I must confess that I haven’t read any “serious” English novels for quite some time, but 2 weeks ago, I started reading the relatively short Joseph Conrad spy novel The Secret Agent. The novel is only around 240 pages, but feels much longer due to Conrad’s dense prose. Despite this it remains a manageable read. My core experience with Conrad was Heart of Darkness during college; The Secret Agent felt much easier to read (based on my memory of slogging through Heart of Darkness nearly 2 decades ago), I think, because there is more plot development and involvement in the characters. And I am going to congratulate myself for finishing this book!
The novel centers around Mr. Verloc, who runs a seedy shop while acting as an agent for the Russian Embassy. When ordered to instigate an incident (plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory) or risk losing his subsidy (his main source of income), he embarks on a dangerous terrorist act that ends in tragedy.
The Secret Agent feels as relevant today as it did back in 1907 when the novel was published. Terrorist bombings are used pretty much the same way now as then – i.e. to instill fear and cause governments to react. As a spy novel (I would hesitate classifying it as a thriller, as the slow pace makes it NOT a page turner), I would pretty much call it the precursor to John Le Carre’s excellent early spy novels – that is, these are novels about mundane but complex characters caught in turbulent times. Mr. Verloc is not a James Bond, and Conrad is not fascinated by boyish adventures; his spies and their superiors are seedy politicians and officials looking to further their own careers at the expense of others. And incidents happen not really according to meticulous plans as much as by chance.
Recommended for people who have the tolerance for slow and difficult prose.
P.S. The quality of paper on these new Penguin paperbacks are really quite superior to the ones I used to read back in school. My guess is they won’t go yellow so quickly. Very nice.
Earlier this year I came across a brand new Chinese martial arts novel. Apparently a web site in China organized a competition to find new martial arts writers. 多情浪子癡情俠 by the female writer 鄭丰 won the top prize and was voted the most popular entry by web readers. 中華書局 published this novel in a 4 volume set, with the last two volumes debuting at the Hong Kong Book Fair. According to the blurb on the inside cover, the author was born in Taiwan, and received her university education in the US; she married and moved to London, before migrating to Hong Kong as a full time banker. She wrote the novel in London, a period when she did not have to work.
In my journey towards discovering more Japanese detective fiction, I came across the fiction of Yokomizo Seishi 橫溝正史. Noted for creating the extremely popular character Kindaichi Kosuke 金田一耕助, Yokomizo remains one of the most widely read authors in the genre today. Yokomizo plays an important role in the development and popularization of detective fiction in Japan. He became a professional writer before the start of World War II but fame came after the war ended. Publishing his works in serialized format in weekly magazines, Yokomizo quickly established a large following. A large number of his novels have been adapted into films including the famous Village of Eight Tombs 八墓村.
Higashino Keigo’s 東野圭吾 Yogisha X No Kenshin 嫌疑犯 X 的獻身 is the first full length Japanese mystery novel I have read. A sensational hit in Japan, the novel won numerous critic and reader polls, immediately turning the author into one of the island nation’s most successful writers after years of mediocre sales (though he did win a Rampo Award with his debut in 1985). Higashino is relatively unknown in the West as few of his books have been translated into English. Luckily, there is an abundance of Chinese translations of the author’s works, and I managed to pick up a copy of this novel a few weeks ago.
Lately, I’ve become fascinated with Japanese detective novels 日本推理小說. Perhaps “detective” is not the most accurate adjective as the genre covers a wide range of crime fiction. One of my first forays into this particular genre was Miyabe Miyuki’s 宮部美幸 collection of short stories under the title 寂寞獵人. This volume follows the adventures of a elderly second hand book store owner and his grandson. I found 寂寞獵人 interesting for several reasons. 1) The author seems more interested in books than in crime and most of the cases lead back to stories or specific editions of books. 2) Rather than imitating an Agatha Christie style of solving mysteries, the cases presented in this collection don’t come across as cryptic but are in many cases rather touching in that they explore human weaknesses and loneliness. 3) The most fascinating part of the collection is following the changing relationship between the book store owner and his teenage grandson. Perhaps the only negative aspect of the collection is that I found it to be a rather slow read.
