Inhae's blog

I am a big fan of Keigo HIGASHINO. I first read his books in French (some of the Galileo series) and found it very new and original. I would never have dreamed, at the time, that I would be able to read his novels in Japanese one day.

Since I started Japanese and reached a sufficient level to read novels, I have read 9 novels by Higashino, including the 6 first books of the Kaga series. Also, the very first novel I read (without given up) in Japanese was 「卒業」, the first novel of the series.

I reached the point when I was exclusively reading Higashino, and this year, I have decided to read other authors to get used to different writing styles and taste some more difficult writings. But, I could not resist the temptation to add two titles by Higashino to my 2018 Reading challenge, and it is now time for me to read 「赤い指」, the seventh novel of the Kaga series.

Opening a novel by Higashino is immensely enjoyable. First, I know for sure that I will like it (I loved each of the 9 books I have read so far), and most of all, I know that I will be able to read it in Japanese without problems.

I don’t know what makes Higashino’s books so easy to read to me. Maybe it is simply because I am used to his style. It could also be because I began reading in Japanese with his novels and stuck to it for a long time. Similarly, when you have the same and only interlocutor in a foreign language for a long time, particularly if you started speaking with this person, you get used to his elocution and will always understand him perfectly why you could be puzzled by other persons’ way of speaking.

But I also think that Higashino has a very straightforward way of telling his stories that allow the reader to guess a lot, thus making up for unknown words. I am never taken aback by a character’s action or behaviour, everything always seems to fall into places. I am not saying that his stories are predictable and that I know what will happen next. I am just saying that the behaviours and actions are always logical and seem real. In other words, the characters often do what I would do if I were them, so that I can always anticipate a little and guess the meaning of a lot of unknown words.

Furthermore, the vocabulary and grammar are not particularly challenging, exception made for some descriptive parts that are crucial for the case.

This long introduction to say that I feel very excited to start 「赤い指」and that the first pages already confirmed that this book will be easy to read and certainly unputdownable! If you have read some of my other reviews of the Kaga series, you know that I am often disappointed when the novel never let the reader getting close to detective Kaga Kyoichiro. But in the first pages of 「赤い指」appears Kaga’s father… This novel might be different from the others!

About

I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read mystery novels and play video games in these languages.

Learning languages has always been one of my favourite hobbies, but I’m not a social person, I don’t like to meet new people and make friends, this is just not me. I keep hearing that languages are meant for communication, that we have to actively use them, talk with natives, etc. and for a long time, I thought it was weird to learn languages just to read books, with zero interest in communication.

Now I don’t really care what people think, and this blog helped me a lot to stop doubting myself and just do what I enjoy doing.