The Goddess Chronicles - Natsuo Kirino

"In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear
drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow. On her sixth birthday, Kamikuu is chosen to become the next Oracle, serving the realm of light, while Namima is forced to serve the realm of darkness—destined to spend eternity guiding the spirits of the deceased to the underworld.

As the sisters serve opposite fates, Namima embarks on a journey that takes her from the experience of first love to the aftermath of scalding betrayal. Caught in an elaborate web of treachery, she travels between the land of the living and the Realm of the Dead, seeking vengeance and closure.

At the heart of this exquisitely dark tale, Kirino masterfully reimagines the ancient Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanaki. A provocative, fantastical saga, The Goddess Chronicle tells a sumptuous story of sex, murder, gods and goddesses, and bittersweet revenge."

It's always difficult to review a translated work, because when you come across either brilliance or lack of lustre, it's difficult to assess whether that boon or bane is attributable to the author or the translator.

Such is the case with The Goddess Chronicle, by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Rebecca Copeland.

The story is a retelling of the original Japanese creation story. I suspect the original work by Kirino is a charged, tight story. Copeland's translation, however, lacks passion, and certainly this is a story about passion, in fact eons of passion as we trace the history of the Yin/Yang gods of Izanami and Izanaki reflected through the mortal lives of Namima and her unscrupulous lover.

There is much here to be said of sibling rivalry and betrayal of sacred trusts, of epic journeys both temporal and spiritual. There is a genesis story, a parallel to the Greek Eurydice and Orpheus myth. There is the struggle of the desperately poor serving religious tenets that serve only to embed their poverty and keep certain people in there place. Of female suffering and betrayal. 

It's all there. Yet not a single phrase of elegance or startling insight to lift the reader from a grey narrative to the chiaroscuro the story demands. Lack lustre characterisation leaves me emotionally detached from the story. There is no final message, no meaning to the story, no insight into the collective female experience. While all these themes are set up, not one comes to any meaningful fruition. This causes the book to feel hollow and deeply, ironically, unemotional. A real disappointment that I am not sure who to attribute blame to. 

Age Rating 15+. Sexual detail, death and certain cultural abuses. 

The Frolic of the Beasts - Mishima Yukio

"Set in rural Japan shortly after World War II, The Frolic of the
Beasts tells the story of a strange and utterly absorbing love triangle between a former university student, Kōji; his would-be mentor, the eminent literary critic Ippei Kusakudo; and Ippei’s beautiful, enigmatic wife, Yūko. When brought face-to-face with one of Ippei’s many marital indiscretions, Kōji finds his growing desire for Yūko compels him to action in a way that changes all three of their lives profoundly. Originally published in 1961,  The Frolic of the Beasts is a haunting examination of the various guises we assume throughout our lives, and a tale of psychological self-entrapment, seduction, and crime."

Sorry for the break guys, just moved house and couldn't access my laptop. 

This was my first Mishima and I was thoroughly intrigued as to what kind of book a man with such a strange and interesting life story would write. He committed Seppuku in 1970 after failing to start a Nationalistic semi-military coup. Please do me a favour and just google this man, his life was certainly unique and he must have been quite a character. 

As I said, this is my first Mishima and I am walking away not really knowing what to think or how much I really liked this book. As with most theme-heavy, rhetorical works of fiction, the characters in The Frolic of the Beasts read more like archetypal placeholders in an allegory than they do representations of persons but that serves well one of the novel's principal themes: Fate's destruction of agency. With exaggerated characters and recurring poetry that echoes like a refrain, The Frolic of Beasts reads like an tragicomic opera, and who will emerge as hero or villain will be determined by whose story you find most sympathetic.

The prose is romantic with pleasingly rambling meditations on imagery even when describing the acts and aftermath of violence. Atmospheric descriptions of a hot Japanese summer leave the reader feeling even more claustrophobic and here is sense of unrealism to the prose, a rambling disjointed simplicity that recalls the sense of a fable. 

I found the premise of the novel deeply interesting and there where moments of real brilliance. However the character where just too one dimensional for me to fully undertand their motivation or their emotional state. This, unfortunately, undercut the impact of the novel for me. There are many moment where more exploration of the character's inner thoughts would have served to heighten an already interesting plot point. For example (SPOILERS) why does Yuko decide to invite Koji to work for her, what emotion drives that decision? Then when he is there, why does she not initiate the physical relationship that she obviously desires? A sense of guilt, the enjoyment of punishing Koji, the tantalising joy of a pleasure not partaken in? 

