Black Otsuichi is a bit scary, it will bring a little coolness to the depths of your hair.
Bai Yi, like the snow on a winter night, glows pale white, illuminating the lost travelers.
Bai and Hei are not two writers, but two sides of a Japanese writer with a pen name.
In "Library on a Snowy Night", the library in Wenshan Temple Town is the crowning touch, whether as the main place or passing by. If this is a small town where stories are woven, then the library is the needle. Perhaps what B wants to tell us is that books are a mirror for us to reflect on ourselves, while reading opens the door to self-healing.
There are six stories in this book.
A "Novelist Creation Law"
There are two main characters in this short story-my sister Yin Chao, a "lead poisoning patient", and my brother Xiutai, who was in the mountains and later became a writer.
In the postscript of his new book, Mrs. Li Shan Xiutai recalled the reason why she started writing-to create fictional stories to counter the boredom of filling out the "class log" while on duty. This gained my first reader, teacher H, the head teacher, and I realized that I was writing for someone, making myself aware of the existence of objective views at all times, instead of writing where I wanted to write at will, which kept me writing until now.
This is considered by Xiu Tai as "the creative method of novelists".
However, this is not the case! (of course, this is just a white narrative trick. )
Mrs. Xiu did give Mr. H a notebook with countless words "Go to hell!" Write it on it -a message left for him by all the boys and girls in the class.
It is this notebook full of malicious attacks and teacher H's disbelief in this matter that has become the driving force for Xiu Tai's continuous creation. He wants to retaliate against the teachers and classmates in the primary school and let them beat their chests and feet, regretting not being friends with him.
He did imagine a reader in his mind, a person who, like himself, "hates teachers and classmates and hates everything." No one listens to their own voices, no one cares about their own opinions, and the world is too big for them.
In the face of the damage from words, the boy also used words to escape from the original dark reality and achieved healing.
At the end of the novel, Sister Yin Chao lit a notebook with a lighter.
"Paper is curled by heat, and one by one is swallowed up by the flame. I feel a little like crying. Mars jumps with the wind, floats into the void, and turns into white ashes after cooling, just like flying snowflakes. "
The injuries suffered as a teenager and the pain of bone erosion buried deep in the bottom of my heart have all been diluted by the words that have been appealed to the pen. In the end, they are just like a few pieces of white ashes falling in the snow and a little memory lost in time, and they are silent in the vast world.
Two "convenience store day peace"
It's sunny and windy. "Convenience Store Day" is "a beautiful day for convenience stores".
The interesting thing about this story is that its plot turns over and over again, subverting and subverting.
The hero and mistress went to a convenience store to "work as hourly workers" and found a man suspected of being a robber near closing time. Their fears finally came true. ...
What impressed me most about this short story is that every flip is actually a hidden foreshadowing, which can be said to be an example of how to "ambush" in writing.
In addition, humorous strokes and vivid details add some interest to this short story.
Also, the robbers were so naive and kind, and the ending was so warm. This is really a white Otsuichi. ...
Three "youth insulators"
In the first novel, Hideyoshi Yamada once again appeared as a high school student, personally explaining what "youth insulator" is.
"I don't have any friends in junior high school, so I hope to reverse the miserable life in high school. However, the injury and inferiority in my youth still made me very lonely. Just like missing the ball, even the simplest conversation with the cutest girl in the class may be screwed up. "
"For youth, I am like an insulator."
After joining the Ministry of Literature and Art, "I" got to know "Senior Sister", the president and the only member of the Ministry of Literature and Art..
I never understood why, from the first time we met, I, who can't talk to others, was able to talk to my senior smoothly.
It was not until a rainy morning a month later that I discovered the secret of my senior at the back door of the school. ......
Inferiority is like a sneaky thief, lurking in a corner of our growth path. After you are beaten by the wind and rain of life, you will follow you and become a "youth insulator". If you were hurt by it when you were a teenager, if you ever felt isolated from youth and happiness, then go and see this story. It tells you that you will never be alone on this thorny road of inferiority!
Youth is sometimes like a dark tunnel, and courage just waits quietly for the light at the end of the tunnel.
Four "fairyland"
In this story, the other side of white, black, shows a small face in a narrow way.
Although I feel a little uncomfortable after reading it, I have to admit that this is the strangest and most metaphorical story in this book.
The teenager found a key and fell into the paranoia of "looking for the corresponding keyhole" and looked around for the unopened keyhole.
