La guardia, il poeta e l'investigatore

by Jung-Myung Lee, Benedetta Merlini (Translator)

In un campo di prigionia giapponese durante la seconda guerra mondiale si può morire per amore dell’arte e della letteratura. Un omicidio, una intricata cospirazione, due guardie, un giovane poeta e i suoi versi clandestini. «Con questo romanzo Jung-myung Lee celebra il potere della poesia, dei libri e della lettura e ci fornisce un “sesto senso” capace di alleviare e trasformare anche i periodi più bui» (Independent).

Nel 1944 la Corea è sotto l’occupazione giapponese, e nella prigione di Fukuoka non si permette ai detenuti coreani di usare la propria lingua. Un uomo, una guardia carceraria, viene trovato brutalmente assassinato, e un giovane collega dall’animo sensibile e letterario viene incaricato di condurre l’indagine e trovare il colpevole. La vittima era temuta e odiata per la sua brutalità, ma quando l’improvvisato investigatore avvia la sua inchiesta interrogando custodi e detenuti, ricostruendo poco a poco i movimenti degli ultimi mesi, un diverso e sorprendente scenario si impone alla sua attenzione. Dall’inchiesta sull’uomo emerge il passato di un povero analfabeta orfano dei genitori, il faticoso riscatto attraverso il lavoro, la carriera nella prigione, la scoperta di una passione inaspettata, il ruolo di «censore» con l’incarico di controllare la corrispondenza in entrata e in uscita dal carcere. E soprattutto il legame con un detenuto particolare, un famoso poeta coreano, autore di scritti sovversivi. E proprio attorno al poeta ruota l’intera vicenda: nel corso dei suoi interrogatori il giovane si trova a parlare sempre di più con il prigioniero e, come prima di lui la guardia assassinata, a immergersi in un dialogo fatto di letteratura, d’arte, di libertà. Si scopre a desiderare la bellezza dei suoi versi clandestini, a subire il potere eccitante e al tempo stesso rasserenante della parola poetica.
Calibrando suspense e ricostruzione storica, dolore e dolcezza, il romanzo dipinge un universo di contrasti: le condizioni dei detenuti obbligati ad abolire il proprio nome, la costante violenza fisica e psicologica alla quale sono sottomessi, il raggio di luce dei poemi del poeta realmente esistito Yun Dong-ju le cui parole diventano merce di contrabbando, balsamo di speranza, sfida provocatoria e coraggiosa alla crudeltà degli esseri umani.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Asia, Mystery, Japan, War, Asian Literature

297 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 24, 2012

About the author

Lee Jung-myung (이정명) has sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books in his native Korea. One, Deep Rooted Tree, was made into a popular TV series.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yuichi, barely twenty, loves the books and poems found within his family's bookstore, often losing himself in literature and hiding away books that he wants to keep for himself. Soon he finds himself in the Japanese army, a mandatory service which leads to him being assigned as a guard in the notorious Japanese prison Fukuoka. There he will find himself put in charge of the investigation into the death of a cruel and sadistic guard, Sugiyama.

Things in this prison are not what they appear on the surface, there is much going on which Yuichi discovers as he continues to investigate. The Korean prisoners were treated horribly, considered to be nothing but work animals. One of the prisoners was a young poet, Yun Dong-Su and this young man would be the catalyst of many changes.

Although there is a mystery at heart, this is 1944 and there is much history included. Can a man be more than what he appears, does literature and poetry have the power to evoke changes in person? Dong-Su is a real poet, and factually he was sent to this prison. He would become one of Korea's most revered poets. Much of his poetry is included in this story and it is beautiful. Even within the darkness of the prison beauty could still exist.

"So books were still alive, having laid down roots in someone's heart. The were living and breathing inside this brutal prison."

[spillingthematcha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miałam wielkie wymagania co do tej książki i niestety okazały się one zbyt duże, bo historia, według mnie, oprócz wielu pięknych i chwytających fragmentów była mało wyrazista i sprawiała wrażenie nieprzemyślanej.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Investigation – A Beautiful Story

The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee and translated from Korean is one of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time. It is a beautiful epic story of freedom and humanity, about survival in war and not everything is as it seems, as the saying goes ‘rivers run deep’. The novel is inspired by the life and death of the Korean poet Yun Dong-ju and uses some of his posthumously published work, and a wonderful body of poetry that is used throughout the book. This really teaches you not to judge a book by its cover because on the outside we may look like swans but deep down we are paddling like crazy.

The novel is set in Fukuoka Prison. Japan 1944 and outside the prison walls the world is at war which will eventually affect those within the prison walls. Watanabe is a teenage Japanese conscript prison guard with a love of literature has been placed on ward 3 which is full of Korean “criminals” and the bully of a guard Sugiyama who has a penchant for being brutal with the prisoners. It is when Sugiyama is found dead he is tasked with finding who killed him and to take over his censorship duties.

