Apocalypse Now
There’s a big part of me that wants to call Yutaka Maya’s A Sonata for Summer and Winter (alternative title: Parzival) one of the greatest mystery novels I’ve ever read. But, while it’s good and certainly left a lasting impression on me, there are a few things that I’m struggling with to give it that title.
One thing, for example, is that it’s difficult for me to truly call this a mystery novel. Yes, make no mistake: it walks like a mystery, it quacks like a mystery, it has the setup of a mystery, it develops in large part like a mystery, has murders (LIKE IN A MYSTERY) – it is effectively a mystery novel… and yet… and yet!
I don’t want to harp too much on this this point, because it’s arguably just silly semantics. A story is a story. Genres and their trappings are a way of categorizing, comparing and easily understanding the different “types” of stories that emerge, to help readers and writers seat themselves into something they consider comfortable. Mystery itself is essentially a narrative tool. The narrative tool then evolved into something larger – entire stories steeped in a set of tropes and archetypes – locked rooms, closed circle mysteries, procedurals, etc.
A lot of my primary interest in recent years has been spent focusing on mysteries that subvert these tropes and the reader’s expectations in new and surprising ways: using the mold of a mystery novel as a stepping stone for something more. This ‘more’ has typically been further commentary on the genre itself.
But sometimes – this ‘more’ can overwhelm (transcend?) the novel to the point where the stuff you’ve come for feels secondary; a point your brain just can’t really register the novel as being a mystery novel anymore and starts seeing it as a different beast altogether.
Such is the case with Parzival, I’d say.
And when I say it, it’s by no means a bad thing. I’m genuinely in awe with what the book has managed to pull off here and how far of a leap it’s done using mysteries as a springboard.
The novel is about a group of five people who reunite in a mansion a lone island. Twenty years prior, they had spent time on the island, gathered around an obscure actress/painter/dancer/singer Kazune who they essentially treated as a deity. However, following her suicide on that very same island, the group disbanded and headed their own way.
Now, twenty years later, the journalist Uyu and his assistant are sent to report on the reunion of the five and conduct interviews.
As expected, mysterious events start happening. Someone desecrates the portrait of Kazune by crossing out her eye with a knife. Later, in spite of being the middle of the summer, snow unexpectedly falls across the region. The morning after, the group finds their host – the wheelchair-bound owner of the island – headless on a dancing podium some ways from the mansion. The estimated time of death places it sometime after the snow stopped falling – but there are no footsteps leading to or from the podium.
This first section of the novel really does feel like what you’re expecting it to be. The neurons are all firing off in the way they’ve done a million times before – the closed circle, the mysterious group with a past they’re being tight-lipped about, the no-footprint mystery…
…But then, something odd happens. While the danger of a murderer is clear from the get-go, very little time is actually spent on investigating or even discussing any of the deaths that occur in the novel. Instead, most of the time is spent on just… wandering and talking. Uyu has very little success in getting any of the people there to open up about their past: instead, they either wall him off, steer the discussion off into other areas or talk about cubism. (Cubism, the art movement primarily heralded by Picasso during his breakthrough.)
But it’s the context in which these discussions seem to happen that’s impressive – in the midst of a snowy field overlooking an empty grave, or on the rooftop under a starlit sky, or on the beach looking over the ocean, or in the empty kitchen while drinking black coffee. It all feels very… relaxed?
There’s a dreaminess to it all – in one scene, a character goes out in the night and simply starts dancing on the podium where the murder took place, as Uyu observes them from the shadows. Characters sometimes say things they clearly would never have wanted to leave up, but find themselves so caught up in that dreamy atmosphere that they say it all the same, and then later deny it. The strange architecture of the mansion – built in the cubist style, of course – is frequently noted, with misshapen doorways and walls.
Things then start getting even weirder. Other murders happen – but, as I said, the characters don’t spend more than a couple of paragraphs discussing them (discovery included). It’s difficult to really convey the point where the dreamlike strangeness converts into full-on panic without giving a major spoiler for the narrative, but it’s handled so effectively. Your brain understands it’s what the novel has been leading to this entire time, and it’s so satisfying seeing it unfold.
Now, while this novel is notorious for not answering all of its questions – it should be noted that the murders themselves do have a clear solution. The solution to the no-footprints problem is fairly improbable but, I promise you, by that point you’ll be so overwhelmed with so many other questions that you’ll just instinctively nod along and move on when you read it.
Even at the end, the very last few pages, when the great detective Mercator shows up – you won’t even be sure whether he’s truly there or just a mirage! He arrives, asks a single, very important question, and leaves. And the book ends!
The murders themselves don’t feel like the point. It’s not a situation where the other strange stuff is just window dressing for the murders – the murders are the window dressing! But the rest of the questions – while undoubtedly having an answer – feel like are not yours to truly understand, either.
That’s what makes it so hard to call this a mystery novel in the true sense of the word. You’re an observer to something much larger in scale than Uyu can truly comprehend. In the same way he’ll leave the island forever changed and puzzled, so will you. The difference being – we still exist, and we need to actually find some peace with the questions that linger.
