夜行

by Tomihiko Morimi, 森見登美彥, 涂愫芸 (Translator)

沒有哪個夜晚不會迎來黎明，
但或許真的存在不會天亮的夜晚也說不一定……

後來的日子裡，我們沒有一個人忘記過她。

她是長谷川，包括她在內，我們六個人是在京都一起求學的同伴。十年前，大夥相約去看鞍馬的火祭，沒想到她在人群中走散，就此平空消失，宛如被吸入了虛空之中。

十年後，剩下的五個人再次聚首鞍馬，也重新墜入當年的記憶裡。當夜越來越深，大家開始說起這些年來彼此經歷的怪事。

中井在尾道遇見妻子「變身」成陌生人；武田在奧飛驒遇見老奶奶讀出友人的「死相」；藤村在津輕看見失火的屋子旁有位女子向自己招手；田邊在天龍峽的電車裡碰見一位似曾相識的高中女生；大橋在鞍馬的藝廊，赫然驚見失蹤的長谷川……

最詭異的是，所有人的奇遇背後，竟然都與畫家岸田道生的銅版畫〈夜行〉系列存在著某種連結。所謂的「夜行」，究竟是夜行列車的「夜行」，還是百鬼夜行的「夜行」呢？在這個彷彿沒有盡頭的夜裡，十年來圍繞在我們身上所有的秘密，似乎都將化為具體，一一現形……

Genres: Japanese Literature, Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Horror

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2016

About the author

Born in Nara Prefecture, Tomihiko Morimi graduated from Kyoto University, and his works often has Kyoto as setting.

Associated Names:
* Tomihiko Morimi (English)
* 森見 登美彦 (Japanese)
* 모리미 토미히코 (Korean)
* โมริมิ โทมิฮิโกะ (Thai)
* 森見登美彥 (Chinese)

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

「この家は私の夜の世界に建っているのかも。」185ページ

This quote makes me think we all hold our own house in the night, an image that perfectly captures everything strange and uncanny we find about the world and put into one space. This house is so uniquely ours, something we see our thoughts reflected in, and so the darkness feels achingly familiar.

Hasegawa disappeared into the night 10 years ago during the Kurama summer festival near Kyoto. She was part of a group of friends in their twenties who all went to the same eikaiwa school. Ohashi seemed to be the most smitten with her, but in a way they all were. Like referenced in the above quote, she was someone very close to her house in the night and gave off a strange, magnetic presence. She shared a story with Ohashi about the astronaut Yuri Gagarin seeing how beautiful and blue earth was from space. Then she mentioned how astronauts will comment not only about the earth, but how the darkness of space seems to extend forever around it. The vastness of that darkness is not something that can ever be captured in images, but has to be felt by being physically out there in space.

「しかし宇宙飛行士の語るところによれば、本当にに衝撃を受けるのは背景に広がる宇宙の暗さであるらしい。その闇がどれほど暗いか、どれほど空虚かということは、肉眼で見なければ絶対に分からない。ガガーリンの言葉は、じつは底しれない空虚のことを語っている。この決して写真にあらわせない宇宙の深い闇のことを考えると怖いような感じもするし、魅入られるような感じもする。『世界はつねに夜なのよ』と彼女は言った。」257ページ

In this novel, there is a small dark room referred to as the 「暗室」。One character describes how small it is when you first enter, but because the lights are off and there's nothing inside, you can slowly feel the room expand to feel infinite.

All this is to say, it is that infinite dark space that connects the 5 stories told in this novel. The friends from the eikawa school come back together 10 years later at that same festival at the bequest of Ohashi, and each share a story of a strange happening during trips they’ve taken. The connecting thread is that each place where something strange happens is the title in a series of 48 copper engraved art works by an eclectic artist named Kishida. The artwork series is called 夜行, the title of this novel. When I first picked this book up back in 2020, I thought it was about night trains and finding lost love. And while in a way this book was about those things, it was really a never ending night of sharing ghost stories, much more spooky than I was expecting. The scariest part that sticks out in my mind was of a middle aged man sweating profusely, crawling up creaky stairs on his hands and knees to stare at a woman through a keyhole in a house that nobody should be living in.

I liked Fujimura's story quite a lot because of the imagery and building sense of dread as she, her husband, and her husband's friend hop on a night train to travel to the Aomori area (I wanna check out 三内丸山遺跡). They thought they glimpsed a house burning in the snow from the window of the train. Fujimura thinks back to her childhood huddled away on the second floor of her friend's quiet house all alone on an embankment, drawing feverishly in the summer. They find a house from one of the copper engraving series. At one moment it feels eerily dead all closed up with no one in sight. But it was the burning house they had seen from the train and felt very much alive in the climactic moment.

