A review of The World We Broke, volume 3 of the Sekai series
Warning: moderate spoilers ahead for the first three volumes of the Sekai series and The Decagon House Murders
The World We Broke is a shinhonkaku-style mystery novel written by Nisio, Isin. It was published in 2008 by Kodansha Novels, and serves as the third entry in Nisio’s Sekai series. Compared to An Eerie and Artless Enclosed World, which featured mostly new characters, The World We Broke returns with much the same cast as Our Broken World. It follows the two most important characters from that first work, Samatoki Hitsuuchi and Kuroneko Byouinzaka, on their virginal overseas trip. To close out their time as high school students, the two friends head out to London, and as expected of a mystery novel, they must solve various puzzles and murders along the way.
This setup is immediately reminiscent of the comfy style of travel mysteries, which became a popular genre in large part due to the work of Kyoutarou Nishimura. Such works are defined by the collision of the mundane, especially the theme of transit in public, with some kind of shocking mystery that rips its characters out of the world of the ordinary. Unlike the related genre of everyday mysteries, a travel mystery may contain a sense of danger, and even feature murder as the central subject of their mystery.
These comparisons are indicative of the mood of the novel: The World We Broke takes on a distinctly celebratory tone compared to the high stakes murder mysteries that preceded it. In contrast to an ordinary whodunit, it was an experience that was distinctly reminiscent of a light-hearted frolic through the annals of the slice of life genre. Though each “arc” was punctuated by an exercise in puzzle-solving, the heart and soul of the read was the fun-seeking tourism carried out by Kuroneko and co.
Indeed, while the previous entries in the Sekai series are bursting at the seams with fodder for comparisons to both classic mystery fiction and the more recent masterpieces of the shinhonkaku era, when it comes to The World We Broke, my mind instead turns towards examples such as K-On! The Movie or The Eccentric Family. These are all stories where the journey is much more important than the destination, not just because in one case there is a particularly similar factor when it comes to the city of London.
Such questions cut to the core of The World We Broke; before we can discuss its quality, we must deal with an even more fundamental question: Is the third entry in the Sekai series a mystery novel to begin with? Certainly, if our definition of a mystery novel is a novel where mysterious things happen, the classification is unavoidable. Especially in a case involving a pure appeal to genre classics such as locked-rooms, alibis, and narrative tricks.
Of course, “genre” is not a word that carries a whole lot of inherent meaning anyway. Whether or not The World We Broke is a mystery novel does not change the reality that The World We Broke is ultimately itself, and nothing more or less. Yet, we can still make use of genre as a categorisation tool, despite its inexactness. In other words, if we assigned The World We Broke the correct “metadata” for the idea we call “genre”, we would go a long way towards describing The World We Broke as it is.
So, how would one describe the experience of reading The World We Broke in genre terms? Firstly, let’s reframe the question away from the perspective of the text and instead towards the perspective of the audience. What matters in this case is not whether The World We Broke is similar to other mystery fiction, but whether its categorisation as mystery fiction is useful for the audience.
The World We Broke only shares surface details with the majority of mystery fiction. If the purpose of calling it as such is to prime the audience for its content, and to accurately communicate the experience of reading it, such a categorisation fails from the outset. However, if were to instead ask what kind audience should read The World We Broke, the correct answer from a genre perspective would be that it is a novel for mystery fans. Put another way, it is both completely separate from mystery fiction as a matter of style, yet it also belongs with exactly the same audience.
At the end of the day, this means there is no single straightforward answer to any inquiries into the genre of The World We Broke. It exists in a space that is intimate with our notions of a mystery novel, but also adjacent and separated, as though belonging to an alterative category. Perhaps it could be called a close relative of mystery, or a sibling — but not pure mystery fiction itself.
Nagoya University / Architecture Department (Around 2 PM)
Souhei Saikawa had finished reading the manuscript his student (Moe Nishinosono) had handed to him. He then said, “Nishinosono, what brought on the idea write literature reviews?”
It was a chilly day in late November. On such days, it was typical for students to scurry away from the campus proper to their dorms or such as soon as classes were out. In contrast, Moe Nishinosono was lazing about in a particular faculty office. It belonged to Souhei Saikawa, who was an associate professor of architecture at Nagoya University.
At first glance, they were an odd pair. Saikawa was in his mid-thirties and had a notably gruff and disorderly appearance for a high level academic. Whether or not his face was adorned with uneven stubble was usually a matter of chance, and on this particular occasion it was so. Saikawa displayed an uncommonly bizarre sense of fashion, often wearing t-shirts with nonsense catchphrases and random images. In contrast, Nishinosono was a young and fresh-faced student, who always wore trendy and deliberately chosen items of clothing.
If a stranger had looked in on them, they would assume that such an odd combination of instructor and student must have meant the discussion was all business, but nothing could be further from the truth. Nishinosono often spent a great deal of time in Saikawa’s company, talking about nothing in particular.
