Radio Nippon presents, “Sugahara Akiko’s EDGE TALK” Part4
Guest is Setsuko Amano
Tonight's guest is Setsuko Amano, who has joined Dr. Sugahara for the second part of last week's interview. Setsuko Amano is the novelist who wrote the mystery novel Koori no Hana (The Flower of Ice) published by Gentosha Inc. This novel, which was Setsuko Amano's first work and was completed shortly before her 60th birthday became a hit TV drama special that aired this September featuring a cast headed by the actress Ryoko Yonekura.
S: Following on from last week's show, we're talking with Ms. Setsuko Amano, the author of Koori No Hana, as our guest. Good evening.
A: Good evening. Thank you very much for having me.
S: My pleasure. I take it your novel has been selling even better since it was picked up for dramatization and particularly since the publication of the paperback along with the hardback edition. To celebrate the broadcasting of the TV drama, I see there is a photo of Ms. Ryoko Yonekura on the band of your paperback. I think it leaves a good strong impression on the reader, don't you think?
A: Yeah, I think so too. They seemed to have a hard time selecting the photo though, as you need to think of ways to make the book look appealing to customers in bookshops by carefully choosing the direction of her eyes and adapting camera angles, when I first saw her picture printed on the band, I really liked it because she looked so lost in thought that customers would want to buy the book to find out what she was thinking about. I thought it was such a brilliant idea.
S: I think she appeared in some of the dramatizations of Seicho Matsumoto's works, didn't she?
A: Yeah I know.
S: When I watched her performances those programmes, I thought she really portrayed the character of an evil woman very well. She was cold yet attractive and shrouded in sadness and I really believe her performances did justice to Seicho Matsumoto's works. So your drama has become something that people can enjoy watching as much as they enjoyed his series on TV. By the way, how are the sales of your paperback going so far?
A: At the moment, it has sold 32,0000 copies.
S: That's truly amazing. I can see how expectations for your next novel must be building up then. Do you still intend to continue writing over weekends?
A: I've already started writing my next work.
S: Seeing that your first work took you as long as 4 years of repeated rewriting, don't you feel overwhelmed by the scope of the task of writing a second book?
S: It's a lot of pressure. Looking back at Koori no Hana, I think I wrote close to the equivalent of 10,000 sheets of paper for it and the finished product must have consisted of around 800 sheets worth of text, but if we include all the paper used for redrafting and rewriting and such, I'm certain that the total amount comes to about 10,000 sheets.
S: And were they all hand-written and not typed?
A: No, everything was typed and the 10,000 odd sheets of paper that were used were all printouts of the material I had typed. I used so much because I was just starting out as a complete beginner and so I had no experience, nor did I know how to really go about writing a novel. I feel really embarrassed to be saying this but I had absolutely no idea about the way I should be doing things so all I could do was to write as much as much as I could. In order to do my corrections and redrafting, I also had to print everything off as I find that hard to do off a monitor. Reading things off a computer screen makes me feel a lot less connected to what's happening in the story, if you know what I mean. So basically I spent almost 4 years writing and printing stuff off to go over what I've written and in total, roughly 10,000 sheets of paper were used in the creation of the novel and I feel that they were well used when we consider how the work has paid off. Now, I can get things the way I want after two redrafts whereas it used to take me about ten attempts before, so I feel that the way I did things has brought results in as much as being a process of building the skills that are necessary to write a novel.
S: I see. Your novel doesn't really feel like it's gone through such a vast amount of redrafting, and by saying that, I mean it feels like as though you had it all nailed from the beginning because your book is written in such a way that is accessible to everyone, nothing is vague or hard to grasp. So I was under the impression that you were an experienced writer as the book was definitely well written.
A: Yeah but I had no experience whatsoever and if anything, I think I was fairly experienced in reading rather than writing. I probably knew what kind of style would be easy to read from my own reading and that's what helped me to realise when I was writing things in a way that was difficult to understand. So I had a rough grasp of what is easy to read and what is not and thus kept redrafting things that weren't up to scratch. I think I spent a fair amount of time streamlining difficult parts into tighter passages that were more reader-friendly.
S: Sometimes writers have what you might call partners, be they your publishers or friends or spouse, who sit next to them to have a look at their work and offer feedback. Was there anyone who helped you by giving opinions about your novel?
A: No, I did everything and published the novel myself but when the publishers from Gentosha Inc. brought me an offer of a publication deal, I received help from an editor. It was actually my first time to see the task of editing take place and that taught me a lot and I experienced how a piece of literary work is completed by having two minds work together to edit a book. But as for the self-publication, I did that all by myself.
