醉步男

by Yasumi Kobayashi, 小林泰三, 丁丁虫 (Translator)

血沼，我以后大概都不会和你相遇了。

话没说完，小竹田在我眼前消失了。不仅仅是人消失不见，连他放在桌子上的威士忌也消失了。仿佛从头到尾都只有我一个人孤孤单单地坐在酒馆里。

一阵寒意袭上身来。

大概别人的一生中从 来都不会碰上遇到自己不认识的好友的事，但是我却碰上了。这可真是一件至死都忘不了的事情。不过，这件事情真的发生过吗？那个名叫小竹田的男子——今天第一次见的老朋友，真的存在过吗？

看起来，我到底是醉得不轻了。

Genres: Japanese Literature, Science Fiction, Mystery, Japan, Fiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1996

Reviews

[めゐ · Rating 5 out of 5]

　「玩具修理者：Toy Repairer」★★★★★
This novel won the short story award of the second Japan Horror Novel award in 1995. The grand prix of this time was "Parasite Eve".
But, I had strongly interested "Toy repairer" than "Parasite Eve". Probably, for me, the combination of 'Toy' and 'Horror' is very attractive.
This story has much grotesque expressions. But, I feel it comical.
When the horror is beyond a limit, it becomes the comedy...
　「酔歩する男：A man of drunken stagger」★★★★☆
This is SF novel. Still, after all the insanity that this author writes is horror.
The development of this story attracts a reader in unexpected continuation. But, the physical explanation (one of the peculiarity of this author) might be lengthy.

[吕不理 · Rating 4 out of 5]

时间不是流动的 意识在跳跃着的时间里穿梭 打破因果 一切都在变 一切都徒劳无功 挺奇妙的故事

但阅读体验并没有很惊艳 可能是语言本身的缘故。

[Sibyl Guo · Rating 5 out of 5]

love it * 3000

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impermanence. Doubting reality. Futility. Helplessness. Cosmic horror. The end of the first story sent a chill down my spine with a cleverly revealed one-liner. The end of the second story made my head fuzzy with all the possibilities within possibilities. You can tell Yasumi Kobayashi has a clear respect for Lovecraftian tales.

The novel contains two short stories, or rather, one short story followed by a novella-length story. I was surprised at how well the two stories complimented each other. They both contained unsure narrators who get drawn into the story of the character they're talking to, to the point where the bulk of the story is actually told by second character. Thematically, both explore interesting takes on brokenness.

I haven't seen many discussions surrounding this novel in English, so I want to go in depth below.

The first story is the same title as the title of the book "Gangushurisha" or Toy Repairer. A male narrator is sitting with a woman in a café. He listens to her tell a story about why she wears sunglasses during the day. She describes how she sought out a mysterious toy repairer as a child. Only local children in the neighborhood knew about this repairer. One girl she knew even brought her dead cat to the toy repairer. The story then becomes quite grotesque when she describes a sequence of falling, scraping off a chunk of her face, and crushing her baby brother to death in the fall. There's only really one direction for the story to go after that. However, there was a twist that I didn't see coming. The woman reveals the part of her face that was created by the repairer to the male narrator's shock. Her eye shines like a cat's eye in the sunlight. He demands, "What are you??" and she replies by calling him the same name as her baby brother along with "Well then what are YOU?" I can't do the line justice in English. Living flesh is not the only thing that the toy repairer uses though. He used everything the children brought him. Everything was cut up, sliced, moved around, and put back together. Life could be in the animate and inanimate. They're all just parts. While the toy maker fixes brokenness in humans using whatever objects are available, the next story deals with a brokenness of the body that cannot be mended as it extends deep into the soul.

The second story was much longer and titled "Suihousuru Otoko" or Drunkenly Wandering Man. You can tell I'm not a translator haha. Anyway, the story felt like one big thought experiment for what it feels like to go crazy, lost in time with no set past nor future. The narrator, Chinu Souji, starts off the story much like the title suggests. Chinu complains of not being able to find a certain bar, like it's there sometimes and other times not. The reader is lead to suspect that he's just drunk and lost. The end of the story suggests otherwise.

