Literary criticism "The Mystery of Kohantai Hotel": You must watch it alone at night (Edgwa Lapol)

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This is the first book written by Edgar Watt Lapel that I have ever read.

Edgar Watt Lapoul, Seishi Yokomizo and Seicho Matsumoto are three famous early Japanese reasoning circles.

Modern readers are more familiar with Keigo Higashino and Soji Shimada. Edgar Watt Lapol and Seishi Yokomizo, these two cities are a little old, which can be said to be "a little old". Seicho Matsumoto is fine. After all, he founded social reasoning, and many TV plays have been adapted. Edogawa and Yokogawa were replaced by Keigo Higashino, who is close to the contemporary society, because their works are both ancient and bizarre.

I like to add some horror plots to my reasoning works, which is very suitable for watching in the middle of the night.

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1 mysterious case of Kohantai Hotel

The perspective of the story is relatively fresh. A "camera lover" is explaining his unique hobby, but suddenly it feels a little scary. I am reading alone in a small room with only one lamp on, and I always feel that what he said will not form a reflection on the wall.

Halfway through the story, I felt even more horrible, like watching Hitchcock: there was a murder in the bathroom, and the man peeped through the mirror. Isn't this "back window" plus "psycho"?

Edgar Watt Lapoul likes to talk eloquently about his writing style, which has Wesley's narrative style. With such an approachable style, I believe I will like him more after reading more books.

Since the murder, this book has become more and more suspense. A good mystery literature often begins with a murder or suspense, and the story becomes confusing, so many mystery novels announce the occurrence of the case in the first chapter, attracting readers to continue reading.

Many people always want to say when they watch suspense dramas or mystery novels: When will you die?

After the case happened, Edogawa also wrote a more realistic case-handling procedure and handed it over to the criminal police, instead of some mystery novels. Readers only saw detectives investigating.

In addition to criminal police, it is also unique for mystery novels to set up some talented detectives to participate in the case. But remember that detectives can't completely replace the role of police, otherwise the story will become very false.

Detectives may have some special thinking, brain holes and skills, but from the procedural point of view, the police's search for evidence and professional material evidence identification are more in line with the real case-handling process.

The interesting thing about this novel is that there is a case in the case.

In the process of voyeurism, the man accidentally discovered a suspected murder case, and the case investigation was full of suspense.

This man's voyeurism is always a time bomb (Hitchcock). While he was curious about the case, he kept hiding his voyeurism, forming a pattern of one case at a time. Whether voyeurism is a criminal case is illegal or immoral at best.

The subtle psychology of trying to solve the case and being afraid of being found peeping, like the weight on the scale, makes this novel rich in layers and more interesting.

There are many terrible images in Edgar Watt Lapoul's books. For example, the author said, "I saw something crawling slowly in the mirror."

It's not night when you're still watching this passage. A little scary! You know, mirroring is a very terrible thing.

When drifting in the north, I stayed in an underground hotel and read Wesley's novel Mountain Point alone in the middle of the night. The building structure of the hotel is relatively long. My bed is at the innermost part and the toilet is at the outermost part. There is a big mirror between the bed and the toilet, which is the only way for me to go to the toilet.

When I saw the contents of "I can't see myself in the mirror" or "My image in the mirror is abnormal" in "The Mountain Point", I was afraid to go to the toilet. I'm afraid of passing by the mirror, I can't see myself in the mirror, or I find myself becoming someone else. I always thought it was horrible.

These clever writers know how to use "mirror anomaly" to scare and attract readers.

Although I have great courage and often watch horror movies alone in the middle of the night (when I watch Curse, the cat barks downstairs, and when I watch Ghost Water, I hear water dripping upstairs), I have also been scared by ghosts. Once I watched the TV series Strange Tales in New Earbags (directed by Takashi Shimizu), and I was so scared that I turned off the TV directly and ran from my home to my sister's, out of breath.

Seeing that "mirror image" is used to describe the detection process of a case, I think of the case of "bird of gratitude" in my novel Hu Detective Collection, which is also my personal experience. At that time, I went to monitor and found that in the monitoring of the stairs in the middle of the night, I could see the process of the murderer's assassination mapped on the white wall, forming a picture of "shadow killing".

