The Sleeping Dragon

Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき)Nanhai Publication Company2008

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Word count
200K words
Chapters
7
ISBN
9787544239882

Tags

Featured Fiction Mystery and Suspense Mystery WriterDaily ReflectionsIllustrated GuideMystery NovelsSocial MysterySocial MysterySurreal SettingPopular NarrativeTokyo

Summary

The Sleeping Dragon is a full-length novel by Miyuki Miyabe. It won the 45th Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1991 and is also regarded as an important point of origin in her creative career. In interviews she said she wanted to work out "if there really were psychic powers in this world, what kind of powers would they be, and what joys and sorrows would they bring"? The story begins on a night of typhoon and torrential rain: magazine reporter Shogo Kosaka is driving back to Tokyo when he gives a lift to a soaking-wet boy, Shinji Inamura. On the road a small child falls into a drainage ditch; Shinji clutches the child's dropped umbrella, says he sensed the child's terror, and "reads" the lingering agony from the manhole cover. Kosaka is half doubtful, yet follows the boy's clues and finds the culprit the boy described—though the case is far from solved. Thereafter blank anonymous letters keep arriving at Kosaka's door, the seventh bearing only a huge character meaning "hate," threatening phone calls follow, and Shinji and another boy, Naoya, are drawn in one after another. The novel's central image is that "a dragon lies sleeping inside every person": when the dragon wakes, its power drives people uncontrollably toward loneliness and pain. Combining the suspense of a mystery with a surreal premise, the book turns the gift of "seeing and reading others' pain" into a parable about the situation of the different, social responsibility, and empathy. The simplified-Chinese edition was translated by Wang Yunjie and belongs to the "Masters of Mystery Masterworks" series.

Editor's review

宫部美雪的作家生涯中，真正让她“成了宫部美雪”的作品，往往被指为《龙眠》。这本书题材很特殊：它是一本正正规规的推理小说，却在破案线索里放入了一个无法被科学验证的变量——一个能读到物品残留记忆的少年。于是读者跟着记者高坂一起，既在追查台风夜失踪男童的下落，也在不断自问：证据可以相信吗？讲述者可以相信吗？ 宫部美雪的厉害之处并不在于设定奇巧，而在于她始终把“能力”写回到“人”身上。拥有多余能力的人，未必因此幸福；失去原有能力的人，同样活得辛苦。空白信、匿名电话、少年之间彼此矛盾的证词，悬念一层层叠上去，读到最后会发现，真正难解的不是凶手是谁，而是我们该怎样与“和自己不一样的人”共处。这也正是本书多年后仍被反复提起的原因：它有类型小说的骨架，却有一颗极其柔软的心。如果你只读一本宫部美雪的早期作品，本书是很合适的入口。

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Reading tips

  1. 先把它当推理小说读，留意每一封信、每一次证词中的矛盾点，不必急着判断超能力真假。
  2. 读到中段可停下来想一想：如果是你拥有“读心”能力，你会用它做什么、又会不会告诉别人。
  3. 读完后不妨接着读《火车》或《理由》，对照宫部美雪从奇幻设定转向社会写实的路径。
  4. 全书约三百页，建议连续两三次读完，以免多线索交织造成的悬念被中断。

About the publisher

Nanhai Publication Company China · Founded in 1988

Nanhai Publication Company is a comprehensive publisher known for its literature and arts titles, covering fields such as classical poetry, martial arts fiction, and folk literature. Judging from the more than 1,600 books in the database, the company has released classical poetic works including the Nineteen Old Poems and the Nine Songs, as well as multiple volumes of Huanzhulouzhu's series The Swordsmen of Mount Shu, along with related writings by authors such as Guan Hanqing, Qu Yuan, Zuo Si, and Wang Zhihuan. Its publishing character lies in balancing the organization of classic texts with the dissemination of popular literature, placing poetry anthologies alongside long martial arts novels and presenting a relatively diverse literary profile. Public information is limited, and further details about its editorial practices and series planning remain to be supplemented.

Contents

  1. Chapter One: Encounter
  2. Chapter Two: Ripples
  3. Chapter Three: The Past
  4. Chapter Four: Omen
  5. Chapter Five: Dark Scene
  6. Chapter Six: The Incident
  7. Final Chapter

FAQ

《龙眠》是宫部美雪的哪一部作品，得过什么奖？ 《龙眠》是宫部美雪的长篇推理小说，1991年入围第105届直木奖，并获1992年第45届日本推理作家协会奖，常被视为她创作风格成形的“原点之作”。
简体中文版和台版有什么不同？ 简体版由南海出版公司于2008年出版，王蕴洁翻译，属“推理大师杰作选”，约302页；台版由独步文化出版，同为王蕴洁翻译，2018年另有“经典回归版”，两版内容一致，主要是版式和用字差异。
这本书是灵异小说还是推理小说？ 它本质上是推理小说，只是在破案线索中引入了“读取物品残留记忆”这类超现实设定。宫部美雪自己说，她想知道若世上真有超能力，会带来怎样的喜怒哀乐，因此本书也可看作类型融合之作。
没读过宫部美雪，可以直接从这本开始吗？ 可以。本书篇幅不长、悬念密集，常被推荐为进入宫部美雪推理世界的入门作品，读完后能较好理解她后来在《火车》《理由》中延续的社会关怀。

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About the author

Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき) Author · Japanese · 1960

Miyuki Miyabe is a Japanese writer born in Tokyo on December 23, 1960. She made her debut in 1987 with The Neighbor's Crime, which won a new mystery writer award. Her work spans mystery, historical, and fantasy fiction. Her major works include Train, The Copycat, The Reason, and Solomon's Perjury, and she has received the Naoki Prize and the Shiba Ryotaro Prize, earning her the reputation of a "national writer of the Heisei era." Her books are tightly structured and populated by firmly drawn characters, often building suspense from ordinary settings while examining social realities through cases and the fates of those involved. This site holds three of her works: Solomon's Perjury (three volumes plus a new bonus chapter), The First Time, and The Descendants of the Sea God, commonly classified under foreign literature and science fiction.