ドグラマグラ by Kyūsaku Yumeno

ドグラマグラ Reviews

• 
  Mizuki

  Bless the people of France They had traslated Kyusaku Yumenno's masterpiece Dogra Magra Japanese original title Dogura maguraIf you had it in your mind to read Dogra Magra Chinese translation Encephalon Hell or Pericardium Hell or simply Braincell Hell please be careful your brain is about to go through some really intensive and complete mind fuckThe story begins with a young man waking up only to find himself in an asylum he is then checked on by a doctor who claims he is here to help the young man to recover his lost memory from this point onward things take a nightmarish turn for the worse and things go from weird toyou guessed it weirderThe late Kyusaku Yumemo this pen name actually means 'A Dude Who Daydreams Too Much' was a novelist who had a reputation which is similar to Edogawa Rampo's and both authors shared similar taste for the dark side of human nature nightmarish events madness and gruesome crime Rampo had been known as the 'Edgar Allan Poe of Japan' then I think it's safe to say Kyusaku Yumeno was surprisingly some kind of a Japanese version of H P Lovecraft as well Like Lovercraft Yumeno was heavily influenced by Poe and like Lovecraft Yumeno had a lot to express when it comes to madness and impossibility to escape fate But at the same time please bear in mind Yumeno's stories tend to get very gross and a lot crazier than Rampo Poe and Lovecraft adding together You know Mr Yumeno didn't get to be called 'The Monstrous Novelist' for no reasonDogra Magra has been named 'one of the Four Most Bewildering Books in the History of Japanese Detective Novels' I've read all of those four books already and this book deserves the title every inch of it In my opinion calling it 'One of the Most Mind Fucking Books in the History of Japanese Detective Novels' would be even fitting soI think you can guess what reading Dogra Magra is like?Reading Dogra Magra is like experiencing an incoherent nightmare like being trapped in an asylum with the key thrown awayyou don't want to stay inside this asylum you think you're going crazy for real you want to scream 'LET ME OUT FOR GOD'S SAKE LET ME OUT' but no one is going to save youand you can trust no one in the story because it's almost a certainty that people are either lying to you or they're crazy That's what you get by reading Dogra Magra Do I like Dogra Magra? To an extent yes But do I think it's better than Edogawa Rampo's novels? No because Rampo's stories are a lot readable and coherent still I enjoy what Yumeno had to offer in his books However if you don't like mind fuck and narrators talking like crazy people you probably wouldn't enjoy Yumeno's works My other review for this book other books in theFour Most Bewildering Books in the History of Japanese Detective Novels listMurder At the Mansion of Black Death by Mushitarō Oguri 匣の中の失楽 by 竹本健治 Translation The Lost Music in the Box 虚無への供物 by 中井英夫 Translation The Offerings to the Void
• 
  Horace Derwent

  這他媽根本就不是人能寫出來的東西，我的意思是很多作家幾輩子加起來都寫不出這樣的小說
• 
  jing

  All that pseudo science and pseudo Buddhism and pseudo other things were tough to get into without rolling my eyes for the first half of the book but the plot finally does pick up in the second Most notable was the sense of intense vulnerability in being entirely at the mercy of someone else's narrative with very uestionable reliability for one's reconstruction of total identity I will shamelessly admit I read this only due to the song Vinushka 'Is my existence itself a sin just because I am evil?'
• 
  Mizuki

  I watched the movie version of Dogra Magra a few years back and still own the DVD sadly I can't find any beautiful movie photos onlineBasically the movie is a tangle of lies sex and death and madnessAnyway this 1988 movie adaption is still an awesome production which keeps itself very close to the original story
• 
  emil

  read this twice both times i was under the influence of lemon iced tea and boredom—and i do idolise Yumeno as a writer so there’s that perhaps reading this was an unwise decision i've never been mindblown and confused by a book in my lifeabsolutely brilliant wickedly bewildering and beautifully written Yumeno’s dreamy and admittedly incoherent style of writing has me floored each time from his short stories to this novel and to his poetry he always shows up and gives his best writingi love you Yumeno BLESS
• 
  morning Os

  I wouldn't euate Yumeno with Edogawa Rampo Rampo is 10 times readable and consistent has a strong plot Dogura magura is like reading someone else's inconsistent nightmare Creative for sure but there is not much story but theory about how human brains work Reuires patience to read through it
• 
  Enora

  I did not finished this book
• 
  欧阳

  An amazing book not a traditional whodunnit
• 
  Misha Abernathy

  MIND FUCK
• 
  Sophia

  放到今天来看，这本书的“套中套”结构。未必就那么“奇”，不过《脑髓》是写于将近100年前的（是的，朋友们，2020年到了）这本书里有各种“不常规”的写法：论文、访谈、传说、普通叙述、呓语样的某种“宣言”相继出现，论证着某个科学狂人的不可思议的研究；几重讲述的嵌套最后成了莫比乌斯环——这种迷失了幻觉和现实的边界的描写大概是这本书狂乱感的主要来源。习惯了京极堂那种东拉西扯的话，《脑髓》其实很有熟悉感。