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ジョーカー―旧約探偵神話
究極の連続不可能犯罪を企む天才犯罪者が、陸の孤島で「幻影城殺人事件」を演出する。作家・江戸川乱歩と同じ本名を持つ富豪が、生涯を賭して築いた幻影城。美しい湖の小島に浮かぶ紅の城は、様々な趣向が凝らされた「異形の館」である。推理作家たちが秘境を訪れる。――老いた探偵が惨劇に引き寄せられた時、舞台は整い、物語が始まる。すべてのミステリの総決算！
778 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
1 person is currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Ryusui Seiryoin
120 books6 followersEnglish：Ryusui Seiryoin
Japanese：清涼院 流水
Chinese：清涼院流水
Japanese：清涼院 流水
Chinese：清涼院流水
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 10, 2022
“ I make a prediction. You, the ‘reader,’ will fall into the ‘author's’ trap from the very first line. And just in case you are a careful 'reader' - you may even be able to find out the 'truth' before you finish the last line.
- I pray for your success. - From Ryuusui Seiryouin”
My thoughts after reading, “Joker: Old Testament Detective Myth”
Written by Seiryouin Ryuusui.
Some context, at the entrance of the castle of illusion:
This is the second book of the JDC (Japanese Detective Club) series! And following the footsteps of the first book (Cosmic) it is a monster, being 770 pages long.
The reason I want to read this series is mainly because I’m reading every novel by Maijo Otaro in publishing order, and I reached one that goes by the title of “Tsukumojuuku,” it is a novel Maijo wrote as a tribute to the JDC series! And of course, it has spoilers of the JDC series, so in order to read that 500-page book with a bit of context, I decided to read the 4,800 pages, 7 volume series it was based on.
Little did I know that only two volumes into this series, Seiryouin Ryuusui would live rent-free in my head.
The story:
When a group of writers go vacation at the Gen’ei Castle, an inn in the middle of a lake inspired by Edogawa Ranpo’s Gen’ei Castle, the last thing one would expect is that the novel one of those writers is planning to write invades the real world and envelops it in fiction. And as such, from the vein of darkness in the abyss of emptiness, a tragedy arises, and the curtain to an unprecedented incident raises. Impossible crimes are repeated. The number of corpses increases. The Artist continues to commit crimes to conquer all possible components of a mystery novel! Will this group of writers be able to solve the mystery before it’s too late? Will the police or the JDC succeed at solving this one-of-a-kind murder mystery? Will “you,” the “reader” be able to solve it before the very last line, or will “you” fall onto the machinations of the “Author” from the very first line? Think carefully, remember, not all reasoning relies on logical thinking, chase for the truth!
Enjoyment:
Heyyy, before anything I give myself a pat on the back, that synopsis turned out great fr. It is a mix of the actual synopsis and a lot of my own writing to try and make it as spoiler-less as possible. In any case, going back to the review.
I can’t start explaining how much I enjoyed this book, following the same steps as with Cosmic, I decided to keep a notebook with information that I thought may be relevant to solve the mystery (that by the end turned just into a document full of quotes from the book that I liked), it ended up being 70 pages long. The sheer amount of time invested into thinking, and trying, and shouting, and crying, and malding was like nothing I’ve read before. The thing with Ryuusui’s writing is that that son of a bitch actively tries to push you onto solving the mystery by yourself, it actively reminds you that “you” should be paying close attention to things, because at any moment the truth may present itself in front of you and by sheer carelessness or just by not paying enough attention you may miss it.
It stops being just “a mystery novel” and it becomes a challenge, you the reader ends up stepping onto the stage and taking on the role of detective to push through the book while being fueled by sheer curiosity, amazement, and pure hatred towards an author who thinks can fool you until the very last line of his book.
The characters are amazing, the prose is a pleasure to read, the story is amazing and makes you feel at times like it’s just a tiny part of something far greater that has yet to come, and the mystery is something like I’ve never seen, it’s so creative, so out there, so purely astounding, and despite being all of that it’s still fair. It’s a mystery that can be solved (even though your mental health may suffer from it), but even though it’s solvable there’s just such an amount of twists, reveals, crazy clues, and double/triple/quadruple meanings that truly just keep catching you out guard and leave open-mouthed till the very last line.