In this story of Edogawa, I always think Kono is very strange. It may be the murderer or the insider, who keeps taking away the information that the man already knows. It is also abnormal for him to leave his wallet on his own initiative. Could he be the big boss hiding in the middle? The man telling him everything will make the case more and more complicated and confusing.

With the development of the case, there are more and more suspects. From the first one or two to the later, everyone was very skeptical. Many mystery novels like to mystify readers. The more confused they are in the maze in the early stage, the stronger their sense of refreshment when solving puzzles.

The protagonist and the reader's perspective are all kinds of doubts, which increases the fun of guessing the murderer. Different suspects appear at different stages, have different doubts, and the plot should be reasonable, which makes people feel that it is not added casually. This requires the author's strong architectural ability.

Adding some real cases (cases from all over the world) to the novel can strengthen the authenticity of the story, broaden readers' horizons, and make people feel that the author's works are a whole and interrelated with other works and the real world. It not only improves the reading level of the works, but also draws some experience from cases in various places and increases the intensity of solving crimes. Therefore, reading more classic cases will have some unexpected benefits, which can also be used for reference when writing novels.

Seeing that their suspect died, I feel that this work is very similar to TVB's crime-solving drama. When the police suspect who is a suspect, this person may die. With the death of key figures, the cases that could have been solved quickly became confusing, which triggered a real climax.

This is a common technique used in many mystery novels or detective dramas, but it can always increase the curiosity and expectation of readers and audiences, and read the works at one go.

Compared with ordinary houses, cases in hotels or homestays can arouse readers' interest more. The commercial elements, floating population, personalized appearance and internal chaos of the hotel, and the high mobility of guests staying in the hotel increase the contingency and concealment of the case, which is very suitable for murder stories.

The cases in the house are even more terrible (such as "Curse"). Residence is the place where most people live at night, which can produce an immersive sense of substitution and arouse readers' resonance, while hotels have slightly opened some distance, especially some high-end hotels, which make ordinary people feel strange.

The case that happened in the hotel can turn the original horror story into some kind of literature and art. sharping set the case scene in a luxurious hotel, which has a unique aesthetic atmosphere and opened the distance from ordinary people's life. This is also the success of sharping's Phantom Space 1408. Stephen King captures the reader's mentality and makes horror novels more attractive.

According to the author, even people who live nearby avoid the Kohantai Hotel, let alone stay in it, which makes the hotel legendary.

In the end, everyone thought that the case was solved (which often happens in detective investigation files), because Kono accidentally dropped a needle, which made men begin to suspect that they were related to the case. Later, Kono revealed his "criminal process" to him:

He set the next game because of his beloved woman Changji, but Changji is still alive. He just helped her escape and made it look like she was killed. Later, the suspect who really died escaped after being encouraged by him and accidentally fell to his death.

This may be true, or it may be a story made up by him to shirk that he is the real murderer.

So in the later period, the man never saw Kono and the waitress Changji again. Kono said in a subsequent letter that Changji had passed away.

Think about it. In fact, it is extremely scary to think about it.

These things may be a story. Kono could be the killer. After killing two people, he lied to that person again and asked that person to be a murderer.

This murder case has an open ending, true or false. Perhaps there are many clues hidden in it, and different readers may have different interpretations. Decades ago, it was really not easy for Edgwa Lapol to write a story with a clever idea and an open ending.

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2 Ashe debut

The opening is very interesting. There are contradictions between husband and wife, and the sick husband knows that his wife has a man outside.

When the wife is not at home, the husband plays games with the children and hides himself in a big wooden box in the corner. Unfortunately, he accidentally locked the wooden box, and his son couldn't find it, so he was stuck in it.

He tried every means to call for help, but because of his poor health, others could not hear him. Edgwa Lapol tried his best to describe his state of suffocation in a wooden box and his complicated psychology.

He felt that no matter how he died, it was better than the absurd ending of locking himself in a wooden box.

