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ディスコ探偵水曜日 #3
ディスコ探偵水曜日 (下) [Disuko Tantei Suiyōbi]
- GenresLight Novel
603 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2008
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56 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 26, 2022
Not a full review, just some vague thoughts about Disco Wednesdayyy that I wanted to write down.
Disco Wednesdayyy is a book whose plot is constructed almost entirely out of interlocking Ouroboroses. When I finished volume 1 for the second time I made a post about "straightening out the Ouroboros", but in the end the characters aren't really able to do that. The world is in the state it is because of the actions the characters take, and the characters take the actions they take because the world is in the state it is in. At every point in the book both egg and chicken eggsist side by side. So rather than straightening it out, reading parts 3 and 4 of Disco is seeing how all the heads of these Ourobori bite their respective tails, and discovering more Ourobori that need to be connected.
Both times that I read volume 1, I wasn't particularly a fan of part 1, my main gripe being that the pacing feels too fast in a way that skips over information/leaves me feeling confused in a way that I didn't find engaging a lot of the time. But now having read all of Disco, I now feel that part 1 makes considerably more sense. When you open up that first page, Maijo is throwing you into a world that operates on bizarre logic, except you don't realize the extent of that bizarre logic until you're well into part 4. Maybe this is another Ouroboros?
Also, Mercury C comes from the future and already knew everything that was going to happen in the pinehouse and how to travel through spacetime, fight me.
Disco Wednesdayyy is a book whose plot is constructed almost entirely out of interlocking Ouroboroses. When I finished volume 1 for the second time I made a post about "straightening out the Ouroboros", but in the end the characters aren't really able to do that. The world is in the state it is because of the actions the characters take, and the characters take the actions they take because the world is in the state it is in. At every point in the book both egg and chicken eggsist side by side. So rather than straightening it out, reading parts 3 and 4 of Disco is seeing how all the heads of these Ourobori bite their respective tails, and discovering more Ourobori that need to be connected.
Both times that I read volume 1, I wasn't particularly a fan of part 1, my main gripe being that the pacing feels too fast in a way that skips over information/leaves me feeling confused in a way that I didn't find engaging a lot of the time. But now having read all of Disco, I now feel that part 1 makes considerably more sense. When you open up that first page, Maijo is throwing you into a world that operates on bizarre logic, except you don't realize the extent of that bizarre logic until you're well into part 4. Maybe this is another Ouroboros?
Also, Mercury C comes from the future and already knew everything that was going to happen in the pinehouse and how to travel through spacetime, fight me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2021
A pure masterpiece from start to finish.
March 12, 2023
What happens when you stuff every trick or twist that could be used in a mystery/SF novel and connect them all to make sense? You get Disco Wednesdayyy! Well, obviously not 'every' but this novel included all tricks that I have read so far in mystery and science fiction novels so for me the use of the word 'every' is quite correct. All I can say about this magnum opus is that I feel bad for readers all over the world who have not yet read this book and are probably not even aware that such a great book exists.
June 9, 2022
The "second part" is literally one of the absolute best things I have ever read in my entire life. Just read it.
May 24, 2022
The "second part" is literally one of the worst things I have ever read in my entire life. Just don't.
June 1, 2025
Disco Detective Wednesdayyy: The Banach-Tarski Paradox and Authorital Intent Beyond Post-Modern Literature
(word limit doesnt allow me to post this in full, so check comments for the other parts of this writeup)
_______
Extract from 'Nachtland' by Marius von Mayenburg:
"A work of art is only what an artist says, if there is no artist there is only silence"
"Not so, there are works of art that speak to me even though I don't know who the artist is; what matter is what's being said, not who says it"
"I love you"
"...Indeed"
"When I say this, it will provoke a different feeling from when, say, your wife says it?"
"Oh, my wife"
"Or for our Doctor Gunta?"
"That's true enough"
"And when my husband says I love you... that's different too. The effect changes according to who is speakng, there is no statement without the person making it, there is no art without the artist.
"This artist died a long time ago and even concerns us now"
"But he's still talking to you, and you're dying to hear what he's saying!"
_______
Understanding literature:
When talking about a writer such as Maijo Otaro, one has to become a subject of their ideological approach towards literature. It's an inevitability, a place to stand where an epistemological challenge surfaces just as it translates and seeps into their work, gracing but a glance toward the goal behind the novels' words. For that reason, some groundwork needs covering in order to attain a more holistic understanding of both his work and his persona (which are very much imbricated and inextricably connected).