It is just such a well-crafted novel, every line has a meaning, every word needs to be there, and there are just no unnecessary things.
And let me talk about the characters for a bit, I love every single one of them, Ryuusui is so good at characterization, and especially with the detectives, despite their deduction methods often being fantastical in nature they come off as grounded and logical, some characters are just so much fun to read, their way of speaking, their life stories, their deductions. With the knowledge of some characters from Cosmic, it gets to the point that at the sheer mention of a detective you the reader just find yourself jumping and running all around the place in excitement.
Then, there is just the amazing sense of accomplishment of stopping at the challenge to the readers, writing down your thoughts and deductions, continuing reading, and just realizing how right or how wrong you were. The things you manage to get right make you feel like the best detective of them all, and the things you get wrong get explained so well you are just left flabbergasted and leaving you thinking, “next time for sure, I’ll show this pretentious-ass-writer how good my deduction will be.”
And don’t get me started on just how much fun it was to read this book alongside a good friend, sharing thoughts and telling each other to take his pills was a great experience. The act of sharing deductions and just dissecting each other to try and prove you’re just a bit more correct than them was another thing that also elevated my enjoyment, as many things in life, doing something with a friend just makes it that much more enjoyable. (My deduction btw, be careful of spoilers: https://twitter.com/AkutagawaKakuzo/s... )
... or well, that’s how I personally felt while reading this book, hehe.
How difficult was it to read this novel in Japanese?:
Please put me out of my misery!!!!
I can definitely say, it was easier than Cosmic, but to be honest, I don’t feel like that means much anymore, after finishing Joker I went back to read a chapter of Cosmic (that I remember was quite difficult) and just breezed through it. Did I get better at Japanese since I last read Cosmic? Or have I just fallen into some weird copium?
In any case, what I’m getting at is that I personally had an easier time, but that doesn’t mean it was easier to read, it’s just a skill issue at the end of the day.
Same as with Cosmic, it relies a lot, A LOT, on the little intricacies and unique properties of the Japanese language, plays on words, anagrams, plays on kanji, and much more things, as far as I know, this is too an untranslatable book, the Japanese language itself is just such a vital component at making the book and its clues to the mystery work so well.
What about the vocabulary list and Anki deck that I usually make and share in my reviews? Hey I did make a vocab deck, but I’m just keeping it for myself, it’s just too much time invested in making them, and based on the statistics pretty much no people make use of them, so, I’m just not making them to share anymore and I’m just going to keep them for my own Japanese study.
The verdict!
Okay, before saying my final thoughts on the book let me tell you a little story. The name Seiryouin Ryuusui (清涼院流水）means “refreshing temple”, (清涼院) while the first name means “flowing water” (流水).
One day after having marathoned about a hundred pages of this book I was reminded of just how much Ryuusui likes to insert the words “refreshing” and “flowing water” into his writing, it got to the point that I just shouted and started malding at every time I spotted one of them “what does he think he is? This pretentious fucker likes inserting his name every few lines, I can picture his sit-eating-grin so perfectly.”
I developed some kind of psychosis, I started keeping an eye out for every mention of the words “flowing water” and “refreshing,” at first I’d just snicker at them, but then it escalated... I started seeing and hearing all those words at times when I wasn’t reading the book.
The first of these incidents was at night, I was about to go sleep and it turns out my little brother left the faucet open... the water was running, my father in his anger went to us and asked “who left the water flowing?” my mind immediately went to JDC, but I quickly dismissed it. I may’ve been a bit too sleepy from thinking so much about the book. My little brother’s only reply was, “I just wanted to refresh.” ...
Everything is just downhill from here on. The next day at school I was chatting with one of my friends about Joker, he’s a philosophy student and was just amazed from the moment I uttered the words “untranslatable novel,” we chatted a bit, and I told him some schizo deductions and after all was said and done when the moment to say bye for the day, we walked next to a small river at our campus. The water was flowing. It was such a refreshing image. My mind immediately went to JDC.
