Book 10 "In the Woods"

Title: In the Woods
Author: Ryunosuke Akutagawa (translated and retold by Michael Brase)
Publisher (level): IBC Publishing (1)
Summary:
One day, in a thicket a dead body of a man was found. Concerning the body, seven people testified what they saw there, but their words are slightly inconsistent with each other’s testimonies. First, the woodcutter told the circumstance around the dead body. Second, the traveling monk said that he saw the man walking toward Sekiyama together with a woman on a horse. Third, the bounty hunter spoke the story about the suspect who killed the man. Fourth, the woman’s mother talked about what feature her daughter had and what person she and he were. Following these, the suspect, the woman, and the dead man through a medium witnessed to having seen what happened then. The story suddenly becomes exciting at this point, because testimonies of these three people were in complicated conflicts. The suspect says that he killed the man as the result of fair battle. The woman says that she killed her husband and tried to die together, but she failed in any method. Moreover, the man through a medium says that he committed suicide…
Evaluation: 3stars
It was not boring, but also not so interesting, I thought. The reason why I decided to read this book was that the summary on the back of the cover seemed really interesting. And now, I felt I had expected a little too much. To say more, I think it is perhaps better to read in the original language, Japanese, than in English, though I haven’t read it in Japanese. Because, expressed in English, witnesses of people seemed too suspicious unnecessarily for me.