I got into the story and read quite a chunk of it this weekend!
夫の意味
This chapter ended on such a cliffhanger! We find out some of the truth about 鵜原 and the double life he was potentially leading, and then It turns out 本多 was murdered! Things still aren’t adding up. Even if 鵜原 did commit suicide due to his marriage, why was his older brother and now 本多 murdered? I can’t see the need to murder others if it was just a suicide. The woman who was seen fleeing the apartment where Honda’s body was found was also a new name (unless it’s 久子 using some kind of alias).
I wonder if 鵜原 or someone in his life, like either the 室田 husband or wife, committed a crime and the murders are trying to cover it up. They are pretty suspicious now too for lying about 久子’s husband working in their factory (and who knows what else).
Oh wow, you‘re almost done! I have two other book clubs I need to tend to as well, so I have put this one aside (although it’s the most interesting book of the three right now )
But I will finish this one in April no matter what.
I ended up getting into the story more than I anticipated and read a lot this weekend. There was a lot happening during the middle portion. Now that it’s the workweek again I am slowing down, though…
This chapter was very clunky, just like @pm215 noted in their review of the book. There were a lot of convenient assumptions made by Teiko based on loose connections or vague evidence, but I am suspending my disbelief. Due to the nature of Teiko retracing everything that had happened in her mind to piece it together, it was repetitive and more tedious to read than previous chapters. However, the end is near. My current theory is that 室田夫人 used to be a パンパン herself, because her and her husband are acting very suspiciously. Let’s see if my theory is correct!
I have my other time-consuming book club under control for this week, so I can dive full-steam into this book again
Ch 6 義兄の行動
Indeed very suspicious, the brother-in-law… A few chapters back I thought the colleagues behaved strangely, but that was nothing compared to his obvious lies
I am also clueless as to why he would only have his jacket cleaned… Maybe this is still related to the corpse that had been found? The corpse was very similar to Teiko’s husband but the jacket was wrong. Maybe the brother had also travelled to see the corpse? Maybe the corpse was planned to serve as stand-in for Teiko‘s husband? Only the brother would identify him, and so Teiko‘s husband could escape from society without a trace - but now Teiko went to find out that the corpse is not her husband and thus she spoiled the plan?
Ok we learn a bit about Teiko‘s husband’s history but nothing directly useful.
I liked the background quite a bit, it reminded me that the story was written really shortly after WW2 which I totally hadn’t kept in mind.
Towards the end of the chapter, the brother goes missing though! We get confirmation that the business trip to Kyoto was indeed a lie, and that his wife did not know either…
(Wasn’t sure whether he had deceived her as well, or whether both had deceived Teiko ).
Now let’s see what happened to the brother…
So, the brother is indeed dead, killed by potassium cyanide
(Seems to have been a popular way of killing people back in the day…)
We learn most of the case through three newspaper articles that Honda is reading. How much of this contents is conjecture and how much is fact was not really clear to me (especially the part with the stranger on the train who passed him the whisky - I take this to be conjecture) but we will see.
Booooi this is really getting complicated! I also immediately thought of the Takakawa prostitutes when I heard the description of the woman who was with the brother. But why would that woman kill him (if she did)?
Maybe the brother was on Kenichi’s trail and/or found out his secret, and Kenichi wanted to stop him so that it wouldn’t get exposed? That would mean Kenichi really wants to disappear… (I am still thinking about the dead person who had such similar features to him - was this really meant to be a doppelganger?)
Really nice of the company boss and his wife to help Teiko and Honda along so much. They feel very warm-hearted and loving to me.
And then, the new reception woman. She recently lost her husband, how would that play into things? Maybe this is only a segue to explain why she has this job now, or maybe there is more behind it.
Ch 10, 逃亡
Ok so the reception lady ran away! Now the thinking is that she is the same woman as the one who was on the train with the brother. This thought had crossed my mind as well, but I had put it aside because of the age gap. But maybe if she really worked as a prostitute, she knows how to make herself look younger through makeup, and the witnesses fell for that.
Also, so many questions! Where did this woman come from? Did she know Kenichi? Did they get to know each other because she worked at the reception, or was she a relic of his time working at the Takakawa vice squad? Since she is already 31, it might well be that they met back then already.
And then the lady’s husband. He died after only 2 years of marriage. She did not officially join his marriage register (very convenient) but still received the payment from his company (even more convenient). And contrary to what Honda had believed initially, he did not die on the job. Maybe our lady was involved in his death as well?
What really shocks me the most is that Honda (not a policeman, just a random dude) was able to learn all this just by talking to the people! They even gave him her full personal information. There was really no privacy back then. They also wrote people’s full names and addresses in newspapers (this is still the same today, I believe, people get mentioned with their full names on TV and stuff).
What do we think of Honda, by the way? I am still wary of him because he behaved so strangely in the beginning. Now he has to go to Tokyo all of a sudden… I wonder how much he still hides.
This is actually one thing about the book that I’m finding unrealistic. Basically any person Honda or Teiko talk to immediately share all of the details, even the police! I mean, I guess they are countryside police but it’s surprising they would just share details of cases with any old person.