Maijo Otaro covers a niche place in literature known as anti-mysteries (at least with Disco Detective and Tsukumojuuku). Anti-mysteries depict a genre of mystery where the novel itself takes an antagonistic proposal against mystery novels, challenging the concepts that surround honkaku mystery fiction as a whole, and ontologically destroying it in the process by means of meta-literature elements, as well as twists and bends around the concept of reality both within the scope of the novel and how it involves the reader themselves. Thus what differentiates it from meta-mysteries is said approach towards the genre; a grand wave of cultural undertaking set to reevaluate the place mystery novels partake in literature, in the form of a guillotine of post-modern meaning.
If that is the case then, what the hell even is post-modern literature? If we start from the basis that modern literature aims to encapsulate periods and moments in time into a narrowly focused space, as Joseph Frank would suggest, giving said time a proper, yet ambiguous and all-encompassing form, one would be talking about poems, even if that narrative structure of the modern piece of literature at hand were to follow the composition of a novel (keep this idea in mind, this is insanely important). The problem with these "poems", and the reason post-modern literature emerges as it does, in this case as a critique, is because of a lack of temporality. Time is to be experienced in, not to be overarchingly looked down upon without any sense of tangibility. And if modern literature is inherently poetic in its complex, non-linear, and symbolic nature, then post-modern literature would naturally be attributable to an inherent narrative fabric and formulation. If time is to be lived in, then its presentation in literature would follow who is speaking. Not so much something that happened and is therefore shown for us to see, but rather something that is _happening_ as we are told by someone and THEIR experience IN time. Modernity is then linked, as Max Weber would argue, to rationalism, and thus to a particular moment.
Thus, in post-modern literature the passing of time is intrinsically meaningful, and for which, the story is significantly more than the sum of its parts. There is an unfolding of time that appears lacking in the modern approach of frozen time. All of this teaches us a lesson in characters. In post-modern literature, characters that appear and voices that emerge offer to show us their manner of speaking, which means that the story is theirs to tell. Truth is ultimately abandoned, as it is elusive and fragmented. Truth is not out there to be captured and understood as a singularity. A single look into a figure of unending influence such as Michael Foucault would let us see so. Truth, as imbricated in discourses of power, lacks universality, is personal, and is subject to "truths" that are built on said power. So characters in post-modern literature would try to reach this idea. This is why post-modern literature uses elements like meta-fiction so effectively, as it allows it to mold truth as a mere construct such as the book's integrity as a piece of fiction, versus the reality it bends within the story it presents. Whereas in modern literature, truth is a point, a moment that once occurred and is now the subject of our viewing and pleasure. It exists, its out there. How could it not, if when captured by modernity it was given empiric validity? It is then clear to see that characters in modern literature would seek to represent ideas and be vehicles of truth that circumscribe an author's objective self. Novels that take hold of modern structure present us characters which fully translate the author as an individual, translating their needs and their ideals at the expense of subjectivity. Whereas novels that make a post-modern approach lean more onto the death of the author, and personal understanding of its messaging through more ambiguous themeing or development. Of course this doesn't mean that a modern style of literature is without nuance or complexity, and neither does it mean that post-modern literature is exclusively ambiguous, impossible to decipher and almost entirely based on substanceless messaging (there are cases for both, notably someone like Mamoru Oshii and his beyond comprehension exposition, where every nook and cranny is subject of interpretative analysis, which in my opinion makes for a luke-warm interpolation of half-assed writing). But it does set perecedents for how an author thinks of their work and push forward what they deem important.
The post-modern as an ideal is disingenuous in this case, as in its status of being something that emerged as a critique of modern ideals, therefore is more closely related to us, and apparently more "valid". There is, however, place for criticism in both sides of the court. Even as far as Hegel and his take on pluralism, and how the height of identity sacrifices a sense of belonging, with societies betraying themselves. In a more contemporary fashion, Foucaltian views of power as means of exploring truth, are all good and well, and definitely a helpful place for the appraisal of approaching critic views of neoliberal structures and the act of criticism itself, but left alone, the dangers of unequivocally decreting social constructs as such without further commitment ends up being pernicious. In the field of media and literature, a lack of intent reflects a real framework in the hardships to be found in the holding of an identity we can grasp and accept as ours. And as such, a dilemma. The works that traverse varying degrees of integration of modernity and post-modernity do function perfectly fine, and work as self-contained forms of expressing themes and ideas that are bound to capture ones heart, but... where do we go from here? Is there really no further place to bring ourselves to use critical thinking and try to reach? I think an answer is to be found, funnily enough, in a middle point that even modernity and post-modernity, isolated, would eventually gravitate towards given a fully thought-out interpolation of their goals in service of creating newfound territory for literature. And such a place can be found were we to accept our powers as manipulators of reality, or, in the twisted mind of one, author Maijo Otaro.
