Journey Under the Midnight Sun: Keigo Higashino
For the past two weeks, I've been hooked on reading Keigo Higashino's works. It's kind of funny because I stumbled on one of his novel by accident while I was looking for another Japanese novel to read. Suddenly my mind tugged to the point where I was still a college student at a university in Jogjakarta. Class was still hours before it started, so I decided to kill time by going to Gramedia. I haven't bought anything from here for months because of my financial situation back then, but I'd love to swarm the giant book store and gaze at those thousand books which was placed tidily on the shelves. Standing on one of the shelves, I grabbed a book because of its unique cover (I know, I know.. Judging a book by its a bad thing to do, but let's just say it was a hunch, a feeling worth to trust). All of them were still sealed so I just googled it and found a pirated version of it. As a began reading for like thirty minutes, I was mesmerized by how the writer told us a story with such simplicity, yet it didn't lack what you would call depth. I checked the phone and found out class would be started in thirty minutes. Damn, I almost considered to skip this class for once but I didn't want to miss another lesson in this particular subject, so I put the book to its place, and went back to campus.
For some reason which I already forgot, I didn't look back at the book and it vanish from consciousness for a long time until two weeks ago when I finished reading parade by Shuichi Yoshida. I couldn't wait any longer to read another Japanese novel, so I searched for a recommendation on Google. I'd already read half of the recommendation and thought maybe I should go for a random book when it hit me about the book I'd read more than a year ago. Thanks to ChatGPT, from the prompt I sent to it I was able to find my long lost book. It felt like a reunion somehow.. It didn't feel real, like you found some cash on your shirt pocket you didn't remember put it there days ago. Oh, I forget to tell you, It was Newcomer which I read first.
After eight other books, I was still entertained by his other works. But only after having finished this particular book today, I could say that he is him. There are strong reasons why I truly praise this masterpiece. For someone who never read this book before, I highly recommend you close this window right now and start reading the book. I don't want you miss out an opportunity to experience it by yourself.
It's started with a murder of a pawnshop owner, a man already old enough, leaving his wife and only son. I've got the impression that this would be another classic crime scene where the murderer has had some reason to take someone's life (probably the motive was related with the murderer's past). I didn't expect anything at all because I thought it would be like any other Keigo Higashino's books.
Well, I'm glad I'm totally wrong about it. The thing is, every some year I was told about the life of other people affected by the murder and the people who's involved back then. It was told in third-person omniscient point of view where the teller could know everything from within. The way Keigo try to picture a story from different time, different place, and different person was unexpected. From the perspective of a police detective, a student, a private detective, and many other roles. From teenagers to adults, about school and college life, work life, marriage life, post-divorce, and also the bubble era in 80s and not to mention other big thing that happened in real life, such as stocks, pirated nintendo games, and hacked software and material from a company. As the time move forwards, I finally get a glimpse of what happens in the past and what it causes in the future. Everything is intertwined and makes sense when I finally be able to connect the dots. This shows how Keigo is a genius by his implicit story telling.
The book reminds me that everyone has their own way to operate and live their life based on what they believe. The traumas they hold throughout their lives and the secrets they couldn't tell a soul about it. From rape, betray, murder, and many things that never crossed my mind before. There are also some conversations with a hint of metaphors which I still remember, such as goby and shrimp symbiotic mutualism or about the difference between adopted adult cats and kittens.
I could go on and on about this book but I think everything I have written above is enough to picture or describe about the book itself.
Kudos!
Comments
Post a Comment