The next moment happened not many days later, it was when I discovered that Seiryouin Ryuusui (清涼院流水) is a play on Seiryouinryousui (清涼飲料水) soft drink. The mystery of Joker still living rent-free in my mind, being chased by the words flowing water and refreshing everywhere I went, every step I took had to be taken with extreme amounts of caution as I didn’t know where flowing refreshing water would pop up from next. “Am I a character in one of his novels?” I started to think, and quickly dismissed it because I knew I was being just straight-up stupid at the thought of it. Then... something that has never happened before to me, a friend of mine, had in his hand... a soft drink... and j-j-just o-o-offered it to me.
Another day, I was at a party. My philosophy friend wrote a poem and showed it to me, it was a nice poem tbh, but near the end, I spotted... “And just like the flowing water of a river.” My knees hit the floor, I broke down crying at that moment.
Things like these continued happening through the months I read Joker. Just yesterday before I finished reading the book I was talking about it with another friend, who just told me, “you’re acid tripping without the acid, wtf Kaku?” The sound of a flowing river reverberated from somewhere in my head, the moments before the end of the book felt refreshing, as if knowing I would finally be liberated from this flowing current of madness, the end of the book left me ecstatic, it was just what I expected and so much more, cosmic-joker left me thinking it was just a prologue, the real mystery was about to start with the next entry in the series, “Carnival.”
Oh goodness, gracious, what a refreshing read that was, thoughts and theories about what could happen next flowed just like water out from my head, the feeling of finishing a great book rivaling that of the first sip of a soft drink.
Seiryouin Ryuusui made a place for himself in my head and has been living rent-free there ever since. HELP ME, GET HIM OUT OF THERE, GET THIS TINY MAN OUT OF MY CRANIUM, I BEG YOU, IT’S EATING MY LIFE AWAY, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
(The end)
The actual verdict, outside of the castle of illusion:
Okay, I went a bit out there and exaggerated just a tiny-tiny-bit. The part about spotting refreshing and flowing water just making me mald is true. The part of Ryusui living rent-free in my mind is also true. Or maybe everything is true, not like it makes any difference at the end of the day, some truths can only be told through lies.
Joker: Old Testament Detective Myth by Seiryouin Ryuusui is a 10/10. I can’t wait to read Carnival, it looks like it’ll be so much fun.
(I'm not actually crazy, most of this review was made with comedic intention)
- I pray for your success. - From Ryuusui Seiryouin”
My thoughts after reading, “Joker: Old Testament Detective Myth”
Written by Seiryouin Ryuusui.
Some context, at the entrance of the castle of illusion:
This is the second book of the JDC (Japanese Detective Club) series! And following the footsteps of the first book (Cosmic) it is a monster, being 770 pages long.
The reason I want to read this series is mainly because I’m reading every novel by Maijo Otaro in publishing order, and I reached one that goes by the title of “Tsukumojuuku,” it is a novel Maijo wrote as a tribute to the JDC series! And of course, it has spoilers of the JDC series, so in order to read that 500-page book with a bit of context, I decided to read the 4,800 pages, 7 volume series it was based on.
Little did I know that only two volumes into this series, Seiryouin Ryuusui would live rent-free in my head.
The story:
When a group of writers go vacation at the Gen’ei Castle, an inn in the middle of a lake inspired by Edogawa Ranpo’s Gen’ei Castle, the last thing one would expect is that the novel one of those writers is planning to write invades the real world and envelops it in fiction. And as such, from the vein of darkness in the abyss of emptiness, a tragedy arises, and the curtain to an unprecedented incident raises. Impossible crimes are repeated. The number of corpses increases. The Artist continues to commit crimes to conquer all possible components of a mystery novel! Will this group of writers be able to solve the mystery before it’s too late? Will the police or the JDC succeed at solving this one-of-a-kind murder mystery? Will “you,” the “reader” be able to solve it before the very last line, or will “you” fall onto the machinations of the “Author” from the very first line? Think carefully, remember, not all reasoning relies on logical thinking, chase for the truth!
