 |
| The Bronze Devil |
2. A great many idioms in The Bronze Devil—as well as the antics of some of the
characters—evoke magicians and the circus. Are magicians as popular in
Japan as they are in America? Do some magicians get more attention than
others? That is, does Japanese culture extol the David Copperfield
approach (big elaborate tricks) or the classic stage magician (rabbits
out of hats) or the sleight of hand magician (card tricks) or all of
them? What about Penn & Teller—or are Penn & Teller a little too
ironic/cynical?
I’ve observed that Japanese don’t do the whole “dripping with irony” thing.
It’s sand in the gears of a culture that depends so much on going with
the flow. So I’d say the Penn & Teller approach is probably a bit
too knowing and cynical. I do recall an episode of a police procedural
in which the murder victim is a magician who had the audacity to reveal
the secrets of other magicians.
 |
| Cyril Takayama: Japanese-American |
| magician: American background |
| meets cultural Japan. Kate thinks he'd |
| make a good Fiend in the movies! |
In
my limited Japanese television-watching experience, I haven’t seen many
David Copperfield types. More old-school vaudeville-style magicians.
Rabbits out of hats and simple sleight of hand and lots of banter. But
the performances always seem to me as more variety show material than
the main event.
That said, Edogawa’s stories very often center around elaborate David Copperfield tricks rather than “traditional” crimes. Stage and circus magic acts figure into many of his novels, where the crime is solved by figuring out the trick, not whodunit. A big part of Doctor Magic (1956), for example, consists of Edogawa explaining several stage magic and circus acts. I was familiar with the “tricks.” Though his readers probably were not.
Cyril Takayama reminds me of a certain personality type you see a lot on NHK World. The
foreign hosts (varying in Japanese extraction from zero to one hundred
percent) walk that fine line between being extroverted enough to attract
a crowd and stand out in it but not so much that they become
intimidating. It's the art of being comfortably foreign. If you can
master it, it's a good gig to have.
