In a person's life, he will face many choices at forks in the road. For example, after graduating from college, do you choose to go to graduate school or get a job? If you choose employment, do you work hard in the first-tier cities in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, or return to your hometown small county town to live a comfortable and stable life? When you get married, do you choose to be in love for many years but have an average family or a girl with a superior family but no feelings? We are often faced with a "dilemma" of choice, and we hesitate without knowing how to choose.
Standing at the fork in the road of life, what should we do? The book "Relief Grocery Store" portrays the character of Yuji Nanaya, the owner of The Langya Grocery Store, to help others solve their problems and troubles on the road of life by answering questions to others. The last consultation letter that Yuji Nanaya replied to was also written by the author to all confused people: "Everything is all in yourself, everything is free, and there are infinite possibilities in front of you." ”
Speaking of this "Relief Grocery Store", it can be described as a well-known book, which won the Central Public Literature and Art Award, ranked no. 1 in the major lists of Kii Kunokuniya, Eslite, Bloglai, and Jinshitang, and ranked second in amazon China's 2015 best-selling book list. This book is Keigo Higashino's most popular work after White Night, not a mystery novel, but it is even more gripping.
The most important reason why the book "Relief Grocery Store" is popular with readers is that this book is Keigo Higashino's most characteristic, most grounded, and most warm work. A girl who is torn between love and career because her boyfriend is terminally ill, a boy who has left home to chase his musical dreams but is unable to walk in reality, a teenager who is confused in the face of family changes...
Sounds familiar, right? That's just talking about us! This book proves one thing: in this era when everyone is known as a dick, there are too many of our worries, sorrows, and fears, and too few senses of security, certainty, and happiness, so that a grocery store that claims to "retrieve what has been lost in the hearts of modern people" can enter the hearts of readers so easily.
The author of this book, Keigo Higashino, is a famous Japanese writer. In 1985, he won the 31st Edogawa Random Walk Award for "After School" and began writing full-time. His representative works mainly include "After School", "Secret", "White Night", "Unrequited Love", "Letter", "The Dedication of Suspect X", etc., of which "The Dedication of Suspect X" is the top masterpiece in Japan's history that has won the annual championship of the three major mystery novels.
Well, after introducing the basic situation of the book and the author's profile, then I will tell you in detail about the contents of the book.
The book focuses on three main points.
The first focus is on Keigo Higashino's personal experiences, major works, and artistic features.
The second focus is on the background, style, and evaluation of the book.
The third focus is on the book's themes, character profiles, and synopsis.
Okay, let's look at the first highlight: Keigo Higashino's personal experience, major works, and artistic features.
People in different eras have different life backgrounds and come into contact with different things, so they will have different styles of works. An in-depth understanding of the author's personal experience, major works, and artistic characteristics can help us understand the work more deeply and see how the author reflects his own ideas into his work.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" >01 Keigo Higashino's personal experience</h1>
Keigo Higashino is a famous Japanese mystery novelist, born in February 1958 in Osaka, Japan, graduated from Osaka Prefectural University in 1981 with a degree in electrical engineering, and then worked as a production technology engineer at the company and began to write speculative fiction. In 1985, he won the 31st Edogawa Rambling Prize for "After School", and since then he has become a professional writer and began to write full-time.
In 1999, "Secret" won the 52nd Japan Mystery Writers Association Award and was shortlisted for the 120th Naoki Award; since then, "White Night", "Unrequited Love", "Letter", and "Phantom Night" have been shortlisted for the Naoki Award four times; in 2006, "The Dedication of Suspect X" won the 134th Naoki Award, the 6th Benge Mystery Novel Award, and the first place in the three major mystery novels list of the year.
His early works are mostly exquisite and meticulous reasoning, the later strokes are more and more old and spicy, the text is freshly carved, the narrative is concise and fierce, the plot is ups and downs, the story structure is almost unbelievable, and he is good at writing a very reasonable story from a very unreasonable place, and the depth of his skill amazes the world.
Having said that, keigo Higashino's personal experience, let's look at his main works.
Keigo Higashino's representative works mainly include "After School", "Secret", "White Night", "Unrequited Love", "Letter", "The Dedication of Suspect X" and so on.
"After School" is a representative work of Keigo Higashino's early Benge reasoning, which won the 31st Edogawa Rambling Award. The first-person narrative throughout makes people more immersive, expressing a teacher's worries and trepidation after discovering that someone has deliberately killed him, describing the campus life within a month, and the performance of various characters after the crime, confusing everyone with true and false reasoning, and then revealing the facts at the end.
