人間の証明

by Seiichi Morimura, 森村 誠一

「母さん、僕のあの帽子、どうしたでせうね?」。西条八十の詩集を持った黒人が、ナイフで胸を刺されて殺害された。被害者は「日本のキスミーに行く」と言い残して数日前に来日したという。日米合同捜査が展開され、棟居刑事は奥深い事件の謎を追って被害者の過去を遡るが、やがて事件は自らの過去の因縁をも手繰り寄せてくる―。人間の“業”を圧倒的なスケールで描ききった、巨匠の代表作にして不朽の名作。

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

509 pages, Paperback Bunko

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Human Proof (or 'The Proof Of the Man') by Seiichi Morimura, is a Japanese detective/crime mystery novel from the 1970s. It proves us with a solidly written murder mystery, intensive human dramas and moving emotional conflicts among characters.

The story begins when an African American young man was fatally wounded on the street of Tokyo, but instead of crying for help, the young man struggled his way to a top-floor restaurant of a luxurious hotel before he took his last breath. The police department of Tokyo must investigate the man's death but they could find no connection between the young man and any Japanese citizen. With hardly any eye witness, no motivation, no suspect and no explanation to the victim's strange behaviors before dying, the investigation ran the risk of meeting with deadends.

Meanwhile, a woman who worked as hostess in a nightclub had gone missing, in order to search for her, her husband and her lover formed an unlikely alliance to investigate her disappearance, but this pair of anxious men could hardly expect what kind of people they were going up against...

The murder mystery in this book is a complicated one, so are the relationships and hidden connections among different characters, but despite of the multiple plot lines and complicated relationships among characters, the story is still neatly written and it isn't boring nor confusing. Once you learnt the reasons why the African American young man went to Japan and the reasons why he was murdered, you would probably feel very sorry for him, for everyone who had been involved with the case, even for the murderer.

The Main Character of this story is a young policemen who had a tragic past and he claimed not to trust anyone (he became a policeman not in order to protect innocent people but merely so he'd have a reason to go after the bad guys and make them pay), but it is quite ironic that in the end the policeman came to believe that the murderer would confess due to her own humanity and guilt, which proofs that in the end despite of his bitterness and mistrust, the policeman did believe in humanity after all.

Still, there're some flaws in the book, for example the characters' personalities are revealed to us in a rather 'Tell, Not Show' manner, and the author seems to overdo his MC's 'hard boiled cop' image a bit too much.

But I will read more of this author's books from now on.

PS: Ningen No Shōmei had been adapted into TV series and movies for various times, and here's the 2004 version of the TV series:


(Link: http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Ningen_no_S...)

You can even watch the TV series on Youtube with English subtitle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7JG9...

I'll look forward for it.

Edited@04/05/2015:

Turns out my mom has the 1970 version of this book, and I put the old copy next to the 2000s reprinted version, and see! The new version gets a lot thicker than the old one! LOL

[XXX · Rating 4 out of 5]

看书的时候竹野内丰的脸一直在我脑子里晃-_-!个人感觉，电视剧剧本对原作的改编非常出彩。除了朝枝路子这个人改的灰常扯淡以外（殉情那段是最大的bug），其他地方都很棒！尤其是对八杉恭子这个人物的改编，简直是绝赞！强烈推荐筒子们去把电视剧翻出来看一遍！

[Yvette · Rating 3 out of 5]

社会派推理看来不是我的菜。大段大段的跳过作者冗长的说教。

[Nicktimebreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

评论大骂前言泄底的，虽此行为不该，但在我看来本书的推理性并不强，基本没有在推理上进行悬疑设置，阅读过程中很轻易能猜到凶手。作者文笔挺好，尤其在描写男女关系的那几段。但在线索收集的过程有太多匪夷所思的巧合和妙想以及对美国的刻板印象并反复不断的唾骂描写令人出戏。