BY SHIHO SASAKI

Everyone may have experienced not wanting to go to the bathroom at midnight, and feeling like somebody was watching even though you know there is nobody behind you, or not being able to bear being alone in your room. What is it that strikes terror in us when even as grown-ups? I do not think it is ghosts or monsters, but death. Man is mortal so he cannot help being afraid of death.

The two novels Ring and Spiral (Rasen) bring us the horror of death. The author, Koji Suzuki, made his debut with Paradise, which won him the Japan Fantasy Novel Prize in 1990. Ring, which came out but did not sell well in June of the following year, came to be widely read two years later ﾑ after it was published in paperback. The dramatization of Ring in 1994 and the publication of Spiral as the sequel to Ring in July, 1995 created the Koji Suzuki boom at one stroke. These two novels drew public attention in January, 1998 and became movies shown as a double feature.

Ring begins with the sudden death of two boys and two girls. They die on the same date and time. The hero of this story, a magazine reporter, tries to trace the reality of the mysterious event and finds and watches a videotape which supposedly leads the viewer to his death after one week. He then starts an investigation to find a way of avoiding death within a week. It seems that the mystery is cleared up at the end of the story, but in the next novel Spiral continues the story by unfolding another mystery which had not been expected.

The surprising point of these stories is the mysteries which increase as the stories progress. The characters think and behave carefully in a convincing way for the reader. Just when we seem to find some clue or answer, another mystery arises. Then the reader cannot stop turning the pages. This spine-chilling fear cannot be shown in a simple suspense story, so it is hard to go to bed until we find the truth.

What frightens the readers so much? The story progresses on the theme of the scientific versus the unexplainable. The characters try to scientifically probe the unexplainable; the videotape which brings death to those who view it. Man is frightened by certain things which cannot be scientifically explained even when he tries to probe it, but he believes in them. Koji Suzuki makes use of our subconscious mind in this way.

Suzukiﾕs scientific knowledge is used with great effect, especially in Spiral.

It is surprising that he, although not a scientist, invents ways of deciphering the cryptogram resulting from gene recombination and thinks up the details of the investigation into the cause of the victimsﾕ deaths. Another kind of horror after Ring is the great mechanism of the human race and human love that appears in Spiral. I think that Suzukiﾕs novels should be called not only Science Fiction but also horror and mystery.

There is a strange enjoyment in feeling horror while watching the movies ﾒRingﾓ and ﾒSpiralﾓ after reading the book. We can see the charactersﾕ terrified faces that we may not be able to imagine clearly in type even though they are cut short and altered in the films.

You may think about "the existence of death" and "what it means to be human" after reading or seeing Ring and Spiral. The characters pose such questions by struggling to avoid death and to protect their precious loved ones, families and friends.

I recommend Ring and Spiral to those who are bored with commonplace suspense or horror novels. Koji Suzukiﾕs horror world will certainly satisfy you. At present his world has been made into a trilogy. Loop, which is the sequel to Ring and Spiral, has already been published. I am looking forward to feeling further horror.