As a genre of literature, mystery fiction has a wide range of readers. Even readers who are not keen on it have read one or two mystery novels. Even if they have not read related books, they must have read suspenseful genres. Movies, I have heard the names of classic writers such as Conan Doyle, Keigo Higashino, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Chandler.
In the first issue of this column, we will chat with readers about Higashino Keigo’s novels.
Keigo Higashino has published dozens of inference works, each of which has distinct personal characteristics. Due to the unique writing style, after reading many of Keigo Higashino’s novels, you will soon forget who the murderer is and who the protagonist is. But at the same time, he also portrayed a large number of characters in his novels that make people enjoy reading. So, among the male protagonists appearing in Keigo Higashino’s works, which one is considered the most successful and richest in his characterization? The author of this issue will start from this question and bring his own insights to readers.
Authors | Lu Yehua (deduction writer, member of Chinese Writers Association)
01
He has been in the works of Keigo Higashino for 28 years
Keigo Higashino, the hottest reasoning writer today, his work “Devotion of Suspect x” has been regarded as a standard by countless readers. The “Detective Galileo” played by Masaharu Fukuyama has also become a classic detective image. But his creative road has also experienced confusion and struggle. Before the divine detective Galileo, the traditional detective, Higashino Keigo wrote about another anti-traditional “human detective”.
This character is called Kaga Kyouichiro, and he is an ordinary film policeman who wanders through ten different stories. Keigo Higashino wrote about his twenty-eight years, and these twenty-eight years are also the growth history of the author Keigo Higashino as a writer.
Kaga Kyichiro played by Hiroshi Abe
In 1986, Keigo Higashino published the second novel “Graduation” in his life. A year ago, he just won the 31st Edogawa Ranbu Award for “After School”. The Ranbu Award is the most important newcomer award in Japanese reasoning literary circles, and many famous reasoning writers made their debut.
“graduation”,[日]Keigo Higashino, translated by Huang Zhen, new classics | Nanhai Publishing Company, March 2019
Holding the double-edged sword of “Edogawa Ranbu Award Debut Writer”, Keigo Higashino used his brains in the second work “Graduation”. For example, he chose to place the stage of the story on the campus he was familiar with again. “Graduation” is a feeling that most readers can substitute in an instant. At the same time, he also added the classic Japanese elements “Snowy Moon Flower Game” in his work, and used this game to complete murder tricks. In the background setting, the social hot spots such as AIDS and student movement introduced for the first time in Japan are also very important. And blended into it. In the end, he created a brand new series of characters, when there was only a senior student-Kaga Kyouichiro.
Kaga Kyouichiro’s debut, it does not seem to be very amazing now. Limited by Keigo Higashino’s writing experience, Kaga Kyouichiro, who was still a student at the time, could only deal with people in the small society of the campus. The character of the whole character was as immature as Keigo Higashino’s writing at the time. This book satisfactorily completed the tasks that should be completed as a mystery novel, but for the protagonist, especially the setting of the detective image, it is obvious that Keigo Higashino did not take much into consideration.
The description of Kaga Kyoichiro is only on the surface, with a tall and strong appearance, profound features, and a mouthful of white teeth; his personality is restrained and rational. People around him commented on him as “good appearance, contagious smile”. And readers can only see such a superficial character. This positive but relatively mediocre image does not seem to have many memory points as the protagonist. In the story, Kaga Kyouichiro confessed that a girl was rejected and confessed a little bit of inner feelings. Everything else was for “Graduation” is a story service. Keigo Higashino at that time didn’t care about his family relationship, his joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.
At that time, Japan’s new honky movement had begun to sprout quietly. One year later, Ayatsuji pedestrians will come with the “Shikakukan Incident” to start the first year of the new honky. In this era, Kaga Kyouichiro and Higashino Keigo’s works seem a bit out of place.
02
His body reflects the confusion of Higashino Keigo’s early creations
In the next few years, the mighty New Bengue movement, whimsical criminal tactics, unprecedented criminal motives, and the image of a maverick detective had a violent impact on all traditional reasoning writers, and Higashino Keigo was also held hostage. Among them, his style of work is far from those “sacred works”. In the second work “Sleeping Forest” of the “Kaga Kyouichiro Series”, we seem to see Higashino Keigo’s confusion at that time.
In this work published in 1989, Kaga Kyouichiro grew up to 30 years old along the timeline of the work. The protagonist at this age is obviously a bit old for the detective, and he is just a rookie at the police station, with criminals. The practice of fighting wits and courage in speech and picking out the flaws is not suitable. Therefore, at this age, this work has become a true portrayal of Keigo Higashino’s “out-of-time” at the time.
“The Sleeping Forest”,[日]Keigo Higashino, translated by Zheng Lin, new classics | Nanhai Publishing Company March 2019
Maybe it was because he figured out something. Keigo Higashino tried to change his style. Between 1996 and 1999, Kaga Kyoichiro appeared again in the three works of “Who Killed Her”, “Malicious” and “I Killed Her”. These works are still talked about by many readers, because the two books “Who Killed Her” and “I Killed Her” did not explain who the murderer was. At the end of the work, Keigo Higashino gave all the clues, and the range of suspects has been locked, but the final truth requires the reader to reason.