「今、佳奈ちゃんの家は息を吹き返して、夜の底に燦然とkが焼いていました。すべてのカーテンは開かれて、窓という窓がぎらぎらと光っていました。それはまるで内側から燃えているようでした。」186ページ

Each vignette ended with some moment of unreality, something that can't possibly be right but is played off as the most natural conclusion.
There’s also a lot of talk about seeing the unseen. One oracle woman picked up on the side of the road says she can see the countenance of death on someone’s face 「死相」and says she sees it on two people’s faces in the car. Then there’s a fake Buddhist priest in Tanabe’s story traveling on the endless train that says he can read people’s hearts. Words float out to him while staring at scenery, but the words also appear when gazing at people. He says it's not such a wrong thing to be unable to see these words though. 「人間として生きていくからには、多くのものに目をつぶらないといけない。言葉が我々の目をふさいでくれる。たとえばあなたが車窓に目をやれば何かみえている。しかし、あなたは気づかぬうちに『言葉』を見ているのです。」198ページ。You’re looking out the window of the train, you’re gazing at the words that the scenery is projecting, but your human eyes help keep those words shut out. Definitely reminds me of the movie Eyes Wide Shut and the things we do not see that are right in front of us. Then he continues、 「我々は相手の顔を見ているようでみていない。怒っているとか、泣いているとか、胡散臭いとか、紋切り型の言葉を与える。これは哀帝に自分が投げつけた言葉を見ているので、いうなれば独り相撲。しかし風景が無限の奥行きを持つなら、人間の顔も同じでしょう。言葉に頼まずに相手の顔を見ることができれば、目えぬものがおのずから見えてくるのです。」198ページ cont. This is where my brain started really spinning because this old con-man is basically saying the same thing as the lyrics from an original musical about Oni that I was recently in here in Sendai. The sensei who wrote this musical spoke about how everyone holds an oni in their hearts, sees and does not see, but can come to see the hidden world in nature when they open their hearts. The world that the oni occupied was right next to the human world, a sort of boundary that could be crossed when the worlds overlap.

The five different stories all overlapped in some way: the houses out of place, the strange sweating, a woman without a face waving, lamplights in the towns, disappearances, sudden changes in personality, meeting an inverted version of oneself, and some kind of boundary/threshold crossing. The title of the artwork series is suggested to be 百鬼夜行 or The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons. 「百鬼夜行の夜行だよ。岸田の書いた女はみんな鬼なのさ。だから顔がない。」229ページ。「この女の子は岸田が魔境を旅して出会った鬼なのだ。」237ページ。Even though the woman with no face seems to be some ominous entity across space and time, there is a brief moment, a glimpse into a mirror to see the daybreak side to her. I got to be a 鬼女 in the musical and we sang lyrics like 「闇がなければこの世は闇よ」。But ultimately, I would categorize the musical as taking place on the light side of that mirror, or 「曙光」as it is called in this novel.

In an interview, the author stated something about wanting to show what happens when worlds interact, briefly touch. So it was really cool the way the story bled into my own life and the musical about Oni. I fully agree with the statement that it is the arts that show us a world unseen, right before our eyes, that we had our eyes shut to before. 「…芸術家というものが隠された真実の世界を描く役目を果たしている…」237ページ。

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

『四畳半神話大系』や『夜は短し歩けよ乙女』で確立された森見登美彦のエキセントリックな作風から離れた本作は主に暗い静けさが漂う孤独なストーリーである。そのためか、著者から元気なユーモアを求める層にとっては期待外れとなる可能性があるが、個人的には今まで読んだ森見登美彦の作品でナンバーワンと言ってもいい程の傑作だと思う。
本作にはある一定のファンタジー要素もあるが、どちらかと言えば物語は内省的なホラー小説である。特に素晴らしく際立つのは比較的陳腐な出来事を意外にもシンプルな文体で描くことにより、かえって不気味な不安さを常に感じさせる著者の才能だ。また、5つの章を通し、登場人物が敢えて重要な情報を明かさず、読者独自の推理を必要とさせるミステリー要素も強く印象に残った。
著者のヒット作と異なる点が多いため、必ずしも万人受けする作品ではないかもしれないが、自分の意見としては寧ろ著者がこの類のダークな物語をもっと多く書くならそれはそれで非常にウェルカムだ。

[Sergio · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of short ghost stories framed by a meeting of friends at a town festival 10 years after their classmate's disappearance during that same event. All of the stories are thematically related to the long-lasting impact of losing someone and being reminded of them by unexpected sights and places during their travels years later, and narratively linked by a series of engravings by a mysterious author in which a woman who looks like their missing friend beckons to them, titled Night Train.