His original picture of Sugiyama is of a brutal prison guard and former war hero who enjoyed his role within the prison system. It is when he interviews various prisoners that he starts to build a different picture of the guard. When he interviews Yun Dong-ju he builds a friendship and respect for this Korean poet and it is through his interviews that a new view of Sugiyama emerges.

Also at this time the Japanese start to use the Korean prisoners as guinea pigs and Yun Dong-ju is selected to take part. Watanabe is willing and urging Dong-ju to survive until the end of war but see him weaken by the day. Watanabe is also shocked at what is happening in the prison even more so when the warden receives a letter from Manchuria towards the end of the war. Watanabe finally receives all his answers and they are not necessarily the ones he wanted.

This is a beautiful and captivating story that engrosses you from page one all the way through to the last page. A book about hope in the darkest times with a lament for lost freedom and humanity while war rages around and death is just something that happens. This book also teaches us that no matter how hard people want to kill literature it will live on in our minds and hearts however hard people try.

This is a stunningly beautiful book that is worth every minute of reading and is a shame to finish. The prose is beautiful especially when remembering this was originally in Korean, Jung-Myung Lee has written a brilliant novel.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

He raged silently at the cruel god who bestowed on Dong-ju the talent for refined language while taking away his mother tongue. Dong-ju’s gift wasn’t a blessing, it was a curse.

The Investigation is Chi-Young Kim’s translation of the 2012 Korean novel 별을 스치는 바람 by 이정명 (Jung-Myung Lee).

The translation was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2015, the last year of the prize in that guise before it merged in to the International Booker, and the Italian translation won a prize there.

I previously read the latest novel in English by the author Broken Summer translated by An Seon Jae from the 2021 novel 부서진 여름 by 이정명, which I found clunky and rather melodramatic, but was still keen to try this one, and I am glad I did.

This novel is inspired by the life and death of the poet 윤동주 (Yun Dong-ju) who was arrested by the Japanese authorities in 1943 for involvement in pro-independence activities and died in Fukuoka prison in 1945, aged 28, six months before Japan’s defeat.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yun_D...

Yun Dong-ju features as a character in the novel, as do many of his poems, although the story itself is entirely fictitious.

The novel is based in Fukuoka prison and is a story ostensibly told (although much of it in the form of an omniscient third person narration) by Watanabe Yuichi, a young guard at Fukuoka Prison. He is now, after the end of the war, a prisoner himself but looking back on a story from his time as a guard in the Korean section of the prison as well as, briefly, his life beforehand working in his mother’s bookshop:

Books were cities I’d never visited, filled with pillars of great thoughts and streets of phrases, mazes of abstruse sentence structures and alleys of complicated syllables. They were stores that displayed a wide range of things, punctuation twinkling like the crest of a venerable family, sentences breathing peacefully, words whispering. I returned to reality when the roof of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion shimmered from far away and the sky turned orange. As darkness descended, Mother closed the doors. The world of sentences sank into the night, the heroes and kings and ladies mourning lost love falling asleep.

After training I was assigned to be a guard at Fukuoka Prison. High walls, sharp barbed wire and cold bars enclosed my future. My youth was incarcerated in a brown uniform. I was strictly isolated from books. No text was allowed. Staid directives were the only things to read, and the only words I wrote were in the log detailing my rounds. Hungry for words, I read everything I could lay my hands on. I devoured incarceration logs, punishment records, directives and administrative documents, even the entrance and exit signs. But they were merely dead words that couldn’t move me. My soul was perpetually malnourished. I wanted to encounter a living, vibrant line of prose. But that was a luxury not afforded a soldier in wartime.

The story opens with a senior guard in the same section, Sugiyama Dozan, known for his brutality, found hanged, his lips sewn together. Watanabe is tasked with discovering who killed him, a mystery given all the prisoners were locked in their cells.

This isn’t just a guard’s death!’ Maeda shouted suddenly. ‘This is war. They’ve declared war! The murderer is here, somewhere. Let me tell you, Ward Three is a different beast. It’s where the worst of the criminals go, the most vicious – Koreans, traitors and Communists.

His investigations soon lead him to Yun Dong-ju and he uncovers (although in narrative terms it is not entirely clear how, given one of the protagonists is dead and many of the events were before Watanabe arrived at the prison) the surprising relationship between the two men and indeed the influence of Yun Dong-ju’s poetry more widely in the prison as well as the classic literature he loves - the poems of Rilke and Jammes, the novels of Dostoevsky, Goethe, Tolstoy and Dumas.

