匣中的失樂

by Kenji Takemoto, 林敏生 (Translator), 竹本健治

《匣中的失樂》作者竹本健治是《獻給虛無的供物》作者中井英夫的徒弟，中井看完竹本的四十萬字草稿後，推薦給《幻影城》雜誌連載。一面改稿一面連載後之初版是四十八萬字。與《獻給虛無的供物》字數大約相同，是竹本自稱向師父之《獻給虛無的供物》挑戰的作品。

本書架構是現實與虛構交互出現，一群年輕的推理小說迷往返於迷宮般的密室殺人，被定位為「超推理小說」。出版時，正值社會派推理全盛時期，對於一九七八年崛起的新本格派，有極為深遠的影響。

528 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1983

Reviews

[F Gato]

Another “sacrifice to nothingness” (rolling my eyes)
Bots and whatever theory and layers of narrations to confuse reader (and probably the writer himself?)

What do we learn from it? I dare anyone to rehearse any of these “closet murder” in real life.

[Pei · Rating 2 out of 5]

Recommended by Claude…yeah I shouldn’t trust his/her judgement.
Sacrifices plot and character development for building the narrative structure as tricky as possible, for whatever reasons. Squeezes in a lot of math and physics stuff that make ZERO impact on the story, just the author showing off I guess.
And, although Japanese mysteries are always full of whimsical characters, but those in this book are not just whimsical but awfully annoying in trying to outsmart each other and their interactions are just so odd.

[Jimyip · Rating 2 out of 5]

The motive is peculiar. Some clue seems to be unused. Trying to hard to impress the audience with obscure detail, but fail to reach the depth of his teacher's work Kyoumu e no Kumotsu.

[Life · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stuck with me much more vividly on a re-read, the structure of this book is still potentially one of my favourites and I love what's done with it here.

Sep 2025: 5/5
Mar 2024: 4/5