Butter makes everything better — even murder, mystery and feminism

To my delight, this book really is a lot about butter! As a butter-lover, this is a joy, after the tyranny of margarine. The mystery woman of the book states categorically in our first encounter of her,

But there are two things I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine (p29).

Of course the book is not all about butter, although there is a lot of discussion of food, cooking, and most of all, the sensations of eating. The plot is ostentatiously about 3 murders allegedly committed by gourmet and female fatale Manako Kajii, currently held for a 3rd year in the Tokyo Detention House awaiting retrial. Manako reputedly had a lot of rich men friends, ranging from boyfriends to lovers to fiancées, all of whom indulged her, and 3 of them have died under suspicious circumstances. Rika is a journalist and our protagonist who tries to get close enough to Manako to secure an exclusive interview. The way to do this, of course, is through a shared interest in food – the only snag – Rika is not interested in food and does not cook at all and eats primarily from convenience stores, which fits into her busy work life.

Rika however has a best friend, Reiko, who has taken a divergent path from Rika’s since university. Reiko gave up a good job, to get married and be a housewife and await motherhood. She seemed happy at the start of the book, but of course as the story continues, this perfect life illusion breaks down. Reiko is the cook and food lover, and she suggests to Rika that to stand out from the hordes of journalists, Rika should ask Manako about her recipes, not about the murders. And this works. Rika is able to strike up a relationship with Manako and to visit her often for interviews.

Manako remains enigmatic, but to allow Rika to get to know her, she sets Rika a series of food-related activities to experience and do, and Rika complies, to keep Manako engaged. The first is to eat cold premium butter with hot rice and soy sauce. Rika goes straight out to buy a rice cooker and butter and makes this simple dish in her hitherto underused kitchen.

The cold butter first met the roof of her mouth with a chilly sensation, contrasting with the steaming rice in both texture and temperature. The cool butter clashed against her teeth, and she felt its soft texture right down into their roots. Soon enough, just as Kajii had said, the melted butter began to surge through he individual grains of rice. It was a taste that could only be described as golden. A shining golden wave, with an astounding depth of flavour and a faint yet full and rounded aroma, wrapped itself around the rice and washed Rika’s body far away (p33).

The book is full of sensuous, detailed descriptions not just of food, but of the sensations caused by eating them. Manako sends Rika on all kinds of eating adventures, opening up Rika’s world to whole different landscapes. She sends Rika to places Rika would not ordinarily frequent herself. (The novel is very particular about detailing trains and stations and roads and places, literally siting them with specificity, making this quite charming because the reader is brought very immediately into a Japanese infrastructure system.) Later on, Manako requires Rika to eat a particular ramen in a particular part of town, on a very cold night, and after having sex. And Rika has to then describe to Manako, in her own words, the experience she had.

One consequence of Rika’s explorations as guided by Manako, is that Rika gains weight – which the novel flags up as very problematic – Rika herself is not at first overly worried – she was 5 foot 5 inches and 50kg at the start, but when she reaches 55kg and then 56kg, people around her react with comments and cautions, including her boyfriend Makoto, about how people may treat her differently, view her differently, unless she remains slim. (Of course, a 5 foot 5 woman of 55kg is by no means not slim!) But as Yuzuki tells it, the demands for how slim one has to be as a woman to pass muster and be regarded not just as desirable but worth respecting, is extremely stringent and unrealistic. And unhealthy. Much is made of “knowing what’s a good amount for you personally” (p87), flagging up this as the key problem: women are not allowed to self define, they are obliged to conform.

This is quite a feminist novel, railing against the demands of patriarchy. Manako of course challenges a lot of the conformist norms, and engaging with her makes Rika rethink her own assumptions. Rika realises that men want a woman who gives them comfort, service, flattery, and aren’t bothered if it is a professional indeed, a hostess and more, and do not particularly mind if the woman does not actually have emotional attachment to them. But there is the conflicting desire on the part of the women to find a soulmate, someone to talk with on one’s own level.

On the one hand you had the men seeking a professional, and on the other, women looking for a partner to share their life with (p95)

Rika also comes to new realisations, such as how men like her father who let themselves go, and take no care of their health once their wives have divorced them, are actually perpetrating a violence of a sort, to make the point to society that this is the woman’s fault, her lack of care to the man has caused all this deterioration, physical damage, state of ill-health and neglect,

The indolent lifestyle he led as a form of accusation had continued to cause her suffering (p216)

However, as Rika continues to grow in her understanding, she is able to view her father’s life choices and lack of self care not so much perhaps as a reproach to his wife and daughter, but behaviour stemming from shame. The novel is the type that is not afraid to change its footwork mid way through, which is actually quite refreshing.

Rika tries to get Manako to do an exclusive interview by persuading her this could turn public opinion in her favour, which could help in the retrial. Currently Manako is much reviled publicly.

What the public found most alarming, even more than Kajii’s lack of beauty, was the fact that she is not thin. Women appeared to find this aspect of the case profoundly disturbing, while in men it elicited an extraordinary display of hatred and vitriol. From early childhood, everyone had had it drummed into them that if a woman wasn’t slim, she wasn’t worth bothering with. The decision not to lose weight and remain plus-sized was one that demanded considerable resolve.(p23)

A lot of the novel is given over to examining how women do a lot of the things they do – especially abstinence and staying slim and self-disciplining – because of their anxiety over how society will judge them. Rika examines her own conformities with honesty and painful realisations. The novel also about the courage to build relationships which are again, honest, and thereby not wall oneself off, as apparently is so common in Rika’s society.

When it came to appearance, the world’s standards were so harsh that, unless you built thick walls like she had done, unless you continued to affirm yourself with a great tenacity of spirit, it became difficult to lead your life with a sense of pride (p406).

The ending is the least satisfying part of the novel – which his over 450 pages long – it perhaps could have ended a hundred pages less or so. That said, I so enjoyed being immersed in this world, that I was sorry to finish the novel, even after its slightly unsatisfying ending. Unsatisfying only because a touch too neat, and a touch too happy-ever-after. This is not Azuko’s first novel, but it is her first to be translated into English. I hope they will translate more of her work – she is lots of fun to read.

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