The Secret is a novel published by Keigo Higashino in 1998. In 1997, Keigo Higashino divorced his wife of 14 years. Over the next year, he immersed himself in the brewing of emotions and eventually wrote The Secret. The book mainly tells the story of the male protagonist, Sugita Heisuke, after his wife and daughter suffered a car accident, the wife's soul resided in the daughter's body, and the family began an extraordinary life. The secret that was finally revealed was tear-inducing and soul-stirring. It turned out that everything was a secret, a secret belonging to two people; everything was not a secret, and in the end it was revealed.
"White Night" revolves around a pair of elementary school students with unusual feelings. In 1973, a male corpse was found in an abandoned building in Osaka, and in the following 19 years, the daughter of the suspect and the son of the victim embarked on a completely different path of life, one was among the upper class, the other was wandering at the bottom, and the people around them died mysteriously one after another, and the police finally revealed the truth after 19 years of painstaking tracking. The novel combines hopeless but persistent bleak love with persistent and meticulous calm reasoning.
"The Dedication of Suspect X" is the first of Keigo Higashino's works in the hearts of many people, and it is also the top masterpiece in Japan's history that has won the annual championship of the three major mystery novel rankings. The story takes place in the 1990s, a period when Japan's economy stagnated and society was indifferent, but female consciousness was advancing and rising, which was also strongly opposed by male society. Keigo Higashino clings to this social reality and attributes the root cause of female crime in this period to male society.
After talking about Keigo Higashino's main works, let's look at his artistic characteristics.
In terms of artistic techniques, Keigo Higashino believes that "a novel should first be a good story, a good story that people like to listen to." His narrative techniques are flexible and changeable, some adopt the mode of "listening to the case, giving an explanation and solving the case", some using a multi-line parallel cross-cutting structure, and some even without a dialogue in the whole, and constructing the novel in the form of a diary and a manuscript. In addition, the novel also involves out-of-body, cross-cutting and other irrational plots, while paying attention to literature without losing interest.
Keigo Higashino's work can be divided into three distinct periods. During the period from 1985 to 1990, his works focused on campus-based reasoning, with a bias toward puzzles and logical reasoning. The content of the works in this period is mainly to describe criminal methods, involving elements such as secret rooms, nursery rhymes, and passwords in traditional Benge novels, mainly based on the single-line structure of "asking questions, showing data, understanding the truth, and verifying the ending".
Representative works of this period include "After School", "Killing Game Before Graduation", "Cheers with blinking eyes", "Eleven-Word Killing Game" and so on. His work from this period attributed "criminal motives" to personal reasons, either for the sake of the material life of a drunken fan, or to disguise an unknown past. The works of this period are more logical reasoning, the content is thin, and the "accident" of the novel is fixed on "who is the murderer".
During the period 1991-1995, Keigo Higashino created Fate, which is considered by the speculative community to be a watershed in his creative style. He no longer stuck to murderers and methods, but began to deal with social issues, such as abuse of power, science, child abuse, etc.
The story usually starts from a murder case, and accidentally pulls out another shocking story, such as "Fate", "Murder in the Cloister Pavilion", "Love Story in parallel worlds" and so on. During this period, on the one hand, he paid attention to society and human nature, on the other hand, he constantly innovated in narrative techniques, using a unique style of two-line parallel intersection structure, and carried out a successful experimental creation for the emergence of the "realistic Benge school" style.
After 1996, Keigo Higashino created the Code of Rules for Famous Detectives and The Curse of Famous Detectives. The Code of Famous Detectives uses satire to subvert the classic elements of the "Benguet School", interpreting the secret room, code, nursery rhymes, alibi, dismemberment, etc. with a new perspective.
In terms of artistic technique, the novel creates the feeling of a stage play. The Curse of the Detective explains its own theory of creation in the form of a novel. The work combines many accidental events with the meticulous logic of the detective, making the reasoning seem absurd, and Keigo Higashino expresses a skeptical attitude toward his previous remarks in this way.