_______
Banach-Tarski and its ontological consequences:
Before going on more about literature and the novel at hand, I propose a quick look into an absurdly puzzling mathematical theorem, that thanks to Vsauce, millions have come to know; though its baffling implications make it difficult to comprehend, I will try my best to make it approachable (a complete understanding of how it works is not really necessary for the practical goals of this write-up, truth be told, I don't really understand it beyond a broad level, but there needs to be general assimilation of its scope).
The Banach-Tarski paradox is a mathematical theorem, more specifically, one found in geometry. What makes it unendingly captivating is its nature in how it fucks with common sense and intuition, appearing as paradoxical, yet remaining theoretically sound.
We first need to understand that some infinities are bigger than others, for example, natural numbers are a set of countable numbers ranging from 1 to infinity, whereas real numbers are a set of uncountable numbers. There are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, and as such, there are MORE numbers than in the set of real numbers than there are in natural numbers; they have a different cardinality. For this reason, it is possible to formulate an uncountably infinite number of countably infinite sets. I don't think the thorough explanation serves a major purpose here, we just need to understand the general gist of it (if you haven't seen Vsauce's video on the topic and are interested in it, I highly recommend you do so, his way of explaining it makes a joy to listen to. It's literally his most popular video too, go watch it).
To put it simply, through a series of rotations that start from a specific point in a sphere, one can attach cardinality to every single point in the infinite set that makes up the sphere. You pick a point and go right for example towards another point within the sphere, and do these rotations to attach a cardinal measure to every single one, with the one rule being no backtracking (i.e. no going west and then east). You need to do this until you get an uncountably infinite number of sets, each of which contains a countably infinite number of points. Once all of them are complete, you separate them into groups. 4 based on the last rotation performed, one that contains the center and every single pole, and one that contains every single starting point. The purpose of all of this is to make two spheres out of the original sphere. How? Well, say you take the group that is made up of all the last east rotations, were you to rotate that entire group west, all of the final east rotations would be negated, and an infinite amount of south and north ending paths would remain (as well as the starting points), and because we established no backtracking, east ending paths would come back as an infinite number of paths that preceded the last east with another east. This would duplicate north and south ending paths, as well as the starting points. Were we to do the same with the north group rotating it south, we would get the east and west ending paths, duplicating them and maintaining the north ending path. This would mean that only the "poles + center" group needs duplicating. We can manage this if we understand that each missing set of poles can be filled because given an infinite number of points, were one of them to move down a spot, the vacancy would be filled without needing to create a new point since there's always another point.
This explanation was very rough and very summarized, but it gets the general idea across. An object made up of an infinite number of points, given the rotations necessary to build these uncountable infinite number of sets, can make for the theoretical duplication of said object.
Having set the basis for both the literary culture that surrounds it, and the conceptual ground necessary for reality-bending action, let's talk about the novel at hand. Within this insane mindfuck of a novel, there is an equally insane cultural statement, one that aims to decimate how we approach literature by expanding notions of meta-fiction in its developments both inside and outside the novel. Not only that but there is a creation of layers encompassing a microcosm of meaning as brought forth by an author who rebels against themselves. Just as Maijo Otaro does, a theorem such as Banach-Tarski's extends rationality and commonplace understanding, challenging visions through impossible feats, in this case, by duplicating objects out of seemingly thin air. What this ultimately demonstrates is a groundbreaking axiom. Objects are, ontologically then, more than the sum of their parts. Their rotation given an infinity building them, gives way for there to literally be more than what they are made of. An infinity bigger than another infinity. This is given shape in Disco thematically and conceptually, both literally and metaphorically. Structures and people are revealed to be more than the sum of their parts, such as how Kozue is understood in her juxtaposition of her child and adolescent self, which characterizes her and the importance of her feelings to her not as a character but as a person. This is given further importance later on with the manifestation of those feelings (topic which will not go deeper into for spoiler reasons). She is made duplicate, allowed to be shown as more than the sum of her parts. This is a humane characteristic that serves as exposition and thematic development in the goal of the novel's purpose of showing the importance of people and what constitutes them as such, especially in children, and how utterly paramount they are in society, as well as how they represent humanity and how that is reflected in Disco the character. Disco's internal turmoil in his deep-rooted search to protect children is constrained to the orphanage, and the fact that the feelings within him also come to take a major role in the story only presses this issue further. What makes the characters in this novel shine, and make the messaging work has to do with the fact that they are effectively more than the sum of their parts.
