東野圭吾 – Shosetsu.ninja

Bilingual Japanese Book Review: Powder Pursuit by Higashino Keigo

バイリンガル・レビュー：　雪煙チェース – 東野圭吾

Here is another entry in Higashino’s series about skiing and snowboarding. I also reviewed and posted a short translation of Hakugin Jack, from the same series. This novel features two of the same characters from Hakugin Jack, but it’s not necessary to read the previous novels before reading this one.

This is a murder mystery, but solving the murder is an afterthought to the story of Tatsumi, the prime suspect, fleeing the police as he tries to find the “goddess” who can confirm his alibi. It jumps back and forth from the perspectives of the fleeing second-rate college students to an underrated pawn in the police force and his partner in pursuit. It plays out as both a police procedural, complete with Metropolitan Police Department politics, and a fugitive story.

これは東野さんのスキーとスノーボードについてのシリーズの一冊になる小説です。このシリーズの作品の『白銀ジャック』もレビューしました。二人の登場人物は両方の小説に登場しますが、『雪煙チェース』を読む前に前の作品を読む必要がないと思います。

殺人ミステリーですが、竜実という主人公の逃亡で、アリバイを証明できる「女神」を探している筋書きは一番注目されています。二流大学生の逃亡の場面とポーンの警察と彼の相棒の追跡場面で交互に展開する物語です。警視庁の地位争いを含めた警察小説と逃亡者物語と同時に進んでいきます。

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Don’t Be Tricked by Katakana Words

Japanese borrows a lot of words from English. I have heard some Japanese learners lamenting the fact that new katakana versions of English words are replacing perfectly good pre-existing Japanese words.

The influx of too many new foreign words in Japanese makes the language more difficult to understand, less precise, and it may take away some of the charm of Japanese. This problem is acknowledged by the MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology). They have a document on their website talking about the state of the Japanese language with respect to international society.

Here is my translation of a small portion of the document.

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Unofficial Translation of the First Few Pages of Hakugin Jack (白銀ジャック) by Higashino Keigo (東野圭吾)

The suspense novel, Hakugin Jack (白銀ジャック) by Higashino Keigo (東野圭吾), is set in a popular ski resort. The plot centers around how the employees, managers, and executives handle a threat to the safety of their guests.

Instead of writing a review, I’m going to translate the first few pages into English. If you are thinking about picking up this book in Japanese, then maybe it will give you an idea whether it seems like something you would like to keep reading.

My other reason for trying a translation instead of a review is that, since this blog is written in English, I would like to do something that is more valuable to the reader than writing reviews for books in a different language. If it goes well, I may seek out other things to translate.

I’m going to keep reading and writing about Japanese books, so if you have an idea for how I could approach this that would be most helpful to you, then feel free to send me a comment.

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Japanese Novel Review: 夢幻花 – 東野圭吾

(mugenbana – Higashino Keigo)

Someone murders a retired man, living alone, who spends his time with his flowers. His granddaughter knows that he had a particular flower that he was especially excited, nervous, and not very forthcoming about, which had disappeared after his murder. She and the brother of a government official who seems very interested in the flower, go on a search to put all the pieces together concerning the murder and the flower as well as how they may be connected.

Higashino’s writing style is very smooth and pulls you right through the plot in a book that’s hard to put down. I find that he reminds me what is going on and who is who at just the right moments to jog my memory. I think his storytelling skills are very well developed through his many many novels. I have read one of his books before, and I would have read and reviewed something by him earlier, except that Higashino’s books are not available on Kindle for some reason, so it’s a bit harder to get my hands on one.

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