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4.0étoiles sur 5
First you see the ring, Fév 23 2007
Koji Suzuki could easily be considered the Stephen King of Japanese horror, with several movies (and remakes) of his bestseller novels -- particularly "Ring." Yes, that one. The one where you die in a week after seeing the cursed tape. While not quite the same as either film, Suzuki's original novel is a quiet, understated horror classic.
Four teenagers watch a seemingly cursed videotape, which will kill them in one week's time. Seven days later, all four die of heart attacks, including one young man simply keeling off his motorcycle. The uncle of one girl, Kazuyuki Asakawa, also finds the videotape and watches it. Now he has seven days to figure out the mysterious instructions, which happen to be missing. If he doesn't, he's dead.
Accompanied by a less-than-pristine professor, Ryuji Takayama, Asakawa goes in search of what is going on -- he suspects a virus that causes a heart attack. As he goes hunting through the woods for the secret to the videotape, he discovers a legacy of death and terror, left behind by the malevolent Sadako Yamamura. Asakawa's time is running out -- how can he unravel the mystery of the Ring?
Don't expect a carbon copy of the "Ring" movies: No TV apparitions, the lead is a man, and despite her beautiful female appearance, Sadako is a hermaphrodite. However, the "Ring" book is far more horrifying, solidifying Suzuki's position as a classic horror writer. It's impossible not to shiver when you look at the TV, after seeing this.
Suzuki's skill is in calmly, coolly describing horrific events in simple words. It packs a more visceral punch than if he just had floods of blood and gore in detail. The scene where Takayama sees the curse working on his own body is enough to make your skin crawl. And as good horror writers do, he creates a horrific plot based on something everyday. It's so easy to set off the curse, and that is what is so terrifying.
As Suzuki often does, he doesn't make his characters all sympathetic and noble. Asakawa is a cynical, rather self-absorbed man -- although this is what the plot hinges on -- and Takayama is a nihilistic rapist. It weakens the book slightly to not care much about either. Though in a way, the book is more about the "curse" -- which is more a virus -- and about Sadako than either of these men.
Perhaps that's a part of Suzuki's subtle cultural critiques in here, as well as Japanese supernatural beliefs -- nensha, for example, which is how Sadako created the lethal tape -- and the male and female roles in society. Finally he takes a hard look at this question: Should you allow your loved ones and yourself to die, or risk contaminating the world with the lethal videotape?
There's an almost apocalyptic note to the finale of "Ring," although it resulted in two more books. And Suzuki's original, deeply creepy novel is a must-read.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
Pretty good...., Jui 17 2004
Ring of course the movie is based on this book; in Japan it was released on the title Ringu, and it was remade in America as The Ring staring Naomi Watts. Now of course the book is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the American version. Investing the deaths of four young people, under their autoposy showed they died from heart failure. Now Asakawa a reporter is now investing the death's of these young people. Now he traces their steps to this hotel he rents for the night. It is then he discover's a tape that is unmarked. On that tape is a strange images on the tape. At the end of the tape it say's whoever is watching this tape will die in seven days. So now with only a couple of more day's to live, he the teams up with a serial rapist Ryuji to help him discover some of the images on the tape. One of them being a volcano in rural Japan. As they get deeper, it gets scarier! In a long time, I have never read a novel that chilled me through the bones. Koji Suzuki has been called the Stephen King of Japan. This novel is worth reading to anyone who wants to be scared. Especially King fans.
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5.0étoiles sur 5
The cutting edge, Avril 12 2004
The book flap describes Suzuki as the 'Stephen King of Japan,' but this cool, ultrasharp book couldn't be less like a Stephen King. Based on a sense of profound cynicism, the narrative is mostly held up by a brutal and unsavory professor of philosophy, Ryuji Takayama, who claims to have raped several women, but who is still in some profound and strange way a more decent person than the protagonist, a weak and innocent regular guy who still manages to be incredibly, malevolently selfish. While some scenes do frighten in a lingering way, the novel's substance is in its ideas, and it's very much a period piece, very modern. The prose is minimal, but still manages to create a decent sense of setting and character, and the characters, even the 'sacrificial lambs' who obligatorily have to die in the first few chapters, seem like real people. Even if you normally don't go in for horror novels or anything with a hint of the paranormal in it, I think you'll like this one. Trust me. And, uh, remember who recommended it to you. That's H-e-n-r-y P-l-a-t-t-e.
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