Axiomatically declaring it as such is an advantage we have given ourselves to further understand the world, but the acquisition of knowledge comes with the experience that surrounds it. Not only in a scientific context, but how we as people learn about the world through what envelops it, and the interlocking dynamics that connect us with the rest of the world and the world itself. For that reason we must understand the will to power found in us, and how our subjective realization of the world through truths and power that come both from within us and also at us is capable of shaping the world. Just like the performativity discussed by Judith Butler in our understanding of precarity in people expelled from a society they're not intelligible in, or Foucault's discourses of power. This takes form in how the characters in the novel interact with their environment and how they come to approach detective work and solve many of the puzzling mysteries that also attract those people there. Realizing the power we have to shape the world through shared knowledge and will to break the molds that construct society as per our individual desires, but also how those desires interact with a world that is occupied by millions of others with their respective views and perspectives. They influence the mysteries of the case they become trapped in, but they are influenced by them as they are brought there by what seems to be a driving force which is a part of the world, but also a force that constitutes them as detectives and people.
We influence each other, and we influence the world. This idea comes in the form of a very evident but powerful system in the novel itself that once you read it, it will more than unveil itself to you. Plot points like the nature of the Pinehouse are also based on these ideals of the importance of our own beliefs as well as our faculties to exist as more than the sum of our parts, and how these ideas interact. Not only that but they are made even more evident through the manifestation of the rotation needed in Banach-Tarski, where the symbolic and literal rotation of objects works as a way for these detectives to solve the case. The Pinehouse is a cylinder after all; dealing with the implications of Banach-Tarski and infinity, as well as how it's a metaphorical symbol for the role specifically Disco plays in the case due to his nature, and how its constructed through his mythological characterization (which also surrounds the Pinehouse itself everywhere you look). And all of this can be wonderfully accepted as an axiom as we throughout the novel come to realize the importance of infinity. It is a concept that acts as a leitmotif for plot points, plot twists, and characterization, coming to a climactic height at the end of the novel. The character's composition as infinite beings gives origin to a powerhouse of thematical implications and extends to us as readers in our place as people partaking in this infinite moment, and our constitution as beings that are capable of reshaping the world. The interlocking dynamics of the world, as narratives emerging from our experience and existence take significance and weight, which are also characterized thanks to the juxtaposition of Disco and Mercury C in their clash. Their parallel in this sense is towards the grandest of thematical implications as people who represent the interlocking nature of dynamics in people and the world through their symbolic representation of their mythological godhood. This is also why the conclusion of the novel is so satisfying, as what comes to be of both of them, again in parallel with the overarching developments of the story and how it relates to what I've been mentioning all this time, comes full circle for a flawless finale as these thematical implications are once again made manifest, drawing to them more magnitude and resonance.
...
(word limit doesnt allow me to post this in full, so check comments for the other parts of this writeup)
_______
Extract from 'Nachtland' by Marius von Mayenburg:
"A work of art is only what an artist says, if there is no artist there is only silence"
"Not so, there are works of art that speak to me even though I don't know who the artist is; what matter is what's being said, not who says it"
"I love you"
"...Indeed"
"When I say this, it will provoke a different feeling from when, say, your wife says it?"
"Oh, my wife"
"Or for our Doctor Gunta?"
"That's true enough"
"And when my husband says I love you... that's different too. The effect changes according to who is speakng, there is no statement without the person making it, there is no art without the artist.
"This artist died a long time ago and even concerns us now"
"But he's still talking to you, and you're dying to hear what he's saying!"
_______
Understanding literature:
When talking about a writer such as Maijo Otaro, one has to become a subject of their ideological approach towards literature. It's an inevitability, a place to stand where an epistemological challenge surfaces just as it translates and seeps into their work, gracing but a glance toward the goal behind the novels' words. For that reason, some groundwork needs covering in order to attain a more holistic understanding of both his work and his persona (which are very much imbricated and inextricably connected).
