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There
is a river near my parent's house that I occasionally take
walks by while I am at home visiting. While I am not a violent
person by most anyone's definition, there is something that
constantly occupies my thoughts while I stroll along: This
river affords several amazing locations to hide a dead body.
The criminal opportunities this body of water provides are
myriad and intriguing. It would seem this is something Japanese
horror writer Koji Suzuki understands very well: Water is
the place to hide dead bodies.
With
Dark Water, Koji Suzuki has penned a collection of
short stories with water as the centerpiece. The tales revolve
around fishermen, yacht enthusiasts, spelunkers exploring
underground lakes, and apartment owners with plumbing issues.
Even if Suzuki's Japanese characters aren't marine in nature,
they are boxed in on all sides of their island nation by water,
and it exerts a presence in their everyday lives. Suzuki's
writing embodies a certain dampness that pervades all narration.
Even in his other works, like Ring (as in The
Ring), the aquatic figures predominantly. Perhaps this
all-encompassing moisture was subconscious in previous work,
but throughout Dark Water Suzuki has set out to weave
a leitmotif of chilling, oppressive dampness throughout the
book's seven short works.
One of
the hallmarks of classic horror is taking something mundane
and suggesting all the ways in which it can be perverted into
something evil or destructive. The works of H.P. Lovecraft
did this by simply suggesting that behind everyday life lurked
depths of absolute evil over which the human mind would destroy
itself rather than comprehend. In Ring, televisions became
a source of terror. Now, Suzuki accomplishes a similar feat
by taking water, something necessary for every day survival,
and illustrating the ways in which it can undo us. The ocean
is beautiful but dangerous. A body of water, as placid as
it may seem, leaves what's beneath unknown, cold, and lightless.
Throughout
the stories of Dark Water, Suzuki's elegant and flowing
prose reflects the beauty of his central theme. His words
create murky atmospherics that transcend the normal Eli Roth-ian
schlock of gore-laden gross-out "horror." Fear and suspense
are pervasive and ingrained in the psychological. In the story
"Floating Water" (which was later turned into a movie called
Dark Water), nothing overt is ever put on display to
fear. The mother protagonist becomes mentally worked up over
the stories and possibilities of a recent child murder in
the building (and what may have become of the body), sending
her into a spiral of paranoia and panic. She feels presences
and gets hunches, but no evidence ever prevents itself—only
fear for her daughter and mistrust of her surroundings. While
the movie relies on an undead, water-logged girl to make the
fear tangible, the medium of literature allows all terror
to lie solely in the mental realm and manages to convey just
as visceral an experience. The best ghost stories are the
ones no one can ever prove.
The psychological
component is fundamentally key to any sort of artistic, well-written
horror literature, and Suzuki wields it with ease. He allows
the unknown to lead his protagonists' (and readers') minds
to his desired ends. There is something deep and tribal about
the unknown that resonates into the dark parts of people's
minds. Similarly, putting water at the center of his tales
allows Suzuki to tap into a primal, genetically-encoded fear
that lies in everyone. The panic of fighting for breath whilst
underwater is something with which everyone can relate, and
it exploits a familiar and terrifying instinct within us all.
Like
any short story collection, one or two of the pieces fall
short of the others. However, even the less inspired selections
are hardly boring or without merit. Even the ones that shoot
for mystery but hit closer to obfuscation—like the confounding
tale of an avant-garde theater troupe, "Watercolors"—will
at least entertain.
This
set of tales will certainly not reach the heights of fame
that Ring did. Despite one of the short stories already
having been adapted for film and another having been adapted
for the Showtime series Masters of Horror, this will
not be the collection that makes Suzuki "known" to fans outside
of horror fiction. However, the well-written prose and well-above-average
use of atmosphere and tone should tide over Western horror
readers until something new can be translated into English.
(August,
2007)
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