English language
Published Nov. 30, 2006 by Penguin Books.
I had a really good time with this one. I haven't read many novels translated from Japanese yet and I felt like I got the tone and feeling of Ryu Murakami's original words. I felt like Frank was appropriately spooky and I held my breath through his interactions with Kenji.
The story had me. I was enthralled. The city, bars, sex workers. The paranoid quality was high, was proper. Then, the Frank incident happened, a rather obvious and predictable turn of events that I was hoping would not occur, and just like that, the whole atmosphere poofed away like a fart on a breezy day. This book could have been a great commentary on society, on how disfigured and disabled people are treated with suspicion and seen as repugnant. Maybe, Murakami could have explored the themes of Japanese xenophobia a little more. Hell, it simply could have stayed in that "nightlife with a heightened sense of paranoia" space that I really enjoyed with Kenji's and Frank's relationship developing further. I mean, come the fuck on, anything but the last 70 pages...
There is something about Frank that is mesmerising, when he starts talking you instantly get drawn into what he is saying, it is an odd feeling that a character in a book can have that much power over you. Right from the start you can see something ain't quite right with Frank and the way the story unfolds is done in such a way that when his life story is revealed it becomes quite shocking.
Being based around the sex industry in Japan I was expecting loads of sex and kinkiness, turns out my mind is truly in the gutter as it all seemed quite tame to me... the violence though was cold and brutal and at times reminded me of American Psycho.
Looking forward to reading more by this author.
