This article is a translation of an essay by Yumeno Kyūsaku from the January 1935 edition of Profile (Purofuiro) magazine. The original text is in the public domain.
Mystery fiction is very much like diptheria antitoxin. When injected into diptheria patients, diptheria antitoxin works incredibly well. We can say with complete confidence that it is frighteningly effective at neutralizing the pathogens that cause diptheria.
Despite this, the pathogens that cause diptheria have yet to be identified. Their form remains elusive, even to modern medicine. In other words, though we have identified a treatment, the true nature of the disease remains unclear. It is like passing a criminal verdict, while the criminal remains at large—the situation could be deemed a kind of nonsense.
Mystery fiction’s true nature is similar.
To understand the psychology behind mystery fiction’s appeal, is undoubtedly a task of peerless nonsense, humor, adventure, strangeness, and mystery… yet that is what investigating mystery fiction’s true nature requires.
Indeed, the core appeal of mystery fiction is not an easy thing to identify.
Lift the lid of the garbage bin labelled “mystery fiction,” and you will find a chaotic mix of adventure, humor, nonsense, mental abnormality, and other monsters, all jostling with each other. Try to extract just mystery fiction, and you will see that the other literary creatures, which at first glance appeared completely separate, are actually attached to its body. To your surprise they all emerge as one screaming tangle, their backs connected like Siamese twins.
Adventure fiction pokes two legs from mystery fiction’s flank, and flaps them noisily. Mental abnormality waves one hand from mystery fiction’s butthole, gesturing “Come here, come here!” Strange fantasy’s head pops up by its shoulder, comic fiction shares a behind, and the nonsense genre sticks to its forehead like a swollen lump, while ero-guro novels sprout like hair all over its body. The creature we call mystery fiction is something beyond science, something scalpels cannot dissect.
Some people equate the appeal of mystery fiction with the appeal of puzzles.
Perhaps they are right.
Mystery fiction is said to have originated in the late 18th century, when leisured women in Paris, inspired by the secret tactics of the spies rampant in social circles at the time, began creating them as a pastime. Their stories were specifically written to be as complicated as possible, in a competition to occupy as much as possible of the reader’s time. On hearing such an explanation of the genre’s origins, it is easy to believe that mystery fiction’s appeal lies in its puzzles.
However, since then, mystery fiction has evolved a great deal. Stories have been published with exceedingly straightforward plots, which nonetheless elicit horror and surprise. These stories show that mystery fiction can succeed without a single trick. Thus, it is undeniable that the genre is about more than just puzzles; a multitude of other elements contribute to its appeal.
There are mystery stories that remains interesting after multiple readings, and mystery stories that reveal the culprit from the start. Would it really be reasonable to categorically deny these the label of “mystery”?
Some people describe mystery fiction as a kind of psychological bloodletting.
In our heartless, capitalistic, materialistic society, we live like potatoes being washed against one another, all colliding and bumping together. The horrible guilt born of our unconscionable struggle to survive… the brutal satisfaction of our victories, the deep shame of our defeats… these toxins harden, and congest parts of our mental circulatory system. Mystery stories cut open these congestions open like a scalpel, allowing the black blood to drain out and the toxins to dissipate. Accordingly, mysteries are written and read with the intention of lowering blood pressure and aiding in peaceful sleep.
As for the blood that spurts out, the blacker and more toxic it is, the better we feel. That is why readers of mystery fiction are all good people… If general fiction novels are novels of love, then mystery novels are novels of conscience. The purpose of mystery fiction is to depict tremors of the conscience—that is one theory.
This idea of mysteries as a form of psychological release seems plausible, and and resonates with many, but it complicates the definition of mystery fiction. If mystery fiction were defined this way, then so-called traditional or “honkaku” mysteries, which focus solely on story and puzzle, ought to feel insufficient, like a meal one cannot eat.
However, traditional mysteries show no sign of drying up. They continue to consistently enjoy substantial public support, to the extent that anyone who can read a third-page newspaper article can understand and appreciate them. Non-traditional mysteries are different. Erotic, grotesque, and nonsense novels that adopt the label “mystery” are seen as overstepping… even were one to somehow strike a powerful pose, no loud voice would shout back its name. So while this definition may apply to non-traditional or “henkaku” stories, it does seems not to fit traditional, puzzle-focused mysteries.