The “Malicious” is the opposite of those two books. At the beginning of the work, the reader knows who the murderer is, and the murderer confessed to the crime. Reading to the end, the reader can still feel the strong unexpected impact.
A Japanese drama of the same name adapted from “Malicious”. But in the film and television series, the protagonist’s name is changed to Nishihara Kakoo.
This is completely contrary to the creative idea of ”resolving mystery as the main body” of mystery novels, but its essence does not subvert the original fun of mystery novels. This is the answer given by Higashino Keigo during this period-he does not lack new gameplay. And creativity, gameplay is greater than the connotation of the story itself, he can also write such works. And, it’s well written.
But the sacrifice made is that even readers who like these works very much will forget that the protagonist of these stories is that Kaga Kyouichiro after a while.
During this period of time, Keigo Higashino kept creating, and his style completely diverged. He “retaliated” on the road of exploration and experimentation, and at the same time his style changed, his control of the text and narrative rhythm was also making rapid progress. . In 1998, the newly divorced Keigo Higashino wrote “Secrets” about his perception of the relationship between husband and wife, father and daughter, and mother and daughter. This book won him another important award more than ten years later-the Association of Japanese Reasoning Writers prize.
Through the above works, careful readers can roughly piece together some objective facts: Kaga Kyouichiro is single and has a delicate relationship with his father. He respects his father very much, but there is a gap between the two, and his mother hardly mentioned it. Kaga Kyouichiro’s image is still not salty and not light, but the story of Higashino Keigo is getting better and better.
“secret”,[日]Keigo Higashino, translated by Lian Zixin, a new classic|Nanhai Publishing Company November 2017
After ten years of sluggishness, Keigo Higashino finally surfaced to breathe fresh air, and from this, he opened his golden age. If you say what he has learned in the past ten years, it is that the light of divinity cannot conceal the mottledness of human nature. It is even more difficult to write down the ordinary emotions of ordinary people.
Therefore, in 2000, Keigo Higashino wrote a short story collection “Only One Lie” for the ordinary detective Kaga Kyouichiro who has been with him growing up but has always been out of the reader’s sight.
“Just One Lie”,[日]Keigo Higashino, translated by Huang Zhen, new classics | Nanhai Publishing Company June 2019
03
Kaga Koichiro whose image is finally plump
In the previous works, Kaga Kyouichiro is either a ruler that lays between good and evil, testing the fineness of other characters, or a pair of eyes, watching the development of the story as a bystander, and then the story ends and the eyes are closed. on. However, in “Just One Lie”, Kaga Kyouichiro began to show his emotions, his views on the world, and his attitude towards others gradually became fuller. At this point, Kaga Kyouichiro and Higashino Keigo have turned around, we no longer understand Visit him to see the story, but face his story.
In 2006, twenty years have passed since Kaga Koichiro made his debut, and Higashino Keigo once again found a very suitable stage for Kaga Koichiro-“Red Finger”.
“Red Fingers”,[日]Keigo Higashino, translated by Yu Zhuang, new classics | Nanhai Publishing Company January 2015
The story takes place in an ordinary Japanese family. A middle-aged man, Akio, has an old mother with Alzheimer’s disease and a cute but naughty son. One day, Akio found out that his son had killed a little girl, and his peaceful life was broken. He didn’t want to call the police because it would ruin the life of his 15-year-old son, and the corpse was at home. He was just an ordinary middle-aged man. What should he do to get his son off from crime?
The murderer of the story is still given at the beginning, and “Flashback Reasoning” has become Higashino Keigo’s most powerful sign from then on.
This work not only retains the core cases and reversals in the mystery, but also contains emotions enough to make most readers cry. The reason for the tears is not only because of the story, but also because of being able to think of myself and my parents through the story.
The biggest difference from the previous “Kaga Koichiro Series” is that this work opened Kaga Koichiro’s heart for the first time. He is no longer a tool person, but after intervening in this family, he is recommended by others, and his own family relationship is handled, and the regrets that have been present all the time begin to appear. So we began to know Kaga Kyoichiro’s emotional intelligence and his true views on family relationships. He has a fragile and sensitive heart under his tough appearance. The father who had a bad relationship with him was hospitalized for cancer in this book, and his life was at the end of his life. The heart-wrenching relationship between the father and son made us feel that Kaga Kyoichiro also faced what most people would face. The problem is that his family relationship and the family relationship of the whole case echo each other. It is unclear whether Kaga Koichiro rescued Akio, or Akio liberated Kaga Koichiro. Moreover, we were curious for the first time about how Kaga Kyoichiro handled his father’s life and what was going on with his mother.
That is the real curiosity and passion for a flesh and blood person.
Therefore, the book “Red Finger” is tailor-made for Kaga Kyouichiro, and can only be deciphered by him. Because he, like the readers, knew who the murderer was very early, and his mission was not to capture the murderer, but to fight fiercely with the murderer’s family while putting his heart to heart, so that all “victims” were saved.
