Japanese

Yamada, Taichi. (2006/2005/2003/1983). Strangers (Ijin-tachito no Natsu). Trans. from Japanese byWayne P. Lammers. Great Britain: Faber and Faber (Ibid)(New York: Vertical)(Tokyo: Schinchosa).

 

The problem with translations is that you don't know who to fault for the trite language: the original writer or the translator. The stiffness, though, I attribute to the writer, who has worked as “a freelance scriptwriter” (info. on title page), a style that is different from novel writing. This paragraph is a good illustration of both complaints:

Everything seemed to follow the rules of conventional melodrama. Now he was putting on his shoes. When he was done, he would stand erect and act like he had one last thing to say. But he’d be too choked up to speak, so he would simply give another little bow and turn to the door as though shaking himself free of the emotions bottled up in him. This was how it was done in the hackneyed world that he and I had tried so hard to avoid. (p. 18).

As for the ending, I could leave it to you to decide when it’s obvious how it turns out; but I won’t. For me, it happened in “the bathroom” scene (see pp. 139-141) with the narrator Hideo (first mention p. 98) Harada (first mention p. 58) and his companion Katsura (first mention p. 58) ““Kei”” (first mention p. 59) Fujino (first mention p. 56). I won’t tell you, however, the small twist about the woman’s motive (see ch. 15 [pp. 181-196]). That part was actually cool, because it’s different from what I’ve seen with these kind of ghost stories.[1]

In general, Yamada (2006/2005/2003/1987)’s Strangers isn’t a horrible book. It’s just bumpy in terms of the writing, tries too hard with Hideo’s psychological weight (see especially pp. 4, 30, 69-72, 84-86), and is generally predictable.

[1] Two different speakers give the same info. about Kei, Hideo internally (see p. 3), Mamiya (first mention p. 9) externally (see p. 187)