I like mystery novels for a long time, especially Japanese social reasoning. Because there has always been a tendency to think that criminal behavior must have its social roots, there has never been love and hate for no reason in this world. Compared with Seicho Matsumoto, Seiichi Morimura and Keigo Higashino, Kanae Minato's first novel with less than 200 pages can only be regarded as a sketch. Although it failed to reflect the magnificent social reality like previous masters, the exploration of the dark side of human nature should not be underestimated.

Since human nature is mentioned, let's discuss what human nature is first. In this regard, I personally agree with Wang Chong, a thinker in the Eastern Han Dynasty: "There are good and evil in human nature, and there are still noble and despicable points." Wang Chong believes that human nature will show different aspects in different environments. For example, in the heyday of enlightenment, people in the world are often kind, and in troubled times when social contradictions are prominent, they often appear sinister. The so-called "I don't help myself; White yarn into the basket, not practicing black. "

Confessions focuses on juvenile delinquency. As far as the root causes are concerned, minors have less social life and less economic pressure (possibly academic pressure), and things such as fighting for power and profit and killing people for money rarely become the motives of minors' crimes. So what makes these children hate the world? There may be two reasons: first, the activities of teenagers are narrow, and subtle changes in their surrounding life may have a major impact on them, leading to serious consequences; Secondly, compared with adults with self-control, teenagers are purer in mind and more direct in reaction. When the external environment is unbalanced, some evil factors in human nature are more easily exposed. From this perspective, teenagers, as the primary stage of life, are closer to the original nature of human beings because of insufficient education. The greatest significance of Confessions is that it successfully portrays the evil of human nature on young people, and shows us the amazing destructive power of this naturally revealed evil.

The title is Confessions, of course, mainly from the perspective of writing. The book consists of six chapters, which are confessions of five characters, all written in the first person. But at a deeper level, it reflects the irreconcilable contradiction between self and others: in the eyes of these people, others are always evil, and they are just innocent victims. All the characters in the book look at the world from their own standpoint and try their best to defend their actions.