Maijo Otaro covers a niche place in literature known as anti-mysteries (at least with Disco Detective and Tsukumojuuku). Anti-mysteries depict a genre of mystery where the novel itself takes an antagonistic proposal against mystery novels, challenging the concepts that surround honkaku mystery fiction as a whole, and ontologically destroying it in the process by means of meta-literature elements, as well as twists and bends around the concept of reality both within the scope of the novel and how it involves the reader themselves. Thus what differentiates it from meta-mysteries is said approach towards the genre; a grand wave of cultural undertaking set to reevaluate the place mystery novels partake in literature, in the form of a guillotine of post-modern meaning.
If that is the case then, what the hell even is post-modern literature? If we start from the basis that modern literature aims to encapsulate periods and moments in time into a narrowly focused space, as Joseph Frank would suggest, giving said time a proper, yet ambiguous and all-encompassing form, one would be talking about poems, even if that narrative structure of the modern piece of literature at hand were to follow the composition of a novel (keep this idea in mind, this is insanely important). The problem with these "poems", and the reason post-modern literature emerges as it does, in this case as a critique, is because of a lack of temporality. Time is to be experienced in, not to be overarchingly looked down upon without any sense of tangibility. And if modern literature is inherently poetic in its complex, non-linear, and symbolic nature, then post-modern literature would naturally be attributable to an inherent narrative fabric and formulation. If time is to be lived in, then its presentation in literature would follow who is speaking. Not so much something that happened and is therefore shown for us to see, but rather something that is _happening_ as we are told by someone and THEIR experience IN time. Modernity is then linked, as Max Weber would argue, to rationalism, and thus to a particular moment.
Thus, in post-modern literature the passing of time is intrinsically meaningful, and for which, the story is significantly more than the sum of its parts. There is an unfolding of time that appears lacking in the modern approach of frozen time. All of this teaches us a lesson in characters. In post-modern literature, characters that appear and voices that emerge offer to show us their manner of speaking, which means that the story is theirs to tell. Truth is ultimately abandoned, as it is elusive and fragmented. Truth is not out there to be captured and understood as a singularity. A single look into a figure of unending influence such as Michael Foucault would let us see so. Truth, as imbricated in discourses of power, lacks universality, is personal, and is subject to "truths" that are built on said power. So characters in post-modern literature would try to reach this idea. This is why post-modern literature uses elements like meta-fiction so effectively, as it allows it to mold truth as a mere construct such as the book's integrity as a piece of fiction, versus the reality it bends within the story it presents. Whereas in modern literature, truth is a point, a moment that once occurred and is now the subject of our viewing and pleasure. It exists, its out there. How could it not, if when captured by modernity it was given empiric validity? It is then clear to see that characters in modern literature would seek to represent ideas and be vehicles of truth that circumscribe an author's objective self. Novels that take hold of modern structure present us characters which fully translate the author as an individual, translating their needs and their ideals at the expense of subjectivity. Whereas novels that make a post-modern approach lean more onto the death of the author, and personal understanding of its messaging through more ambiguous themeing or development. Of course this doesn't mean that a modern style of literature is without nuance or complexity, and neither does it mean that post-modern literature is exclusively ambiguous, impossible to decipher and almost entirely based on substanceless messaging (there are cases for both, notably someone like Mamoru Oshii and his beyond comprehension exposition, where every nook and cranny is subject of interpretative analysis, which in my opinion makes for a luke-warm interpolation of half-assed writing). But it does set perecedents for how an author thinks of their work and push forward what they deem important.
The post-modern as an ideal is disingenuous in this case, as in its status of being something that emerged as a critique of modern ideals, therefore is more closely related to us, and apparently more "valid". There is, however, place for criticism in both sides of the court. Even as far as Hegel and his take on pluralism, and how the height of identity sacrifices a sense of belonging, with societies betraying themselves. In a more contemporary fashion, Foucaltian views of power as means of exploring truth, are all good and well, and definitely a helpful place for the appraisal of approaching critic views of neoliberal structures and the act of criticism itself, but left alone, the dangers of unequivocally decreting social constructs as such without further commitment ends up being pernicious. In the field of media and literature, a lack of intent reflects a real framework in the hardships to be found in the holding of an identity we can grasp and accept as ours. And as such, a dilemma. The works that traverse varying degrees of integration of modernity and post-modernity do function perfectly fine, and work as self-contained forms of expressing themes and ideas that are bound to capture ones heart, but... where do we go from here? Is there really no further place to bring ourselves to use critical thinking and try to reach? I think an answer is to be found, funnily enough, in a middle point that even modernity and post-modernity, isolated, would eventually gravitate towards given a fully thought-out interpolation of their goals in service of creating newfound territory for literature. And such a place can be found were we to accept our powers as manipulators of reality, or, in the twisted mind of one, author Maijo Otaro.
