Rampo Edogawa. Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination

Tuttle Publishing, 1991.Edogawa Rampo, a pseudonym for Tarō Hirai, was one of the giants of Japanese crime fiction in the early-to-mid twentieth century. His name is a phonetic rendering of the name Edgar Allan Poe paying tribute to an author he admired and while his work is certainly original, you only have to dip into these stories to see that they shared a flair for the macabre.This collection, Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination, contains a selection of his short stories some of which can be considered mysteries, others feeling more like grotesque adventures. All of the stories show imagination and a flair for unsettling characterizations and imagery.While The Human Chair is probably Rampo’s best known short story, it is not really much of a mystery. If you are approaching these looking for a good puzzle or story with a twist resolution I would direct you to The Cliff, The Psychological Test and The Twins. The Red Chamber is also a very entertaining read, describing some very imaginative murders, but I think the resolution goes a twist too far, blunts its impact a little.A few stories didn’t work for me such as The Caterpillar which feels heavy-handed, even if it does hit some memorable notes in its conclusion. Also The Hell of Mirrors suffers from having an ending that cannot live up to the imagination shown in the creation of its premise. Even these stories though have moments that interest in spite of their flaws.As a whole I was very impressed with the collection and found it to be an enjoyable and absorbing read. There is a good variety of story types and styles here and I imagine that several of these tales will stay with me for a while. Quite a bit of the author’s work seems to have been translated into English in recent years so I will look forward to seeking more out in the future.