Real World by Natsuo Kirino

Real World by Natsuo Kirino can be labeled a psychological thriller, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that. It is a coming of age story that focuses on the expectations and pressures placed upon teens in contemporary Japan.

The central plot is the murder of a mother by her son, but the real story is the response to this murder by a clique of four teenage girls. Full of angst and despair, they become involved in the aftermath of this horrific event.

The story is told by five alternating first person narratives, that of a boy (the murderer) and four girls (the clique). This constantly shifting point of view is quite jarring, but in the context of the story this is probably a very appropriate technique. The story is jarring. The events in the story are so extreme that they seem unreal, but those events are more real than the superficial everyday lives of the adults.

There are two worlds in Real World. The superficial adult world and the angsty, nihilistic adolescent world. The adults can not connect with each other because of superficiality. The teens struggle to escape the superficial burdens of adulthood being forced upon them creating alienation and hostility between the generations. The teens are unable to connect with each other as they hide their true selves thinking that no one would truly understand them. There is a complete disconnection between any of the characters. I kept thinking of E.M Forster and "only connect" as I read Real World. I know I'm taking that phrase out of context, but if the characters could only connect ....

The atmosphere of Real World is oppressive. I would label this novel as extreme noir and, unlike Out, Kirino never breaks up this story with black comedy. The nihilism in Real World was almost unbearable and I really couldn't wait to get to the end of the story. I am glad I read to the end though ... there is a glimmer of hope.
This counts toward my reading for Japanese Literature Challenge 4

BOOK REVIEW: Audition by Ryu Murakami

Title: Audition
Author: Ryu Murakami
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Date: June 2010
A LibraryThing Early Reviewer Book

Audition is the novel behind the 1999 cult classic Japanese movie by the same name and has only recently been translated into English. This rather short novel (190 pages) falls into the suspense/horror category.

The main character is Aoyama, a 42 year old widower with a 15 year old son named Shige. Aoyama decides to begin dating after Shige suggests, "Why don't you find yourself a new wife, Pops?" The only problem is that Aoyama is rather rusty and a bit nervous at the prospect of finding the right woman to date. A filmmaker friend suggests that Aoyama help with a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce, and in this way audition ladies before asking them out for a date. Aoyama quickly narrows the potential wife pool down to just one young lady named Yamasaki Asami. Aoyama is quite smitten with Asami, but it becomes more and more obvious to the reader that Asami is not a benign personality. The lovestruck blindness of Aoyama and the hidden nature of Asami is the vehicle for the tension that builds to the end.

I was a bit disappointed with the level of suspense (I wanted more) and felt like the character development was lopsided. Aoyama was fairly well developed and his background and motivations understandable, but Asami seemed simply a character with a role to fill in a book. The past that made her into a monster is revealed, but I never got the impression of a wounded soul. Asami is simply a monster, end of story. Perhaps this was Murakami's way of making a point that just didn't resonate with me. I was also baffled by what I perceived to be a very flippant ending. The translation was quite readable, but I'm wondering if there were subtleties that were lost by not reading the novel in the original Japanese.

While the story itself left me dissatisfied, I found a fascinating treatise on aspects of the Japanese dining experience. The community and harmony of sushi bar dining that can alternately be seen as exclusive and xenophobic. I wish I could quote this passage for you, but I've been asked not to quote from the Advanced Readers Copy. This passage occurs in Chapter 8.

Recommended: Fans of the movie will probably want to read the novel that inspired the film.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Added note: I would love to read any reviews of this title that others write, so let me know if you have read this book. I'm particularly interested in discussing the ending and Japanese conventions when writing the horror genre (since this might explain why I didn't like the ending!).

BOOK REVIEW: The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black

Title: The Silver Swan
Author: Benjamin Black
Publisher: Picador
Year: 2009
A LibraryThing Early Reviewers book

The Silver Swan is a follow up to Christine Falls and features Garrett Quirke, a pathologist who just can't resist investigating a mystery; in this case, a suicide which turns out to be a murder. Benjamin Black (a pseudonym for John Banville) uses a noir structure in The Silver Swan to probe the human psyche. This probing of the darker areas of human activity and the human soul does not make for a very uplifting read, but that should be expected when dealing with the noir genre. The Silver Swan is full of typical noir elements: cynical characters, bleak settings, and a sense of hopelessness. I'm not a big fan of noir due to these elements and I'm sure this affected my enjoyment of both Christine Falls and The Silver Swan. In spite of my lack of enjoyment, it is clear that Black/Banville is a fantastic writer. I enjoyed his use of metaphor, and the ability to evoke such a strong emotional reaction left me in awe of his skill. I look forward to reading those works of his outside of the noir genre.

I would like to thank the publisher, Picador, for providing me with a review copy of The Silver Swan.