As usual, Saikawa had spent much of the afternoon smoking a discomforting number of cigarettes, which had pilled up in an ash tray by his side. Even as he continued the discussion with Nishinosono, much of his attention was fixed on the computer monitor in front of him, with a detailed architectural floorplan displayed prominently on the large screen.
“Professor,” said Nishinosono, pouting, “you know I’ve always liked mystery novels.” Seeing that Professor Saikawa’s expression still displayed a lack of understanding mixed with indifference, Nishinosono offered further explanation. “I was hoping that if I met some people from the mystery fiction club, I might find a good story to share at the next ‘Study Session’.”
This “Study Session” she was referring to was a kind of regular meeting at the Nishinosono residence, known officially as “TM Connection” or otherwise the “Black Window Banquets”. In these sessions, Moe Nishinosono gathered various relatives and associates to share a few drinks and discuss whatever challenging riddles or puzzles were offered by those in attendance. Its membership had ballooned out to include even local detectives and other members of the university faculty. Whether or not its original intention was simply to provide a pretext to force Professor Saikawa to visit Nishinosono’s apartment is better left to the imagination.
Ignoring the premise of Nishinosono’s response, Saikawa cut straight to a more fundamental issue. “What is the purpose of a review, Nishinosono?”
“The purpose, Professor Saikawa?”
“Yes. Ordinarily, one would get the best image of a piece of literature by just skipping the review and reading it yourself. It is the same for reviews in scientific journals: Wouldn’t it be far more efficient to just examine the results of an experiment directly? So, why do people bother with reading adjacent material about a subject?”
Nishinosono was used to the esoteric riddles that Saikawa spoke in, and so she was able to more or less able to understand what he was driving at. “Isn’t it just to save time? It is difficult to understand how important something is at first glance, so we use someone else as a proxy to make things easier to understand.”
“Like a user interface making a computer’s operating system easier to understand?” Saikawa mused. Nishinosono nodded her head. “In that case, it is all a bit backwards. Those most in need of a user interface are inexperienced users; engineers can make do with running code directly without any mediating software. But I hear that a lot of people wait until they finished a book before they seek out reviews.”
After being shot down, Nishinosono displayed evident irritation. “Stop teasing me, Professor Saikawa. You already have an answer in mind, don’t you?”
“I do. But you should think a little for yourself, Nishinosono. You are already close to the answer.”
Nishinosono paused for several moments and thought to herself. If she was close to the answer, it must have been related to what she had said before. Her theory that it was just a matter of saving time had been a bust. But, perhaps the general theme of her idea had been on the right track. She thought of such things.
“If it isn’t matter of simplifying things, maybe it is the opposite? Making them more complex?” Saikawa gave an approving smile and urged Nishinosono to continue. “When you first encounter something, your first impressions of it are inevitably simple. Maybe when reviewing something, people are trying to increase its complexity in order to counteract this effect. It is a rhetorical device, telling people that ‘this is something interesting, so you should look here,’” she said.
“It goes further than that, Nishinosono. You were on the right track with the idea of a ‘mediator’. But, instead of something like a user interface, it is something like mathematical syntax. It is about a shared method of communication between fellow ‘experts’ who understand the ‘subject’ in question. People on the outside look in to see what problems generate the most interesting communication, and those are the ones they pay attention to.
“Imagine a photograph, Nishinosono. If you saw a photograph of several different objects that you did not recognise, but were told that each is a ‘tourist attraction’, how would you go about guessing which is the most popular? A reasonable way of guessing would be the ‘complexity of the photographs’. Whichever photo had the most thought put into it, and had the highest picture quality and resolution, is probably the one that people are concerned about.”
Nishinosono held her hand on her chin and thought deeply about what Saikawa had said. If this was so, perhaps she couldn’t approach the world of literature reviews with a reason as half-hearted as stealing mysterious anecdotes from others.
“Regardless,” Saikawa suddenly spoke up again, “there’s a fatal flaw with your review.”
“Huh?” said Nishinosono. She was shocked at this sudden revelation.
“It came out before you started reading mystery novels, so you might not have heard about it, but there were already slice-of-life mysteries in a ‘story within a story’ style, so such novels are definitely just regular mystery novels. I think I read one called Apocryphon of Ouroboros as a break after my thesis. That one had a pretty similar premise.”
“Tell me that first!”
The “Box” building of Kyoto University / KUMC clubroom (Around 9:30 AM)
Takaaki Kawaminami had finished reading the manuscript his friend (Kiyoshi Shimada) had handed to him. He looked over at Yukito Chuuzenji, who had become the new editor of the club magazine after the passing of the previous editor “Ellery”. Chuuzenji had finished reading the manuscript himself not long prior.
“What do you think, Conan?” said Shimada, “do you think we could flesh out the concept and put it in the magazine?”
Kawaminami did not know what to think. “Firstly, why are you coming to a students’ magazine? It needs a lot of work, but you would still have as much chance as anyone with a regular literary magazine. And moreso, why did you call me here? I am an ex-member, remember?”