Well, that's the first thing I'll tell you today: the personal experiences, major works, and artistic features of author Keigo Higashino. Keigo Higashino is a famous Japanese writer. In 1985, he won the 31st Edogawa Random Walk Award for "After School" and began writing full-time. His representative works mainly include "After School", "Secret", "White Night", "Unrequited Love", "Letter", "The Dedication of Suspect X", etc., and his works can be divided into three different periods according to different artistic characteristics.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="135" >02 The background, style, and evaluation of the book</h1>
Any literary work is produced in a specific era and a specific situation, and the appreciation of the work must be combined with the creative background and creative style of the work, which is conducive to understanding the ideological connotation of the work.
First, let's look at the background of the book.
Keigo Higashino said that he likes to tell stories in a way that transcends time and space, expressing the idea that "the future is not only tomorrow, the future is in people's hearts, as long as there is a future in their hearts, people can be happy". "In 'Relief Grocery Store,' it's not people who travel through time and space, but letters."
Keigo Higashino said, "Although this is a very difficult attempt, as soon as I start writing, various stories emerge one after another. Looking back on the process of writing now, I often think about where to go at a turning point in my life. In either sense, it's a great experience. ”
In the novel, there are five counselors who confide in their troubles, and each counselor tells a story. If the story continues to be told one by one, the book will become a scattered pearl, although it can also be called a masterpiece, but it is a bit messy after all. Therefore, the author adopts a completely different perspective to tell these stories separately, looking at them separately into separate chapters, and connecting them has played a role in advancing the plot layer by layer.
There are several stories in the novel, the characters encounter seemingly independent, but after reading it, they find that in fact, each character is involved with each other, and they are inextricably linked to the Langya grocery store and the orphanage "Marukoen", and each story echoes back and forth. Everyone's inadvertent choices and actions, like stones thrown into the water, create continuous ripples, which continue to expand and gradually form unbreakable bonds, and the past and the future finally meet.
After talking about the background of the book' creation, let's look at the book's creative style.
The story of "Relief Grocery Store" begins with flashbacks, three thieves pulling open the door of Langya's grocery store, and also opening the curtain on the story of that era. At the beginning, the climactic part is already shown. Three thieves stumble into a grocery store called Langya. They inadvertently found that someone outside had thrown a letter into the mailbox at the door, which was a letter of help. What they saw was a letter from the past, and the old grocery store had a secret passage in time.
The five chapters of the work take a very different perspective to tell each of the five stories that span time. The climax of the novel finally comes in the final chapter. In "Prayer from Heaven," time is once again back in time, and the three thieves once again open the mailbox of the grocery store and receive a letter of help from the girl they robbed.
As a person living in the present time, the three thieves clearly know what has happened in the past 20 years, so they point out in the letter that the life of the drinking girl has really succeeded. The girl, Named Harumi Muto, grew up in the Marukoen orphanage, she had always been interested in helping Marukoen, but was accidentally robbed by three children who grew up in Marukoen. Fortunately, the three children found the relief grocery store because they had followed her, and they had the curiosity to help those who needed help, and it just so happened that they helped Harumi Muto, who needed help 20 years ago.
Such a circular plot design fully demonstrates the author's logical reasoning ability. In fact, a work is written from the beginning and from the end, and speculative fiction should be written from the end, otherwise it cannot be extremely tortuous and changeable, and it is tight and seamless. Although "Relief Grocery Store" is not a mystery novel, the structure and character relationships are very complex and rigorous.
Higashino's works are mostly realistic, some are surreal, and in "Relief Grocery Store", surreal elements also play an important role in the story. The Nanaya Grocery Store is not open, but it has the magic of traveling through time and space spanning 30 years. Someone 30 years ago voted, and 30 years later someone can write back in this grocery store. More importantly, Keigo Higashino vividly portrays the times and changes in people's hearts around 30 years ago, a decision, an accident, a song, interlocking, quietly rewriting a person's life, quietly changing the world.
After talking about the creative style of this book, let's look at the evaluation of the book's works.
After the publication of the book "Relief Grocery Store", all walks of life have given it high praise. Zhao Yu, vice president of the China Reportage Literature Society, believes that Keigo Higashino has written about the subtlety of communication, and the logic of real life is sometimes complex and even a paradox. The three thieves confirmed with personal experience that the person's understanding was not faithful to the original intention of the person who helped her, and sometimes even the opposite. This is probably a common principle in psychology.
Zhi An, a member of the China Writers Association, believes that "Relief Grocery Store" is a book about warmth, and the warmth here is not the evil warmth in "The Dedication of Suspect X", but a good warmth, and love is implemented without destruction. This book writes that there is a little bit of trust between people, you believe in me, so you write to me, I believe you, so I write back to you, and no one takes this as a joke.
