Zaregoto // Nonsense

A collection of what might be called anti-mystery novels. Wikipedia:

The narrator tends to try, in vain, to stay out of the story, but instead of being the bystander he wants to be, he always gets dragged into the center of everything. Even though it seems the narrator does a lot in the story, he always finds out at the end that whatever he accomplished was meaningless.

Zaregoto is the debut series of NisiOisiN, better known for other work (Monogatari, Katanagatari). The narrator, whose name is never revealed, is a regular Meursault — passive, apathetic, schizoid. His speech is compulsively ambiguous, with qualifiers and hedges tacked on one after another until you're not sure that he's sure of much of anything at the end. The books are chock full of circuitous conversations with half-hearted witticisms and vague and empty philosophical ruminations that often end up self-described as nonsense (hence the series title [1]). Even for a light novel, description is strikingly sparse — the word count is dominated by dialogue and narration, which leaves it all a bit airy, diffuse, insubstantial. If none of that sounds fun, then it's probably not for you :)

It was an adolescent favorite of mine, in large part because it's so shamelessly bizarre and offbeat, which I respect and find refreshing, but also (I admit) because it featured a literally me passively suicidal main character, and sometimes you just need to wallow in some edgy bullshit. Having long since forgotten the plots, I re-read some of the books recently, and wanted to collect my thoughts:

#1: Decapitation Cycle

This was the author's debut work, published when he was 21, and it won the Mephisto Prize. [2] Truthfully, his inexperience shows, and it comes a little poorly through the translation. Mystery novels are a mainstay of Japanese literature, and Zaregoto engages in a dialogue with the genre that's a little awkward to eavesdrop in on without the cultural background. That said, this book makes it a little easier: it could be described as a parody of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. A collection of geniuses is invited to a private island; murder, of course, ensues. There are incidental mysteries which serve no purpose but to confuse. There's a psychic character who can read minds, but it's never actually plot-relevant. There's a beautiful (spoilers follow) anticlimax where murderer is caught, but nobody cares enough to actually arrest them, and they walk away scot-free. To top it all off, after the whole mystery has seemingly been solved, the genius detective (whom everyone has hyped up throughout the whole story, despite being too busy to actually show up) finally arrives in the epilogue, exceedingly late, and informs our NPC of a protagonist that he missed a crucial detail which throws the whole plot into question before revealing the true motive and culprit. The effect is something like getting mugged, and sets a pattern for the series going forward.

#2: Strangulation Romanticist

I've seldom been so impressed by a sophomore effort. What's more, the author claims to have written it in one three-day binge — he's a graphomanic nutjob, so I'm forced to believe it, but scribbling off something like this in almost a weekend can only be attributed to an animating spirit beyond the self.

This book turns a closer lens onto the narrator than the last, and the character study is to its credit. A delightful element to highlight: the protagonist, while investigating the murder, runs into a serial killer, who promptly assures him that he's unrelated to the case ... they proceed to hang out and discuss, like, the meaning of life. It's hilarious. Like the last, this novel breaks the 'rules' of the mystery genre to strong effect. After finishing, I started plotting out a film adaptation (cutting some characters, shuffling some events, etc.), the first time I've been inspired in that direction. One remark: it is quite edgy. I admit to an affection for that sort of thing.

#3: Hanging High School

Simply just very bad, no way around it. Where Decapitation Cycle was about what (dis)qualifies someone to be a genius, and Strangulation Romanticist what (dis)qualifies someone to be human, this one tries to tackle what (dis)qualifies someone to be an enemy. It is action-heavy, and awful. That this comes on the heels of such a strong entry only makes the big step down seem bigger: in characters, in plot, in everything. I regret giving this my time and suffered from a strong reluctance to continue reading the series any further. The only nice thing I could say is that the humor was passingly amusing.

#4: Psycho Logical (part I)

A very strong start that devolves into a morass of introductions and setups for the real plot to happen in the following book. I'm not sure I could say it's worth it. This and the next novel focus on the relationship between the narrator and his codependent agoraphobic idiot-savant probably-soul-mate — unfortunately, she's probably the least charismatic character in the series, and it's really just a struggle to care. Her characterization is possibly intentional but nonetheless toxic to swathes of the series, and these entries suffer more than most.

#5: Psycho Logical (part II)

A plot and conclusion lightly derivative of the first book, alas. It does one interesting thing impossible to discuss without spoilers ... suffice it to say that fans of the unfortunately fictional Herbert Quain will enjoy the final chapter. [3] Not only is the answer to the mystery wrong, but the true solution is left as an exercise to the reader. It might even be impossible to definitively solve at all. The satisfaction at the subversion is sweet, of course, but not quite enough. A matter of taste, almost certainly.

#6 and others

To be read eventually.

All in all...

It's difficult to recommend Zaregoto. But if you have a thirst for subversion, if you arrive with a lightness of spirit, if you can abide or even enjoy the essentially juvenile, the deliberately insubstantial, the playfully elliptical: then you might find something worth your time. It's probably bad, but in many ways that I enjoy: for at least one person reading this, that's you, too.