Therefore, he didn't want to die like this, but had to struggle for help, unlike death. This time, Ash, the guilty hostess, came back. The author created interesting suspense and absurd ways to die, and there was a strong drama conflict in a short time, which should be wonderful later.

After Ash came back, all readers were attracted by her behavior and psychology. Most people still want Asher to find her husband (the reader has been substituted), so everyone holds their breath and looks forward to it. This process is like Hitchcock's "suspense". I wonder if the time bomb will explode.

This opposition between the two sides is absurd, but it may become a case that makes readers laugh and cry, and it is also a rare reading experience to immerse themselves in the tension of the man's self-report.

Edgar Watt Lapoul wrote Ashe's Psychology with fear and horror. It turned out that Asher found her husband in the box, and as soon as she was ready to let him out, she thought of a deadly trick, that is, to let her husband stay in the wooden box until he suffocated, so that she could not only inherit the inheritance, but also be with her lover smoothly.

Knowing that someone is asking for help is essentially different from unlocking the box and then locking it back. If you find someone in the box, it is easy not to ask for help, but you don't do it. It belongs to self-abandonment or indirect intentional homicide.

However, after she unlocked the box, there was a process of locking it. This is a case of direct intentional homicide, which has both motive and subjective intention, and objectively exists the behavior of locking the box (crime tool).

So, is her behavior self-destructive, indirect intentional homicide or intentional homicide? Still don't need to bear any criminal responsibility?

This work not only reflects the complex psychology of a femme fatale and the birth of a tragedy, but also gives readers an opportunity to discuss legal issues according to a hypothetical criminal environment.

After reading these two short stories, I fell in love with the narrative style of Edgar Watt Lapol. Unexpectedly, after many years, young readers can still produce many * * * songs when they look at this antique mystery novel.

His works are easy to have a sense of substitution, which is very similar to Hitchcock's suspense theater, the wonders of the world, thinking that I am dying and so on.

Edgar Watt Lapoul's theme creativity, language style and suspense atmosphere are very similar to Ni Kuang's Wesley Series, which can be regarded as a springboard for Poe to Ni Kuang.

He is a master of Benguer and Biangepai. His story is very close to life, and his language style is simple and kind, so that people will not feel tired when reading it. The paragraphs between each chapter are also clearly divided, which seems to have a progressive feeling.

I thought the author would make some reversals later to make the bad guys deserve it, but after reading it, I found that this was not the case. When opening the box, the author wrote that the word "Ashe" was engraved on the inside of the box with her nails, but she didn't say that Ashe was the murderer, and her husband didn't have the time and strength to write it.

The case ended in suspense, full of possibilities, but the bad guys still didn't get the punishment they deserved. I like the open ending that Edgar Watt Lapol used many times, so that readers can enjoy it slowly.

Compared with the first film, Ashe debuted shorter and more exquisite, but the content was more compact and exciting. The main plot happened in a short time, which made people nervous to read and caused constant thinking.

If you read such a novel alone at night, you will feel a sense of terror. Not only surprised by the strange structure of the box, but also lamented the sinister nature of human nature. Beauty, ugliness, good and evil are all in an instant.

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Three-person chair

Although the style originated from edgar allan poe, Edogawa's works are more dramatic and dramatic, while edgar allan poe is a bit prosaic. The eulogies of later generations, such as Edgar, Rabol, Hitchcock, Stephen King and tim burton, are better than this master in narrative.

Compared with Stephen King and Edgar Vajpore, the writing styles of eastern countries are more easily accepted by us, while western literature has always had some cultural differences with us.

Edgwa Lapol is good at creating an atmosphere of horror and suspense, so every work of his is very attractive at the beginning, which makes people feel that they must read it all at once.

When I read Edogawa, it's hard for me to read slowly. I've always wanted to finish it at one go. Just like Wesley, I can grasp the reader's heart and have a strong sense of substitution.

The human chair is Edogawa's masterpiece.

