Even if I am still struggling with Mishima’s Temple of the Golden Pavillon 「金閣寺」 that I am reading in Japanese, I just couldn’t resist the temptation to start a new book by Higashino Keigo.
I was missing Higashino’s universe, and I was eager to read the next novel of the Kaga series 加賀恭一郎シリーズ. Also, I wanted to read something easy and relaxing. In the Temple of the Golden Pavillon, the protagonist has befriended Kashiwagi, who is a real stumbling block to me. Kashiwagi’s long and cynical speeches are leaving me behind and I felt a little demotivated to read this book lately.
Anyway, I had to order 「噓をもうひとつだけ」, the 6th book of the Kaga series, because I couldn’t find it in any bookshop. I was afraid this might mean that this book was not very popular. I finally received it, and as far as I can tell, it is by far the easiest book I have read in Japanese so far (excluding books for children or manga).
「噓をもうひとつだけ」 is not a novel but a collection of 5 short stories, all featuring detective Kaga. I have already read 3 stories, and the reason why they are so easy is that they are mainly composed of dialogues. Each story is about 50 pages long, so there is no time for long descriptions. They are very similar too, all structured more or less the same way. This makes the whole book very relaxing to read.
I usually do not like short stories, but as I want to read all the books of the Kaga series in publication order, I could not skip this one. Now I can tell that I am very glad I didn’t.
I will write a review of this book when I finish it, certainly next Wednesday. All I can tell by now is that reading this book is very resourceful to me. Just before the JLPT, it makes me gain self-confidence and allows me to relax while still doing something in Japanese. As I start being used to Higashino’s writing style and am more and more familiar with detective Kaga’s way to track down a suspect, I feel a lot of self-confidence whenever I open a book of the series. I think it’s important to have something to return to when you feel demotivated, something you love and can understand easily.
About
I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read detective novels in these languages. I post about my reading progress and language study here. Best way to get in touch is on Mastodon 🙂
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