The story does have an Ian McEwan like tendency to rather sentimentalise the redeeming power of art, with the feared and violent Japanese guard discovering his hidden tender side once he reads Yun’s poems. Watanabe also shares this faith in the power of poetry:

This poem was perfect, just like a Swiss-made watch, though made not of screws and springs and saw-toothed gears, but of nouns and verbs and adjectives. I’d always been awed by the grandeur of machines, how, when well made, they serve the soul of humanity. Fabric pours out of a roaring textile mill to allow mankind to luxuriate; a compass, a gun, a steam engine, a car and an aeroplane fire up a man’s will, boost his courage, and each transforms life. This intricate apparatus of words filled a part of my soul with satisfaction.

The Korean title of the novel, with its reference to the wind and stars, has a rather more poetic ring than the English, based on the poet’s one posthumously published collection 하늘과 바람과 별과 시 (The Sky, The Wind, The Stars and Poetry), whereas the English title focuses on the mystery element.

The opening poem to the collection (as translated in the novel):

PROLOGUE – The Sky, the Wind, the Stars and Poetry

Let me look up to the heavens
Without a speck of shame
Until the day I die.
I was in agony
Even from the wind rustling among leaves
I shall love every dying being
Singing of the stars
And I shall walk
On the path given to me.

Tonight too the stars brush against the wind.

And the Korean title better fits the novel, as this seems far more a story of the power of language than a murder mystery. The suppression of the Korean language and even Korean names is an important theme, indeed Yun Dong-ju ultimately gives his life for the Korean language. A crucial point in the relationship between the Sugiyama and Dong-ju comes when the former switches to the latter’s Korean name, rather than the Japanese one he was forced to take, when addressing him.

This is far from a perfect novel: the narrative voice didn’t make complete sense, the prose is mawkish and overwrought, and the mystery element sits uneasily with the more literary focused story and gets convoluted (about 2/3rds through Watanabe tells us “I was getting tired of chasing secrets” and the reader can’t help but agree.)

But the way that the known facts about Yun Dong-ju, carefully researched, and his poems are embedded in an entirely fictional story, and the love of literature that shines through every page redeems the novel.

3.5 stars.

[Patryx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dietro ai fatti talvolta si nasconde un’altra verità.

Tempi spaventosi.
Chi sei tu, che mi chiami?
All’ombra di verdi foglie di quercia,
Respiro ancora.
Io che non ho mai alzato la mano,
Io che non ho un cielo da salutare.
Io che non ho un cielo sotto cui stendermi,
Perché mi chiami?
Nel mattino della mia morte,
dopo che la mia opera sarà compiuta
le foglie di quercia cadranno in pace…
Non chiamarmi. (Yun Dong-ju)

Questo è un libro d’amore: amore per la poesia, la musica, la letterature e soprattutto per la propria lingua madre. E’ un libro dove trionfa la speranza nonostante tutte le ingiustizie perpetrate nel carcere di Fukuoka; è un inno all’umanità che alberga in ogni persona, anche se per lasciarla emergere occorre un grande coraggio che non tutti posseggono.


Yun Dong-ju, secondo da sinistra nella fila in primo piano, con altri studenti dell’Università Doshisha a Kyoto (1943).

Il poeta del titolo è Yun Dong-ju, un giovane coreano imprigionato dagli occupanti giapponesi per aver scritto poesie nella sua lingua, in alcune delle quali si inneggiava all’indipendenza della Corea. I giapponesi, ritenendolo un esponente del movimento antinipponico, lo condannarono a scontare due anni nella prigione di Fukuoka dove le condizioni dei prigionieri coreani erano durissime e anche chi riceveva condanne brevi rischiava di morire durante il rigido inverno.


Una scena del film coreano sulla vita di Yun Dong-ju: A Portrait of a Poet (diretto da Li Joon-ik nel 2016).

La sua vicenda è romanzata ma, scrive l’autore, lo spirito che ne emerge è quello dei suoi scritti, soprattutto delle poesie: una grande fede in Dio cui attingere nei momenti difficili e il desiderio di vedere realizzata l’indipendenza del proprio paese.
Il delitto su cui si indaga fa da filo conduttore a tutto il romanzo ed è il pretesto per far immergere il lettore in un mondo fatto di parole e letteratura, insistendo sul potere terapeutico dell’arte e sulla sua capacità di creare un ponte tra gli esseri umani, superando barriere di lingua e cultura.


Come nel film di Christophe Barratier (2004), la musica ha un ruolo molto importante nel romanzo di Jung-Myung Lee.

Moltissime sono le citazioni integrali sia delle opere di Yun Dong-ju sia degli autori che maggiormente lo hanno ispirato (Skakespeare, Francis Jammes, Rainer Maria Rilke, Giuseppe Verdi); a volte la stessa poesia è riportata due volte: il testo ne risulta arricchito ma, al contempo, ne rallenta la lettura e il lettore che si aspetta un classico giallo potrebbe esserne infastidito (per fortuna non era il mio caso).