First things first: I don’t think it’s fair to say that Parzival is a novel without an answer. While it might feel like the mysteries are not ours to solve, it’s only because we’re left in the position of an outside observer. The ‘twist’ on the genre here isn’t ‘the novel doesn’t solve all its mysteries’ or even the old ‘the truth has multiple interpretations’. This doesn’t feel like commentary on mystery fiction at all – but rather a story than manages to transcend it.
I’ve spent the last few days thinking about my own answer to what happened. It makes sense to me and I think it works well enough.
So, here is my theory encoded in ROT-13 (spoilers are abound, obviously).
Guvf vf tbvat gb or n ovg qvssvphyg gb rkcynva, ohg cyrnfr orne jvgu zr sbe n yvggyr ovg.
Jr xabj gung gur riragf bs gur zbivr, ‘N Fbangn sbe Fhzzre naq Jvagre’ ersyrpg Hlh’f yvsr hc gb uvf neeviny ba gur vfynaq. N fhccbfrq frdhry, ‘Ncbpnylcfr’ vf jevggra ohg vgf pbagragf erznva n zlfgrel.
Gur pbagragf bs gur abiry, V’z zber be yrff pregnva, vf gur obbx jr’er ernqvat. Guvf fgbel vf nobhg n svpgvbany jbeyq gelvat gb whfgvsl vgf bja rkvfgrapr, jvgu Xnmhar nf vgf qrvgl. Gur cevrfg, Cngevpx, univat ernq gur obbx, nffvfgf va vg pbzvat gehr ol cynlvat uvf ebyr. Gung’f jul ur zbirf gur obql naq phgf bss gur urnq. Gung’f jul ur xabjf gur fabj jvyy fuvsg oruvaq uvz naq pbire uvf genpxf – naq jul ur frrf gung unccravat nf n pbasvezngvba bs gur zvenpyr.
Rirelguvat gung unccraf ba gur vfynaq – gur abiry’f irel rkvfgrapr naq gur ernqre’f npg bs ernqvat vg – vf n evghny gb oevat Xnmhar vagb rkvfgrapr. Xnmhar, jub rkvfgf bhgfvqr bs gvzr naq fcnpr, abj cynlvat gur ebyr bs Hlh’f rqvgbe naq puvrs, fraqf uvz gb gur vfynaq va beqre gb gevttre gur riragf gung jvyy perngr ure.
Gurer ner gjb Gbevf ba gur vfynaq. Gur frpbaq bar vf gur jbzna jub jvyy orpbzr Xnmhar – gur zventr oebhtug gb yvsr guebhtu gur evghny. Vavgvnyyl, fur oryvrirf urefrys gb or Gbev, ohg Hlh’f nonaqbazrag bs ure yrnqf ure gb npprcg ure vqragvgl nf Xnmhar.
Gur bayl cneg V’z abg fher nobhg vf gur irel raqvat – nf sne nf V haqrefgbbq, Hlh fnirq gur Gbev gung unq ure rlr tbhtrq bhg, ohg va gur raq, fur unf obgu bs ure rlrf naq vf qevaxvat pbssrr (juvpu fur qbrfa’g frrz gb yvxr?) Orfg rkcynangvba vf gung fvapr Xnmhar vf abj rssrpgviryl Tbq, fur rssrpgviryl nygref gur jbeyq hcba Hlh yrnivat gur vfynaq.
V guvax gur zrnavat bs gur oryyf vf rkcynvarq ol gur vqrn gung gur vaunovgnagf ba gur vfynaq, juvyr orvat gurer qhevat gur evghny, ner zbivat guebhtu gvzr – gur oryy erznvaf va qvssrerag gvzr crevbqf juvyr gur crbcyr zbir. Gung rkcynvaf jul vg xrrcf fubjvat hc ng qvssrerag cynprf: gurer’f bayl bar oryy, ohg ng qvssrerag cbvagf va gvzr, orvat cvpxrq hc ol qvssrerag punenpgref. Vg nyfb rkcynvaf jul gur freinagf naq gur obng ner tbar – gurl qvqa’g yrnir; gurl fvzcyl jrera’g gurer orpnhfr gur erfg bs gur crbcyr fuvsgrq gb n qvssrerag gvzr crevbq jvgubhg gurz ernyvmvat.
Ohg lbh pbhyq nyfb frr vg nf gurz orvat frag njnl sbe gur checbfrf bs rknpgvat gur evghny cvpx lre cbvfba, V fhccbfr.
…I think something else the novel got me to think about is – why didn’t the novel feel boring? Why did the dreamlike atmosphere work for me? While it might’ve been because I knew, going in, that this wasn’t a traditional mystery story, I feel like I still would’ve been bored if the circumstances were different.
But what were those different circumstances?
I think it’s actually the fact it’s still fundamentally a closed circle scenario – a set of characters locked away from the outside world. Paradoxically, a closed circle has always brought to me a certain sense of… serenity? It’s not just because it’s such a familiar trope, but becuase it’s so easy to imagine yourself being a part of it – that escape from the rest of the world, the strange feeling of exploring an unknown area or house, spending time with people in a more intimate context. That escape from reality in particular is relevant to Parzival, simply because of how otherwordly everything is.
When Uyu and the priest, Patrick, stand on the roof and look the starry sky, there’s a tension, but also peacefulness. It reminds me of the trips I’ve taken, away from all the city lights, where the night sky was clearly visible.
It’s certainly a sight to behold.
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