Edogawa's short stories are terrible. In the protagonist's letter, he said that the terrible chair he designed was to hide a person in the chair so that outsiders could not see it, which involved killing people again. And this craftsman image reminds me of hephaestus in Greek mythology.

This chair is really scary;

It's very similar to Ash's box.

Edogawa has designed so many strange things, each of which is full of personality and makes people think deeply. Hiding people in chairs, because contrary to the normal state of daily life, readers will have a strange strangeness when reading, and these structures and designs have a feeling of devouring readers.

The author is very good at psychological description. Since the hotel mystery, the man has repeatedly stated his lust for voyeurism. Ash's story also shows readers the psychology of constant collision between male and female protagonists, which has produced many dramatic conflicts.

And this article is just a description in the letter, which can make people feel a strange and even abnormal psychology. Edogawa vividly describes the psychology of these characters, which is the characteristic of his novels.

Through the tone of the letter, the author wrote that when a woman of the opposite sex sat on his lap (chair), a sexy and fragrant meaning came to her face, satisfying the voyeurism and abnormal sexual psychology of human beings.

Reading the hotel articles, I found that the author is good at describing voyeurism and whimsy in closed places, and how women who are alone release their nature.

The man sat in a chair and let a sexy woman sit on it. His inner excitement and unknown satisfaction were announced to the readers. The so-called "solitude" of a woman sitting in a chair is actually carried out under the monitoring and observation of a man.

It is immoral to peep through the lens or sit in a chair and watch carefully. Edgwa Lapoul used the reader's voyeurism to make the two men regard secular people as gods.

This also satisfies our need to peep into other people's lives, and coincides with the evil taste hidden in the human subconscious, but everyone is unwilling to admit it.

The human chair is another open ending.

Finally, the man wrote another letter, saying that he wrote fantasy novel himself. But is it possible that the people hiding in the chair deliberately overwhelmed the readers?

Whether it is a true story or a prank, everyone can interpret it by himself, but the shadow left by that chair has always remained in the reader's mind.

After reading three short stories by Edogawa, I found that his style is very uniform, always reversed at the end of the story, and has an open ending.

This kind of story is very suitable for making a movie and for readers to discuss. No wonder many Douban netizens said that they can't wait to see what this "human chair" looks like.

Maybe someone has drawn it, even designed the finished product, which is the honor of a mystery novel.

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4 kissing

Edogawa's novels are very close to life. Besides Poe, we can also see the shadows of hoshi shinichi and O'Henry. They are exquisitely structured and meaningful, and suspense and reversal naturally blend into daily life.

This work is very short, and the ending is an open ending full of great fear, which always makes people feel cold.

The husband came home from work one day and found his wife kissing a photo. He suspected that his wife was cheating, so he secretly tracked down the man in the photo and found that it was his boss. He resigned in a rage. When he faced his wife again, he found a picture of himself in the drawer. ...

Are there two identical drawers? This is a revision of the Chamber of Secrets case. In the case of "Bos Education Center" in the detective investigation file, the suspect used people's blind spots to confuse two similar rooms, thus creating an alibi for the murder.

Although this article does not involve murder, this kind of secret room arrangement can be used in detective novels, which brings inspiration and ideas to people.

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5 a receipt

This novel does not use fantasy thrillers, but adopts the orthodox form of mystery novels: after the murder case is discovered, the criminal police or detectives begin to investigate.

Although it is an ordinary murder case reasoning, the logic is very meticulous and the story structure is interesting. In the first half, the analysis of the criminal police identifying someone is quite wonderful, but in the second half, the detective overturns the criminal police's reasoning from the opposite angle, pointing out that the content of the crime is completely untrue.

Finally, the detective said that he just wanted to challenge his imagination. If the previous criminal conclusion is another case, he will refute it with the opposite inference. With his intelligence, he overturned the original evidence one by one, and even suggested that he might have forged some important evidence, which made people think very carefully.

In the process of handling the case, some "truths" verified by our police may not be facts, but we just take it for granted.

Although this article is not very mysterious, it is purely detective reasoning, but it is still an Edo-Kawasaki brain hole setting, a wonderful reversal, careful thinking and an open ending.

