Review: "Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination"

“Edogawa Rampo” (Tarō Hirai) (James B. Harris, trans.; M. Kuwata, illus.), “Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination”, Tut Books/Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc., Rutland VT, 1985.

Reprint: octavo; paperback; 222pp., with many monochrome illustrations.

Minor wear; light sunning to the spine; some spots to the text block fore-edge. Very good.

After seeing the “Japan Supernatural” exhibition recently, I was reminded of this book and so I ferreted it out and immersed myself in its murky depths once more. Japanese strange tales are very dark and are enhanced by a distinct psychological depth which lends them a more chilling aspect than other forms of the weird tale. Rampo’s work captures this psychology and most of his stories (at least those presented here) are suffused with a psycho-sexual darkness which means that, when they’re strange, they’re very strange indeed. First some backstory:

Tarō Hirai was a writer and critic living in Nagoya before moving to Tokyo in his later life. He was born in 1894 and died in 1965. He was greatly impressed by the mystery writing of the West – particularly Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – and tried to write Japanese stories which incorporated the tropes and ideas of those authors. The first of these to be published was "The Two-Sen Copper Coin" (二銭銅貨, “Ni-sen dōka”), a Holmesian Japanese mystery involving the unravelling of an obscure code. His pen name is a Japanese-styled form of Poe’s name (if you say it quickly enough, you’ll see what I mean. Go on; I can wait). He started his writing career publishing his tales in magazines aimed at the younger reader and generated a bunch of tales under the banner “The Boy Detectives Club” (少年探偵団, “Shōnen tantei dan”) mentored by his erstwhile sleuth Kogoro Akechi, a sort of modern Japanese Sherlock Holmes who uses many of that character’s methods to uncover crimes. He also translated the works of Conan Doyle, Poe and others, into his native language.

While much of his own work is of the crime detection variety, there are also a slew of strange tales in his oeuvre the best of which are contained in this collection. The best known outside Japan is “The Human Chair” (人間椅, “Ningen Isu”), which has been anthologized fairly widely in the West. This is the story of a strait-laced government worker who sneaks himself into a sturdy wood-and-leather chair belonging to a local eminence. Thereafter, he spends his life hidden within the house, sneaking out occasionally to eat, and meanwhile enjoying the sensation of being sat upon by the household members, especially the mistress of the dwelling. More notorious in his own country is “The Caterpillar” (芋虫, “Imo Mushi”) which is the tale of a young woman prevailed upon to act as the nurse of a highly decorated general, missing all four of his limbs due to an explosion. The story turns upon the woman overcoming her fear and disgust of the once powerful and respected man and coming to terms with her physical and sexual power over him. The story was banned in 1937, despite being successfully published only a few years earlier, because Wartime censors felt it portrayed Japanese military commanders in a poor light.

Sometimes his stories jump right into the realm of cosmic horror and the best of these is “The Hell of Mirrors” (鏡の地獄, “Kagami no Jigoku”). It involves a Japanese man of independent means and a scientific turn of mind who creates a hollow sphere completely lined with polished mirrors. Having a fearful aversion to reflections and reflectors, and questioning to what strange realities they might be portals to, he girds himself to enter the contraption and shuts the door… The rest is madness.

Much of what takes place in Japanese stories of the macabre stems from guilt, obligation, or fetishistic sexual deviation, and how these things run afoul of “correct” social behaviour and expectations. Rampo is fully onboard with this sort of material and pushes it as far as he can, taking a line from his idol Poe and creating some extremely weird situations. He often takes the point of view of the villain – like the guy in “The Human Chair” for example - taking us into their twisted worldview and allowing us to see their meticulous planning and freakish results. To this end we inhabit a world replete with slinking murderers and watch horrified as they unfold their wicked schemes against those who unknowingly stand in their way – the elderly; siblings; strangers: anyone.

From the early 30s onwards, Rampo’s work veered sharply into the realm of what the Japanese termed “ero guro nansensu” (“erotic, grotesque nonsense”), a decidedly ‘genre’ and incredibly popular style of writing, focusing upon sexual deviancy as a main theme. Many of Rampo’s stories and novels – outside of his detective fiction which has a definite “Hardy Boys” feel to it – deal with issues of sado-masochism and homosexuality, with a hefty dose of fetishism and horror thrown in.

There are supernatural elements in some of these tales but, like all of these narratives, they are firmly rooted in the psychology of the actors which lends them a nice ambiguity. The most Japanese of these tales (in the sense of the Japanese supernatural tradition) is the last one in this collection which concerns a random encounter with a strangely Victorian old man on board a train, carrying a picture made of pieces of rag and other material pasted onto a wooden board. In showing this work to the narrator the old man unfolds a strange tale of hopeless love and magical transformation that leaves his audience wondering if they have both slipped across the border into madness. The unique qualities of the scenery through which they pass onboard the train help ground this slippery story in a moody ambience.

While Rampo’s weird stories owe a clear debt to Poe and such tales as “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-tale Heart”, Rampo takes the essence of such wordcraft and makes his own creations out of it, creations that are unique, fascinating and horrifying on their own terms. Many Japanese movie makers have turned to him for inspiration and there are a lot of films out there based on his works or inspired by his life and offerings. “The Human Chair”, as mentioned above, gets hauled out occasionally to fill the pages of horror anthologies but – freaky and idiosyncratic as this tale is – it’s just the tip of Edogawa Rampo’s towering iceberg of terror and madness.

Seek him out. Five Tentacled Horrors from me.

*****

Contents:

Translator’s Preface

“The Human Chair”

“The Psychological Test”

“The Caterpillar”

“The Cliff”

“The Hell of Mirrors”

“The Twins”

“The Red Chamber”

“Two Crippled Men”

“The Traveller with the Pasted Rag Picture”