“Well, I thought it was pretty cutting edge, so it might play better with students… or something! Ha ha!” Shimada laughed heartily to himself, ignoring Kawaminami’s latter question.
Kawaminami turned to Chuuzenji and said, “Berkeley, what do you think?”
“It might be fun to have outside submissions every now and then. Like, ‘if you think you aren’t stumped by our mysteries, why don’t you submit you own!’ That kinda thing.” Chuuzenji was an energetic third year visual design student. Although he was new to the position of editor at the club, he embodied all of the light-hearted attitude towards puzzles that the magazine advertised, so he was a natural choice.
“I guess… It does need a real resolution first, it is too open-ended at the moment. I do like the idea of a mystery with metatext about reviews, since metatext is kind of like a review of the whole genre. But, it just doesn’t work well enough as its own story right now. And what is with the characters? Why does an architecture professor always cite computer science jargon in his examples? It is kind of difficult to follow the setting with those kinds of contradictions.”
Shimada jumped in “Gee, thanks a lot, Conan.”
“Any other things need to be fixed straight away, Berkeley?”
“Well, the punchline at the end is a bit strange for other reasons. I guess it makes sense with a story set in the future, but you don’t need to stick to fictional novels as the subjects for all of this discussion. There’s plenty of real novels you could talk about. Stories-within-a-story mysteries go a long way back.
“Firstly, you have classics like my namesake’s The Poisoned Chocolates Case, as well as John Dickson Carr’s The Nine Wrong Answers having a similar ‘meta-mystery’ element itself. And when you think about it, any relay novel has that kind of idea about it: The parts of various different stories working together to form a single, larger story. So we can’t forget The Floating Admiral.
“Another point is that a lot of historical mysteries have a similar kind of structure, since they’re sort of about solving a mystery within a different ‘narrative’. So, you’ll need to address things like The Tokyo Zodiac Murders and The Daughter of Time in your final draft. Oh, and we can’t forget Deathtrap by Ira Levin, it is very similar to this The World We Broke that you invented for your story. I guess you’ll need to rewrite the whole thing with an eye towards the fact that the structure is much older and more classic than you make it out to be.”
Shimada feigned dejection, but Kawaminami was sure he was still as confident as he always was under the surface. Still, he encouraged his friend, “still, it shows promise. We can work at it together and make it a joint submission, if you want.”
Hanwa Line / Amagasaki (Around 1 PM)
I (Samatoki Hitsuuchi) had finished reading the manuscript I was handed. I then said, “this doesn’t even count as a story, does it?”
“Of course it doesn’t. It is a review; it says so right at the start.” Said Byouinzaka, with a wild grin. Her cat-eyes were locked onto my own gaze.
As she had said, so it did. Still, a review of the “relay novel” that her father had written? I had wondered what Byouinzaka was up to while we were riding the Nankai Line away from Kansai International Airport, but this defied my expectations.
“So, what’s the point of this ‘review,’ then, Byouinzaka?”
“Well, my dear friend, that is a completely simple matter. Each of the three parts of this review disagree with one another about what kind of novel that so-called relay novel was, so which one is correct? Although you have ‘fallen off’ reading like you used to, I am quite sure you have read enough to be able to come to the correct answer. I should also say that while no answer is perfectly correct, please think of it like a multiple choice quiz in one of the university entrance exams that have been studying for and simply select the ‘most correct’ choice.”
“Umu. In that case, I have to answer with the first part. It doesn’t matter whether it was a new idea or not, so long as it is fun to read and has mysteries it should be a ‘mystery novel’ as far as anyone is concerned.”
“A simple answer. Even in an ambiguous quiz like this, you are capable of offering a direct and simple response. That is exactly what anyone could have expected from you, Samatoki. Of course, I don’t intend in the slightest to sound like such a predictable response is any kind of problem for me. That side of you is exactly why you are able to be a great friend.”
“Leaving that aside, what is the correct answer to this ‘quiz’?”
“If I had to say, you are already pretty much correct, Samatoki. Although you are ill-suited for the role of detective, your straightforward logic is suitable for this kind of riddle. However, there is a higher level, ‘most correct’ answer. Unlike in a university entrance exam, the correct answer in this case was simply to fill in all of the bubbles on your answer sheet. While the first part was the closest to being true, they were all part of the same point. The fact they disagree with one another was a diversion.
“The point is that such a story is meaningless on its own. A metafiction story, such as a ‘story-within-a-story’ or a ‘relay novel’, is not a story on its own, but a kind of communication, just like a review. So, there’s no need to worry about whether every last detail makes sense in its own world. It just needs to be fun to read, so that it makes you interested in the subject of the author’s ‘conversation’. Whether that is references to other novels, or just having fun with the premise of the singular novel itself.”
I wondered about how much this applied to different novels I had read. Certainly, part of it sounded like nothing more than an excuse for lazy writers. However, something fundamental about it rung true. As we sat on this train having a pointless conversation, there was no deeper meaning.
It was never anything but fun.
