Book review: 『噓を愛する女』 by Etsu Okabe

噓を愛する女(うそをあいするおんな)

Title: 噓を愛する女(うそをあいするおんな)
Published: 2017
Format: Bunko
Page Count: 264
大手食品メーカーに勤める由加利は、研究医で優しい恋人・桔平と同棲5年目を迎えていた。ある日、桔平が倒れて意識不明になると、彼の職業はおろか名前すら、すべてが偽りのものだったことが判明する。「あなたはいったい誰?」由加利は唯一の手がかりとなる桔平の書きかけの小説を携え、彼の正体を探る旅に出る。彼はなぜ素性を隠し、彼女を騙していたのか。すべてを失った果てに知る真実の愛とは―。もうひとつのラストに涙する、小説版「嘘愛」。

I finished reading the first novel of my 2018 reading challenge (read one novel in Japanese a month in 2018). I chose a very short one to begin with: 「噓を愛する女」by 岡部えつ(おかべえつ).

To summarize briefly the story, Yukari (由香里), a successful working woman pushing 30, is living with her boyfriend Kippei (桔平), who does not seem to want to marry her. When Kippei is brought to the hospital unconscious after he suffered from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, Yukari discovers that her boyfriend’s identity is not what she thought it was. She begins an investigation to discover who he really is and why he lied to her.

The novel is very short, 260 pages, and is mainly focused on what Yukari does and discovers. There are very few descriptive parts, which makes it very easy to read for Japanese learners. Every chapter brings new elements that take Yukari and the reader nearer to the truth and this investigation-like story made me keep turning the pages long after I had read my daily quota. But even if reading this novel was very enjoyable, I felt that what kept me reading was more the excitation of cracking the mystery that a real commitment or empathy towards the two characters.

Being short, the novel spares us long setup and takes us immediately in the core of the story. The counterpart is that we know very little if any of the relationship between Yukari and Kippei. There are some rapid flash-backs but the years the characters have spent together remain vacant for the reader. It is hard to take the measure of Yukari’s frustration and to feel committed to her investigation. At the end, while Yukari is fighting for love, I only felt pushed forward by a wicked curiosity about what happened in Kippei’s past.

This does not mean that I didn’t like this novel. It was pleasant to read and it keeps you turn the pages until the end. There are also some good insights into what it means to live together without being married in Japan: no matter how perfect a couple can be, love itself is not enough in a society where you are either “married” or “single”.

To anyone looking for an easy novel in Japanese, 「噓を愛する女」is a good choice. It does not use difficult words, and there are not many descriptive or introspective parts that could be challenging. This is an extract to give you an idea of the book’s difficulty:

The novel opens with Yukari and her mother, waiting in a restaurant for Kippei to arrive. This will be the first meeting between Kippei (桔平) and Yukari’s mother. Unfortunately, Kippei never shows himself and Yukari returns home, thinking that he intentionally avoided meeting her mother (p.13):

彼は結局、現れなかった。私は母を品川のホテルまで送り、一人で中目黒のマンションに帰った。『今、お母さんをホテルに送った。これから帰ります。』電車に乗ってからメールを送るが、返事はない。桔平はいったいどんな顔で待っているのかと思ったが、家は空だった。合わせる顔もないのだろう、そう思った。『家に着いた。何してるの?』そう打ってからシャワーを浴び、出たあとに返信がないことを確かめた頃には、落胆は失望に変わり、やがて怒りになった。

Reference: 「噓を愛する女」、岡部えつ、徳間文庫、2017


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 🙂

Loading Mastodon feed...