Twenty years ago, Kaga Kyouichiro was an immature graduate. Twenty years later, Kaga Kyouichiro is a mature and stable middle-aged criminal policeman who has a thorough understanding of the world.
“Mr. Kaga, it turns out that you are not investigating the case.” Kaga Kyouichiro replied: “Of course it is investigating, but the work of the criminal police is more than that. Some people will be traumatized by the case, and they are also victims. The criminal police’s The duty is to find clues that can save the victims.”
——This sentence comes from the mouth of Kaga Kyouichiro, and it is more like a summary and footnote made by Higashino for his own creative style.
After “Red Fingers”, Kaga Kyoichiro saved the trauma of different people time and time again. They included the self-employed individuals in Ningyocho in “New Participants” and the unnamed man who died on Nihonbashi in “Kirin Wings”. The object of his investigation is not the case, but the person behind the case.
These works are the true essence of the “Kaga Kyoichiro” series, because each one is the same as “Red Fingers”. It is not Kaga Kyoichiro that cannot be solved, but the best and fortunately, he is the one to solve the case. In this way, at least a false start can lead to a salvation ending. Kaga Kyouichiro also experienced the most critical period of his life in these works. He finally reconciled with each other before his father died, and his work, life, and emotions seemed to be quite stable. When he is free, he likes to go to a taiyaki shop, but unfortunately, when the line is up to him, the taiyaki is always sold out. He smiles bitterly and accepts this “unlucky” every time. After all, life is like this .
Higashino Keigo’s idle brushes are rarely seen in his early works, and through these trivial incidents that have nothing to do with the case, Kaga Kyouichiro’s image becomes fuller.
At this time, Keigo Higashino has gradually become the best-selling author in the literary world of reasoning. His works, like Kaga Kyouichiro, can hit the readers’ hearts with precision every time. This calmness and aging is the result of more than 20 years of dormancy, trial and error, and refinement.
04
Every reader can see himself in Kaga Kyouichiro
Until the “Wings of the Kirin” in 2011, nine copies of the “Kaga Kyichiro Series” have been published, and Keigo Higashino has also become famous. Perhaps this series should be like other authors, let Kaga Kyoichiro visit more places and save more people’s hearts.
But he didn’t.
Kaga Koichiro, in the planning of Keigo Higashino and from the reader’s perspective, has always maintained growth. He will gradually grow old with real time. Therefore, we should expect that he will leave us one day sooner or later. As a detective, the end of a detective case is definitely more reasonable than the end of life.
In this way, in 2014, Keigo Higashino launched the final work of the “Kaga Kyichiro series” “When the Prayer Is Over”. In this work, Kaga Kyouichiro confronts the mystery of his mother’s departure. After experiencing so many family relationships, what he wants to sort out is his family relationship.
“When Prayer Ends”,[日]Keigo Higashino, Translated by Dai Ke, New Classics | Nanhai Publishing Company January 2015
Kaga Kyouichiro’s mother suffered from depression when Kaga was young. Depression at the time was not classified as a disease. After experiencing some things, her mother suddenly left one day. Therefore, in the previous works, we saw that Kaga Kyoichiro always lived with his father, and the relationship between the two was not good, and it was also related to the mother’s running away. In the following decades, there was no news of his mother, until one day Kaga Kyoichiro received news of his mother’s death in Sendai.
Decades later, my mother is already the most familiar stranger to Kaga Kyouichiro. What happened to her during this time? Why do you want to run away from home? Why do you keep not contacting your home? Did she die alone? Kaga originally thought that he would never find answers to these questions. After his father passed away, his mother would become a hole in his heart that would never be filled. But in another case, he found the same evidence as his mother’s relics, making these mysteries traceable again. It’s just that Kaga Kyouichiro should also know that the truth may not be good, but it will be cruel.
This work can be said to be a tailor-made work by Keigo Higashino for Kaga Kyouichiro. Why is Kaga Kyouichiro? How did you become Kaga Kyouichiro? These questions will be explained perfectly after reading this work.
The above is the “Kaga Kyichiro Series” that has been published so far, a total of ten. From 1986 to 2014, for nearly 30 years, Keigo Higashino shared with us the most memorable period in the life of Kaga Kyoichiro.
Stills of “When the Prayer Is Over”.
From a young graduate to a mature uncle, Kaga Kyouichiro has become a flesh and blood character without knowing it. Maybe you will meet him when you are in line. Of course, he should be behind you. Maybe You will also think of him when you encounter some knots, and want to hear his opinions. Of course, more often, you will forget him, because he is so ordinary, just as you don’t often think about how you have gone through youthful ignorance and become one of the crowds today.
At the same time, the Kaga series also witnessed the growth of Keigo Higashino, from the early immature to the mid-term playing tricks, and finally found the direction that he was really good at, combining all the advantages together. The twenty-eight years of Kaga Kyouichiro’s self-growth is also the twenty-eight years when Higashino Keigo has seen the sun.
The real power of Keigo Higashino may be that in his works, you can not only see others, but also yourself.
This article is exclusive original content. Author: Lu Yehua; Editor: Shen Chan; Proofreader: Liu Jun. Welcome to forward to the circle of friends.
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