[Hulyacln · Rating 4 out of 5]

16 Şubat 1945’te yani bundan tam 79 sene önce bugün şair Yun Dong Ju, Fukuoka Hapishanesi’nde öldü.
Ölümü (orada olan diğer pek çok Koreli mahkum gibi) sistematik şekilde gerçekleşti.
Japonya’nın savaş suçlarından biri olan ‘tıbbi deneyler’ sebep oldu buna.
.
Peki Yıldızlara Değen Rüzgâr bir tarih kitabı mı? Hayır, gerçek kişi ve olaylardan yola çıkılarak yazılmış bir kurgu. Hapishanede zalimliğiyle bilinen bir gardiyanın ölümüyle başlayan hikayede, katili ararken bambaşka detaylarla karşılaşıyoruz, aklımıza bazı isimler geliyor tabii. Sonra şiirler okuyoruz dört duvara sıkışmış mahkumların baktığı göğe karşı, yıldız sayıyoruz.
Uçurtmayı Vurmasınlar’ı hatırlıyoruz.
Suçlu sandıklarımızın masum olabilme ihtimalini görüyoruz.
.
Cennetten Kaçan Çocuk ile okurunu Pyongyang’a götüren yazar Jung Myung Lee, bu eserinde Fukuoka’ya götürüyor. Özgürlüğe, şiire ve umuda dair nice düşünceye salıyor…
Çok severek okudum..
.
Yıldızlara Değen Rüzgâr’a ek olarak: Yun Dong Ju’nun ‘Gökyüzü, Rüzgar, Yıldızlar ve Şiir’ kitabını, ‘Dongju: The Portrait of a Poet’ adlı filmi de öneririm.
.
Göksel Türközü çevirisi, Geray Gençer kapak tasarımıyla ~

[MaRysia (ostatnia_strona) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cudowna książka! Bardzo podobało mi się to, że jest to literatura wojenna o jakiej mało słyszy się w Europie. Głównie mówię tutaj o tej która znamy chociażby ze szkoły. Dobrze jest czytać o tym jak skutki wojny odczuwali obywatele krajów pozaeuropejskich - tutaj akurat Japonii.

Poza tym motyw książek i poezji roztopił moje serce. Myślę, że książka może spodobać się miłośnikom Zafona.

Dodatkowo mamy tutaj wątek około kryminalny. Jestem pod wrażeniem różnorodności tej książki oraz tego w jaki sposób wywoływała we mnie emocje.

Wiem, że jest trudno dostępna w papierze, ale ja akurat przesłuchałam ją w audiobooku.

[Adela · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75*

[dominika.a.a · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nie do końca wiem jak podejść do oceny tej książki ze względu na to, że wiem, że niektórym może się spodobać i nie chciałabym ewidentnie jej odradzać. Ja niestety nie należę do tej grupy. Podtrzymuje moje zdanie, że napisana jest w sposób fenomenalny, wręcz poetycki. Można znaleźć naprawdę dużo pięknych cytatów. Sama historia niestety była dla mnie zbyt powolna (a ja naprawdę lubię wolne książki), w pewnym momencie nie do końca wiedziałam do czego właściwie to wszystko zmierza. Początek i zakończenie- bardzo dobre (a prolog wręcz mistrzowski!). Środek- niestety dla mnie bardzo słaby fabularnie.
Jest to na pewno coś oryginalnego i przyznam, że chyba nigdy się z czymś takim nie spotkałam.
3 gwiazdki to w "moim rankingu" mimo wszystko dobra ocena i myślę, że ta książka na nią zasługuje. Niestety jest bardzo nierówna, ale ma momenty które naprawdę mi się podobały.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) “If you have to bet on something, I suggest you choose hope.” In the frigid January of 1945, narrator Watanabe Yuichi, a 19-year-old Japanese student soldier at Fukuoka Prison, is tasked with investigating the gruesome murder of his fellow guard, Sugiyama Dozan. Although Fukuoka is in Manchuria, an area of northeast China under Japanese control, most of the inmates are Korean, including real-life poet Yun Dong-ju, many of whose poems are included in the text.

When Yuichi takes over Sugiyama’s role as prison censor, he discovers just how influential music and literature can be in bringing life and hope into desperate circumstances. Yuichi is confused by the accounts he receives of his predecessor’s character: Sugiyama was known as a brutal overseer who tortured prisoners for no good reason, yet he was at the same time a piano tuner and poetry lover, and also facilitated a secret prison library. “[Sugiyama] was afraid of what he’d become, a person who could be transformed by a book...moved by beauty, he realized he was still human.”

The mystery element itself, ostensibly the most important thing about the book and what lends it its title, is not particularly compelling. A few passages seem overwritten, with metaphorical links made too overtly – such as the Hebrews’ experience in exile being used as a parallel story for the Koreans under Japanese rule. Also, I was not always sure about the translation; there are some cheesy similes that are almost certainly better in the original, as well as some repetition of verbs.

