Strange Pictures

Published 2025 · 51,006 words · about 5 hours at an average pace

How hard is Strange Pictures to read?

Strange Pictures scores 65 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 48 out of 100
The text uses mostly common vocabulary, with some specialized terms related to psychology (e.g., "drawing test," "analysis," "rehabilitation") and obstetrics (e.g. "breech baby," "caesarean"). While not overly complex, the dialogue incorporates some slang and colloquialisms, contributing to a slightly elevated score compared to more straightforward narratives.
Sentence structure: 53 out of 100
The text features a mix of sentence lengths and structures. While some sentences are short and direct, others are longer and contain multiple clauses, particularly in the descriptive passages and dialogue. The syntax is generally accessible but requires some attention to follow the relationships between ideas.
Abstraction: 55 out of 100
The narrative balances concrete storytelling with moments of psychological and emotional reflection. While the plot is grounded in everyday events, the characters' internal states and motivations are explored, raising the level of abstraction. The discussions about art, memory, and the paranormal add to the abstract elements.
Information density: 58 out of 100
The text presents a moderate amount of information per page, balancing plot development with character insights and thematic exploration. While not as dense as works like War and Peace, the narrative requires attention to detail and the ability to connect various plot threads and character relationships. The blog entries and drawing analyses contribute to the overall information load.
Narrative indirection: 70 out of 100
The narrative relies heavily on inference, particularly regarding the characters' motivations and the underlying mysteries. Readers must piece together clues from blog entries, drawings, and dialogue to understand the full story. The deleted blog entries and hidden meanings in the drawings increase the level of narrative indirection, similar to The Great Gatsby where Nick's bias shapes the narrative.
Symbolic density: 72 out of 100
The text is rich in symbolism, with motifs like the drawings, the apartment building, and the cicadas carrying significant meaning beyond their literal representation. The drawings serve as visions of the future and coded messages, while the apartment building represents the characters' lives and secrets. The symbolic density approaches that of The Great Gatsby, where the green light and valley of ashes hold deep symbolic weight.
Ironic distance: 68 out of 100
The text maintains a noticeable ironic distance, particularly in the contrast between the characters' perceptions and the underlying reality. The blog entries, initially presented as innocent and heartwarming, gradually reveal darker secrets and hidden meanings. This ironic framing requires readers to question the surface narrative and consider alternative interpretations, similar to Lolita where the charm of the narrator masks his true nature.
Resolution withholding: 78 out of 100
The narrative withholds complete resolution, leaving several mysteries unsolved and open to interpretation. The reasons behind the deleted blog entries, the identity of the man in the coat, and the ultimate fate of the characters remain ambiguous. This resistance to closure creates a lingering sense of unease and invites readers to speculate about the true nature of events, approaching the level of Flights in its open-endedness.
Structural complexity: 60 out of 100
The text employs a moderately complex structure, incorporating multiple perspectives, blog entries, and flashbacks. The shifts in time and point of view require readers to actively assemble the narrative and connect the various threads. While not as fragmented as Flights, the structural complexity adds to the interpretive challenge.

How Strange Pictures is regarded

Strange Pictures holds a literary regard score of 17 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where Strange Pictures sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (130 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Strange Pictures scores 80 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.25. About the map of stories.

Mode: Ironic
Every time she had sinned, it had been to protect someone. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs, Naomi had killed those men out of love and justice.
Symbol: Literal & Descriptive
‘Those numbers are right at the heart of it.’
Mythos: Irony & Satire vi (Visio Malefica) (irony vi)
Naomi sat next to her mother’s corpse, weeping tears of joy.
Genre: Novel + Anatomy
MIURA’S MOVEMENTS ON THE DAY OF THE MURDER

Where the story of Strange Pictures takes place

  • Tokyo apartment, nursery school and cemetery, April-June 2015, the main setting
  • Naomi's childhood, reformatory, art-school years and marriage (1961 to 1981)
  • L— Prefecture and Mt K—, September 1992 and 1995 (1992 to 1995)
  • Raku's blog years: Yuki's pregnancy and death, 2008-2009; the last post, 2012 (2008 to 2012)
  • Tokyo student flat and campus Paranormal Club, May 2014

5 things that are true of Strange Pictures, with the passage for each

  1. Yuki's blog drawings numbered five in total, each with its own number.

    Each of the five drawings had its own number somewhere.

  2. Yoshiharu Miura's body was struck with a rock more than two hundred times.

    I understand there were stab wounds as well as signs he was struck with a rock over two hundred times.

  3. Naomi spent six years in a juvenile reformatory after killing her mother.

    Naomi spent the next six years in a juvenile reformatory.

  4. Naomi gave Yuki capsules of salt that came to fifteen grams a day.

    Every day, Yuki was taking fifteen grams of salt in her capsules.

  5. The blog name 'Raku' is an anagram of Haruto Konno's name.

    First, spell out Haruto Konno in Roman letters and then mix them up to make new words. It’s an anagram . . .

Scenes in Strange Pictures that Frye would name

37 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, untitled
It was a picture of someone slicing open the mother and pulling the baby out. The layered drawings resolve into Yuki's depiction of her own caesarean death, reversing the blog's cheerfulness.
Sparagmos, untitled
I understand there were stab wounds as well as signs he was struck with a rock over two hundred times. Miura's body is reduced to something 'barely identifiable as human'.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Yuta had been trying to draw a gravestone. Naomi finally decodes the rectangle with a triangle, reversing Haruoka's suspicion of abuse.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Miura had drawn the mountains in the morning light. Iwata's pivotal deduction that Miura lived until morning and that the picture is a dying message.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Yuki had understood. She had seen the murder lurking in Naomi’s heart. Naomi reads the three drawings and Haruto's last post, and understands what her son discovered.
Point of epiphany, untitled
Below the sunset sky, the mountain scenery was simply a black mass. The eighth-station summit, where the clue becomes visible: the view contradicts Miura's drawing.

Books that share these scenes with Strange Pictures