Yoss by Odo Hirsch
日本語
普段は児童向けの本を書く著者の初の YA 本です。
Odo Hirsch はオーストラリア出身で、日本では全くの無名作家。邦訳も一冊もされていません。ただし自分のお気に入りの作家さんです。
お気に入りの作家さんとはいっても Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman の一冊しか読んだことがありません。
言葉の選択、ちょっとした描写、文章の組み立てなどが自分の好みにピッタリなのです。
これは感覚的、感性みたいなもので、個人で大きく異なるため僕の評価は他の人には全く当てはまらないもの。ということで Goodreads での評価もいまいちです。
村の少年 Yoss が村のしきたりに参加します。
村を出発し翌日に帰ってくるというもの。大人になるためのしきたりです。
Yoss は村を出発し湖を目指します。湖に向こう側には町があります。
町の魅力に惹かれた Yoss は湖で引き返さずにそのまま突き進みます。
山に囲まれた村で育ってきた純真無垢な Yoss。
彼の常識とは大きく違う町の風景。それは町の人間も例外ではなく。。。
English
Yoss, a boy growing up in a small village surrounded by mountains, departs the village this year, and returns to the same village next day. At least he is supposed to be.
This is a ritual of this village; each year a boy or a few boys leave the village and return to the same place the following day to prove themselves to be a man.
Long ago, the ritual was more meningful than this current one, which is now just a symbol meaning nothing.
Back then boys used to march beyond a lake and bring back something useful to the village: skills and knowledge like milling, carving, metalworking, thatching,..
But, there were some boys who never returned to the village after the departure.
There is a town beyond the lake.
Towns swallow men up, Yoss. They're hungry. People disappear into them and are never heard of again.
This is the beginning of the story.
Yoss, a pure and innocent boy who doesn't doubt anything, decides to go to a town.
Where chaos, good and mostly bad, awaits him.
This book is the first YA book written by my favorite author Odo Hirsch even though I have read just one another book of his, Antonio S and the Mystery of Theodore Guzman.
I can fully enjoy some books even from small conversations, encounters with someone, or just beads of beautiful words.
In that case, I don't much care a story itself as long as the book is written so: The book Thief, River Boy, The Housekeeper and the Professor, The Alchemist, you name it.
Some find these books boring.
Or these books actually might not even have a convincing ending.
Still, I really liked this book.