_______
Banach-Tarski and its ontological consequences:
Before going on more about literature and the novel at hand, I propose a quick look into an absurdly puzzling mathematical theorem, that thanks to Vsauce, millions have come to know; though its baffling implications make it difficult to comprehend, I will try my best to make it approachable (a complete understanding of how it works is not really necessary for the practical goals of this write-up, truth be told, I don't really understand it beyond a broad level, but there needs to be general assimilation of its scope).
The Banach-Tarski paradox is a mathematical theorem, more specifically, one found in geometry. What makes it unendingly captivating is its nature in how it fucks with common sense and intuition, appearing as paradoxical, yet remaining theoretically sound.
We first need to understand that some infinities are bigger than others, for example, natural numbers are a set of countable numbers ranging from 1 to infinity, whereas real numbers are a set of uncountable numbers. There are an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, and as such, there are MORE numbers than in the set of real numbers than there are in natural numbers; they have a different cardinality. For this reason, it is possible to formulate an uncountably infinite number of countably infinite sets. I don't think the thorough explanation serves a major purpose here, we just need to understand the general gist of it (if you haven't seen Vsauce's video on the topic and are interested in it, I highly recommend you do so, his way of explaining it makes a joy to listen to. It's literally his most popular video too, go watch it).
To put it simply, through a series of rotations that start from a specific point in a sphere, one can attach cardinality to every single point in the infinite set that makes up the sphere. You pick a point and go right for example towards another point within the sphere, and do these rotations to attach a cardinal measure to every single one, with the one rule being no backtracking (i.e. no going west and then east). You need to do this until you get an uncountably infinite number of sets, each of which contains a countably infinite number of points. Once all of them are complete, you separate them into groups. 4 based on the last rotation performed, one that contains the center and every single pole, and one that contains every single starting point. The purpose of all of this is to make two spheres out of the original sphere. How? Well, say you take the group that is made up of all the last east rotations, were you to rotate that entire group west, all of the final east rotations would be negated, and an infinite amount of south and north ending paths would remain (as well as the starting points), and because we established no backtracking, east ending paths would come back as an infinite number of paths that preceded the last east with another east. This would duplicate north and south ending paths, as well as the starting points. Were we to do the same with the north group rotating it south, we would get the east and west ending paths, duplicating them and maintaining the north ending path. This would mean that only the "poles + center" group needs duplicating. We can manage this if we understand that each missing set of poles can be filled because given an infinite number of points, were one of them to move down a spot, the vacancy would be filled without needing to create a new point since there's always another point.
This explanation was very rough and very summarized, but it gets the general idea across. An object made up of an infinite number of points, given the rotations necessary to build these uncountable infinite number of sets, can make for the theoretical duplication of said object.
Having set the basis for both the literary culture that surrounds it, and the conceptual ground necessary for reality-bending action, let's talk about the novel at hand. Within this insane mindfuck of a novel, there is an equally insane cultural statement, one that aims to decimate how we approach literature by expanding notions of meta-fiction in its developments both inside and outside the novel. Not only that but there is a creation of layers encompassing a microcosm of meaning as brought forth by an author who rebels against themselves. Just as Maijo Otaro does, a theorem such as Banach-Tarski's extends rationality and commonplace understanding, challenging visions through impossible feats, in this case, by duplicating objects out of seemingly thin air. What this ultimately demonstrates is a groundbreaking axiom. Objects are, ontologically then, more than the sum of their parts. Their rotation given an infinity building them, gives way for there to literally be more than what they are made of. An infinity bigger than another infinity. This is given shape in Disco thematically and conceptually, both literally and metaphorically. Structures and people are revealed to be more than the sum of their parts, such as how Kozue is understood in her juxtaposition of her child and adolescent self, which characterizes her and the importance of her feelings to her not as a character but as a person. This is given further importance later on with the manifestation of those feelings (topic which will not go deeper into for spoiler reasons). She is made duplicate, allowed to be shown as more than the sum of her parts. This is a humane characteristic that serves as exposition and thematic development in the goal of the novel's purpose of showing the importance of people and what constitutes them as such, especially in children, and how utterly paramount they are in society, as well as how they represent humanity and how that is reflected in Disco the character. Disco's internal turmoil in his deep-rooted search to protect children is constrained to the orphanage, and the fact that the feelings within him also come to take a major role in the story only presses this issue further. What makes the characters in this novel shine, and make the messaging work has to do with the fact that they are effectively more than the sum of their parts.
