AND WHAT HAS FOUR YEAR OLD LUKE GOT STUCK UP HIS NOSE?
A review of...
THE JAPANESE CORPSE
(by Janwillem Van De Wetering)
by a gentleman who is not myself...
I have never struggled so hard to finish a book as I did this one. I don't know if van de Wetering is a native Dutchman writing in English or if he just had a shockingly bad translator, but neither of these possibilities explains the utter ineptitude of the plot, characterization, and dialog of this truly excruciating book.
The plot ostensibly involves the murder of a Japanese working in Holland. The two detectives assigned to the case (who apparently appear in several other of v.d. Wetering's novels) travel to Japan and by some obscure means identify the drug-running yakuza gang responsible while having a series of random cultural "experiences".
Having lived in both Japan and Holland, the author's depictions of both countries and their inhabitants were peculiar to say the least. I got the strong impression that he had read a Tokyo Olympics-era Reader's Digest article about Japan and had used this as his reference material. His favoured dialog technique goes along the lines of `"Would you like to try sushi", said the pretty young waitress in her traditional costume known as a kimono. "Sushi? Isn't that small balls of rice soaked in vinegar with a slice of raw fish on top and flavoured with horseradish paste?"' The effect is vaguely reminiscent of something out of Airplane. The detectives, for their part, like nothing better than to whip out their respective flute and drum and play a little Bach. No, really.
The increasing feeling of being on a bad hallucinogenic experience while reading the book was brought to a climax by the truly bizarre ending in which the detectives infiltrate the yakuza headquarters unnoticed and witness the gang having a knees-up to the intoxicating foreign strains of... jazz. Which thereby renders them defenceless to arrest.
Hmmm.
Perhaps v.d. Wetering was the one having the hallucinogenic experience.
What I found most peculiar was the collection of fulsome reviews on the back cover praising the gripping pace and the evocative picture of Japan (more Digest readers obviously). Had some goblin switched covers at the printers? Who knows. In short I wouldn't recommend this unless you are stuck on a desert island, in which case it will come in handy for lighting a fire.