Chapter 175

Time quickly reached early December, and some different voices from the outside world began to emerge regarding the work "The Invisible Guest."

Many readers wrote letters to "April Youth," arguing that this work was too obscure and difficult to understand, which gave them a poor reading experience.

However, a small number of readers expressed in their letters that they supported Akiwara Yuto's work and believed he should continue writing this way, though they hoped the story would be exciting enough.

After receiving the letters, the editor-in-chief of "April Youth," Chief Dacheng, thought it over carefully and decided to intercept all the letters with negative viewpoints.

Besides that, she instructed Sujin Xiushu to bring the letters that only had good things to say to Akiwara Yuto.

As an editor-in-chief, Chief Dacheng knew deeply how reader opinions could affect a writer.

In her view, although Akiwara Yuto had experienced some turmoil, he was, after all, only a writer who had debuted half a year ago.

If he were too deeply influenced by the outside world, it might, on the contrary, affect the performance of his own work.

She still believed that as long as Akiwara Yuto could continue to write according to his own outline, the subsequent exciting content would still be able to attract readers!

By that time, the sales of "April Youth" might even break the 150,000-copy limit and continue to rise!

Although Chief Dacheng still had confidence in Akiwara Yuto, some book reviewers in the market had different opinions instead.

So-called book reviewers are also known as literary critics.

Regarding literary works, they not only praise them but, more often than not, also criticize them.

Before this, because Akiwara Yuto had won the Newcomer Award for Detective Fiction and had had a falling out with the Mantanshe Society, many book reviewers were unwilling to express any opinions.

But now, this work had been serialized for 4 issues, yet there was still no improvement, and there was even a group of readers posting online in opposition.

This allowed many book reviewers with ulterior motives to see an opportunity—an opportunity to gain greater fame for themselves by criticizing a "talented writer."

Setagaya Ward, "Morning Business," Cultural Special Topic Force.

Xidao Youhui bit the end of his pen, looking at the "April Youth" in his hand, and began to weigh whether he should write a critique of Akiwara Yuto's "The Invisible Guest."

Now that the serialization of this work had not yet ended, he did not know how the subsequent plot would develop, but many people had already suggested that this work was too boring, making readers feel the reading experience was poor.

Since that was the case, as long as he went with the flow and published a book review criticizing the other party before his peers, he could gain a certain amount of fame.

However, this matter was not absolute. After all, as long as the subsequent development of this work was interesting enough, such a critical book review would instead make him a laughingstock.

Xidao Youhui thought for half a day and finally decided to take a gamble and write a critical book review.

In his view, this work had already been serialized for 4 issues, and the possibility of a turnaround later was relatively small.

But what title could attract readers?

He thought for half a day and finally settled on a title—"Akiwara Yuto, the Fall of a Literary Talent!"

While Xidao Youhui was writing furiously, Professor Yuanshan Xiu of the Kyoto University Literature Force was looking at "The Invisible Guest," lost in thought.

Kyoto University, referred to as "Kyodai," is a long-established, strong liberal arts school in Nihon.

As a strong liberal arts school, the strength of this university's Literature Force was naturally second to none, and it had even produced many authors who had won well-known awards.

Besides that, Kyoto University had also established different research systems for different literary characteristics.

Regarding different countries, there were German literature, Chinese literature, American and English literature, local literature, etc.; regarding different history, there were classical literature, modern literature, contemporary literature, etc.; regarding literary types, there were detective literature, poetry literature, film literature, etc.

And the field that Yuanshan Xiu researched was precisely film literature within these literary types.

The so-called "film literature" was considered by many to be an expression of "literary things in film," but in Yuanshan Xiu's view, it was "a high-level expression technique in literature that can be embodied by film performance techniques."

To put it in easy-to-understand terms, it meant that when readers read a literary work, they often had the feeling of watching a movie.

Although many people would think that literary works and films are merely different forms of plot expression, and it makes little difference which one you watch.

But in fact, in order to satisfy the needs of readers, literary works are often expressed more explicitly, thereby lowering the reading threshold for readers.

In other words, most literary works, unless adapted by a screenwriter, are far from being able to embody the movie-like experience for readers.

However, a graduate student he supervised had contacted him recently and informed him that there was a work that might reach the standard of "film literature."

And this work was the "The Invisible Guest" he held in his hand.

To be honest, Yuanshan Xiu was still a bit skeptical.

Although his research field was only "film literature," many areas of film literature and detective literature overlapped.

So he still had a certain understanding of this work, which had polarized reviews in the detective literature circle.

His colleague, another professor who researched detective literature, had criticized this work in private, believing it was too unorthodox and even deviated from the writing techniques of traditional Nihon detective works.

Since that was the case, how could this work give readers a movie-like experience?

Perhaps his student had misjudged it?

Regarding Akiwara Yuto, he did not know him deeply, but he had known some news about him from a series of previous news reports, and understood that the other party had won the Newcomer Award for Detective Fiction.

But in his view, Akiwara Yuto was still too young, and he hadn't debuted for long; wanting to write works that satisfied readers continuously in over half a year was undoubtedly very difficult.

Perhaps he should experience a failure? Only then could he climb longer on this path of the literary world, right?

Yuanshan Xiu thought for a moment, then lowered his head and continued reading.

Time passed bit by bit, and after 3 hours, he finished reading the latest four issues of "The Invisible Guest," and then, he fell into hesitation...

Although the plot had not been fully revealed yet, the depiction technique of this story indeed gave people a feeling like watching a movie, and it was the "memory narrative technique" of film shooting techniques.

The so-called "memory narrative technique" refers to the cross-narrative of reality and memory through the memories of the protagonist or non-protagonist, and in the continuous narrative, the true appearance of a story is slowly revealed.

For example, these four issues of "The Invisible Guest" revealed one past event after another through the continuous dialogue between the female lawyer and the client.

To be honest, this narrative technique was not rare, and there was nothing that could surprise Yuanshan Xiu.

But when this narrative technique was combined with detective work, it was a completely different concept.

Traditional memory narrative often involves the male and female protagonists recalling the past, and their memories are often true, and there is no difficulty in watching.

But this work by Akiwara Yuto revealed facts that the client was unwilling to or even concealed through the mouth of the female lawyer.

In other words, were the memory contents told by the client, Xuxiang Shenzhi, really true?

A very obvious point in it was the inconsistency of Xuxiang Shenzhi regarding his lover's method.

When the accident happened, his lover, Dacheng Lixiang, immediately arranged how to handle the accident scene and dispose of the accident car, looking very rational.

But such a rational person acted in a panic at the home of the deceased's parents? And even made the wrong move of putting the mobile phone under the sofa cushion?

If it wasn't that the author's character design had deviated, then the character in the plot, Xuxiang Shenzhi, had lied!

Besides this point, did that young driver really die because he hit the roadside stone himself?

And what other lies were contained in Xuxiang Shenzhi's other words? What was the final truth?

Yuanshan Xiu could not help but be attracted to the play, and even discovered a fact.

Although he could see and guess these true and false clues, many readers might give up further reading because of the high reading threshold.

In that case, readers who liked this work would probably like it very much, and readers who hated it would probably hate it very much!

This Mr. Akiwara's work seemed to have his own ideas in it!

Yuanshan Xiu held his pen, was silent for half a day, then took out paper and pen, preparing to write a review in the literary journal of Kyoto University to support this young "talented author."

After crossing out several titles, he finally wrote a title that satisfied him—"Akiwara Yuto: A Pioneer Who Created the Combination of Detective Literature and Film Literature"!