Axiomatically declaring it as such is an advantage we have given ourselves to further understand the world, but the acquisition of knowledge comes with the experience that surrounds it. Not only in a scientific context, but how we as people learn about the world through what envelops it, and the interlocking dynamics that connect us with the rest of the world and the world itself. For that reason we must understand the will to power found in us, and how our subjective realization of the world through truths and power that come both from within us and also at us is capable of shaping the world. Just like the performativity discussed by Judith Butler in our understanding of precarity in people expelled from a society they're not intelligible in, or Foucault's discourses of power. This takes form in how the characters in the novel interact with their environment and how they come to approach detective work and solve many of the puzzling mysteries that also attract those people there. Realizing the power we have to shape the world through shared knowledge and will to break the molds that construct society as per our individual desires, but also how those desires interact with a world that is occupied by millions of others with their respective views and perspectives. They influence the mysteries of the case they become trapped in, but they are influenced by them as they are brought there by what seems to be a driving force which is a part of the world, but also a force that constitutes them as detectives and people.
We influence each other, and we influence the world. This idea comes in the form of a very evident but powerful system in the novel itself that once you read it, it will more than unveil itself to you. Plot points like the nature of the Pinehouse are also based on these ideals of the importance of our own beliefs as well as our faculties to exist as more than the sum of our parts, and how these ideas interact. Not only that but they are made even more evident through the manifestation of the rotation needed in Banach-Tarski, where the symbolic and literal rotation of objects works as a way for these detectives to solve the case. The Pinehouse is a cylinder after all; dealing with the implications of Banach-Tarski and infinity, as well as how it's a metaphorical symbol for the role specifically Disco plays in the case due to his nature, and how its constructed through his mythological characterization (which also surrounds the Pinehouse itself everywhere you look). And all of this can be wonderfully accepted as an axiom as we throughout the novel come to realize the importance of infinity. It is a concept that acts as a leitmotif for plot points, plot twists, and characterization, coming to a climactic height at the end of the novel. The character's composition as infinite beings gives origin to a powerhouse of thematical implications and extends to us as readers in our place as people partaking in this infinite moment, and our constitution as beings that are capable of reshaping the world. The interlocking dynamics of the world, as narratives emerging from our experience and existence take significance and weight, which are also characterized thanks to the juxtaposition of Disco and Mercury C in their clash. Their parallel in this sense is towards the grandest of thematical implications as people who represent the interlocking nature of dynamics in people and the world through their symbolic representation of their mythological godhood. This is also why the conclusion of the novel is so satisfying, as what comes to be of both of them, again in parallel with the overarching developments of the story and how it relates to what I've been mentioning all this time, comes full circle for a flawless finale as these thematical implications are once again made manifest, drawing to them more magnitude and resonance.
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January 5, 2023
I was surprised how much I liked this book, Maijo’s other writings have been at best polarising (Jorge) or at worse extremely boring (Drill Hole), but this combined with part 1 is genuinely such a engaging story that by the end made me overjoyed I’ve read this. I loved this book, and I’m surprised at myself for saying that. I’d love to reread it one day but that’ll be for a much further future than today, but when I do, hopefully its after seeing what else this author has in store.
January 4, 2023
Uma obra prima. Esse final me impactou como um trem-bala...
O volume 2 virou o plot inteiro de cabeça pra baixo, resignificando tudo o que aconteceu e assim fechando tudo que tava em aberto de um jeito perfeito. As mensagens que a história passa são de uma profundidade incrível e muito impactantes.
No mais, tudo que tá na minha review do volume anterior permanece válido.
O volume 2 virou o plot inteiro de cabeça pra baixo, resignificando tudo o que aconteceu e assim fechando tudo que tava em aberto de um jeito perfeito. As mensagens que a história passa são de uma profundidade incrível e muito impactantes.
No mais, tudo que tá na minha review do volume anterior permanece válido.
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