The meat of the story begins when an unfamiliar man at the bar calls out to Chinu. He says he knows Chinu and that they were best friends, but Chinu doesn't remember the man at all. He introduces himself as Shinoda Takeo and describes details in Chinu's life that are so accurate that he MUST know Chinu somehow. Chinu listens silently as Shinoda unravels a strange tale full of contradictions. In fact, Shinoda's tale is the bulk of the story. I sometimes got so engrossed that I temporarily forgot Chinu was originally the narrator. So basically Shinoda and Chinu were best friends in university and shared a dorm room at one point. They both fall for a strange yet captivating woman in one of their graduate school classes, Unai Tekona (super strange name in Japanese). She says uncommon things like how she can taste sounds and hear visual images. After dating Shinoda, breaking up(?) with Shinoda, and then dating Chinu, she asks both of the men to meet her at the train station. Everything up to this point in Shinoda's story sounding like a romance drama movie. They arrive late, only to find her split-in-half corpse from an "accident" falling from the platform. As Chinu runs away from the scene holding her lower body and upper body, he vows to find a way to save her. Surprise! Time travel. But time travel didn't really work as planned and maybe all along it was Tekona pulling the strings.

The plot itself is nothing too wild. But the questions the characters ask themselves and the reader are what really elevated this story for me. There's a weird cancer-treatment-esque surgery Shinoda and Chinu use to remove the part of the brain that observes time linearly. (Side note: This was written in the 90s and at that time it was still common to believe localization theory where parts of the brain were linked to specific functions rather than how the concept today is understood to be much more complicated pathways spread throughout the white matter). This damage was not fixable like one of the toy repairer's creations. Their damage extended beyond just the brain tissue. Once you observe reality non-linearly, you are stuck with that state of being. There's no going back. Even in timelines where they didn't get the surgery, they were still stuck in a state of random consciousness. If time is not a river that flows from the past to the present to the future, what on earth would disjointed, non-linear existence look like? The toy repairer chopped up parts. But Shinoda and Chinu chopped up their concept of time. Now all the pieces of their infinite lives are jostled around without a toy repairer to put their time pieces in order. Gangushurisha's Humpty Dumpty is a weird humanoid with bits of bird feathers, wires from a computer, eyes from a doll, bones from a child, etc. This story's Humpty Dumpty may have had parts or may have not had parts, maybe he fell, maybe he flew away, who knows, all his possibilities are in Schrödinger's box.

Countless sci-fi stories have explored non-linear time perception, specifically, the movie Arrival comes to mind. The unique factor in this novel was that falling asleep, losing consciousness, or dying results in the next leap. You could be in a relatively earlier date or later date than the one you were just in. Could be decades or days different. You could also be in a completely different timeline. Nothing is predictable. There is no control. No action is linked to another action. You only have the present reality and even then that present reality doesn't really matter. Trying to control any outcome or fix any mistake is futile in this type of existence.

At the bar, Shinoda ends his story stating he's done these time leaps hundreds and hundreds of times. He's trapped in a never-ending consciousness spanning infinite possibilities between conception in the womb and dying days as an elderly man. He never gets something as finite as death though.

That's all fine if the story ended there, but it doesn't. Chinu wonders why he isn't in a reality free-fall like Shinoda even when they both did the surgery. Shinoda and Chinu start listing all kinds of possible explanations. Then, Shinoda is gone. Not like he left, but his whole existence was erased mid-sentence. He became non-existent right as he suggested Chinu could have constructed him to explain what was going on. Chinu is actually the one trapped in a hell-like existence , except unlike Shinoda, he's only vaguely aware of this or at least in extreme denial. He can't find things because sometimes they are there and sometimes they are not. He becomes afraid of observing whatever present reality he's in at each moment. Chinu tries to return home from the bar, but becomes increasingly uncertain. Eventually, he does make it home, but to a nameless wife figure that questions who he was with. She unsettlingly states that she knows. Chinu whispers to himself, "What am I?" "What is making me suffer?" "Why can't humans just give up?" The replies following his questions appear unquoted with no one in particular saying them and they grow increasingly ominous. Finally, Shinoda asks "Who are you?" Then I learned that the entity replying was one that could break linear time and observe the entropy of all the colliding dominos. I'm Tekona.
Like an ancient Old One from an H.P. Lovecraft novel, Tekona was there in that liminal space of consciousness, wherever/whenever there was.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

“我是生下来就具有奇异命运的人。我是使两个男子的人生因我疯狂的人。波函数坍缩的时候——我是触摸气味的人，我是观察声音的人，我是品尝颜色的人，我是聆听味道的人，我是嗅取形状的人。我是古代诗歌中的女主人公。波函数发散的时候——”少女的瞳孔闪烁着绿色的光芒，“我是手儿奈。”这个故事告诉我们：don't mess with time，以为在观察猫的人，最后可能发现自己成了盒子里的那个，被困在什么不分方向的跳跃行进的时间地狱里。

[Theobscuresubject · Rating 5 out of 5]

a mind-blowing time-traveling story and a brilliant Cthulhu parody, what else can I ask for!!!!!!

[Merrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

里面讲到理论的部分有些诡辩的意思，不过故事还是挺有趣的。

[Xiaolink · Rating 5 out of 5]

上午刚看了一大半这个《醉步男》 晚上莫名抖音就推荐了一个“潘博文”的知音灵异故事 没想太多就继续看完了这书的结局 结果就开始一阵阵的头皮发麻 [裂开]
细思极恐的巧合 为啥给我推荐这段视频 这本书是不是合理的解释了这件事 抖音大数据是不是已经能阅读我的思维了...
人已疯[苦涩]默默的把被子外面的🦶给收了进来。 玩具修理者 - 更算是恐怖小说范畴了吧

[Hailong Hao · Rating 5 out of 5]

## 醉步男

自从接受了光量子的说法，我对时间的认识似乎也在倾向血沼的理论（或者说小说的设定）了。

如果老师都能像血沼壮士一样讲课，学生学习起来会不会更容易一些。

## 玩具修理者

可能是因为时代原因，感觉结局容易猜到，过程也不复杂。可能是篇幅较短的原因，里面的对想象力的发散也不如醉步男。

[Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

少女来到我的面前，微笑着问我：“你在看我？”我仰起脸，微微颔首。

于是少女又问：“你喜欢我？”我说不出话，只有轻轻点头。少女说：“想和我接吻？”我握紧拳头，再放开。

少女说：“想和我做爱？”我的身子僵住，动弹不得。少女接着说下去：“但是，这些事情都是不可能的。我听不到你的声音，也看不到你的样子——我完全察觉不到你的存在，因为，”少女轻轻指着我，“你是死亡躯体残存的灵魂哦。”

[kyon · Rating 3 out of 5]

我对科幻小说可能是叶公好龙？之前看赞誉很高的神经漫游者也是：这、这、这都是啥！（王宝强河南话口音）

过于唯心主义无法接受，虽然也说不上逻辑链条是从哪里开始断掉的。

[Saffron Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

这是科幻恐怖小说啊。

第一个故事比较长，是时空错乱，血沼是被小竹田下的套呢还是手儿奈？最后只能不断的在时空不断排坏在不同的时空里，死不去也醒不来。

第二个故事，玩具修理者，所以被修理好的最后都还是人么？

[Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

重新定义时间，重新定义因果律。

[Arika_BaBa · Rating 5 out of 5]

居然是硬科幻，脑洞好大。虽然有些地方描写有点啰嗦，但是瑕不掩瑜。小林泰三对时间的理解好特别，看完之后脑子里全都是波函数😂

[Yadi Yang · Rating 5 out of 5]

被时间旅行中移动的是意识而不是物理肉身这一理论惊艳到。
以及可以生老病死其实也是件幸福的事，长生不老才会是折磨。

[moccasin · Rating 5 out of 5]

小林泰三，好强……波函数的坍塌好有镜头感; 知道玩具修理者的完成只用了3天后，我仰天长叹

[蓝 幻 · Rating 5 out of 5]

思路非常有趣。秉承康德的观念，将「因果律」和「时间」视作人脑为了简化认识世界观的结果、是将内在秩序强加在无序的外部世界，以量子力学的概念作为其实现的依托，讨论了破除因果律与时间顺序之后的可能性。某种神韵上，也契合了尼采关于日神精神的观念：保护人类的心智、将人与自然分隔开。文字上有日本文学独特的诗意感，又让人想起折口信夫的《死者之书》。

[Hiu Ying]

2023/01/19

[nanjiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

时间穿越的类别很多，非线性的时间构想也不少，可是将其与个人主观意识解释在一起的则令人惊奇，并且有趣地进行了详细的解释与探讨。同时也提供了时间穿越的悲剧设想，没有因果，变成非人，无法左右，陷入死循环，无法逃脱。

[Joyce LI · Rating 4 out of 5]

看完了感觉知道为什么叫《醉步男》了，小竹田第一次时间旅行发生在喝醉后，而这个世界的“我”也是在和朋友喝酒后才接触到小竹田，从而开始意识到波函数崩塌。
会不会人每次喝醉喝到断片，其实并不是真正的断片，而是意识已经在不同的时间节点跳跃了呢？
第二个《玩具修理者》的故事真的有点变态了，呃幸好火速看完了。

[Shawnnnnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

读的时候没啥感觉，甚至觉得设定还有点俗
结果第二天晚上睡觉做了一个无缝衔接各种时空旅行的大梦，半夜醒来好庆幸只是个梦
好吧，那多给一星吧

[Lionny Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

恐怖怪异惊悚，与令人流连忘返的故事情节，很有趣的故事。

[Nicktimebreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

并不存在客观的时间，也就并不存在因果关系，因果得以出现源于人类的感知，而非现实，如同时间。
我们感知的是大脑“认为”存在的东西，是大脑根据感官器官输入后“推测”出的现实，而非现实本身。事物本身（物自体）不依赖于主体的认识，a map is not the territory.