In general, I wondered if Sugiyama’s tale could have been told in the third person; the framing device of Yuichi’s narrative can feel unnecessary, except in that his family owned a secondhand bookshop – which introduces an alternative setting and emphasizes the nostalgic and sustaining powers of literature. In some ways this novel reminds me of the Holocaust story The Pianist (or the analogous life of Alice Herz-Sommer). Like many war stories, it shares in the same ultimate message: “True emotion transcends language...Beauty without suffering is meaningless.”

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a 3.75 rounded up

Right around mid-December, someone in the publishing industry posted his/her list of best crime novels of 2015, and this book was on it. I remember thinking that at the time I bought it, it didn't really seem like a crime novel, and I thought the reference on the best-of list was kind of weird, so I plowed through the translated fiction shelves, found it, and decided I needed to read it. The more I read into it, the less it appealed to me as a crime novel and more as a novel of historical fiction. This proves to me that it's highly likely that whoever it was that had it down on his/her idea of the best of crime list probably had no clue what he/she was reading (which is scary when I think about it) -- while there is definitely a crime involved here, it is not at all the central focus of this story. So if you're planning on reading it thinking that it's your next crime-fiction read, don't even go there.

I will say right up front that I really liked this book. Some things detracted from my reading, such as too much in the way of repetition (yes, we know that one of the main characters loved and was highly influenced by Rilke but we don't need to constantly be reminded), and some seriously-obvious contrivances (especially in terms of the crime that frames the story) that prevented me from oozing love over the book. And I know this will sound sort of weird, but here and there while reading I kept saying to myself "this is way too obvious," but then again, that's a me thing. I will also say that once I got used to all of the distractions, I found a really, really good story here.

The novel begins at the end of World War II, as the narrator, Yuichi Watanabe, tells us. At the age of twenty, he is "behind bars" at Fukuoka Prison, having exchanged his "brown guard uniform" for "red prisoner's garb" since the Americans (who have occupied Japan, of course), have "classified" him as "a low-level war criminal," charging him with abusing prisoners. He doesn't deny that he's guilty; au contraire, he knows that yes, he has "yelled at them and beaten them," but he also realizes that part of his guilt was in as he says, "doing nothing." He "didn't prevent the unnecessary deaths of innocent people," he "was silent in the face of the insanity, " and he'd "closed" his "ears to the screams of the innocent." Before the actual story begins, though, Watanabe clues in his readers to the fact that what he's about to say isn't solely about him, but rather

"about the war's destruction of the human race. This story is about both the people who lacked humanity and the purest of men. And it's about a bright star that crossed our dark universe 10,000 years ago...My story is about two people who met at Fukuoka Prison."

And thus begins the novel in full, comprising Watanabe's story, which begins with the horrific murder of a prison guard who was also in charge of censorship duties. Watanabe is tasked with the investigation into Sugiyama's death, but this young man, whose mother repaired and sold books and who developed a deep and abiding love of literature while growing up, is also tasked with Sugiyama's censorship duties, which to him are abhorrent. It is an interesting setup, really, because while the investigation of the crime acts as a frame getting us into the workings of the prison, underneath all of that is the story of the last days of a Korean "resistance" poet named Yun Dong-Ju, (1917-1945) who was arrested supposedly for political activities, but in my opinion ( at least via this book), his only major crime was being Korean. It is also a story about the power of literature to transform even the hardest of souls, about the enduring legacy of literature, about freedom, about different forms of both resistance and oppression, and about the plight of the Koreans under Japanese colonial rule. As Watanabe tells us regarding Yun (but really, speaking for all Koreans),
"he was no longer free, but he hadn't ever known how it felt to be free; no Korean was free."

One of the very best things I discovered about this entire book is the author's focus on language. On page 164, Sugiyama notes the following:

"So language wasn't simply a tool to convey meaning. It was the charter of a human being that contained a nation's history..."

As just one example, Koreans were not allowed to use their own names; instead they were required to take Japanese names and in the prison, at least, were punished if they tried to use their real ones. They were also not allowed to write in their native language. Some wonderful scenes occur in the novel around this terrible and oppressive law, but there are many, many others as well that combine language and the concept of resistance to produce some incredible moments here.

Aside from my grievances about the detractors I listed (which obviously are personal to me and may not bother anyone else), I was actually very impressed with this novel, and it really is one of those books that's stuck with me. I read it over the course of two long plane rides and a two-hour layover (I had my nose stuck in it even while eating self-forbidden Tex-Mex in Dallas) and couldn't put it down. It's one I can definitely recommend -- it is a lovely yet horrific portrait of a bygone era, one that is not forgotten and which still resonates I would think, among Koreans.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you kindly to the publisher for the Advance Reading Copy.

