Miyuki Miyabe - The Sleeping Dragon

The first novel I reviewed by Miyuki Miyabe was The Devil's Whisper, and I opened the review by mentioning the preposterous nature of mystery novels, and indicated that Miyabe was no stranger to such excesses. The Sleeping Dragon carries on this tradition, but just as with The Devil's Whisper, Miyabe shows herself a master of the thrillingly ridiculous. The Sleeping Dragon is a story that never quite elevates above the improbable, but then it never really tries to, either. At its heart, it's an honest attempt to excite and confuse, and at both Miyabe's novel is a success.

The Sleeping Dragon opens during a thunderstorm, with our protagonist, Shogo Kosaka, driving through the Kanto area near Tokyo. Kosaka picks up a young hitchhiker, Shinji, and soon they become embroiled within the mystery of a child who was swept away into a storm drain. Kosaka is a reporter and is comfortable, or at least, familiar, with the police, but Shinji seems far too agitated, his mood changing rapidly as the boy's disappearance and probably death is discussed. Right away we think, a ha!, here is a suspicious activity, here is a death – maybe a murder? - and away we go on our adventure.

But hold on. Miyabe is never quite that obvious. Shinji is certainly suspicious, but he soon reveals why to Kosaka – Shinji can read minds, and also read the history of an object. He knows who removed the manhole cover that led to the boy falling in and drowning, because he can see it. Kosaka is skeptical, until Shinji takes his hand and reveals old and hidden memories. Kosaka is reluctantly convinced and then, later, becomes deeply confused when Shinji's friend, Naoya, comes to his office and declares Shinji a prankster and a liar. But then Shinji learns of Naoya's visit, and reveals that Naoya is an even more powerful psychic than he, and offers proof of that, too. And then –

Okay, now away we go. From here, Miyabe introduces us to her concept of psychic behaviour. Shinji is conflicted regarding its use, and wishes to avoid being “open” as much as possible. Being “open”, as he helpfully describes, involves opening a sort of latch within one's mind. Once open, it's hard to shut, and there is always the risk that too many thoughts start coming from too many people. And you can't always control when you are open – who would want to make love with another and know their true, deep feelings and thoughts? Maybe you and maybe I, but maybe not: the risk of learning something you wish you could unlearn would be high enough to force reconsideration.

Miyabe rapidly shifts the plot away from the drowning death of the boy to the problem of whether Shinji and Naoya are psychics or pranksters. Kosaka is a receptacle for other people's information, which essentially means he wanders around letting people talk to him. That's how the plot goes, but it's effective enough. There isn't a great deal of action, but what does occur is well told. And, to add to the tension, Kosaka begins receiving anonymous letters wishing him mortal harm.

Miyabe, sometimes to her credit, and sometimes not, often foreshadows the future plot twists in ways which are a little heavy-handed:

Shinji went on. “Just imagine that you were an ignorant kid who had the power to know things you really didn't want to see or hear. Wouldn't you want to do the right thing? If you were like me, could you honestly say you would have done things differently?”

All I needed to say was I might have done things the way you did. It was the answer he was looking for, and it would have comforted him to hear it. If he had had that comfort, the chances are things would not have unfolded the way they did.

It's a bit much, but it gets the job done.

The intrigue of the novel comes from the two 'psychics'. Events mount around Kosaka, involving the letters, an ex-girlfriend, the two men who removed the manhole cover, a strikingly sympathetic deaf woman who, at times, lives with Naoya and adds yet another level of ambiguity to whether or not he possesses powers – but the heart of the matter is the two young boys. We want to believe them, or at least Shinji, because he seems like a good, though troubled, kid. And Naoya, beyond his arrogance, he, too, is sympathetic. In this sense, Miyabe's thriller is utterly different to the blood and murder soaked thrillers of American, British and Australian literature. The thrill comes from the mystery, not specifically the murders.

At times, Miyabe attempts to rise above the pulp. She offers more most successfully with Nanae, the deaf girl mentioned earlier. Nanae works not because she is deaf – that would be a cheap way to garner sympathy – but because Miyabe is able to use her endearing personality and the implication of her deafness as a springboard for Kosaka to comment upon Japanese society and the manner in which it treats its less fortunate citizens. She doesn't say anything new, necessarily, or particularly profound, but her social chiding is gentle enough that it is palatable to those looking for an easy read, while still managing to express sufficiently her dissatisfaction with Japanese society in this respect.

At other times, such as early on when Kosaka is impressing his intelligence upon the reader, she is a touch less successful:

Reality and unreality, logic and illogic live side by side in similar forms – two parallel rails that never cross. We mentally drive with a wheel on each. A politician who is supposedly as solid as a rock relies on the revelations of a spiritualistic medium. A religious figure who tells us he has transcended this world spends his evenings figuring out ways to avoid taxes. A construction company wouldn't think of beginning to build a building without the latest in high-tech features without conducting a Shinto groundbreaking ceremony to purify the site. Completely avoid the illogical rail, and you'll end up with a cold heart, but lean too far forward it and people will think you're crazy. Either way you're likely to crash.

None of this is particularly sophisticated, and does little to convince us that Kosaka is a gifted reporter momentarily fallen into hard times.

So yes, Miyabe's plot is preposterous, but she understands the importance of withholding just enough to make you want to keep reading. Information comes out in a steady trickle, often conflicting, but generally building toward – well, you don't know what, but you sure want to find out. The are-they-psychics-or-are-they-not aspect works well, and both the implication of them being psychic, and the implication of their not being psychic, are explored through dialogues and Kosaka's thoughts.

As one character tells him,

There's no such thing as psychics or ESP. It's something adults would like to believe in. When adults have a dream, children can help us achieve it with a little bit of mischief. They know what they're doing. What they don't understand is what will happen when the dream wears off.

Miyabe plays the plot straight. She never winks at the reader, and though her characters alternate from skeptical to believing, she refrains from playing her hand, and instead lets the story decide itself.

Miyabe's great strength is her ability to inspire emotions for characters who should, by rights, be considered little more than window-dressing. She doesn't do a lot with them, but the twists of the plot and the little conversations here and there, cause us to have a fondness for these characters than is greater than perhaps expected. I was genuinely saddened to learn of one character's death, and became immediately surprised that I had been affected so – I had considered them a cardboard cut-out, a function for the plot, and nothing more. Needless to say, I was wrong – and this is to Miyabe's credit. She provides a coherency of purpose to her characters which create within them a sense of emotional strength and integrity, which allows the reader the chance to empathise. Miyabe eschews the easy hard-boiled detective or world-weary police officer for characters who tread less familiar, though still comfortable, trails.

Author	Miyuki Miyabe
Title	The Sleeping Dragon (Original title: Ryu wa nemuru)
Translator	Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi
Nationality	Japanese
Publisher	Kodansha International
Published	1991 (Japanese) 2009 (English)
Pages	301
Availability: ---Amazon (US) ---Fishpond (AU)

See Also

Titles by Miyabe also under review:
---The Devil's Whisper

Other titles from Kodansha International under review.