FICTION
Kioku no nagisa nite
[On the Shores of Memory]
Kadokawa, 2019. 592 pp. ¥880. ISBN 978-4-04-107307-0.
Also published in: n/a
Do a person’s memories, accumulated over a lifetime, vanish at the point of death? Couldn’t one imagine that “the information (memories) stored in our own computers (brains) are continually transmitted to an external host computer (the memory sea)”? What if it were possible for someone to get our own and our ancestors’ stored memories from the sea of information as necessity required? . . . Shiraishi’s novel is dynamically structured about this creative conceit. It can also be enjoyed as a mystery, rich in suspense.
The first part tells of the death of a world-famous Japanese author and his younger brother. Their nephew, a young writer, is compelled by circumstances to unravel what happened. Suspicious characters appear in turn around him as the stage shifts among different locations around Japan and then to London. The difficult path from clue to clue toward the solution is depicted in detail. Over a lengthy period, the nephew disentangles the mystery of the initially incomprehensible will and interpersonal connections, and a grand narrative takes shape of 150 years in the life of a family—and of human remembrance. Readers will certainly enjoy the experience of ever-deeper submersion in this fictional sea of memories. (OM)
The first part tells of the death of a world-famous Japanese author and his younger brother. Their nephew, a young writer, is compelled by circumstances to unravel what happened. Suspicious characters appear in turn around him as the stage shifts among different locations around Japan and then to London. The difficult path from clue to clue toward the solution is depicted in detail. Over a lengthy period, the nephew disentangles the mystery of the initially incomprehensible will and interpersonal connections, and a grand narrative takes shape of 150 years in the life of a family—and of human remembrance. Readers will certainly enjoy the experience of ever-deeper submersion in this fictional sea of memories. (OM)
By Shiraishi Kazufumi
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