Some of the books that I count among my favourites are Japanese books, and Ringu, the first of the horror trilogy by Koji Suzuki is one that I now add to that list!
Ringu (translated by Robert B. Rohmer and Glynne Walley) follows reporter Kazuyuki Asakawa as he, with the help of his friend Ryuji Takayama, investigates the sudden and mysterious deaths - on the same day and at the same time - of 4 teenagers: Tomoko Oishi, Shuichi Iwata, Haruko Tsuji and Takehiko Nomi.
A row of condominium buildings… the oily surface of the ocean… a single two-story home… a beam of fluorescent light from an open window… and we are launched into the story and into a world of fear and mystery right away! The story moves rapidly and takes us through a slowly rising sense of dread as we see the first two victims - as we drive to cabin B4 - as we read the journal entries - and as we discover the tape with the anti-erasure tabs broken off.
A surreal introduction. Red fluid. An erupting volcano. An old woman. A new-born baby. A man whose face gives rise to inexplicable feelings of hatred… “Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. If you do not wish to die, you must follow these instructions exactly– …” Asakawa’s frenzied efforts to work out what the deleted instructions are form the basis of this story.
On the one hand, this was a good spooky story - the kind of horror I like: minus all the clichéd trappings of gore! At its base is a story of two generations of psychic powers, with the recovered statue of En no Ozunu possibly at the heart of it all. On the other hand, it was also a very good murder mystery; we follow the clues as each frame and every element of the video is painstakingly and thoroughly studied, deciphered and its meaning traced right down to the secret that was and should have been Sadako Yamamura’s alone.
One section especially stands out in my mind. During the course of their investigation, Ryuji and Asakawa have a conversation regarding smallpox. As they wonder if a virus can ever become truly extinct, they raise some very interesting ideas about the co-existence of opposites. Asakawa is of the opinion that no matter how much you try to kill a virus, eventually it would mutate and find a way to survive. Ryuji offers the idea that genes could escape from our cells and become another life form, and then develops that thinking to believe that all opposites were originally identical. Light and darkness. Male and female. God and the Devil.
I have not watched the Hollywood version of this book, but from what I hear, that movie lays a lot of stress on the ultra-psychokinetic and the ghostly. Where this original story differs, is in its powerful combination of the supernatural and the scientific, with smallpox being as important a factor as psychic powers in this saga of the Ring Virus.
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