~ Grotesque, by Natsuo Kirino ~
This is only Kirino’s second book to be translated into English – her first was Out, also a superb piece of writing – although she is well known in Japan as a crime writer. Her crime fiction is not so much about suspense and Whodunnit, but about psychological delving.
Grotesque’s protagonist is unnamed throughout – but her position connects many of the other central characters. Chief of these connections is the progatonist’s beautiful sister, Yuriko. Daughter of a Japanese mother and Swiss father, her extraordinary beauty sets her apart and renders her a monster by the end. In fact, this book is populated by monsters – Kirino’s word. The protagonist who worked very hard and qualifies into elite Q High School for Young Women, meets another hard working student, Kazue Sato, who also works hard, but unlike the protagonist, Kazue assumes all obstacles can be overcome with hard work and effort – and ends up another monster in her attempts. The ‘grotesqueing’ of characters, the warping of personalities and mutation into monsters, is the chief study of this novel.
The story is told from many voices – through Yuriko and Kazue’s journals of their different journeys into the worlds of prostitution, through the court testimony of Zhang, the Chinese migrant to Japan who is accused of killing the two girls, though slightly more minor characters like Prof Kijima (father of Yuriko’s first pimp) and Mitsuru, another star student in Q. The stories dove tail beautifully of course, giving the reader fragments of the same shattered, glittering reality.
Yuriko’s older sister hates everybody, and works on polishing her malice.
My talent was the uncompromising ability to feel spite. And whereas my talent exceeded those of others, it was a talent that impressed no one but myself. I fawned over my talent. I polished it diligently every day.
p47
She hates her parents, she resents her grandfather for falling in love, she despises all her school mates, and most of all, she obsessively despises her sister, Yuriko, for rendering her in the shadows, always.
Hate is another key theme in this novel. Yuriko also ends up hating herself and looking forward to being killed. Kazue, the most lacking in self-awareness, hates everyone and takes it out on herself. There are many other even more minor characters – clients of prostitutes, colleagues in workplaces, etc, who all somehow range from shabby to perverted, from narcissistic to menacing. It is a world of filth (in many different senses) and the dark side of human nature. It is just amazing how such a grim, negativity-filled novel, can be such a wonderful reading, fascinating and not at all depressing. It is such a wonderful capturing of weird characters that their fascination outweighs their repulsiveness. Kirino’s writing is probably not to everyone’s palate, but she deserves her reputation as a prize winning author.
Sounds so intriguing! How did you come across this book?
I have read her other books translated into English for years, and I always loved her – always about showing the dark underbelly of Japanese lives, including the criminal often through ordinary women’s lives, so sometimes regarded as feminist noir – but overall, detective crime fiction. If you come across one of her books called ‘Out’, it may be worth browsing!