"Beijing News" believes that "Relief Grocery Store" is by no means the most important work of Keigo Higashino, not even a speculative novel, on the award, it has only won the Seventh Central Public Literature and Art Award, but in terms of theme and writing, it is the most characteristic, most grounded and warmest work of Keigo Higashino.
Beijing Daily believes that in "Relief Grocery Store", Keigo Higashino changed his usual sharp and old-fashioned brushstrokes and used the technique of traveling through time and space to describe the "transformation" of the grocery store behind the sweeping door into a troubled consultation room. People in reality write about the various troubles they encounter in life, such as family affection, love, family, dreams, and the future, and pass them on to the people in the store through milk cartons, and receive wise replies from there, and at the end of the story, the mystery of the grocery store is also revealed.
Well, that's the second thing I'll tell you today: the background, the style of the book, and the evaluation of the work. "Relief Grocery Store" uses a way to tell the story beyond time and space, expressing the concept that "the future is not only tomorrow, the future is in people's hearts, as long as there is a future in their hearts, people can be happy", most of the works are realistic, some are surreal, depicting the era and changes in people's hearts around 30 years ago, which has been highly praised by all walks of life.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="139" >03 The book's theme, character profile, and content summary</h1>
To appreciate a novel, we must start from the theme, sort out the characters involved in the book, establish a framework, and then read the content of the novel.
First, let's look at the theme of the book.
There is no crime, no detective, but the theme of bondage between people. It is warm, optimistic, and flamboyant. It is the kind of credible, ordinary human goodness.
Keigo Higashino has written many speculative novels that expose the ugliness of human nature, but at the same time, it also shows the goodwill of human nature. In this "Relief Grocery Store", Grandpa Langya is almost the embodiment of Keigo Higashino, answering many questions through novels, such as Grandpa Langya saying: "After reading the consultation letter for so many years, I gradually understand that many times, the person consulting has the answer in mind, and the person who comes to consult is just to confirm that his decision is right."
"Grandpa Langya always replies to other people's questions very seriously, even if it is a prank. He said: "I not only have to write a reply, but I also have to think hard and write again." The voice of man must not be ignored. Before dying, he received many thank-you letters, and he said very modestly: "How can a bad old man like me have the power to influence others?" If my answers worked, it was because they worked hard. If you don't want to live actively and seriously, no matter what kind of answer you get, it is useless. ”
All the answers were very warm and mainstream, with love and family at their core. For example, persuading athletes to give up training to accompany a terminally ill boyfriend; The father is in debt, and even if he flees, he should be with the family; Parents should do their best to give their children happiness. "Everything is within yourself, everything is free, and there are infinite possibilities in front of you." This is the last letter of inquiry that Grandpa Langya replied to, and it was also written by Keigo Higashino to all the confused people.
Having said the theme of the book, let's look at the characters of the book.
In the book "Relief Grocery Store", the author has created a total of three groups of characters, namely the trio of thieves, the three of the Langya family, and five counselors.
The trio of thieves, Atsuya, Shota, and Kohei, are the same age, grew up in the orphanage Marukoen, and have been together from junior high school to high school, and have done many times of stealing. Tun is also the boss of the trio of thieves, with a cold and warm face, rough and direct, and vicious mouth, but a man of integrity. His mother was a wine escort lady, and often abused Atsuya with her guests, making him deeply resentful of the wine companion profession, and indirectly sent her to the orphanage Marumitsu Garden.
In July 2012, he lost his job because he could not bear to carry the black pot. Shota is a member of the trio of thieves, polite in doing things, euphemistic in attitude, deep in thought, rational, meticulous in observation and good at discovery. In 2012, he was laid off and worked at a convenience store. Yukihei is also a member of the trio of thieves, with a simple, confused, rash, kind personality, very bad writing, tall figure, and round face. In 2012, he lost his job due to the closure of an auto repair shop.
In the Nanaya family, Yuji Nanaya is the owner of the Nanaya grocery store, consulting others, helping many people, and always replying to other people's questions very seriously, even if it is a prank. He and his son Takayuki Nanaya made an agreement to release the news: in the early morning of the 33rd anniversary of his death, the Nanaya grocery store will be revived.
