Book Review - "The Fish in the Window" (Kanako Nishi)
This is my first book review on the blog! This was my first novel by Kanako Nishi. It hasn't been translated, but if you can read Japanese, I'd recommend it.
Details
- Original title: 窓の魚 (Mado no sakana)
- Genres: Mystery, character drama, with a dash of thriller (?)
- Translation: N/A
- Reading level: Easy ~ Medium （assuming JLPT N2+ proficiency）
- First publication: 2008
- Personal verdict: LIKE (+)
Summary
"The Fish in the Window" describes the events of a weekend trip of two young couples to a hot spring town. They talk, eat, soak in the springs ... but on the morning of the next day, a body is found floating in the inn's koi pond.
Each of the four chapters of the book desribes the events of the same day from different points of view: The down-to-earth but somewhat dull Natsu, chain-smoking and sullen Toyama, bubbly and cute Haruna, and childlike, friendly Akio. Each chapter reveals new aspects of the characters and their connections to each other. At the end of each chapter, there are also "witness statements" from unnamed characters that make brief appearances in the preceding chapter.
Review
(This first part is without spoilers.)
The summary makes the story sound like a classic whodunnit, but it's really not. The way the story is told reminded me a lot of Akutagawa's "In a Grove" (probably better known as its screen adaptation Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa) - the same series of events is described repeatedly from different perspectives. Each perspective offers some new insights, but things don't quite add up. Not all the dialogue is the same, different characters perceive things differently ... and the book leaves it to the reader to make sense of the information. I really enjoy this type of storytelling, so I was hooked.
I especially liked the investigation statements after each major POV chapter - the fact that the characters remain unnamed adds a lot to the air of mystery and weirdness. There are also some magical realism elements that reminded me of Murakami (like a cat that all characters can hear but not see) that add to the atmosphere even further.
In general, I was surprised at how dark this book was. I was expecting some light and romantic "base plot" that would then be overshadowed by the incident (which is mentioned in the blurb on the back of the cover, so you start the book knowing that it will happen). But as the book went on, it quickly became clear that there was something very "wrong" with each of the characters.
After the first chapter, I was thinking "hmm, there's something strange going on here..." And then with each following chapter, the dark atmosphere built and built, like the night encroaching upon the mountain inn. This is probably my favourite aspect of the book. Why do hot spring inns and spooky stories go so well together? I guess it's because they put the characters in a liminal space of sorts, removed from everyday reality.
Another element about this story that's very unlike a classic whodunnit (but that I liked) is that the "incident" doesn't get explored at all. The first half of the last chapter makes it seem like there will be a relatively straightforward explanation, but then the chapter veers off into a frankly quite bizarre and disjointed-feeling last scene that raises more questions than it answers.
I thought the ending added fit the atmosphere and the general style of the book, so I didn't mind (although it was confusing). But if you're a fan of stories with clean, tidy endings, this one probably isn't for you.
Click here for the spoiler part of the review
So, at the end of the book, the big question is ... what happened? Here's the interpretation I ended up with:The body in the pond was the woman with the peony tattoo that Natsu saw in the hot spring (at first I thought she was a hallucination of hers, but she turned out to be real after all). The same person is also Toyama's ex-girfriend (?) who kept calling him and might also be an acquaintance of Haruna (a fellow hostess/sex worker).
As to why she's in the same inn as the characters or why she dies, no idea. Apparently it was suicide, which she basically announces to Akio in the last chapter. It's implied she was the only person who could see the cat, which seems to be a kind of messenger or symbol of death (since the other person we know of who was able to see it was the former manager of the inn, who also committed suicide).
Death, in general, is one of the big themes of the book. One of the first lines of dialogue is Akio yelling "I wish I could die in a place like this!", which already felt like foreshadowing.
At least two characters (the woman with the tattoo and Akio) seem to have a direct "death wish." The other characters also have connections to death, but are at least one step removed from it. Natsu is at constant risk of death at the hands of Akio, Toyama is a chainsmoker and was "spared by death" in his youth, and Haruna could be connected in a more abstract manner (it's her "true self" that died, or is at risk of dying).
The unnamed characters in the investigation statements all seem to exhibit some sort of fascination with death, too. At least two of them call the body in the pond "strangely beautiful," and the old lady describes how she imagined how her grandchild would look in death.
All these characters could hear the cat, but not see it, which I took to mean as a metaphor how death is always "just around the corner" and can even be alluring (like a cute cat that you might want to look for, or a beautiful figure floating in a pond).
Another theme of the book is communication between people, or rather the lack of it. All of the main characters have some secrets or repressed feelings that they don't talk about, funneling the bottled-up energy into destructive behaviour that hurts themselves and/or others. Both couples (Akio and Natsu, Haruna and Toyama) also have dysfunctional sexual relationships, and in both cases, the root cause lies with the men. Considering that all the characters that die (or that we are told have died) are women, there could be some feminist angle here, but it's pretty unclear.
The pond with the fish (and the glass wall facing the bathing area) could both be a symbol of the thin, invisible barrier that separates us from others as well as the murky darkness within ourselves that we can never escape. However, a few of the characters (Toyama, Haruna) seem to have a change of heart at the end of their chapters, implying that not "all is lost." If we can talk about our troubles with others more openly and establish connections without having to fear rejection, maybe we can keep genuine connections and keep he darkness at bay - or something like that.
A more conventional / straightforward story would've simply had Akio as Natsu's killer - everything needed for a twist ending like that was right there. However, I like that the book didn't go there, as it would've resulted in a rather pedestrian "this guy who seemed nice was actually a total psycho all along" murder story.
As-is, the ending is pretty confusing and raises more questions than it answers, but this book is much more about the atmosphere and the themes, and in general I liked what it did with them.
As far as characters go, it's Natsu > Toyama > Haruna > Akio for me, considering both general likeability and the character writing. Akio probably has the most interesting underlying concept attached to him (feeling weak / inferior and finding twisted solace in being with someone who's even weaker than yourself), but his writing was just too heavy-handed and leaned a bit too much in the "murder psycho" direction.