No… perhaps mystery stories are nothing more than fairy tales for adults. Adults turn to mystery fiction to escape into a world of childish admiration and surprise, away from conscience, duty, favor, and the other struggles of life. Instead of reading general fiction, which immerses them once more in the experiences they were already tired of dealing with, day in and day out, they seek thrilling and extraordinary worlds that transcend such things.
However, while children are easily captivated by simple stories like Bikkuri Tarō or Corporal Norakuro, adults are not. To captivate an adult audience, mystery novels must construct their worlds of admiration and surprise using a backdrop of the latest and most astonishing science, mechanics, and expert knowledge. This is where all mystery fiction originates. The purpose of mystery fiction is to create these worlds—nothing more, nothing less.
Characters like Lupin and Holmes are essentially Mickey Mouse or Kokkei Kurobei for adults. Through their superhuman powers, they avenge evils connected to the wealth people covet, the life they desire, and the international issues they are excited about, to the delight of adults. Strange, perverted, adventurous, and humorous elements are incorporated into mystery stories because they add excitement, just like the colorful elements of children’s fairy tales. Other aspects of the genres correspond in much the same way.
When described this way, it seems reasonable. Adults are pitiable creatures who cannot have fairy tales, so just as children yearn to fall asleep to bedtime stories, adults might yearn to spend their day in bed, reading mysteries.
Nevertheless, to me, this explanation alone still feels somehow insufficient.
It seems we will need to bring together the various definitions above, and delve deeper into them, in order to truly understand what makes mystery fiction so captivating.
Many different forms of mystery fiction have already either been written into staleness, or reached a creative dead end. Writers of such fiction often cannot continue. Many panic, believing they are stuck at an impasse, but this may only be the perspective of writers.
From the perspective of readers, these mysteries do not feel stale, or at a dead end. Rather, readers continue to experience a terrifying psychological desire for stronger, deeper, and newer forms of stimulation. They feel this hunger acutely during gaps in their daily lives, and it drives them to wander about bookstores in search of something to satisfy it.
What exactly is this terrifying psychological desire?
Well… I do not know.
In fact, I myself am one of those people, forever wandering the fronts of bookstores, driven by such feelings. Yet when I ask myself what exactly I am searching for, I simply cannot figure it out. From time to time I pull out a book that seems interesting and read two or three lines, then immediately click my tongue in disappointment, and put it back on the shelf. I ask myself what happened, what made me do such a thing, but no answer comes to mind. I am certain that this habit makes me terribly nervous and impatient. I am certain that if I were to find a book that truly captivated me, I would readily empty my pockets and spend whatever it takes… but it is troubling, that even if someone were to ask me what I was looking for, I could give no answer.
When it comes to frustration, there is nothing more frustrating… But figure this out, and I could become one of the world’s bestselling authors…
I wonder if there are people who can explore the development of the humanities and the diversification of our reading material, and synthesize it all into a clear explanation of how mystery fiction reflects our social psychology. I wonder if there exists some great critic, who can accurately identify what modern readers expect from the future of mystery.
I wonder if there are people who can stand in bookstores, read the minds of the people browsing, and immediately go back to write something that fulfills those people’s desires.
No, bestselling authors must all be able to do that. But that means they must be keeping quiet on purpose. They must be keeping their abilities hidden, like adults keeping children away from the truth…
Ah… the frustration is unbearable…
Yumeno Kyūsaku (1889-1936) was a pen name of Yasumuchi Sugiyama, an author from Fukuoka Prefecture. His father, Shigemaru Sugiyama, was a major figure in the ultranationalist Genyosha party. As his parents divorced when he was two, Kyūsaku grew up with his grandparents, in the same house as his aunt and cousin. He spent several years on the family farm, but eventually left to wander, first as a Zen monk, then as a journalist, postmaster, Noh master, fairy tale author, and novelist. His pen name comes from a phrase in the Hakata dialect, and means “one who dreams too much.” Kyūsaku began drafting Dogra Magra in 1926, just before publishing his first short fiction for adults, but only completed it in 1935. A year later, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage while talking with a guest at his Tokyo residence, at the age of 47.