Reviews

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

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mlklein1's review

2.0

Never had I started a book with such excitement - I DEVOURED her US debut, "Out," when it appeared and was literally counting the days until the release of "Grotesque."

But it was kind of a let down. The story is about the class system in Japan and power struggles between women and men, ahves and have nots - so much of the central themes were kind of lost on me.

It took some time for the characters to descend into madness, prostitution, and murder, and frankly, by the time they did, I had such distaste for all of them that it was hard to care.

Interesting given that "Out" is about women murderng and chopping up men, an those same class struggles between husbands and wives, salary men and housewives, yet it held me RIVETED from the first page.

I don't know who translated "Out" but I see this one was translated by a woman who has an advanced degree in Japanese women's fiction. Perhaps some of the let down was in the translation? "Out" read like a hard-boiled detective/adventure story with a pretty dispicable protaganist who you loved. This one, told through the eyes, diaries, and depositions of multiple disgusted and delusional characters read like a treatise on social ills in modern Japan.

I'll give Kirino another chance because I loved "Out" that much, but I will be wary of this translator.

mina's review

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I’m disappointed because after reading some reviews, I realized that the English translation butchered the original pretty badly and it even changed the ending?

Other than that, this novel is HEAVY – incest, pedophilia, underage prostitution, murder, suicide, eating disorders, etc… so fair warning to anyone interested in picking it up. I usually don’t gravitate to this kind of content, but the first half was captivating enough that I wanted to keep reading. The second half dragged on for so long and became so convoluted with a new cast of (irrelevant) characters and unnecessary plot points that the impact of the book’s message lost its punch by the end.

Grotesque does do a good job in pointing out misogyny in Japanese society and how the beauty ideal plagues women – regardless of whether the woman is “ugly” or “beautiful.” But overall, I couldn’t get passed the gratuitous trauma-porn, the unlikeable characters, or the translation flaws.

Not a bad book, but definitely not the kind of novel I like to spend hours processing.