I like Honda actually! He seems like a good guy and just has a crush on Teiko.
Ok so Honda seems to have found the woman in Tokyo. Sadly that was about the last thing he did
Did he purposely drink the whisky with her? Did he not think about her killing the brother (or so we think)? Or did she force him to drink it?
Also, lots of background on the woman and her „husband“, also from the neighbors. And we found the second house! I would never have thought that her husband is actually Kenichi. Now the question remains: did she kill him as well, or did he really commit suicide? The notebook didn’t contain any clues regarding suicidal thoughts (only the final note) so I am still skeptical…
The other question is: who was the corpse in the brown jacket? Was it Kenichi after all, and Teiko just didn’t recognize him? Did his brother look for his jacket because he was wearing a brown one (and so the grey one had to be somewhere)? Looking forward to the solution!
EDIT: Oh wow I forgot about Mr and Mrs 室田! So many suspicious things going on.
Also, did Kenichi have a picture of the house just because he liked it? Or was there more to it? Did he maybe have an affair with the young Mrs 室田?
Lots of events in a long chapter Honda got killed in Tokyo, our prostitute committed suicide (or did she?), Teiko learns more and more details without really getting anywhere.
My take is that the company boss is behind everything right now. He hired the prostitute to kill the brother and Honda, and then the boss killed her.
I am not very clear about Kenichi’s death, though. One scenario could be that Kenichi really had an affair with the bosses wife, as I suspected previously. The boss found out and killed him (by throwing him off of the cliff and faking his last will), or maybe killed him before throwing him down. The brother found out and thus had to die, then Honda found out and thus had to die, then the prostitute simply knew too much and thus had to die as well.
But why did the boss go to Tachikawa to investigate about the prostitute?
I also thought this could have been done more quickly, but surprisingly enough I am not as bored as I was with 点と線. Maybe my reading got better so I caught more of the nuances of Teiko’s speculations? Or maybe my reading got better so I could read this much faster and thus didn’t get bored as much? Anyway, I take it
(Also, my impression is that the book was initially published in a magazine, and thus the readers had to be reminded each time of what happened in last month’s chapter. )
Personally I think this is just the better book of the two: 点と線 has an odd structure where it tells you a lot of what happened right at the start and so you have to be more interested in the procedural stuff and the “exactly how was it done” part. 点と線 was also the author’s first novel (and published in a travel magazine, apparently…)
When Teiko started to piece things together for the last time, I feared she would have some double-takes and retell basically the same thing over and over again, just because the last chapter is so long… but luckily she took her time and figured it out as she went without rollbacks.
Very surprised to learn that she was the culprit after all - I had suspected him for the longest time. But it all makes sense, motives and all.
It left a strong impression to me to read about the post-war culture. Especially the rather frequent mention of 敗戦 reminded me of a Japanese friend who also (still) thinks in these terms and who considers the losing of the war to be a big flaw, while I (being German) am kind of in the same position (of having “lost” the war) but for me it’s really a relief that the war ended at some point, and this was probably the only way it could have ended, is my take.
It also left a strong impression how much the girls tried to cover up their lives as prostitutes. Instead of being proud of having survived these hard times with whatever means they had, they wanted to hide it and forget about it, so Kenichi appearing in their world must have been a huge threat for them, or at least for the company bosses wife.
For the end, it was very bittersweet and I liked it a lot. First I thought she had jumped, but then he told us that she had borrowed a boat and went into the open sea. I like his sentiment that she probably died very quickly, but maybe - being the fisherman’s daughter she was - she made it somehow?
Looking forward to discussing it with the Japanese Society in May
I finished the book too! Thoughts on the last chapter:
Last chapter & the whole book
My thoughts on who the culprit was turned out to be correct! I knew it!
As a whole I enjoyed the book, but I’d say my enjoyment started dropping after around 65-70% when Teiko started piecing things together. If I had to give a ranking, the first 2/3rds of the book were 4 stars for me, and the last 1/3rd was 3 stars just due to the clunkiness. I did however very much enjoy the setting and the moody descriptions of life in the north and after the war. It was also a fascinating look into the post war period and what was like, which made for a great backdrop to the mystery. I think all in all the book has aged very well, and I would certainly recommend it.
I’ve watched the film adaptation of another book from 松本清張 called 砂の器 and in hindsight there were a lot of similarities between the stories, so if anyone else in the future reads the book and checks out these posts I’d recommend 砂の器 as a similar read as opposed to 点と線.
There is an old film adaptation of this book that happens to be on Criterion channel, so I am planning on watching it soon and will report back with my thoughts!
Things still aren’t adding up. Even if 鵜原 did commit suicide due to his marriage, why was his older brother and now 本多 murdered? I can’t see the need to murder others if it was just a suicide. 
The woman who was seen fleeing the apartment where Honda’s body was found was also a new name (unless it’s 久子 using some kind of alias).
There was a lot happening during the middle portion. Now that it’s the workweek again I am slowing down, though…
I knew it!
