Reviews

A Man by Keiichiro Hirano

Only show reviews with written explanations

lex23's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I enjoyed reading this book even though it took me some time to finish it. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to appreciate Haruki Murakami's work. Reading Hirano's work was so refreshing. Since I don't read as many Japanese novels as I'd like to (since there aren't enough Japanese novels translated to English to choose from anyway) - I couldn't stop myself from comparing this to Murakami's. I found Hirano's female/women characters more complex and 'real', whilst Murakami tends to fetishise and sexualise his female/more feminine characters.

I think more than a 'mystery' novel, it's more about a series of different identity crises. It explores how one is comfortable/uncomfortable in one's skin. And the 'bodies' or identity we choose to stay with or change. It may be a little confusing in the beginning but it gets better towards the end.

“He said it grossed him out so bad to think that his father’s blood ran in his veins that he wanted to scratch himself open and scrape his own body off. You could never make love to someone if you saw your body like that, now could you?”

Without giving away too much, the excerpt above was said of one of the characters who tried to kill himself twice, and then decided to live his life as someone new without any attachments to his past. The novel ricochets between a more metropolitan setting and a quiet town(s). I liked how the quieter/more peaceful landscapes were described.

“I’d say we cut them at about fifty. After that, they become building materials and last another fifty as a house. So I think of each tree in terms of about a hundred years. Fifty years on the mountain and fifty years with people. That’s what I tell our workers too.”

I lingered along these lines for a bit after reading it. Thinking about the relationship between humans x nature in general. Perhaps it was because of my state of mind when I was reading it. I had wanted to get my door replaced last week, but the guy who came over to fix it told me that I should reconsider it. He convinced me to keep it instead - after he gave it a new coat of weather-proof paint or something like that - and changed the locks. It looks new, but it's essentially still old wood.

And that leads me to this bit in the later bit of the book that I like as well :

“I mean, it’s not as if you love someone once and that’s it. You renew your love again and again over the long haul, through everything that happens along the way.”

The excerpt above is rather ironic in the book though. But when taken out of context, it is appreciate-able on its own in a different way.

“The problem of whether Kido was personally embroiled in Zainichi issues was clearly no simple matter. Since he had grown up almost entirely as a “Japanese person” even before he naturalised, he was profoundly uneasy with the idea that he was either a direct victim or perpetuator of the troubles that beset Korean enclaves. ”

The main character struggles with his own identity because of something he didn't and couldn't even have chosen. He could change his life if he wanted to but in my opinion - he was afraid of change because he felt that it would be less meaningful because he was not exactly 'young' anymore (so spending that effort to change would not be that worthwhile?). Also, with regards to the bit when he was contemplating that state of his marriage - I felt like by choosing to stay in the marriage because he thinks that it'd be best for his son is both unreasonable/unfair to his son and to himself. Rie (his client whose case he's working on) on the other hand - chose herself and her own 'happiness' when it came to her marital dilemmas; and by doing that - she was able to provide herself and her son the life that they both deserve. For some reason it reminded me of the line in Junichiro Tanizaki's 'Some Prefer Nettles' : “Each worm to his taste; some prefer to eat nettles.”

The reason I only gave it 3 stars was because I didn't think it entertained me enough since I took a while to finish the book. Also, the plot/story lines were a bit tangled/disorganised (even though I think the writer had done that intentionally for an 'effect' he was trying to achieve/give to the novel) - and it distracted me more than anything. Also, I personally wanted the story to finish a little differently. Regardless, I'm keen to read more of Hirano's work because I think he's a rather interesting writer.