Yesterday, we successfully held the 2nd meeting for the Third Place for Thinking for a discussion on social novels, especially on the reasons to pick up social novels for reading. We had 7 people from various fields including massmedia, book experts, and people working for non-Japanese capital companies, and enjoyed insightful conversation.

In Japan the term "social novel" appeared in the Meiji Period (late 19th century), meaning "novels focusing on social problems to critique the society or the politics. Nowadays, the term is probably used in a broader sense, including social misteries, economic or political fictions, and spy novels.

Anyway. As for the reasons to pick up social novels, we got the following:

・To understand and gain deeper insights what is going on in the society

・By reading the dark side of people, we can see the things from different perspectives

・Emotional subtlety behind the social issues or themes

・Sympathy to the characters' feelings and emotions, which are common beyond the time or generation differences 

・Warning to the unbalances or distortions surrounding us and we are involved without knowing

・After watching movies or TV dramas based on a social novel

・As a law school student, wanted to know the historical background of precedents

・Curious about the logic and psychology operating in large firms

The list of referred books:

・Ryo Kuroki "Enery"

・Ryuichi Teshima "Ultra Dollar"

・Bungeishunju Ltd. "The World of Seicho Matsumoto"

・Jun Ikeido "A tire popping off the rim"

・Natsuo Kirino "OUT"

・Fuminori Nakamura "The Empire R"

・Kazumi Takahashi "My heart isn't a stone"

・Ryo Asai "A Reason for Dying?"

・Shuju Okuno "Twisted Bond - 17 years after the switched babies"

・Takeshi Shiota "The Voice of Crime"

・Ryoe Tsukimura "Hakujitu" (daylight or spotless in Japanese)

・Shichiri Nakayama "The Sword of Themis"

・Hideo Yokoyama "North Light"

・Jun Ikeido "We started a career in the bubble era"

・Seicho Matsumoto "Suna-no-Utsuwa" (A Vessel of Sand)

Seicho Matsumoto was the favorite novelost of most of the participants, and we talked about the differences of different editions of "Suna-no-Utsuwa", such as a TV drama in 2004 and a movie 1974. Seicho is known as a prolific writer, and the compete collection of his works are contained in 66 volumes of books published by Bungeishunju. A participant told that it is getting very rare for Japanese publishers to publish a complete collection of works of an author, though they used to be very popular in Japan, because they don't sell well enough to cover the huge cost. 

Another participant told that he personally knows the pershon who became a model of the main character of a novel referred, by which our conversation was heated up even more.