the first time might be the way the story was told. The narration uses a lot of flash-backs, with a flash-back sometimes leading to another one, and I felt that the main story was not progressing, and that it was hard to connect with the characters.

I also personally dislike when novels talk about coffee, and this was a main theme in 『リバース』. I love coffee, I love novels, I love drinking coffee while reading books, but somehow I don’t like coffee in books. I feel like authors who talk about coffee in their books always end up saying the same things, and I feel like I have read similar descriptions of coffee a thousand times already.

However, when the story does kick off, the book becomes much more engrossing. I found the story very well done. There is a mystery to be solved, but solving it will lead our protagonist to make unsettling little discoveries, showing that things you took for granted are not always what they seem. This book says a lot about human relationships, friendship and how we perceive ourselves and others.

If the beginning is slow, the end is excellent. When you think that the story is over, the novel reveals a final unsettling truth…

I am glad that I picked up this book again and read it until the end. It is not my favourite Minato, but it was an enjoyable read.

『往復書簡』(おうふくしょかん) is a collection of four epistolary short stories by Kanae MINATO (湊かなえ) published by 幻冬舎文庫 (げんとうしゃぶんこ).

A journey to the past

With the exception of the fourth story, which is very short and a little different than the others, the three main short stories all follow a similar pattern: several people who share a common past or have a connection with it will start exchanging letters. In each story, there is a particular event that lies in the past, altered by the years, the incomplete memories and the things unsaid. The protagonists will unveil this past mystery and search for the truth.

I found this format very original and interesting. The stories show how a same event can be experienced and remembered completely differently by the person who where involved at the time. You cannot help but reflect about your own past. It is a little scary to think that your friends might have a completely different recollection or experience of some shared events.

In the end, what really happened matters less than the way people experienced it, because their interpretation of the past makes them what they are now, it forges their personality and can influence their choice. I find that Kanae MINATO depicts this perfectly.

Epistolary genre to dig the past?

I like epistolary novels, but I couldn’t help wondering if it is the best genre to dig into the past.

I am not an expert, but I feel that the epistolary genre is perfect when two persons who used to know each other are separated and talk about their own present life in their letters. In the opposite direction, two persons who don’t know each other can start a correspondence and each one talks about his or her own past.

The problem when people talk about a shared past through letters is that they will have to say things like “At that moment I said… then you replied… then I did… and you remarked that…” for the sake of the reader. I found this a little unnatural. Also, in the second story, one of the correspondent transcribes whole interviews in his letters. He would say “I will transcribe my interview with … :” and then the story reads like a novel, not like a letter. 

Another thing that bothered me a little is that the reason why the protagonists start writing letters is a little far-fetched. It is not something people would do in real life, I think. 

All in all, I loved the stories, but I am not convinced by the choice of the epistolary genre.

Conclusion

In spite of these negative points, I enjoyed reading the book because I love mysteries and I love when the past is not what we thought it was. But the pattern of each story is a little repetitive and while I loved the first story, liked the second one, I felt a little bored when I read the third one and couldn’t feel involved in the story. This is why I would recommend to read each story at different time, instead of all in a row. 

In 湊かなえ’s novel, the reader is invited to blink into a family’s untold secrets, but before we know it, we find ourselves sharing the protagonist’s emotions and feeling unexpectedly involved in her story. While personal tragedy and family drama give the novel its deepness, the mystery and quest for the truth make it a real page-turner.

I finished reading 「豆の上で眠る」 by 湊かなえ and I loved it! The story is much more complex and gripping than I expected it to be by just reading the summary.

The summary tells us that we are to expect a “sisters mystery” but I personally thought that the relationship between the little sister and the mother was much more fascinating than the mystery surrounding the two sisters.

The narrator and protagonist Yuiko is returning home to visit her mother who had been admitted to hospital. This trip will be filled with memories of the past, focusing on the disappearance of Yuiko’s big sister, Mayuko, when they were kids. Contrary to what the summary suggests, the story is not as much centred on what happened when Mayuko finally returned, as depicting the days following her disappearance.

I would say that this novel is the exact opposite of 「噓を愛する女」by 岡部えつ that I have read just before. As I wrote in my review of 「噓を愛する女」, the desire to unveil the mystery was the true motivation that kept me reading, and the relationships that bound the characters were dim. In 「豆の上で眠る」, even if we quickly feel that something is wrong and come to share the feeling of uneasiness of Yuiko, the mystery does not play the central role in this story. The relationship between the members of the family and the way Yuiko experienced the loss of her beloved sister and treasured child of the family is what makes this novel addictive.

While the novel is progressing toward the solving of the mystery, we go through bitter memories and distressful episodes that reveal, little by little, the unspoken cruelty that can lie beneath casual events. I found no pathos or lamentation as Yuiko recalls the painful episodes of her childhood, but the reserved and self-contained way Yuiko unfolds her story was balanced by my own emotions, that flowed over me as I made my way through the novel.

As the truth begins to reveal itself, it becomes impossible to stop reading. This book was a “reading in Japanese challenge” but it soon became my bedside reading!

As for the Japanese level, I would say that it was unexpectedly easy to read. When I read the opening chapter, I didn’t feel confident at all, which is normal given that I have to get used to the author’s style while dealing with new characters and a new setting. Once I became familiar with the characters and their relationships, I also felt more confident with the Japanese. One difficulty of the novel is that it intertwines two narratives: the present with Yuiko returning home during the Summer and the past with the events preceding and following the disappearance of Mayuko. The story keeps shuttling between past and present and, at the beginning, it always took me some time to realise that the novel had changed its focus. But then I learnt to pay attention to hints that told the reader what we are talking about. For example, when the present Yuiko talks about home, she uses the word “実家”, but when the past Yuiko evokes home, the term “家” is used.

This is an extract, to give you an idea of the novel’s difficulty and, hopefully, kindle your interest in it!

We are at the beginning of the novel, in the first evocation of Yuiko’s childhood. Yuiko’s sister Mayuko was good at reading and used to read Yuiko fairy tales from children books.

真佑子・まゆこ the big sister
結衣子・ゆいこ the little sister

真佑子ちゃんは幼い頃から本を読むのが好みだった。私は真佑子ちゃんのおかげでせっかく家に本がたくさんあるというのに、それを手に取ろうともせず、外で遊んでばかりいた。物語に興味がなかったわけではない。テレビアニメは夢中で見ていたし、絵本も眺めるのも嫌いではなかった。

苦手だったのは文字だ。真佑子ちゃんは幼稚園に上がった頃にはすでに、平仮名を全部読めるようになっていた。それを周囲の人たちから感心されたのが誇らしかったのか、母は私にも幼稚園に上がると同時に、文字を読むことを強要するようになった。街中の看板やポスターを指さしては、結衣子ちゃん、あれは何で書いてあるの？と人前でわざとらしく大きな声で訪ねてくるのだ。

– 湊かなえ、「豆の上で眠る」、新潮文庫、2017 (p. 11-12)

To conclude, I wholeheartedly recommend this book!

Ref .湊かなえ、「豆の上で眠る」、新潮文庫、2017