Fukuoka Prison, 1944. Beyond the prison walls the war rages; inside a man is found brutally murdered. Watanabe, a young guard with a passion for reading, is tasked with finding the killer. The victim, Sugiyama – also a guard – was feared and despised throughout the prison and investiWgations have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanabe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the suspect and Yun Dong-ju, a talented Korean poet, he begins to realise that the fearsome guard was not all he appeared to be . . .

First of all I should make clear that I adored this one with a fiery passion. Not since “The Humans” by Matt Haig has a book touched me on a level such as this one. Absolutely addictive reading, with some beautiful prose I was fully immersed from start to finish. There is poetry within the pages – both literally and metaphorically – and the tale itself is a compelling one.

The book is inspired by the life and death of Korean poet Yun Dong-ju and uses some of his posthumously published work, Poetry and the beauty of words is a theme throughout..and it works so well, having an effect on heart and soul that I can’t really put into words. Add to that a snapshot of prison life during war, some absolutely amazing characters and a tendency to surprise you when you least expect it and you have a reading experience that is difficult to categorise.

I really hope that people don’t read the synopsis and think this is just a crime novel, or a war story. Whilst in a very small way it could be described as both of those things, there is after all a crime and it IS set during a war, the heart of this novel is so far removed from those two things, it kind of sits outside them peering in. I have also seen it described as “Literary” – well yes but again, to me and to quite a few readers I know, “Literary” often transcribes into bloated and endlessly dull – in fact Vicky Newham and I were having this very discussion last night. This book is anything BUT dry, it is never dull and is fascinating, heart stopping and purely graceful throughout.

This is a story about how words have power. Power to change us, power to give us hope and joy even under the direst of circumstances. How inner beauty does not always shine – as Watanabe investigates the death of Sugiyama he discovers a man he never knew existed. It puts him firmly in the path of another man who will change his life. And running through the strands of the story are always the words – the poetry – and the heart of humanity. There is certainly more than one mystery going on here.

This is the first book from a Korean author that I have read. Kudos to the translater, this is perfect in almost every way. I believe Jung-Myung Lee will be visiting the UK later this year and I hope, I really do, that I get to see him when he does and perhaps hear him speak. It feels like one of those things that must be done.

I hope that I have inspired you to read this even if you would normally not consider such a book. Novels like this do not come along that often – for me anyway. I loved every minute of it. It brought me to tears in a cathartic way – And if I had to describe it in one word, one magical word, that word would be exquisite.

Happy Reading Folks!

[Olivermagnus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Investigation is set in a prison camp in Fukuoka, Japan, near the end of World War II. It focuses on the life and death of Korean poet, Yun Dong-ju. During the time I was reading the book, I was unaware the he was an actual person and did, in fact, die while being held in a Japanese prison camp. When a vicious prison guard known as Sugiyama the Butcher is killed found hanging with a stake through his heart and his mouth sewed shut, Yuichi Watanabe, a young Japanese guard, is put in charge of the investigation. He is also given Sugiyama's censoring duties, which is where he discovers his first clue and discovers that no one is quite who they appear to be.

The Investigation starts as a crime procedural but quickly changes to something very different. The author describes the horrific realities of prison and the way the Japanese felt about systematically destroying the Koreans. Much of the book is filled with poetry and passages from famous classics like Les Miserables and even the Bible. Watanabe Yuichi falls in love with a nurse who works at the prison and she brings incredible insight into the story, revealing what she knows of both Sugiyama and Yun Dong-ju.

This novel is part thriller, part historical fiction, and part literary fiction. Because the book is translated and filled with many unfamiliar names and places, many readers may struggle with the concept. The poetry and prose are especially beautiful and once the reader gets into the cadence of the storytelling, they will enjoy this clever and unique novel.

[Krysia o książkach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nie powiedziałabym, że to kryminał, jest wiele elementów z różnych gatunków, poezja, lit. więzienna, wojenna, dramat, tego kryminału to chyba najmniej. Początek i zakończenie bardzo dobre, mocne i wzruszające. Były momenty gdzie można się było zagubić, znudzić, potrzeba było nieco samozaparcia, żeby trwać w historii.

Całościowo bardzo dobra, zwłaszcza po przeczytaniu słowa od autora zamieszczonego na końcu książki. Ukazana moc literatury, książek, słowa pisanego. Złożone portrety psychologiczne postaci, surowy klimat. Świetna, ale nabiera smaku dopiero kiedy pozna się całość, przemyśli i pobędzie trochę samotnie z tą historią.

[Alicja Alice アリス · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nadal mogę powiedzieć, że nigdy wcześniej nie czytałam czegoś podobnego. Nie jestem fanką powieści historycznych, ale ta mnie wyjątkowo urzekła. Może to fakt, że była inspirowana życiem niefikcyjnej osoby, może to specyfika koreańskich powieści (mimo, że polskie wydanie tłumaczone było z języka angielskiego).
Bardzo żałuję, że nie znam języka koreańskiego i nie mogę poznać wierszy Yun Dong-Ju w oryginale.

