Book Review: "Grotesque" - Natsuo Kirino
Hello Steemians!
Today I'd like to review my most recent read: The wonderful novel that is "Grotesque" by Japanese author Natsuo Kirino.
This book is such a complicated mess it's really difficult to describe.
It's mainly written from the POV of an unnamed narrator, whose younger sister and former high school classmate have turned to prostitution and, years later, been murdered. The setup makes it sound like a mystery novel but it is as far from that as it possibly could be. There's not really any suspense or plot twists as pretty much from the get-go we know who did it and how it happened. Then we delve into the stories of all the people involved - the murderer's by means of his testimony at trial and the two killed prostitutes' by means of their journals.
The thing is, however, that literally none of these people is a reliable narrator. All their accounts are prefaced or followed by the overall narrator of the book with things like "this is utter rubbish" or "this is full of lies". Since the stories do deviate from each other it becomes impossible to know who is lying and who is telling the truth - if anyone.
Furthermore, all of the main character are a) completely terrible people in their own way and b) hate each other with a passion. For most of the story I was wondering why they would ever willingly spend so much time together or waste so much energy thinking about each other.
Despite its slightly confusing and misleading setup, this book was glorious. The themes it deals with are manyfold and all explored really well. It all centers around the role of women in Japanese society and basically concludes that through the inequality and double standards that divide men and women, women have no choice but be turned into "monsters". They are inevitably turned down a path that leads to their ultimate destruction.
This book is thought-provoking and well written - I know some people didn't enjoy the translation but honestly, I thought it read quite nicely. All I would say is that the book was a little bit too long - towards the second half I was really struggling with my concentration. It felt like the same things kept repeating over and over with nothing new added to the mix. I definitely felt like Kazue's journal was unbearably long - mainly because reading from her POV actually hurts my soul.
Overall though I really had a wonderful time reading this book. It's dark, twisted, confusing at times but I thouroughly enjoyed the whole reading experience. I wholeheartedly recommend it, especially to those interesting in Japanese fiction.
--> 4/5 STARS!
Happy reading!
xx
ivymuse
Another great post of you (: Just keep steeming (:
Man, I can't upvote this because it's less than 12 hours from payout, but I'm shocked this only got 3 votes. Natsuo Kirino is one of my favorite Japanese authors, and while this one wasn't as good as Out, in my opinion, I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment.
It's been close to ten years since I read Grotesque, and I've been meaning to come back to it for a re-read (I own an autographed hardcover that someone sold to the bookstore where I work), but nobody does "I feel like I need a shower now" fiction like Kirino. :)
I think I posted it at an awkward time ;)
I haven't read Out yet but I've just ordered it! So many people say it's better than Grotesque, that makes me really excited to read it! haha that's a great way to describe her writing ;)
Out is much more "clear cut" than Grotesque. It's still focused on the relationship dynamics between women who could not be more different from one another, but it drops them into a pressure cooker situation of trying to hide a murder not just from the police, but also the yakuza wrongly accused of the killing. It's brutal. :)