[Goosy · Rating 3 out of 5]

可能是我期待太高了，也就还好

[Yimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even after all these years, the first story still resonated in my mind and left an very impressive and fresh trace in my memory.

[Mr.Shore · Rating 1 out of 5]

纯粹的点子小说，除了点子，什么都没有

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The titular short story, The Toy Repairman, is my favorite Japanese short story. Cracking weird fiction that had it been written in English would be considered up there with the best of Bloch or Aickman. Taking place in the form of a conversation between our narrator and a man, it explores familiar Lovecraftian themes of unholy compacts with beings from the beyond and familial trauma. The tension remains high throughout and there's some great imagery in it, and the story really grabs you and punches you in the gut a couple of times. The character of the Toy Repairman themselves also has quite the creepy air, like something out of a child's nightmare. Actually, the whole story feels like a child's nightmare in a way. The final twist is expected, but lands perfectly. Just great horror short fiction that is highly approachable from the perspective of a language learner.

The second story which composes the book , A Man Drunkenly Staggering, is also a Lovecraft influenced weird tale, but in addition a science fiction story regarding medical experimentation. The whole thing is one big mindfuck and on some level I was probably limited by reading it in a second language as there is a lot of philosophizing I couldn't really appreciate. That being said, it is a well written and interesting story with some genuinely unsettling implications and a sense of dreaminess permeating the whole thing. Nothing is real, or maybe it all is real, and what does it mean to be real anyway? An interesting tale that gets lost in itself a bit but will leave you thinking.

[W.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

其實我第一本看的小林泰三是《沒人會特地去殺殭屍》，感覺普普（主要是覺得笑點和幽默實在接不上），但，這本好強啊。

這是一個短篇集……但其實只有兩篇：〈玩具修理者〉和〈踏著醉步的男人〉。

〈玩具修理者〉自然就是文案中所說融合了克蘇魯元素的作品，對於「修理者」的描述也的確立時能讓人想起克蘇魯對那些未知之物的形容，無以名之的力量、無法預測的舉止，以及，即使有著宛如「溝通」的對話，卻又不能說是真正了解了彼此的意思。
修理者為何存在？為何「幫助」小孩們修理「玩具」？那真的是幫助嗎？玩具又真的是「玩具」嗎？
藉由對話一步步帶出的「真相」，通往卻是死亡又異於「死亡」的恐怖。
我喜歡這篇將死亡放置在本就對死亡的意義還無法清楚定義和理解的孩童身上的方式，並不是太驚人的反轉（應該說，其實在故事開始不用多久就可以知道對話兩人的身份了吧），但那個必然通往的恐怖還是讀來悚然。

〈踏著醉步的男人〉則不是恐怖，而是一篇中篇科幻小說。
本篇以大篇幅去討論了時間、存在以及「真實」，每一個時間跳躍都代表一個世界（時間線？）的確立和其他無數其他時間線的發散。
要說很難了解……總覺得好像也不會？跳過太硬核的科幻名詞，我反而覺得這個故事在核心試圖碰觸的依然是對自我存在如何確立的永恆質疑。
但繞來繞去的部份很有趣，本篇在時間跳躍的悲劇性和對孤寂的描寫上非常精彩，從某方面來說……其實是對我來說，比〈玩具修理者〉更恐怖上不知多少。

兩篇都是有趣的作品，讀起來也可以很快（這大概是近期我看最快的一本小說了XD），對時間跳躍有興趣的話，醉步男相當值得一讀。
另。
對於逆轉畫面的描述，或許直接影響了圓城塔？在《自指引擎》中對子彈逆轉發射的描述是同一概念，這個部份也相當有趣。

[Jade Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read these short stories in the Chinese translations available informally online. They are very innovative and thought-provoking, using science fiction as a medium to question the concepts that we use to understand the very basis of existence, the ideas that we take for granted every day.

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

作为恐怖故事可以打5星，作为科幻只能打3星（这跟我不能给《命运石之门》打高分一个道理，小读者现在可是见得多了！）——而且同样的疑惑——怎么大家都断片了就主角一个人成为观测者了嘛！没有道理记忆不随认知一起断片啊！btw我觉得最恐怖的一段其实是决定要做手术那里，是真的在清醒意识下要做一件不可挽回的事……太恐怖了……至于断片理论我其实接受良好，眼一闭一睁才是每天都在经历并且逐渐习惯的真实恐怖好吧，现实生活真的有所谓连续性吗，我自以为的昨天和明天怕不是缸中之脑又在骗我吧。