Because of this lack of emotional fleshing out I found the side characters and stories increasingly interesting. Kimi, for example, and her personal tragedy and story was impactful and almost fairy-tale like. 

Overall an interesting but not brilliant read. However I would like to trey a few more of Mishima's works to get a better understanding of his writing and thematic style. 

Age Rating 16+. Mature content. Rape, sex, violence. 

Klara and the Sun - Ishiguro Kazuo

"Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behaviour of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.

Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: What does it mean to love?"

Klara and the Sun takes on the same old sci-fi themes authors have been exploring for decades, and does nothing new with them, in my opinion. A girl called Josie and her mother purchase an AF (Artificial Friend) called Klara, who then observes their interactions, plus the interactions between Josie and her friend, Rick. Much time is spent looking at the sun, sketching, and navel-gazing. I cannot figure out if we are actually supposed to be surprised by the info Ishiguro reveals halfway or not, because it is obvious from the moment Klara is purchased.

The story is deliberately vague, which at first I really enjoyed the elusiveness of however it soon comes to feel lazy rather than mysterious. Klara's stiff AI narrative voice makes for a dull read though there where some moments of sweet childlike innocence leading to naivety, and it is even more disappointing to discover we are not being led anywhere remarkable.

I did genuinely enjoy the religious aspect that the Sun took on for the Solar Powered AF's an how that was incorporated. I wish that that had been explored more. 

I would like to say here that I actually have very high tolerance for quiet character studies about human behaviour.  But I sadly did not find this to be a very successful one of those either. Klara, Josie, Rick, and Josie's mother are not characters I will remember and the plot, premise and themes where nothing new or unique. This whole book lacked a spark for me. 

Age Rating 14+ Nothing untoward however does mention death of children and illness. 

The Sound of the Mountains - Kawabata Yasunari

"Ogata Shingo is growing old, and his memory is failing him. At night
he hears only the sound of death in the distant rumble from the mountain. The relationships which have previously defined his life - with his son, his wife, and his attractive daughter-in-law - are dissolving, and Shingo is caught between love and destruction. Lyrical and precise, The Sound of the Mountain explores in immaculately crafted prose the changing roles of love and the truth we face in ageing."

A deeply meaningful book that I didn't understand at all. It is a book that I don't think can be read casually, as I did. It would better suited in a book club or high school literature lesson. It must be dissected. The motifs. The meaning of the Noh masks, the different flowers, the stray dog giving birth under the porch. The themes, of aging, love, family, loyalty, trauma and modernity. The subtle word choices and rhythms that Kawabata chooses to employ. If not then you loose much of the authors intent. 

As a metaphor for aging and the difficulty of family relations, it works well. As an actual story... there is barely any plot with nothing coming to any resolution. It was a slice of life book, a slice of the main character's life and existential ponderings used to illuminate certain human foibles to the reader but not to engage us. Not for us to have any conventional feeling of pacing, plot or character development. 

Kawabata crafts the relationship between Shingo and Kikuko beautifully on the cutting edge of sensuality and sympathy. Both the characters thrive separately in their miseries and still somehow in a bizarre way find a spiritual connection with each other, making the reader curious for the unheard. The tension of the unsaid and nervously wanted was certainly the highlight of the book for me. 

A beautiful and unique bit of writing that deserves study but certainly not a story. 

Age Rating 15+. Abortions, affairs and a creeping sensuality. 

Killing Commendatore - Murakami Haruki

"In Killing Commendatore, a thirty-something portrait painter in
Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious thirteen-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art."

This is my second Murakami and I think I prefer this book to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. While still infused with Murakami's trademark surrealism and many similar metaphors and motifs, Killing Commendatore seemed more coherent. The plot was simpler and the message that Murakami was trying to convey was elegant and present. 

The painting elements were compelling and beautifully written. There's also a deep point about the life of ideas and how they travel to people and places, moving outside of time and how ideas have a life of their own outside their original thinker. 

However, I feel pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I enjoyed reading it until the final 100 pages or so turned into a slog. I genuinely love Murakami's focus on the mundane and the sense of ennui that it encourages in the reader. On the other, it's repetitive and minimalistic in a way that felt generationally out of touch.

The unnamed main character is in one of these classic Murakami in-between periods in his life, where everything has fallen apart but he's somehow fairly financially comfortable and has time to re-evaluate things. He gets involved with a questionably shady guy, and they start investigating some slowly unfolding mysteries.

