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A review by bruinuclafan
In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami
4.0
Kenji is a Japanese tour guide in Tokyo. Gaijin (foreigners) hire him to act as a tour guide in Tokyo's redlight district, mainly Kabuki-Cho, to gain access to Tokyo's various sex clubs. One such client is Frank, who hires Kenji at the beginning of the book. Frank turns out to be odd, weird, creepy, and then Kenji comes to suspect that he might be a murderer.
What follows is a tension-filled exploration of Kabuki-Cho/Shinjuku where Kenji struggles with what to do and how to act. The book also takes a darker and darker path.
But while the topics are highly disturbing, Murakami is brilliant in using this setting to explore highly interesting themes. He is highly critical of Japan, the apathy, and maybe above all loneliness it breeds. He rags on Japanese girls who wear designer goods not because they have any taste but because of their total absence of taste, meaning the brands are the only proxy they have for it at all. He also has both critical and insightful commentary about Americans--suggesting in one analysis that Americans have it the toughest because they can't just grit-and-bear it, they have to actually accept it.
It's hard to get into more detail without spoiling the book, but there is in general a lot of interesting commentary about society and the self. interesting using a thriller as the medium for communicating his ideas. I would recommend the book but with extreme caution. You should know what youa re signing up for before you read it.
What follows is a tension-filled exploration of Kabuki-Cho/Shinjuku where Kenji struggles with what to do and how to act. The book also takes a darker and darker path.
But while the topics are highly disturbing, Murakami is brilliant in using this setting to explore highly interesting themes. He is highly critical of Japan, the apathy, and maybe above all loneliness it breeds. He rags on Japanese girls who wear designer goods not because they have any taste but because of their total absence of taste, meaning the brands are the only proxy they have for it at all. He also has both critical and insightful commentary about Americans--suggesting in one analysis that Americans have it the toughest because they can't just grit-and-bear it, they have to actually accept it.
It's hard to get into more detail without spoiling the book, but there is in general a lot of interesting commentary about society and the self. interesting using a thriller as the medium for communicating his ideas. I would recommend the book but with extreme caution. You should know what youa re signing up for before you read it.