Truth is nothing more than one view of a subject seen from a particular perspective," writes Riku Onda in her novel "The Aosawa Murders." With this sentence as a pivot, Onda fleshes out the story of a mass murder in a town in the northwestern part of Japan.
"The Aosawa Murders," which won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel in 2006, is her first work translated into English. The novel takes the form of a murder mystery, but in reality, it is a literary work with no clear-cut ending.
Most of the book consists of monologues delivered to an unknown interviewer, with different characters each speaking their "truth" based on their own perspective.
They are looking back on a mass murder targeting the distinguished Aosawa family in the city of K -- which apparently is Kanazawa -- on the coast of the Hokuriku region. Seventeen people were killed at a family birthday party -- with a blind girl, Hisako, as the only survivor in the family. She had listened to her family dying all around her. Cyanide was found in the drinks brought to the celebration. A deliveryman who emerged as a prime suspect later committed suicide, leaving behind a mysterious note. His motive for the murder remained a mystery. Police closed the case, but there are suggestions that Hisako had something to do with the murders.
A dozen of years later, Hisako's childhood friend, Makiko Saiga, writes a book titled "The Forgotten Festival" from many different perspectives about the murder based on interviews. Makiko, however, does not refer to her conclusion. Ten years after the publication of the book, one unidentified person who read the book visits the people Makiko met and interviews again them to pursue the truth.
Those who want to know what actually happened may feel frustrated, as Onda does not put importance on identifying the perpetrator or the motive of the crime, leaving the ending open to interpretation by readers. She also does not provide clear answers about many cryptic words in the note and incidents such as the suicide of Makiko's brother, Makiko's death, and a fire at an old bookshop.
By putting the puzzle pieces in the monologues together, some readers may find a great deal of pleasure in forming their own interpretation of the unsolved mystery, constantly imagining the meaning of the words and testimonies that have both reliable and unreliable aspects. After finding out who the unidentified interviewer is, you may want to read the whole story from the beginning once again.
Onda apparently intends to convey to readers the truth about "truth" in this book, using the form of interviews with people involved in the murders.
Early in the book, Makiko's research assistant says in an interview, "Each person has their own idiosyncratic biases, visual impressions and tricks of memory that shape their perception ... It's impossible to ever really know the truth behind events."
-- By Yukiko Katsumi, Japan News Staff Writer
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