Chiếc Ghế Người

by Edogawa Rampo, Miulan (Translator)

“Đã mấy tháng nay, tôi hoàn toàn biến mất khỏi thế giới loài người và đang sống một cuộc đời như của ác ma. Đương nhiên, trong thế giới rộng lớn này, không ai hay biết những việc mà tôi đang làm. Nếu như không có chuyện gì xảy ra thì chắc có lẽ tôi sẽ vĩnh viễn sống như thế và đã không quay về với thế giới loài người.”

Cuốn sách ẩn chứa những câu chuyện kì lạ bậc nhất về thế giới của những kẻ điên. Xuất phát từ những điều rất đỗi bình thường: một ánh mắt xa xăm của người chồng, một lời buột miệng trong vô thức, một suy nghĩ tuyệt vọng vụt qua trong ngày vô vị hay một cái liếc mắt vô tình, thậm chí từ những sở thích tưởng chừng vô hại, con người phóng đại chúng thành nỗi ám ảnh điên cuồng tới mất trí, và rồi mất mạng. Cứ thế, những kẻ điên trong thế giới văn chương đen tối của Edogawa Ranpo chào đời với tiếng cười ma quái, rùng rợn gây nên nỗi kinh hoàng suốt bao thập kỷ.

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, Classics, Japanese Literature, Japan, Mystery

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Hirai Tarō (平井 太郎), better known by the pseudonym Rampo Edogawa ( 江戸川 乱歩), sometimes romanized as "Ranpo Edogawa", was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction.

Reviews

[Alekzander · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am now afraid of chairs.

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

edogawa why the hell would you write this

[Ed Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may never sit down again!

[Rami Hamze · Rating 5 out of 5]

A M A S T E R P I E C E !

completely blown away.

creepy, emotional, dark. The best short story in a long time.

[Sarah ♡ (let’s interact!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loneliness can apparently be enough to drive a man to confine himself within a chair. Just so he can feel close to other human beings, especially women. Is this real or all mere fantasy?

Read this after Junji Ito’s illustrated re-imagining of this short story. I like how the author’s pen name is a reference to Edgar Allen Poe. You can see his influence within his own work.

[Daniel Warriner · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Human Chair" (人間椅子, 1925) by Edogawa Rampo isn't so much a scary tale as it is a deviant's disturbing fantasy come to life. An ugly furniture maker crafts a chair into which he can slip to sit unbeknownst to those (mostly women) sitting atop him. You can hear the wheels turning in Rampo's head as you read this; everything you might want to know about holing up in a chair is covered here. It's a fun story written in a serious tone. It also has that typically Japanese form of horror that's rooted half in the quotidian and half in the frightfully bizarre. Put another way, Eugene Thacker, writing for The Japan Times, described it as "exemplary of a particular trope in Japanese horror where an innocuous, everyday event sends a character chasing a single idea — methodically, bit by bit — to its logical and terrifying conclusion."

[Jane Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

from now on i'll be stabbing my chair aggressively before sitting down, thank you very much.

[daph pink ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story's junji Ito manga adaptation left me completely baffled as I read it. The original story is even greater; everything that happens is so horrifying that, for a split second, believing it to be true, it may cause lifelong trauma.

[Amin · Rating 4 out of 5]

صندلی انسانی یکی از جالبترین و هیجان انگیزترین داستانهای کوتاهی بود که خوندم و خلاقیت نویسنده ستودنیه واقعا

[Cassi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little story that leaves your skin crawling. Great writing, entertaining plot, not much else to say about it. It's a good story for when you're sitting in your favorite armchair.

[Mili Chamberlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh fuck! No more sitting methinks.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Think about your favorite chair; it's like a broken-in pair of jeans, really comfortable, or a well-worn leather jacket-a second skin, a comfy bed…Well imagine if someone was living in that chair, right underneath you, as you enjoy your most intimate moments relaxing while you are completely unaware someone is sitting right there. Is that the ultimate violation? Or is it something much worse?

You have got to be kidding me, right? A person living in a chair?! That seemed completely ridiculous. I get that you have to have some disbelief in reality for a horror story to be scary, but that’s stretching it.

I initially gave this 2 stars, but shortly after I read it, it stuck with me. It was creepy, and the narrator—the dude living in the chair—was very creepy. It deserves 4 stars, it’s really short and I recommend it.

- Beware, this was originally in Japanese, and some of the translated versions are wacky- hard to understand, especially the Kindle version.

[Semi Murderous ^_^ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute story about a man who wasn't getting laid so he turned himself into a chair so people can sit on his face. 10/10 [Must read]
you might get creeped out and feel very uncomfortable at times but the story is exceptional. Def, worth a read.

[Jovana Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Welcome to my project of reading *weird* fiction in 2023

➥ What begins as an almost tedious story about an accomplished female author going through her fan letters, quickly turns into a psychological terror ending in one of the aptest culmination that I have come across in short fiction.

Rampo composes his story with elegance: He swiftly places the reader as a bystander in the story, reading the letter alongside his protagonist.

