監獄飯店 卷二: 秋

Prison Hotel #2

by Jirō Asada, 淺田次郎, 吳函璇 (Translator)

渴望親情的乖僻小說家 VS. 纖細易感的超齡小女孩；
抑鬱不得志的資深警員 VS. 嫉惡如仇的暴力刑警；
過氣的偶像玉女歌手 VS. 墮落的小白臉經紀人；
今晚，監獄飯店中即將展開一場溫馨爆笑、有血有淚的故事！

黑道大哥木戶仲藏經營的深山溫泉紫陽花飯店，由於招待的客人大多為黑道團體，因此當地居民稱之為「監獄飯店」。
故事就從小說家木戶孝之介收到關東櫻會總長的訃聞開始。孝之介為了取材而前往弔唁，葬禮結束後便直接投宿於監獄飯店。怎料陰錯陽差之下，黑道家族大曾根和青山警署的警員們，竟在同一天入住飯店，而阻隔這場黑白兩道交鋒的，只有宴會廳中的一道屏風？！此外，其他的房客還包括四處巡迴演出的過氣女歌手和她的經紀人、善於操控媒體而聲名大噪的通緝犯……

一群不可思議的男女，在這愛恨交織的夜晚會併出什麼樣的火花？而老闆仲藏大哥年輕時的秘密戀情又是否能夠開花結果？

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Jirō Asada (浅田 次郎, born December 13, 1951 in Tokyo) is the pen name of Kōjirō Iwato (岩戸 康次郎), a Japanese writer.

Inspired by Yukio Mishima, who tried to stage a coup d'état among Japan Self-Defense Forces then committed suicide after the coup was failed, Asada enlisted in the SDF after finishing his studies. He changed jobs many times while endeavoring to find writing opportunities, submitting his works to literary competitions.

In 1991, his novel Torarete tamaruka! (とられてたまるか!) started his literary career. After writing several picaresque novels, his novel Metro ni notte (地下鉄に乗って) was awarded the Eiji Yoshikawa Prize for New Writers and made into a 2006 film; a short story collection The Stationmaster and other stories (Poppoya (鉄道員)) was also awarded the Naoki Prize.

He writes not only standard fiction and picaresque novels, but also writes historical and Chinese historical novels such as The Firmament of the Pleiades (Sōkyū no subaru, 蒼穹の昴).

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review for book 1: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

'~We are the Imperial Army~~our nemesis are~~~~traitors who have no place on this Earth~~'

--a military song from the WWII, a favorite for some of the Prison Hotel's guests (e.g. old fashioned gangsters and far-rightists).

'Doctors, teachers and cops, they are the worst kinds when they get drunken.'

--a comment from the hotel manager.

'If they were honorable people wearing sakura, then we were yakuza holding the sakura badge. Under the sun, there can only be one group bearing the mark of sakura. Let's find out which group shall it be!'

--a cop declaims war against the gangsters in Prison Hotel

After visiting a Japanese hot spring hotel/onsen hotel for the very first time this month, I am happy to be re-reading Prison Hotel: Autumn by Jiro Asada, the second book of Asada's comedy series about a hot spring hotel owned and ran by a 'retired' yakuza boss and his loyal sidekicks.

By mistake, a group of police booked themselves into Prison Hotel, a traditional Japanese hot spring hotel ran by a 'retired' yakuza boss. What will happen next?

This time, the main plot about 'cops and gangsters in the same hot spring hotel' is highly comical but how this confrontation ends is quite underwhelming. The parts I truly enjoy are the parts about the ill-tempered novelist taking his mistress's 5 years old daughter to the Prison Hotel for the holiday, the interaction between these two are amusing and how the novelist changed from 'I hate kids!' to 'I will look after this little girl and offer her best education when she grow up'. So, 3.5 stars.

[Taka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great--

I couldn't put it down. Jiro Asada has the rare gift of portraying outlaws and deficient humans and making them go through Dostoevskian changes and revelations, and he does it with laugh-out-loud humor and genuine human warmth. The upshot is a whirlwind of a story with real emotional resonance.

Simply, unforgettable and infinitely enjoyable.

Hats off to the master.