著者

難波江 和英

出版者

神戸女学院大学

雑誌

女性学評論 (ISSN:09136630)

巻号頁・発行日

no.26, pp.113-143, 2012-03

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This paper is an attempt to present a new interpretation of The Suspect X's Dedication by Keigo Higashino through an analysis concerning the discourse of sexuality in the text. The initial key to critical approach to The Suspect X's Dedication has been set in the "controversy over the authenticity of mystery fiction"led by several writers such as Reito Nikaido,Ken Hatano,and Shigeki Omori. Major topics in the controversy vary from the definition of "authentic mystery fiction" to thevalidity of clues to reasoning and the technical probability of tricks. Thesecritiques,however,fail to read The Suspect X's Dedication primarily as a pieceof literary work. Furthermore,major critics concerned discuss man-womanrelationships in the text with general heterosexual terms, and fail to differentiate their critical language from their daily language. The most "critical" point in this paper lies, as shown herein,in the unconscious liaison between the formation of human beings as sexual existence and the discourse of sexuality they use in daily life. Seen in this light,The Suspect X's Dedication stands out among the other works of the Galileo Series. It is that this work not only portrays people as sexual existence but also reveals the process through which they undergo theirself-formation as such and live it as social reality. Worthy of note is the factthat the scholar-detective,Manabu Yukawa,who is usually treated as genius,refers to himself as an "ordinary person"only in this case. From this fact derives a couple of points that have escaped critics' attention so far. One is the unreality of the case that has made even Yukawa am an of mediocrity,while the other is a new vision of human existence that is made available by the suspect X,Tetsuya Ishigami, as he commits an "extraordinary" crime in theguise of an "ordinary" person. The key to these points is placed in where it can hardly be detected,viz. in the term "dedication." It is impossible, however,for the reader to account forthe prominence of the work by defining the term,for it has never been used inthe work except for the title. How can it be then that Ishigami has managed tolive the "meaning" of"dedication" so as to exploit the possibility of human existence beyond the understanding of ordinary people? The most efficient approach to the question is to investigate the formation of heterosexual love which the other characters promote with reference to the discourse of sexuality, and to define the term "dedication"as something that cannot be found in there. This paper thus identifies the secular mode of heterosexual love as a circle and aims to capture Ishigami's sense of "dedication"as its void.-143-