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Six people traveling with stickers

This article is very similar to Wesley's novel Virtual Image, except that the woman Jiang fell in love with in the virtual image came from a mirage in the desert, and the brother of this article fell in love with the girl in the poster.

The telescope in the story is another voyeuristic device.

Edgar Watt Lapoul used the same images repeatedly in his works. The lens in the first article, the box in the second article, the chair in the third article, the drawer in the fourth article and the telescope in the sixth article all involve voyeurism and closed space in the dark.

The telescope (or microscope) described by the author is very interesting. According to the thinking of contemporary people, these two things are not terrible, because we have long lost our curiosity and regarded them as commonplace items. But if you look at the telescope from the perspective of the characters in the book and their times, you will find the horror.

Junji Ito also likes to describe unpredictable horror with everyday things, which is the strength of narrative artists. Don't write about ghosts and monsters, everyday life will scare you.

Finally, my brother really entered the world of stickers, and together with the woman in his favorite painting, he became a part of stickers, which was very fantastic, a bit like Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio or Gulliver's Travels. If it was written by Ni Kuang, it would definitely add sci-fi elements to justify itself. Edogawa didn't. He just described a dreamy state.

The ending is like Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. My brother became older and older after he entered the painting, but the woman in the painting was still young. There is a sharp contrast between the two images.

The narrator of the story traveled around with his brother and sister-in-law (this sticker) and came to Kamakura (where the slam dunk master, Hai Jie's diary and Kamakura story took place), and put the sticker on the train on the window to show them the scenery outside. There is a strange feeling here.

The whole work looks great. The author draws lessons from some ideas in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, but has his own unique ideas, such as dorian gray and Virtual Image.

I am most interested in the ending. Edogawa likes to write the ending in a vague suspense. After reading it, I began to think, this protagonist will not be my brother himself, will it?

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7 One-inch mage

The protagonist of this article is very similar to Notre Dame I recently read. One-inch mage Alu is quasimodo, and colorful beauty Ahua is a gypsy woman Esmeralda.

There is not much suspense at the beginning of the story, just a little weird. It was not until Little Master and Ahua began to perform thrilling magic to kill the living that the plot began to have some horror. According to the mage, after putting the beautiful woman in the box, he will use more than a dozen Japanese knives to penetrate her body and put the cut beautiful woman's head on the table. This is not magic, but killing her.

Edgwa Lapol is good at describing details and atmosphere, which makes magic very scary. Readers seem to have witnessed the performance with their own eyes, and even felt the audience's reaction.

I feel that the little mage is faking and taking revenge with the help of magic, and really killed Ahua. Seeing the words "Ahhh, help", I always feel that Ahua is really calling for help (see the case of "Death Notice" in Criminal Investigation Archives 2).

Is to put people in boxes and kill them in a narrow space.

The setting of this collection of short stories is actually the same series:

1, peeping at others with a lens in the hotel;

2, hiding in a closed box to hide and seek, but suffocating inside;

3. Let yourself sit in a special chair to spy on others;

4. Open the drawer in the corner and find the photo of your lover;

6. Put a sticker on a woman;

7. Kill each other with magic in the box.

As the narrator of this story, he said, "since I know the doorway of magic and the tricks inside, why do I still feel so horrible?"

The author described the audience's reaction like this: "The audience composed of men and women remained silent, as if they had witnessed a terrible murder tragedy." The atmosphere of suspense and terror is so well rendered.

The final outcome can be imagined: in order to get revenge, Green, a little mage, used people's hallucinations and reactions to kill Ahua in the process of casting magic, and then fled the scene.

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At present, I have bought books by Edgar Watt Lapol, including Devil's Weapon, Killing in Sakamoto D, Ghost of an Island, Banshee, Black Lizard, Cursed Fingerprint, Two Coins, The Triangle Hall of Terror, Magician, Death Cross and The Man in Green.

Out of love for Edogawa's story style, I will write a book review for each of his books. In order to get the same reading experience, I will choose to read alone in the dead of night.

The first draft of 2020/4/ 13 was revised in 2020/1/.