S: Indeed, your novel has a very reader-friendly structure consisting of various chapters and each of the chapters are all roughly the same length and balanced, the story goes through twists and turns which I must admit is the most fun part of mystery and suspense as a genre. Did you have the same chapter structure when you first finished writing?
A: Yes. Although there were parts that the editor gave me feedback on and were subsequently rearranged, the general flow of the story didn't change very much.
S: I see. Is there anything that you particularly enjoyed about working with the editor?
A: Absolutely. For example, I think looking at things objectively is very important and there were times when I should have been more objective when I was writing my novel and after reading my work, the editor gave me advice that helped me to understand the importance of writing from an objective standpoint. One other thing is that things were pointed out to me that could make the book more interesting for the reader, for example if they were given more details about situations or insight into the thoughts of the characters. In those respects, I think working with an editor was of great help.
S: When reading the book and you progress deeper into the story, well, in my personal opinion, you come to sympathize with the heroin more and more and think that she could actually be somewhat innocent, because she's a woman like us.
A: Well, people often refer to her as an evil woman.
S: What I mean to say is that, from a man's perspective, she might be evil but I can see female readers placing more blame on the husband rather than on this heroin and it's good to hear all these different opinions on the story but in my opinion, I feel for the heroin and the story shows us what can happen if we let our emotions control us and live our lives dominated by our emotions.
Radio Nippon presents, “Sugahara Akiko’s EDGE TALK” Part5
Guest is Setsuko Amano
A: When something bad happens to you, you naturally try to avoid being harmed by it is in some way, so I don't really see her as an evil woman.
S: I'm totally with you on that point. Even towards the end of the story, it was revealed that she had put her life at risk to set a trap.
A: Exactly, I'm pleased that you've got so much out of the story.
S: She didn't end up dying, but from her determination to die if that was what it was going to take to achieve her goal. We can view her as somewhat selfless.
A: Yeah I know. Her first crime was not pre-meditated, rather it was an impulse act or a crime of passion. And the result of her second crime turned out in the way it did, but that was not what she intended to happen. The term 'an evil woman' itself has a lot of impact and Ms Yonekura is known for playing that kind of character. Lots of people call the character in my book evil, but Ms. Yonekura herself doesn't refer to her in that way. She read the book twice and agreed with how I felt about the character and she told me that she is a figure to be pitied.
S: It's that the heroine can't respond to her situation that by crying and getting worked up makes her seem so pitiful and makes us feel sorry for her. Particularly as a female reader you can feel for her very deeply. Also, one other thing that makes this story so deep is the fact that the truth never comes out.
A: I'm glad that you really understood where the story was coming from.
S: Certainly, but this character essentially falls into traps set for her by others around her and is getting terrible things done to her, but this never comes to light. Like the mother and baby notebook, the truth never appears from the beginning to the end, which is what you mentioned earlier, the heroine never telling the truth throughout the story. If the real truth had come out, then maybe she might have gained sympathy from those around her, but the fact that it never saw the light of day, be it because of her strength or pride or sadness.
A: Yeah, it's the sadness that makes her not reveal the truth.
S: It indeed is the saddest thing about this character because if the truth had been out on the surface, she could have gained sympathy.
A: Yeah, that would have made things a lot easier for her.
S: But she never let that happen to her because it was her choice not to reveal it and the story ends with the reader feeling sad and sorry for her. This makes your novel not just another mystery novel, but really something that only a woman could write.
A: When I published my work, I sent it to lots of writing competitions and it never made it very far. The reason for this was that the motivation for my criminal in the story was thought to be too weak. That can't really be helped and I think such comments must have come from a male critic.
S: Yeah, I doubt that some male critic who might be having an affair with some woman himself could understand the relationships between your characters. I mean, he might have money and be able to get loads of women if he heads to somewhere like the Ginza. It's normal for a man like him to have two or three women in his life. However, if you look at it from a woman's standpoint who is working hard and trying her best, then there is no issue of insufficient motivation for a crime.
S: The lady in the story had the unthinkable done to her. As people, there are things we can and can't do, and we are crossing over into morals and such here. The man in your story ignored even the most basic rule for a married couple. Only a woman can really understand how serious this is. From the point of view of a woman then this would earn great sympathy, however from the standpoint of a man, well, he might look at the situation and then just condemn the woman as evil.
