Ring Koji Suzuki

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Published by fleuve noir (2003) ISBN 10: ISBN 13: 225. Seller: RECYCLIVRE, Paris, France Contact seller Seller Rating: Used - Softcover Condition: Bon US$ 8.21. Convert currency. Kōji Suzuki (鈴木光司 Suzuki Kōji born May 13, 1957) is a Japanese writer, who was born in Hamamatsu and currently lives in Tōkyō. Suzuki is the author of the Ring cycle of novels, which has been adapted into a film series. 1 Career 2 Works 2.1 Novels 2.2 Short stories 2.3 Collections 2.4 Films adapted from his works Before he wrote his novel Ring, he already published a novel entitled. Sep 18, 2020 Each of the installments of the franchise are based on Koji Suzuki’s novels. The novel series was first adapted into the 1995 television movie, Ring, by director Chisui Takigawa. It wasn’t until 1998 that Suzuki's story would receive larger recognition.


Ring
by
Suzuki Koji


Ring Koji Suzuki

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author


Title:Ring
Author:Suzuki Koji
Genre:Novel
Written:1991 (Eng. 2003)
Length:286 pages
Original in:Japanese
Availability:Ring- US
Ring- UK
Ring- Canada
Ring- France
Ring- Deutschland
DVD:The Ring- US
The Ring- UK
The Ring- Canada
DVD:Ringu- US
Ringu- UK
Ringu- Canada
  • Japanese title: Ringu
  • Translated by Robert B. Rohmer and Glynne Walley
  • Ring has been filmed twice, as
    • Ringu (Japan, 1998), directed by Nakata Hideo
    • The Ring (US, 2002), directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Naomi Watts, Brian Cox, and Jane Alexander

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Our Assessment:

B : passable thriller, cleverly resolved

See our review for fuller assessment.



Review Summaries
SourceRatingDateReviewer
The Guardian.19/6/2004Steven Poole
The Observer.25/7/2004Peter Guttridge
Koji
From the Reviews:
Ring Koji SuzukiRing Koji Suzuki
  • 'Suzuki builds tension brilliantly early on: the details he accumulates on the page are banal in themselves, but the narrative voice lurches among them like a stalker-camera, or a malevolent spirit. (...) But inevitably the book's presentation of the video feels more like an intriguing puzzle than a sensuous demonstration of evil, and the last two-thirds of the novel degenerates somewhat (.....) This is not helped by an extremely annoying translation into American slang' - Steven Poole, The Guardian
  • 'With the clock ticking, the pace doesn't slacken for a moment, even as the plot becomes more complex. Although the prose style is occasionally dull, Ring is a guaranteed page-turner.' - Peter Guttridge, The Observer

Ring Koji Suzuki Epub Download


Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

Ring begins with some unusual and inexplicable deaths -- two young people die in separate incidents, for no apparent reason, but practically at the same moment.
Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist, happens to be the uncle of Tomoko Oishi, one of the victims. And he happens to hear from a taxi driver about the other victim. The coincidences -- the victims are about the same age, died at almost exactly the same time, and there is no good explanation of what happened to them -- make him curious, and he looks into the matter. A bit of research and he discovers two more victims who died at the same time and in the same manner.
A bit of digging around reveals that the four teens knew each other and spent a few days together at a resort exactly a week before they died. Asakawa follows the trail, and checks into the same Cabin B-4 where the four stayed, thinking he might discover the casue of their deaths here -- maybe a virus or something.
Instead: 'Never in his wildest dreams could he imagine what awaited him there.'What he eventually finds is deeply disturbing -- a videotape full of unsettling and confusing images. Worse is what comes at the end of the video: a warning that: 'those who view these images are fated to die at this exact moment one week from now' unless some instructions are followed carefully. Unfortunately, those instructions have been erased from the tape .....
The race is on.Asakawa isn't entirely convinced by what he's seen, but it seems almost plausible. He turns to the only person he imagines can help him, an old schoolfriend who finished medical school and also has a Ph.D. in philosophy, Ryuji Takayama.
Ryuji also watches the tape, and then they try to figure out what's behind it. The story unfolds as a decent little action-mystery, though unfortunately the explanation largely turns out to involve the supernatural (which makes it considerably less compelling than one would have hoped for).
Still, the tension mounts as the clock winds down for Asakawa (and Ryuji, though since he only watched the tape later he has a bit more time). Suzuki chases his characters around Japan, has them dig up some ugly old stories that explain what happened, and even throws in some bad weather for them to contend with. The pressure mounts too because Asakawa's wife and young child have seen the tape, and Asakawa worries that they too might suffer the same terrible fate.
Discovering what's behind the tape isn't sufficient to discover the 'charm' that offers release from the death sentence -- or is it ? Asakawa and Ryuji can't be sure until the moment, a week after they each first saw the video, when they are meant to die .....
It's only at the end of the book, when it's finally clear how the death-sentence can be staved off, that Suzuki offers a truly ingenious turn: it's a nice and very satisfying twist.
Ring is a passable thriller: there's tension, excitement, some neat little stories explaining various pieces of the puzzle. Unfortunately, the central conceit -- the videotape-message -- relies on a ridiculous supernatural explanation and can't be taken seriously, which completely undermines the rest of the book. The writing isn't particularly polished, but Suzuki does create some decent characters, and even the exaggerated Ryuji is an entertaining presence.
Overall: an undemanding quick read, with a few decent thrills and chills.

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Links:

Ring Koji SuzukiRing

The Ring Koji Suzuki

:
  • Koji Suzuki at Vertical
Reviews:
  • Inside a Dream(French)
  • The Observer(scroll down for review)

Koji Suzuki Books

The Ring - US film version (2002):
  • IMDb page
  • The Ring - Official Movie Site
Ringu - Japanese film version (1998):
  • IMDb page
Other books by Suzuki Koji under review:Other books of interest under review:

Ring Koji Suzuki Summary

  • See Index of Japanese literature
  • See Index of Mysteries and Thrillers

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About the Author:

Japanese author Suzuki Koji (鈴木光司) is apparently an authority on childrearing.

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© 2003-2021 the complete review
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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.

When Asakawa visits the resort, the mystery only deepens. A comment made in the guest book by one of the teenagers leads him to a particular vidoetape 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.

Ring Koji Suzuki Characters

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.