That should be great, but the edge parts simply don't work. In particular, the main character has a lot of deeply uncomfortable conversations with a teenage girl about her breasts, conversations which continue on and off for about 400 pages. She's such a poorly imagined character that it seems like it's all she thinks about. Also pretty much every women we meet has their breasts sized up to the point where it is the first thing that we know about them. That's never been ok in these books and it's not ok now.

Murakami novels rely on the uncanny, on coincidence and strange encounters that seem normal but have an undercurrent of anxiety and oddness. The main reason I love them. Some of that was here in a watered down form. The problem is the novel is simply too big for the small amount of story it contained. It has the essence of his tropes but the prose is too weak and stretched to utilise them fully.

Age Rating 16+. Some weird sexual elements with the main character having many affairs and being mildly obsessed on his dead 10 year old sisters breasts. 

The Wind - Up Bird Chronicles - Murakami Haruki

"In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his
wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force."

This is a thoroughly confusing book and very difficult to review as I feel a person's experience of this book will be highly subjective. It certainly is a book to be experienced and left a deep impression on me. The book is a lonely world full of half finished stories, abrupt departures, missed connections and deep silences. A highly atmospheric novel, which I feel is more the point of the book then the confusing and meandering plot. To immerse you in this world of confusion, existential dread and urban ennui. 

While Wind-Up Bird didn't employ traditional clichés, there is the constant introduction of psychic characters who simply "know" things because they were "supposed to know" became slightly trite. Also, while half the characters were functionally omniscient, the other half did things without knowing why, claiming they were compelled by some uncontrollable, unknowable urge or force that often leaves them empty or numb of all feeling (literally, this happens with half of the characters in the novel). This started to feel old and frustrating because of the lack of character motivation that leads to characterisation. 

Some people have also argued that this 600 page book is functionally meaningless. An author can get away with a lot if ultimately the theme or message of the novel is intact. Try as I might, I can't find a coherent message Murakami was trying to express through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murakami did include a character that thoughtfully reflects on war crimes in World War II, but this subplot was unfocused, and by the end of the novel this story within the story fizzles and suddenly ends without reaching a climax. 

However despite my rather harsh criticism, I actually enjoyed this novel. It danced on the edge of being surreal however I personally never felt that anything that had happen was completely unbelievable just really freaking weird. I think this book is a wonderful representation of the mental space that many mentally ill people can find themselves in. A strange mix of pain, common sense, confusion and loneliness. 

I would suggest if you do decide to give this book, just give up trying to understand it from the beginning. Nothing makes sense, and I think that is actually the whole point. It reminds me slightly of the existential surrealism of Camus or Kafka. 

Age Rating 17+ Sex, murder, war, cheating, rape, concentration camps, rather explicit torture scene. 

A Quiet Place - Seicho Matsumoto

"While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that
his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wife—who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings—ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?

When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife’s death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life..."

At first I blamed the English translation for the unremarkable prose and plodding pace of the story. It couldn't be the author (who is praised for his psychological thrillers) could it? But the more I read, the more I understood that the dull writing was a deliberate device. The main character, Tsuneo Asai, is a middle-aged bureaucrat who has made it up the ladder in the ministry through circumspect behaviour and persistent hard work. He thinks almost exclusively about his job and, as a result, his life is as unexciting as the prose Matsumoto uses to describe it. Only through subtle clues do we eventually realise this fixation on work actually hides a deeper lack of emotional attachment. Asai’s wife is younger than he is; described as plain, quiet and unassuming. She copes well with her husband’s travel and work schedule, spending time with her sister and attending haiku meetings. When informed of her death, Asai is understandably curious and begins an investigation that quickly turns into an obsessive need to learn exactly what kind of life his wife had been leading. At this point, the tone of the story changes and accelerates to keep pace with Asai’s increasing loss of self-control and descent into obsessive neurosis. 

I really enjoyed that Matsumoto flipped the traditional crime structure, instead of the murder happening at the beginning  and the plot revolving around it being uncovered. Matsumoto actually has the murder happen in the middle of the book. I don't want to say to much as I think it will spoil the book. 

Overall, definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea. If you are looking for a rollicking thriller this is not it. It is tense, claustrophobic and has incredibly sparse bordering of out-right boring prose. It is definitely a book that requires the reader to be actively involved and engage in the subtle clues the prose gives you. 

Age Rating 14+ Murder, semi-sexual, injury detail.