I liked it, the paranormal aspect never outweighs the feeling of melancholia and loss, and the stories are all suitably creepy. Due to its premise (most of the friends are male, and the missing friend was a female student they all seemingly were in love with) as well as part of the ending I feel like it only narrowly escapes the reading of having its morale be "get yourself a wife, that will fix you", but in the end I think it has more interesting things to say than that, even if I can see the gravity of his previous works pull Morimi towards romance. I'm also fairly impressed with his range now, even if there were shades of this book in Yoiyama kaleidoscope (Shueisha Bunko) (2012) ISBN: 4087468453 Japanese Import .

[Akané D'Orangeville-Crozman · Rating 5 out of 5]

あらすじ、タイトル、表紙から「異世界系？ファンタスティック系？の物語」程度しか期待してなかったけど、ガチなホラーです。怪談形式。

怖い。雰囲気が美しく恐ろしい。艷やかというか、吸い込まれそうな、モーパッサンに似た感じ。

電車好きとしても満足度の高い作品。ディジョンからミラノまでの夜行列車を思い出す。「明ける気がしないね」、本当に明ける気がしなかった。スイスを横断中にスマホも繋がらなくなり、このままずっとこの旅が続いたらどうなるんだろう、続いてくれないかな、と思っていたのを思い出した。

もう一度読まないと確信して言えないけど、それぞれの旅先が似てるのがまた面白い。崩れかけの商店街、眠ってるような家、人のいない駅。

ぞわぞわする。繋がる物語、繋がる人物、消えていく人々。

6、5、4、3、2…と夜が明けて、また夜が来て、そのまま私達は死ぬんだろうなあ。

[W.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

「夜行」，雖然在書中也被說了「根本是百鬼夜行」的夜行，卻不完全是可怕的故事（雖然我一直真心覺得森見登卯起來寫怪譚都是真的會讓人害怕），反而因為「夜行」與「曙光」的對應，更有了不同世界，不同的生活和人生，並不全然美好但也不全然黑暗的溫柔暖意。儘管一路伴隨著「這世界全是夜晚」的低語，最終迎來的卻還是平凡、生活著的曙光。
啊，的確是這樣，怎麼之前沒有注意到呢？在讀完時忍不住會跟著微笑起來吧。

[W.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

「夜行」，雖然在書中也被說了「根本是百鬼夜行」的夜行，卻不完全是可怕的故事（雖然我一直真心覺得森見登卯起來寫怪譚都是真的會讓人害怕），反而因為「夜行」與「曙光」的對應，更有了不同世界，不同的生活和人生，並不全然美好但也不全然黑暗的溫柔暖意。儘管一路伴隨著「這世界全是夜晚」的低語，最終迎來的卻還是平凡、生活著的曙光。
啊，的確是這樣，怎麼之前沒有注意到呢？在讀完時忍不住會跟著微笑起來吧。

[OtterM · Rating 4 out of 5]

其实我觉得有些克味，可能主要体现在他每个故事都不写结尾… 惊悚怪谈永远停在了那一刻，他也不打算给出解释，像是你永远也无法理解并触及的真相… 每个小故事到底是怎么回事你倒是告诉我啊！！我好好奇妻子怎么了！！！

[Shushi · Rating 4 out of 5]

如果整个故事都能延续阴森的怪谈风格就好了，以温暖人心的平行世界作结稍显落俗。

[Siddhant Deshmukh · Rating 2 out of 5]

話の設定は良かったが、進展は良くなかったと思う。
しかし、雰囲気の作り方は凄かった。スリルを時々感じたこともあった。

[Ferrrnandodo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece.

[Fernanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading was a delight regarding the vibe but I may just be stupid because that was a lot to process.

[Emi · Rating 4 out of 5]

読み終わってもいろいろと疑問が残るところがあってもやもやする部分もあるけど、全体的にひきこまれる話だった。ただ、夜中に読むと怖い。。。

[Yasuo Itoh · Rating 4 out of 5]

普段はホラーを読まないのだが、話題の作品なので読んでみた。本作品はホラーというよりもミステリだった。世にも奇妙な物語に近い。なので、ホラーが苦手な私でも十分に楽しめた。まあ、夜に枕元の電気スタンドの灯りで読んでいて、ふと後ろを向いたときの部屋の闇は、まさに吸い込まれるような漆黒だった。暗い部屋で読んだことを少し後悔している。いや、楽しめたと言うべきか。さて、本作は、夜と昼の境目に宿る物語の表現が白眉。きれいな物語である。

[Leo Nard · Rating 5 out of 5]

とても良い本だと思います！岸田道生の「曙光」と「夜行」という傑作がめっちゃ気に入ってて文章を読むだけでこの世の中で本当に存在してるような感じが漂いつつ、吸い込まれるような雰囲気。

[Alistair · Rating 4 out of 5]

這本如果映画化應該就是《彗星來的那一夜》，讓飛來的彗星換成出巡的天狗就好。

[Kaori]

terrifying

[Hiu Ying · Rating 2 out of 5]

沒有太多追下去的感覺。

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