[Emerson‌●ω● · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتابی که در قلب کسی ریشه بدواند هرگز فراموش نخواهد شد:)))))
تنها توصیفی که میتونه حسمو به این کتاب معرکه بیان کنه✨

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

My library has this book filed under the mystery section. While there is a murder in the book, I have chosen to put it on my historical fiction shelf, as a large part of the book is to do with the real life poet Yun Dong-ju.

The entire book is set in a Japanese prison in 1944. At the very beginning of the book, one of the guards, Sugiyama, is found brutally murdered. And for reasons unbeknownst to him, a very young guard, Watanabe Yuichi, is ordered to investigate the crime.

While looking into this murder, Watanabe discovers over time that nothing is really as simple as it seems. As well as being a guard, Sugiyama was also the censor for the prison, dealing with incoming and outgoing mail, as well as confiscating books etc.

The further Watanabe looks into the life of Sugiyama, the more complex a person he turns out to be. And while his murder is a crucial part of the story, poetry and music also have large parts to play. So even in the most brutal of prisons, music and literature somehow find a way to be heard.

As I said, Yun Dong-ju was a real poet and many of his poems are included in the book, blending right in with the story. And what happens to him is probably the most important part of the book.

So, if you're looking for a traditional crime novel, this probably isn't going to do it for you. But if you like historical or literary fiction, told with beautiful prose throughout, you might want to give this book a try. I hope they translate more of the author's works.

[Angel 一匹狼 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here we have one of those books that some people seem to fall in love with. You have all the basic ingredients: war, poetry, love of books, characters that change and become more "human" as the plot advances... It seems an interesting combination.

Sadly, Lee Jung-Myung makes more than one and two mistakes along the way.

The story is not complicated. In a prison, a guard is killed. Another guard, a young guy that used to pass his time in his parents' bookstore, is asked to find the culprit. Cue cheesy conversations and references to authors almost no one knows. Yeah, you will know the names, but you probably won't have read them.

I am the first to defend the authors desire to promote the classics. In his work "Hyperion", Dan Simmons brings with skill Keats into the novel and you may find yourself desiring to read Keats, even if his work has little or nothing to do on the surface with Simmons great novel. He's not the only one. But Lee Jung-Myung falls for florid and cheesy conversations and makes characters talk as people would never talk in real life. It may be a problem of the English translation, as the Spanish translation has been made from it and not from the original, but it may also have to do with the author's style.

So one of the problems of the novel is that it descends into cheesy quite easily. But some people may love that. What they may hate in real life (someone talking to you bringing Rilke or Jammes into the conversation would probably sound like a snob in the ears of many people), they like in a book or a movie.

But that's not the only problem. I am quite harsh, probably, but the actions of the characters are not justified enough, and I didn't believe the change that happens in some of the characters hearts. The way characters behave, or the way their changes are explained, are pedestrian to say the least. Specially with one of the main characters, Sugiyama.

This could have been a powerful novel. Based very loosely on the last months of the life of one of Korea's most famous poets, Yun Dong-ju (윤동주), it should be bathing in poetry. Instead, it gloats on cheese.

And, really, how many characters can you have smiling mysteriously in a novel?

3

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very difficult book to review, for reasons that are equally difficult to elucidate.
On the one hand, we have a lovely fictionalization of the final year of Korean poet Yun Dong-ju's life in a Japanese prison during the final year of World War 2. In that nice, "English Patient"-y kind of way, a real event is distorted to fit into a well-intentioned narrative, one that deals with a prison guard's death, poetry, kites, and probably most important, the emergence of beauty through suffering.
On the other hand, we have what many readers might see as insufferable literary pretension, where your average Japanese prison guard is familiar with Goethe and Jammes and can quote Shakespeare, and where a nearly intolerable focus on and familiarity with "Western" literature and music seems to be the driving force behind most characters' motivations. It is a questionable turn for the story, since, given the political climate in Japan for the preceding decades, it seems bewildering that Andre Gide or Rilke would be more of a cultural focal point than, say, Japanese or Korean literature. Sadly, you'll find little reference to either, save for the main character.

That said, I come down forcefully on the side of the first elucidation. All the criticisms in the second elucidation still stand with the added caveat that the loveliness is borderline shrill, but I'm a sucker for anything involving poetry, so.

[Łucja Biechońska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aż trudno zebrać mi spójną opinię o tej książce. Wbiła mnie w fotel już pierwszymi stronami i nie spuszczała z tonu do samego końca. Brutalna, realna, przerażająca, ale mimo wszystko napełniająca odrobiną nadziei, że nawet w najtragiczniejszych czasach znajdą się osoby dobre gdzieś w głębi duszy. Jest to również kolejna opowieść pokazująca, że każdy z nas ma za sobą swoją własną historię i bez jej znajomości nie mamy żadnego prawa wysnuwać opinii na temat innych. Trudno powiedzieć, że jestem zachwycona tą książka, bo niektórymi do niektórych rzeczy takie przymiotniki po prostu nie pasują. Mogę za to wprost powiedzieć, że dzieło Lee Jung-Myung zrobiło na mnie niewyobrażalne wrażenie.