Yuji Nanaya died on September 13, 1980. Takayuki Nanaya is the son of Yuji Nanaya, who inherits the secret of the Nanaya grocery store and passes on the agreement with Yuji Nanaya to his grandson Jungo Nagaya. Jungo Nanaya, the great-grandson of Yuji Nanaya, abided by his agreement with his grandfather Takayuki Naya and announced the resurrection of the Nanaya Grocery Store in the early morning of the 13th in September 2012.
This book portrays five counselors, the first being Shizuko Kitazawa, the "Moon Rabbit". Because her boyfriend is terminally ill, she is torn between love and dreams, and she does not know how to choose. The second is "fish shop musician" Katsuro Matsuoka. He wandered away from home for his musical dreams, but in reality he could not walk. Because his grandmother died of illness, his father was weak, and he was an only child, he was asked to inherit the family's fish shop called "Yusong", and he did not know how to choose. The third is the green of the "Green River" river. She was pregnant with the daughter of her husband, and after consulting With Yuji Nanaya, she decided to give birth to her daughter and raise her alone, but unfortunately died in a car accident.
The daughter was adopted by Marukoen and wrote a letter under the pseudonym "Daughter of the Green River" to thank The Nagaya Grocery Store. The fourth is "Paul Lennon" and Kosuke Ku. He came from a well-to-do family and was a fan of the Beatles. However, the news of his father's company's debt family's decision to abscond and the dissolution of the Beatles stimulated him successively, and he consulted Yuji Nanaya, who was already estranged. The fifth is the "lost puppy" Harumi Muto. She wanted to quit her OL job as a full-time restaurant girl and then set up her own shop, so she wrote to the Langya grocery store under the pseudonym "Lost Puppy" for advice.
Having said the characters of the book, let's look at the outline of the book.
In the first story, Moon Rabbit is a fencer who suffers from cancer in preparation for the Olympics. His boyfriend insists that Yuetu prepare for the Olympic Games wholeheartedly, and Yuetu does not know whether to insist on preparing for the Olympic Games or accompany her boyfriend to spend his last days. The grocery store wrote back to Moon Rabbit many times, thinking that he should give up the Olympics to be with his boyfriend. But Yuetu finally chose to insist on preparing for the Olympic Games, although she was not selected later, she had no regrets, and her boyfriend did not leave regrets in the end.
In the second story, Matsuoka Klang's family opened a fish shop, and his father originally wanted him to inherit the family business. But Mr. Krone loved music since he was a child, and later dropped out of school to embark on the road of music. Because his family objected, he did not return home for many years, and he was embarrassed to go home because he did not have the results to get his hands on it. When Mr. Krone's grandmother passed away, his sister told him to go back and have a look. This time, when he returned home, he realized that his father was actually very supportive of his pursuit of the music industry, but he looked at his father's old and weak body and hesitated to give up the path of music. The grocery store sent him back a letter encouraging him to stick with his music studies. So he bravely pursued music. Although he later died to save people, his songs were forever sung.
In the third story, is Kawabe's child who is pregnant with a husband and wife going to be born? The grocery store replied that the most important thing is whether the child born can be happy. Even if both parents are complete, it does not necessarily mean that the child is necessarily happy. If you can't be mentally prepared to pay all the costs for the happiness of your children, then even if your husband is around, it is best not to give birth to children. In the end, Kawabe gave birth to the child against all odds.
In the fourth story, the father wants to run away with the whole family after a huge debt, but the son Haojie is very reluctant, and he thinks that this is not a positive attitude. So after asking for help from the grocery store, he ran away on his own while his parents escaped, and since then he has lived in anonymity in another identity. Years later, he learned that his father had killed his mother and thrown her into the sea, leaving behind a last word that he had killed his wife and son.
In the fifth story, In order to repay her relatives financially as soon as possible, Harumi Muto wrote a letter to ask her if she wanted to quit her job to concentrate on drinking. The grocery store wrote back saying of course not. Since the person who replied to the letter was a modern person, he knew what was going to happen in Harumi's time. Therefore, he told Harumi how to seize the opportunity to earn money. With the help of a grocery store, Qingmei made at least 200 million yuan by flipping houses and selling land.
With the theme of bondage between people, "Relief Grocery Store" portrays three groups of characters from the trio of thieves, the Langya family and five counselors, with one sentence: "Everything is in yourself, everything is free, and there are infinite possibilities in front of you." "To all those who are lost.
Author: High-rise buildings rest alone