Kōji Suzuki

Ring

ADVENTURE / THRILLER. Stunning Japanese thriller with a chilling supernatural twist. The novel that inspired the cult Japanese movie and the Hollywood blockbuster of the same name. Asakawa is a hardworking journalist who has climbed his way up from local-news beat reporter to writer for his newspaper's weekly magazine. A chronic workaholic, he doesn't take much notice when his seventeen-year-old niece dies suddenly -- until a chance conversation reveals that another healthy teenager died at exactly the same time, in chillingly similar circumstances. Sensing a story, Asakawa begins to investigate, and soon discovers that this strange simultaneous sudden-death syndrome also affected another two teenagers. Exactly one week before their mysterious deaths the four teenagers all spent the night at a leisure resort in the same log cabin.

i really gotta stop reading books written by men. 

cloud

Sarah Sammis

I really enjoyed this book. I've only seen the U.S. adaptation of the film but will get around to seeing the Japanese version soon as I'm a fan of Japanese cinema and I must say I enjoyed the book much more than I did the film. I don't know what's with the recent trend of Hollywood deciding horses are a good (err scary?) horror motif.

Anyway, back to the book. I read it over the course of three evenings and had I the time, could have managed it in one go. It was a very tight plot explaining the origins of the tape, the purpose of the tape and the origins of the psychic powers involved in the curse. I don't want to go into the details more and risk spoiling the nuances of the book for those who have yet to read it. I will admit to the first couple chapters giving me nightmares which is what a good horror story should do.

chloe

Amelia Lang 

Koji Suzuki only sees women in 2 lights: pretty and quiet and submissive but annoying, or stunning and evil. I guess there’s Mai too, who’s just perfect. The main characters best friend is a rapist and I’m supposed to care about him? Why was that necessary? Also why was it necessary that Sadako was intersex? 

So many leaps too. Half of the plot points had me going “ok. Sure. Fine.” so I could keep reading. Only giving this 2 stars because I liked the narrative devices used and the pacing. It was at times very impressively written, and it showed even through obviously shitty translation.

Also, how is the whole point of this Sadako being able to make the viewer feel what she felt, and yet there is like 0 empathy for what she goes through? The way her rape is portrayed is like “oh she wanted it” “lol no she acc didn’t but she was opportunistic about it” um ok?? Also the narrator spends a lot of time talking about how we can’t believe everything anyone says when they recall things blah blah in the most mundane recounting of events but he doesn’t do this when her rapist is telling him that he felt compelled to rape her and actually it wasn’t him but some base libidinal allure she had?? Yeah okay. Right.

Also!!! The fact that ryuji is a superstar philosophy prof and when recounting the idea that organisms with both male and female reproductive organs & intersex people are the epitome of beauty he doesn’t mention Alcibiades … more importantly though weird that the author wrote about how he thinks intersex people are supernaturally hot (but like in an evil way)

Geoffrey Froggatt

When I realized that Ringu was based off of a novel, I knew I eventually had to read it. Being one of my favorite horror movies, I wanted to see what the source material had to offer and to see what differences there were between the movie adaptation and the original novel. Content warning for sexual assault, suicide, transphobia and murder. The plot summary of the book is very similar to the movie adaptations. A mysterious videotape curses the viewers and kills them after a week. I was surprised to see the differences between the book’s Sadako and the movie adaptations’ Sadako / Samara. The protagonist of this novel isn’t as compelling as the protagonist in the Japanese movie adaptation or even the American movie adaptation. The character of Ryuji also took me out of the story. I love to read about reprehensible, horrible characters if they are engaging, but Ryuji’s character is just initially and casually mentioned to be a rapist, and the protagonist and story just moves on from this as if it isn’t a big revelation. His friendship with the main character diminished the protagonist’s already plain and poor characterization in my eyes. The character of Ryuji is later given more depth and his true nature is left more ambiguous in the end, but the effect his initial introduction had on me lasted for the entirety of the story up until that point. 

For a book about a cursed videotape, I found the descriptions of the actual videotape left something to be desired. I think the movie adaptations are inherently a better way to tell this story as you can actually present the cursed video tape and show its visuals. This story just works best with visual storytelling. I found myself comparing this book to its movie adaptations, and I was a little disappointed that the book didn’t have even half the atmosphere that the movies did. The story was slow in the beginning and didn’t have the creepy atmosphere to keep me engaged through the slow parts of the story. The translation of this book into English left the writing style bland. The voice of the story felt incredibly passive. It was an easy read, but it did feel soulless and cold in some parts. I would recommend this book to people who are curious to read the source material of one of the most infamous Japanese horror movies of all time, with the caveat that it is not as good as the movie. The movies improved upon the ideas and concepts introduced in this book. Some have called Kōji Suzuki the Stephen King of Japan, but sadly this book did not live up to that high praise for me. Regardless, I still plan on continuing to the next book in this series as I’ve heard that the storyline is significantly different than the sequels to the movie adaptation. Despite not enjoying this book as much as I wanted to, I appreciate this book for bringing me two of my favorite horror movies, Ringu and The Ring. This is one of the few instances where the movie adaptation is much better than the original source material.

