網 多岐川恭

登場人物の名前が話を物語っている。
鯉淵丈夫：如何にも水泳がうまい.川の淵に潜んでいて、丈夫な体をしている。 菜村雪夫：草食系。なよなよした地味な、水に溶けそうな男

推理小説は犯人を最後に解き明かすのだが、この小説は犯人も殺される人もはじめから分かっている。最後で鯉淵が逆に菜村をプールに落として溺れさせる。読者の意表をつくエンディングが面白い。

多岐川 恭（たきがわ きょう、1920年- 1994年）は、日本の小説家。本名、松尾 舜吉。福岡県八幡市（現：北九州市）生れ。東京帝国大学経済学部卒。 毎日新聞社に勤務する中で、白家（しらが）太郎の筆名で小説を書く。1958年、『濡れた心』で江戸川乱歩賞、『落ちる』で直木賞を受賞。

THE FISHERMAN FROM CHIHUAHUA by Evan S. Connell

　　This is a strange story. It ends without any particular conclusion. Rather it leaves the reader in mystery. Pendleton is a normal man while the Toltec and Damaso are peccentrics. The reader identifies with Pendleton. He fails to know who Damasois. On the other hand, the Toltec seems to be uninterested in Damaso but interested in dancing and playing the nickelodeon.Some interpret that Damaso is Jesus Christ. In conclusion I was not so much moved in reading the book.

The Letter by Barnard Malabud

The contrast between the relation between Newman and his father and the relation between Teddy and  his father Ralph is interesting.

Newman is a normal young man. He does not want to communicate with his father who spend his life in an insane hospital as his words shows: “Do you want to have next Sunday off?”

Teddy is an insane man, but he wants to communicate with his father, also insane, through letters though they are blank.

 An insane man does not want to communicate with his father; while an insane man wants to communicate with his father.

 

The loan by Barnard Malabud

Lieb the baker is an innocent, honest, and easy-to-believe old man. His old friend, Kobotsky is a cunning, bad man.

One day Kobosky visits Lieb to ask him for 200 dollars. Although Lieb has a bitter memory with him because Kobosky has not returned 100 dollars, he forgives Kobosky and tries to lend him the money.

   While Lieb was talking with his wife about the loan, Kobosky “wet his half his handkerchief and held it to his dry eyes.” He even pares his fingernails. He tells he wants the money to build a tombstone for his wife. At which Lieb is moved and wants to lend him money.

  But LIeb’s wife, Bessie, refuses the loan telling Kobosky how miserable a life they have been leading.

  Giving up the scheme, Koboskey leaves Lieb, after Lieb and Kobosky press their mouths.”

  The story reveals as you read it that the three have gone through bitter poverty. As the conjugation “Haben, hatte, gehabt” suggests, both Lieb and Kobosky immigrate from Russia to Germany and then come to live in the United States. They must have spent a happy childhood. Bessie, a jew from Warsaw, went to Germany and then to the United States to marry Lieb. Her brother and his family end their lives in Hitler’s incinerators.

The story makes the reader sympathize with the miserable lives they had to go through. Even Kobosky’s made-up story can’t compete with the true miserable story Bessie tells.

The writer himself is a jew. So he might have condemned Hitler’s atrocity through “The loan.”

 

 

落ちてくる！ 伊藤人譽

病室の老婆が、ベッドの上の電灯の傘が落ちてくると心配していると、本当に落ちてきて胸に傘の凹みができる。一方、孫はお婆さんのお金で買ってもらったグローブでボールを空に放り投げて受け取る遊びをする。ボールが「落ちてくる！」ということで、二つの話を結びつけている。

　発想がおもしろいし、結びつけ方が面白い。しかし、疑問に思うのはベッドの上の電気の傘が落ちてきたとき、なぜ老婆の胸が丸く凹んだのか。普通円錐形の傘が落ちてきたら、傘の周りの部分だけ胸に当たって胸は丸い跡が残るだけのはずだが。それとも傘がひっくりがえっており、でっぱている方が下向きになっていたのだろうか。

 

伊藤人譽　1913－　昭和時代の小説家。
大正2年3月21日生まれ。昭和18年「文学界」に登山をテーマにした小説「岩小屋」を発表する。同人誌「小説界」「文学四季」などに参加。戦後の作品に短編集「登山者」「ガールフレンド」,長編小説「猟人」などがある。東京出身。アテネ・フランセ中退。本名は隆幸。

Miracle Polish by Steven Millhauser

The effect of the “Miracle Polish” lures the reader into reading the next page. The protagonist looks more attractive in the polished mirror, and so does his girlfriend, Monica.

　　Monica hates the effect. She wants him to look at her real self. Therefore, he destroys all the mirrors in the house one after another like a mad man. But contrary to the reader’s expectation, he is so persistent in asking how she liked the destruction of the mirrors; he asks her, “Are you happy?” He repeats the question again and again to the extent that he is obsessed.

Probably she will lose interest in him. That means: “This is the lucky day” turns out to be “This is the unlucky day.”

　　The story ends in the air.

My Oedipus Complex by Frank O’Conner

　　This is one of the best short stories I have ever read. The most amazing thing about this story is that the psychology of the protagonist, a five-year-old boy, is precisely described. His battle against his father over his mother is so well written that I identified myself with him (although I don’t think I had such a combatant relationship with my father). Both his father and his mother’s irritation are also described vividly.
　　While reading the story, I wondered what would be the ending, but the writer finnished the story by bringing a baby, Sonny, between the boy and his father. Both of them are now hindrance in bringing up the baby. So, in conclusion they come to a truce. They are deprived of the woman they loved by the appearance of the second child. 　
　　This is a very persuasive ending.
　　How imaginative the writer is in revealing the child’s psychology!