Speaking of the development of world suspense literature, Japan's mystery novel can be described as unique, from the Meiji Restoration in 1868, Japan's rise to learn the Movement of the West, began to gradually accept European and American detective novels, to 1920 by Morishaka Rain Village, Yokozuna Masashi and other founding of the first detective novel magazine "New Youth", opened the development of Japanese speculative fiction, and three years later published "Two Cent Copper Coin" laid the foundation for Japanese detective novels, and then to the state of a hundred flowers since World War II, Edogawa Chaos, Yokogou Masashi, A series of well-known names of writers such as Kiyoharu Matsumoto, Keigo Higashino, and so on, are as impressive to readers as their works.
However, in the development of Japanese speculative fiction, there are also some works that seem very peculiar at the time and even now, not only because of the novelty and strangeness of their contents, but also have very profound significance in the history of Japanese and even world literature, that is, the "Four Great Mystery Books" of Japan written in the 30s and 70s of the last century, which are "The Murder of the Black Death Hall", "Hell of the Brain Pulp", "Offering to nothingness" and "Loss of Pleasure in the Box". Among them, "Brain Marrow Hell" ranks first among them, and it is conceivable that the book has a place in the history of Japanese literature.
Cover of Brain Marrow Hell
So what's so strange about this book?
First of all, we understand in a literal sense that the brain marrow is the most complex organ structure of human beings, and no one has been able to fully crack its secrets so far, and hell is both the most terrifying place in the human heart and the most intricate place, and when the two are added together, it is like a labyrinth of overlapping and overlapping, such as some of the directory names in the book that make the reader scratch their heads: the madman's hell cult ritual text, the earth's surface is the biggest liberation treatment field for madmen, the absolute detective novel, the brain marrow is not a place to think about things, etc. And the narrative method in the book is also upside down, and even after reading it, it is difficult to repeat the story correctly to others, and it really has the feeling of bringing the reader's brain marrow into the "hellish world".
But we can still find a clue through the clues in the book, which is the main line of the story, that is, a mental patient named Wu Ichiro wakes up in the ward, because he can't remember his name and all the previous experiences and began to find himself, reconstruct himself, and constantly doubt himself, including two psychiatrists- Professor Wakabayashi and Dr. Masaki as a guide, the storyline is around the confrontation between these three people.
Stills from the horror movie Brain Pulp Hell
Perhaps speaking of this, it seems that there is nothing special about it, but "Brain Pulp Hell" was written in the 20s and 30s of the last century, when there was no genetics, psychology and psychiatry were just emerging, still in the stage of tooth and tooth language, but there are a large number of views in the book involving the most cutting-edge academic fields such as psychology and psychoanalysis at that time, and even expressed the "collective unconscious" view proposed by psychologist Jung in 1922. These forward-thinking ideas undoubtedly put this book at the forefront of the times at that time.
The second is the text form of the work, the novel has a total of more than 300,000 words, but the author in the "book in the book" mode, the use of news reports, academic papers, suicide notes, detective novels and other genres and various rhetorical techniques, the sense of substitution and strange atmosphere of the work to the extreme, in addition to the interlocking mysterious structure and fantastic storyline of the book, it is by no means a pale text can describe, can only say that the book was published at that time left many strange legends, such as Yokogou Masashi self-report, can read this book not many people, However, there are feelings of confusion after reading the book, the feeling of wanting to commit suicide, and even reports of actual suicide (which have not been confirmed by the police).
"Brain Pulp Hell" by Hisaku Yumeno
Unlike the other three strange books (such as "The Murder of the Black Death" is the peak of the showmanship of reasoning, connotation of religion, history, science and technology and other aspects of knowledge), "Brain Marrow Hell" is not strictly speaking, it is not a speculative novel, but more like a psychological suspense work, and can even be classified as pure literature, of course, this style of work, the general reader often can not adapt, but interested readers, or it is best not to give up halfway, after reading you will definitely be immersed in the "brain marrow hell" woven by this work.
In fact, not only "Brain Marrow Hell", the whole set of four reasoning wonder books has a deep impact on the creation of posterity, among which kyogoku Natsuhiko's "Summer of the Birds", Ayatsuji's "Legend of the Dark House Immortal" and so on are more or less affected by it, and the two works are included in the "New Five Wonder Books", perhaps the latter's book age is closer to us, so in terms of readability, it is far easier than the four great reasoning wonder books of the last century, but whether the "New Five Wonder Books" can truly become the successors of the "Four Great Reasoning Wonder Books" That is yet to be answered by the readers.