For those who have seen the movies the explanation of Sadako, her origins and motivations are better addressed. This certainly has some horror elements, but feels more like a mystery/thriller in comparison to the popular movies. 

Morgan Moffitt

Emmett

What makes the premise interesting and novel is the way the more conventional ideas of horror fiction such as vengeful spirits and curses are tossed with s/f theories about carriers and infection. Unfortunately, no ghastly image of a woman crawling out of the television, though.

Stunning, cutting-edge thriller with a chilling supernatural twist from Japan's stylish new literary star. Asakawa is a hardworking journalist who has climbed his way up from local-news beat reporter to writer for his newspaper's weekly magazine. A chronic workaholic, he doesn't take much notice when his seventeen-year-old niece dies suddenly -- until a chance conversation reveals that another healthy teenager died at exactly the same time, in chillingly similar circumstances. Sensing a story, Asakawa begins to investigate, and soon discovers that this strange simultaneous sudden-death syndrome also affected another two teenagers. Exactly one week before their mysterious deaths the four teenagers all spent the night at a leisure resort in the same log cabin. When Asakawa visits the resort, the mystery only deepens. particular videotape. When he watches it, instead of a movie he finds an odd collection of disparate images with a portentous message at the end: Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. Asakawa finds himself in a race against time -- he has only seven days to find the cause of the teenagers' deaths before it finds him. The hunt puts him on the trail of an apocalyptic power that will force Asakawa to choose between saving his family and saving civilization.

Pat G.

I had high hopes for this one, maybe too high. But maybe the disappointment came from the translation?

Suzuki is often hailed as the “Stephen King of Japan”, but Ring read like a YA novel. I wonder if it’s better in Japanese?

Liam Byrne 

When reading a book that served as the basis for what became a successful film adaptation, one that you particularly enjoyed (the original Japanese version), there is always concern as to what ‘damage’ might have been caused by watching rather than reading first. Especially given the thriller-esque nature of ‘Ring’, there was a danger that knowing the ending beforehand could kill any joy that was to be gained from the novel itself. Thankfully, this is not the case as Koji Suzuki’s best seller retains a taut sense of uncomfortable engagement from start to finish.

Many will already be aware of the overall narrative of ‘Ring’ due to the many remakes and outright impostors that followed in its wake. It is worth lauding the central concept – anyone who watches a certain videotape will die in seven day - even if the oversaturation of the idea has maybe lessened its impact. It takes the somewhat jocular and ridiculous world of chain letters, an idea that will often spark a notional feeling of ‘what if?’ when we choose to ignore them, and takes that kernel of fear and blows it wide open with the additional twists and turns afforded by the use of the fantastical and the macabre.

In the blurb, there are references made to Haruki Murakami: whilst this may be a stretch, Suzuki’s Asakawa and his best friend, Ryuji, are both presented as slightly odd, even excusing Asakawa’s marriage and child and Ryuji’s popularity. It is this weirdness that the characters seem to share that helps to create a believable relationship that is required as Ryuji goes out of his way to help Asakawa, even exposing himself to the videotape. His somewhat nihilistic character, not presented in the film version, is at odds with his helpfulness towards Asakawa, although a scene later on in the narrative does seek to address the disparity between these dual natures.

As was to be expected, there are elements of the book that don’t find their way into the film – or at least from what my memory recalls – but the very focused structure and tightly paced narrative means the adaptation is pretty faithful. It is the strength of the novel itself that unsurprisingly gives the film an excellent starting point to build upon.

The ending also leaves things in an engaging fashion. It would have been easy to have the main protagonist defeat the curse and things return to normal. However, Suzuki leaves a significant ethical dilemma at Asakawa’s doorstep – how far is he willing to go in order to save his own family? The cynical reader will probably see this as an easy way into a sequel, but it does raise interesting questions about how Asakawa might go about resolving the issue. Does he try and save everyone, or just those that he loves?

‘Ring’ is well-written, legitimately scary in places, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. Can’t ask for much more than that.

Ring

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