A: Pretty much, she'll just become a villain I think.
S: And this is again coming from the angle of a female author, the structure of your story was built in such a way that you used many tools and plot devices, this is very much like Mr. Seicho Matsumoto and you're almost like a female version of his kind of author. There were lots of twists that would have been possible only for a female writer and I think it all worked very well and was very interesting.
Radio Nippon presents, “Sugahara Akiko’s EDGE TALK” Part6
Guest is Setsuko Amano
S: What did you think of the drama when you saw it?
A: Well, first of all, the photography was beautiful. Also, Ms. Ryoko Yonekura's acting was fabulous. That's how I felt. But I was once again reminded of the difference between the worlds of novels and drama. It's impossible to completely recreate the book in a drama, the setting must change slightly however it's nice to enjoy the drama as something separate with its own special charm and I'd appreciate it if people could enjoy the book as well in the same way.
S: When you thought about giving your book a title, did you struggle a lot?
A: Yes, I did. I definitely wanted to use the word 'ice' from the beginning to represent the criminal's cold and hard state of mind when they decide to commit their crime. I also wanted to balance that against the idea of a flower which represents beauty and splendidness, so we have a woman who appears to be faultless when viewed from the outside and she herself wants to present that image. With this kind of intention in mind, I named the book Koori no Hana.
S: This title is indeed very imaginative, it feels beautiful yet icy and it's interesting to see how this reflects events unfolding in the story. This title perfectly suits the image of Ms. Ryoko Yonekura.
A: Looking back at the 4 and a half years spent writing this book and doing so without any financial backing, I never thought it would be adapted into a TV drama. In some critics I read before, they sussed it out that I wrote the novel with a plan of dramatizing it but that's not the case at all. I never dreamed that it would be made into a drama. I was simply fixated on the idea of completing the book that the idea that it might one day be made into something for television never entered my head. However, when the drama casting was announced and saw the name of Ms. Ryoko Yonekura, I thought she was the perfect choice.
S: In your book, there seems to be a lot of geographical information like the house in Ikebukuro and the place where the character lives. Did the choice of location have anything to do with where you live?
A: I've been to all the places mentioned in the story, I didn't write the book imagining the locations. I went everywhere. Rather than saying I went to these places to gather material, I was going for my work, places like the Usui Pass which I went over many times along with the road along the sea side in Fukushima where the accident takes place and Nerima Ward where the story is set is actually where I work so I knew it very very well so I tried to capture these places exactly as they are in my novel.
S: Detail is incredibly important in a novel. It's vital that you can work in the details of a place to add feeling, if you just go with your imagination I think you kind of lose something. This is particularly true for the mystery genre and I felt as though your work was incredibly rich in terms of the level of detail included in it. The house in which the heroine lives is in the old style and yet has been refurbished so it's kind of a mixture of Japanese and Western styles which is very interesting, isn't it so?
A: Yes yes I wanted to create a sense of contrast there. Near where I live, there are lots of houses that used to belong to wealthy farming families. Over the fence, you can see the purple, I mean, the gray roof titles of those houses. That's the kind of area where I live and I had always felt that it would be great to use an area like that in a novel. But for a house where a young couple live, I felt it would have to be somewhat changed slightly inside and at the front, which leads to the appearance of the magazine writer in the story.
S: The contrast between old and modern reflects the personality of the heroine and the way she chooses to live in the story. For example, she cannot face the idea of changing the house entirely as she likes to keep certain things like the sun gently filling the garden and there is a peaceful feeling which matches the old style. She feels driven to pursue the modern style yet still feels the need to cling to the old. This kind of her image came into my head at first.
A: I see.
S: Yeah, I thought of it as the way she lives her life really. The main character wants to live as much as possible exactly in the way she wants within the conditions which are imposed on her. We can say this pretty much sums up her complete lifestyle. This comes through particularly well in the drama from the very start and I think this aspect of her character was lots of fun to see. The drama lets us imagine things a lot and it involves lots of expressive scenes.
A: The good thing about reading is that it allows you to imagine the scenes yourself according to your interpretation of the words on the page.
S: I very much enjoyed watching the drama in terms of the way it matched up with and expanded upon the images that everyone had imagined while reading the book. What are your plans for your next book? Is a lady again going to be the focus of your story?
A: I want to make the reader try to guess who the culprit is in my next book. I want them to wonder who it was as they progress through the story and then find the surprise at the end and finally be able to go back and find the clue that gives the criminal away.