A murderer tortured by a headache is looking for a woman's rib that matches the shape of the knife. "... like a key with a lock, if it matches perfectly, a woman's ribs will bounce off, and that's the gate of heaven. In this way, the headache will be gone. "
The effort to find the keyhole finally led the boy to find the empty house. ......
In the second half of the story, the interweaving of dreams and reality is a bit brain-burning. I once thought that this teenager was a murderer with a headache in his youth.
The speculation of the librarian (the elder sister of the patient with severe lead poisoning in the first book) and the experience at the end bring the novel to the chilling truth. ......
Five "flags of the kingdom"
A fairy tale.
"I" got into the trunk to sleep, and was taken to their changed "kingdom" by the teenager Amy from an abandoned bowling alley.
The kingdom is full of "children", who play their parents during the day and come here at night to be their own children and teenagers.
As the only "adult", "I" was placed under house arrest by Amy after refusing to give up my name to join the kingdom, but was secretly released by Amy's companion A Feng.
Amy chased me to the bus stop, but instead of stopping me, she gave me a silver key to the bowling alley. That's the key that the teenager found in his last work Wonderland.
Later, I went back to look for the kingdom, but it seemed to disappear with the fog, and I couldn't find any trace anymore. Even the people at the platform bus company have never heard of it.
Is there really a kingdom in this world?
Until I saw a yellow crown in crayon drawing in a children's picture book in the library-a huge crown painted with yellow pigment on a red cloth in a bowling alley. ......
Creating an "ideal country" that only belongs to children is probably the dream of many Japanese.
Few cultures are as divided and antagonistic as "children" and "adults" in Japan. In literary works, children, even teenagers, are "children who know nothing" in the eyes of adults. In the eyes of children, adults are also "ugly and hypocritical adults."
In such a culture, many minors feel that they are just playing as their own "children" in front of their parents. Only by giving up the names given by their parents and being with peers who really understand themselves can they be their true selves.
This seemingly fairy tale story has the spirit to tear off the gorgeous mask and stare at the truth of life.
Six "white footprints"
What happened to you in the parallel world?
Two people in a parallel world, Yuji Kondo and Suixiang Watanabe, stumbled across each other's footprints in a snow-covered town of Wenshan Temple.
I can't see people, I can't hear voices, only footprints that appear out of thin air in the snow.
The two men had a hard time figuring out the situation and left words in the snow to communicate with each other.
Kondo, who lived a boring life, learned through Suixiang that he had a wife named Yin Chao in the parallel world, and his life was not as bad as his own in this world.
Watanabe Suixiang didn't want to go out shopping, so she deliberately hit her mother when guessing boxing. Her mother was killed by a truck driver who lowered her head to change CDs while shopping. Sui Xiang didn't get rid of the guilt of killing her mother until she met Kondo's footprints.
At the end of the story, Kondo helped his mother and daughter meet on the bridge. At the prompt of Watanabe, he found the tide sound in his own world. "At present, we are still strangers. I know nothing about her. But who can say that this is not some kind of beginning? We are like pedestrians who are forced to grope in the dark without flashlights. Even if we take a little shortcut, the gods will spare us. "
Helping Suixiang's mother and daughter reunite, let Kondo realize that "even if I am alone, it is a meaningful life".
Sui Xiang and her mother stood on the bridge, eagerly writing words on the snow to pour out their worries, and finally understood each other and opened their hearts.
The two people who left their first footprints in the snow for searching finally found the answer they were looking for.
This story, the most popular with Otsuichi, is also his favorite words flowing from the brain hole.
At first glance, the hero and heroine of Parallel World are a little brain-burning, but they are full of fun when they look closely.
Finally, the setting of parallel world is more difficult to write than the setting of meeting in the same space at different times (such as You Jie Grocery Store), and the brain hole is bigger.
Seven Postscripts
In the postscript, Otsuichi describes the birth of this book and how to expand and regenerate six short stories with strong Otsuichi style with readers' inspiration as the core idea.
Interestingly, Otsuichi interspersed some of the same clues in his six novels, such as the Wenshan Temple-machi area in Tokyo, the library, the tide of lead poisoning patients, the novelist show in the mountains, the murder in winter, the silver key, the heavy snow around the New Year, and so on. , making the six novels that had nothing to do with each other have secret passages and foreshadowing interests everywhere.
In Japanese, "Hattori" means "bonsai". Otsuichi borrowed branches from The Reader to create a "box court" with different meanings and images, which is a superb display of creative techniques. The library is not only a clue to the whole book, but also an encouragement to readers: constant reading and creation is the only shortcut to improve writing ability.