[Barry Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAI3m...

Read my review on Substack here - https://open.substack.com/pub/barrywe...

[Tannaz · Rating 1 out of 5]

نمی دانم تقصیر من است یا چه... من کتاب‌های گزارش‌طور دوست ندارم.

[yelenska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pas un livre parfait, mais j'ai été véritablement prise et emportée dans cette tourmente de douleur, de guerre, mais aussi de beauté et de poésie. Je me suis vraiment prise d'émotions pour certains personnages qui sont pourtant plutôt du côté des bourreaux. J'ai beaucoup aimé les nombreuses références poétiques parsemées dans le roman, et j'apprends à la fin du livre que c'est inspiré d'un poète coréen qui existe vraiment et qui est toujours étudié en Corée du Sud. (Nota bene: mais l'histoire du livre est imaginée par l'auteur.) Certains diront qu'il y a un côté un peu exagéré dans cet amour de la poésie et dans certaines réactions, et je l'accorde. Mais j'ai réussi à l'accepter et rester dans l'histoire, avec toujours cette soif de continuer et comprendre ce qu'il sest passé - et ce, tout en laissant place à la poésie (en temps de guerre) dans ma vie.

Par contre, le titre anglais... Non.

[kama🤝🏽 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[otylka ੈ♡˳ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the surface, ‘The Investigation’ is a novel about a young guard unravelling the mystery of the murder of another guard in Fukuoka prison. That ‘investigation’ part, however, seems contrived and a little obvious, and is probably best seen as the opportunity to undertake the more important ‘investigation’ of Koreans in Japan during wartime, and the importance of language and literature on identity. Looking back on the novel things started to become clearer. I started to understand why Watanabe was young and inexperienced when he begins the investigation, why I found certain parts disjointed with clumsy language next to beautiful flowing poetic text, and why the guards started using the poet’s Korean name instead of his Japanese one as the story developed. So many things discovered in retrospect, but all discovered too late. Sometimes books are a little too clever for me. I really didn’t enjoy it and would have definitely given up half way through save for the great reviews and talk of an excellent ending.

[Nikola · Rating 4 out of 5]

CAWPILE rating: 7.00/10
Ta książka wyrwała mi serce i wytarła nim podłogę. Otwiera oczy na rzeczywistość wojenną Korei z Japonią, ale i nie tylko, bo zawarte w niej prawdy i aforyzmy są uniwersalne. To, co spotykało tych ludzi w więzieniu może spotkać każdego z nas. Myślę, że wybrałam odpowiedni czas na zapoznanie się z tą książką w kontekście tego, co dzieje się aktualnie, w XXI wieku, za naszą wschodnią granicą. Absolutnie przerażająca i dająca do myślenia, chociaż miejscami bardzo mi się dłużyła. Także główny wątek fabularny ginął gdzieś pomiędzy patetyzmem sytuacji i pięknymi, obrazowymi przemyśleniami bohaterów.
Z tą książką trzeba usiąść i jej posłuchać, dać jej przekazać to co ma nam do przekazania i w żadnym wypadku się z nią nie spieszyć. Ubolewam nad tym, że nie mogę przeczytać wierszy Yuna Dong-ju w oryginale, bo na pewno musi to być jedyne w swoim rodzaju literackie doświadczenie.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first I thought this was a Japanese novel, but it's actually Korean. It's set in a Japanese prison with several Korean inmates, a piece of history I hadn't known about. At first this book seems like a crime novel, but it's actually about poetry and empathy. It can be a little tricky keeping tabs of the two parallel storylines, but it was quite beautiful. A great book for lovers of books and poetry.

[Robert Sheard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on the real story of one of Korea's best-regarded poets, Yun Dong-ju, this is part mystery, part enemies/friends story. Set during World War II, the book is about a group of Korean prisoners in a Japanese prison. Japan colonized Korea in 1910 and was brutal in its treatment of the Korean people, even erasing their Korean names and insisting they use Japanese ones. When a prison guard–one known for his brutality–is murdered, a young guard, conscripted into the Army, is put in charge of "solving the mystery." But none of the hierarchy wants it solved. They don't want anyone interfering from the outside. So it's a book about uncovering layer upon layer of secrets and relationships. Sprinkled throughout the book are Yun's actual poems, which were protected by a former teacher during the war and published after the war. While the novel can be a little confusing about the relationships between many of the characters, ultimately it's a touching book about the beauty of art, even in a time of crisis, about the power of friendships, and the honor of the few who stood up against the many.

[Magda Ostrowska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trafiła mnie prosto w serce.