Enjoyment:
Heyyy, before anything I give myself a pat on the back, that synopsis turned out great fr. It is a mix of the actual synopsis and a lot of my own writing to try and make it as spoiler-less as possible. In any case, going back to the review.
I can’t start explaining how much I enjoyed this book, following the same steps as with Cosmic, I decided to keep a notebook with information that I thought may be relevant to solve the mystery (that by the end turned just into a document full of quotes from the book that I liked), it ended up being 70 pages long. The sheer amount of time invested into thinking, and trying, and shouting, and crying, and malding was like nothing I’ve read before. The thing with Ryuusui’s writing is that that son of a bitch actively tries to push you onto solving the mystery by yourself, it actively reminds you that “you” should be paying close attention to things, because at any moment the truth may present itself in front of you and by sheer carelessness or just by not paying enough attention you may miss it.
It stops being just “a mystery novel” and it becomes a challenge, you the reader ends up stepping onto the stage and taking on the role of detective to push through the book while being fueled by sheer curiosity, amazement, and pure hatred towards an author who thinks can fool you until the very last line of his book.
The characters are amazing, the prose is a pleasure to read, the story is amazing and makes you feel at times like it’s just a tiny part of something far greater that has yet to come, and the mystery is something like I’ve never seen, it’s so creative, so out there, so purely astounding, and despite being all of that it’s still fair. It’s a mystery that can be solved (even though your mental health may suffer from it), but even though it’s solvable there’s just such an amount of twists, reveals, crazy clues, and double/triple/quadruple meanings that truly just keep catching you out guard and leave open-mouthed till the very last line.
It is just such a well-crafted novel, every line has a meaning, every word needs to be there, and there are just no unnecessary things.
And let me talk about the characters for a bit, I love every single one of them, Ryuusui is so good at characterization, and especially with the detectives, despite their deduction methods often being fantastical in nature they come off as grounded and logical, some characters are just so much fun to read, their way of speaking, their life stories, their deductions. With the knowledge of some characters from Cosmic, it gets to the point that at the sheer mention of a detective you the reader just find yourself jumping and running all around the place in excitement.
Then, there is just the amazing sense of accomplishment of stopping at the challenge to the readers, writing down your thoughts and deductions, continuing reading, and just realizing how right or how wrong you were. The things you manage to get right make you feel like the best detective of them all, and the things you get wrong get explained so well you are just left flabbergasted and leaving you thinking, “next time for sure, I’ll show this pretentious-ass-writer how good my deduction will be.”
And don’t get me started on just how much fun it was to read this book alongside a good friend, sharing thoughts and telling each other to take his pills was a great experience. The act of sharing deductions and just dissecting each other to try and prove you’re just a bit more correct than them was another thing that also elevated my enjoyment, as many things in life, doing something with a friend just makes it that much more enjoyable. (My deduction btw, be careful of spoilers: https://twitter.com/AkutagawaKakuzo/s... )
... or well, that’s how I personally felt while reading this book, hehe.
How difficult was it to read this novel in Japanese?:
Please put me out of my misery!!!!
I can definitely say, it was easier than Cosmic, but to be honest, I don’t feel like that means much anymore, after finishing Joker I went back to read a chapter of Cosmic (that I remember was quite difficult) and just breezed through it. Did I get better at Japanese since I last read Cosmic? Or have I just fallen into some weird copium?
In any case, what I’m getting at is that I personally had an easier time, but that doesn’t mean it was easier to read, it’s just a skill issue at the end of the day.
Same as with Cosmic, it relies a lot, A LOT, on the little intricacies and unique properties of the Japanese language, plays on words, anagrams, plays on kanji, and much more things, as far as I know, this is too an untranslatable book, the Japanese language itself is just such a vital component at making the book and its clues to the mystery work so well.