¶ There is a dual nature of terror in this story – the first is the fear of being unknowingly observed and the second fear lies in the ambiguity of the ending: was the writer of the letter lying in the first letter or in the second?
If he was lying in the first, that would lead to the surfacing of a new voice in writing that could replace the old one (the addressee replacing the addresant).
If the second letter is untrue, there is an imminent threat to deal with immediately. Both cases are anxiety-inducing and unfortunate for the protagonist.

Regardless of which end is true, the story is a satisfying piece as far as the average reader goes and Rampo is a writer worth inspecting.

[onthebooksel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story was so fucking creepy. I made the mistake of reading this at night before class on my HOLLOWED OUT COUCH and let me tell you that was a mistake. Edogawa Rampo really wrote this, and I remember class discussion being really fun this day and so I’m super thankful to Dr. Yi for making me read this.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que ahora tengo miedo de las sillas.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

i will now be inspecting every chair i ever sit in

[QHuong(BookSpy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mấy truyện trinh thám tâm lý khá là sợ ấy, còn vài truyện mang yếu tố siêu nhiên cũng dị dị nhưng mình thấy sợ mấy truyện tâm lý hơn, đặc biệt là truyện "Sâu bướm" vừa đọc vừa hình dung đã thấy rùng mình rồi.

[ryan ❦ · Rating 3 out of 5]

he was a real life chairman…

[Jimena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inquietante, siniestro y fascinante.

Qué hijo de puta este Edogawa.

[Margo Oka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so funny

[Mihaela Oprea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foarte stranie povestire. Cert este faptul că e una din puținele cărți din literatura japoneză care mi-a plăcut, dar și că mă voi gândi de două ori data viitoare când voi vrea să iau loc într-un fotoliu.

[Atlantisli · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was very creepy... short but an impressive story.

AaaaA okurken içim bi tuhaf oldu sürekli kafamda canlandırmaya çalıştım. çok kısa ama etkileyici bir hikayeydi.

[Esmé · Rating 3 out of 5]

gross! grossest of all was that the narrator has no idea how to write women. what do you mean her "deep sense of feminine consideration" brother?? anyway this was a fun and ooky read. i wish it didnt have the second letter at the end. gets bonus points for the junji ito adaptation

[Zuzia · Rating 4 out of 5]

wtf???

[Alien Bookreader · Rating 3 out of 5]

"After all, who could imagine such a ridiculous thing as a person hiding inside of a chair?"

"Have you ever been to the shore and seen a type of crab called the hermit crab? Its appearance is like a giant spider, and when people are nowhere around it struts about the shore as if it were king of its kind."

An interesting little tale, yet somehow I was expecting more to happen. It sounds almost like the beginning of a good story, which ends before the real story starts.

It reminds me of a claustrophobic version of the Phantom of the Opera. An ugly pariah yearns to be part of noble society. He was born into bad circumstances, he isn't charming or good looking, yet he possesses a special skill: making fancy chairs. And he uses this special skill to his advantage.

[Suha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A piece of delicious dark chocolate; this short story is well written, enjoyable, creepy and imaginative. Loved it 😊

[True Blue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truyện ngắn kinh dị mà không cần máu me , chủ yếu khai thác tâm lí con người, dark và biến thái

[سمية · Rating 5 out of 5]

জাপানের খুব হেভিওয়েট এক ডিপ্লোম্যাটের স্ত্রী ইওশিকো। স্বামীর পরিচয়ের বৃত্তের বাইরে বেরিয়ে নিজেকে প্রতিষ্ঠিত করেছেন তার সৃষ্ট উঁচু মানের রচনাশৈলী আর সাহিত্যের ভিন্ন ভিন্ন জনরায় সহজাত গমনের মাধ্যমে। স্বভাবতই তার গুণগ্রাহীরা সংখ্যায় ছিল অসংখ্য। তার ডেস্কে এডমাইরেশন লেটারও জমতো শ'য়ে শ'য়ে। শত শত চিঠির ভিড়ে একদিন বেশ মোটা এক খাম দেখে ম্যানুস্ক্রিপ্ট ভেবে খুলে ফেললেন তিনি। এই বুঝি তার কাল হল। লেখার নাটকীয়তায় এক নিঃশ্বাসে পড়ে যাচ্ছিলেন তিনি। ঘুণাক্ষরেও বুঝলেন না কি শরীর হিম করা সত্যির মুখোমুখি হতে যাচ্ছেন তিনি!

১০-১৫ মিনিটে পড়ে ফেললাম। গল্পে একটা বোম্বশেল টুইস্ট আছে। চিঠির প্রেরক সত্যিই "হরি তাতশু" কি না সেটা নিয়ে যে একটা স্লাইট কনফিউশান তৈরি হয়েছে এমন দ্বিধান্বিত হতে পেরে বেশ লাগছে। এত্ত ছোটো এক গল্প কিন্তু পাঠকের প্রাপ্তি ছোটোখাটো হবে না। এমন ডিস্টার্বিং আর ইরি প্লট নিয়ে লেখার চিন্তাটাও তো ইউনিক!

[Mawdz :] · Rating 4 out of 5]

never sitting down again