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Nijigahara Holograph (2006)

by Inio Asano(Favorite Author)

4.5 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1606995839 (ISBN13: 9781606995839)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Fantagraphics

review 1: A striking and enigmatic work. This is one of those books that one reads again and again, noting nuances and details each time that one never noticed before. The tale is non-linear with a fairly large cast. There's a slow, dream-like quality to this book. It reminds me, in some ways, of the films of Peter Greenaway. And, like those movies, at the end of it all, the reader may not necessarily understand everything, but the beauty, richness and import of the work are undeniable.
review 2: A disturbing and chaotic read. This tale is based around a chilling myth that in the local area a young girl, who is repeatedly reincarnated, appears with the ability to predict the future and announces that a monster lives in a tunnel that will bring about the end of the w... moreorld. The townsfolk, fearful of this revelation, sacrifice the girl and her reincarnations to appease the creature, not realising that with each death it grows ever larger. This myth and it's telling leads the main character, a beautiful yet disturbing pale child, to be thrown down a well by her school mates where upon she slips into a coma and there remains until the end of the book. However, even though she is now silenced, her actions and her story live on through her affect and interactions with the school bully, a suicidal boy in her class and a man who is revealed as raping her just the year before she was "sacrificed". This book is particularly complicated and disjointed as there are multiple time lines that Asano jumps through and the story's narrator seems to switch randomly as well. It's a book to be read slowly and more than once and it takes some careful consideration to understand what is "real" and what isn't, who is who and how they are all related and whether the ethereal yet violence inspiring butterflies are the creature or simply an unusual ecological qwerk. You will walk away with a feeling of doubt about what you have read, confusion about the seemingly uncaring violence that springs up sporadically throughout and a feeling of disturbance about how so much of the violent behaviour is directed at this one child/woman for no real reason whatsoever. It would have got 5 stars of it had been a little less disjointed and had not lent so heavily on violence and rape to gets its message across. less

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