What about the vocabulary list and Anki deck that I usually make and share in my reviews? Hey I did make a vocab deck, but I’m just keeping it for myself, it’s just too much time invested in making them, and based on the statistics pretty much no people make use of them, so, I’m just not making them to share anymore and I’m just going to keep them for my own Japanese study.
The verdict!
Okay, before saying my final thoughts on the book let me tell you a little story. The name Seiryouin Ryuusui (清涼院流水）means “refreshing temple”, (清涼院) while the first name means “flowing water” (流水).
One day after having marathoned about a hundred pages of this book I was reminded of just how much Ryuusui likes to insert the words “refreshing” and “flowing water” into his writing, it got to the point that I just shouted and started malding at every time I spotted one of them “what does he think he is? This pretentious fucker likes inserting his name every few lines, I can picture his sit-eating-grin so perfectly.”
I developed some kind of psychosis, I started keeping an eye out for every mention of the words “flowing water” and “refreshing,” at first I’d just snicker at them, but then it escalated... I started seeing and hearing all those words at times when I wasn’t reading the book.
The first of these incidents was at night, I was about to go sleep and it turns out my little brother left the faucet open... the water was running, my father in his anger went to us and asked “who left the water flowing?” my mind immediately went to JDC, but I quickly dismissed it. I may’ve been a bit too sleepy from thinking so much about the book. My little brother’s only reply was, “I just wanted to refresh.” ...
Everything is just downhill from here on. The next day at school I was chatting with one of my friends about Joker, he’s a philosophy student and was just amazed from the moment I uttered the words “untranslatable novel,” we chatted a bit, and I told him some schizo deductions and after all was said and done when the moment to say bye for the day, we walked next to a small river at our campus. The water was flowing. It was such a refreshing image. My mind immediately went to JDC.
The next moment happened not many days later, it was when I discovered that Seiryouin Ryuusui (清涼院流水) is a play on Seiryouinryousui (清涼飲料水) soft drink. The mystery of Joker still living rent-free in my mind, being chased by the words flowing water and refreshing everywhere I went, every step I took had to be taken with extreme amounts of caution as I didn’t know where flowing refreshing water would pop up from next. “Am I a character in one of his novels?” I started to think, and quickly dismissed it because I knew I was being just straight-up stupid at the thought of it. Then... something that has never happened before to me, a friend of mine, had in his hand... a soft drink... and j-j-just o-o-offered it to me.
Another day, I was at a party. My philosophy friend wrote a poem and showed it to me, it was a nice poem tbh, but near the end, I spotted... “And just like the flowing water of a river.” My knees hit the floor, I broke down crying at that moment.
Things like these continued happening through the months I read Joker. Just yesterday before I finished reading the book I was talking about it with another friend, who just told me, “you’re acid tripping without the acid, wtf Kaku?” The sound of a flowing river reverberated from somewhere in my head, the moments before the end of the book felt refreshing, as if knowing I would finally be liberated from this flowing current of madness, the end of the book left me ecstatic, it was just what I expected and so much more, cosmic-joker left me thinking it was just a prologue, the real mystery was about to start with the next entry in the series, “Carnival.”
Oh goodness, gracious, what a refreshing read that was, thoughts and theories about what could happen next flowed just like water out from my head, the feeling of finishing a great book rivaling that of the first sip of a soft drink.
Seiryouin Ryuusui made a place for himself in my head and has been living rent-free there ever since. HELP ME, GET HIM OUT OF THERE, GET THIS TINY MAN OUT OF MY CRANIUM, I BEG YOU, IT’S EATING MY LIFE AWAY, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
(The end)
The actual verdict, outside of the castle of illusion:
Okay, I went a bit out there and exaggerated just a tiny-tiny-bit. The part about spotting refreshing and flowing water just making me mald is true. The part of Ryusui living rent-free in my mind is also true. Or maybe everything is true, not like it makes any difference at the end of the day, some truths can only be told through lies.
Joker: Old Testament Detective Myth by Seiryouin Ryuusui is a 10/10. I can’t wait to read Carnival, it looks like it’ll be so much fun.
(I'm not actually crazy, most of this review was made with comedic intention)
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