Grotesque

4.5 Stars. I really enjoyed this book, but I can relate to some of the characters, whereas not everyone may be able to. It's still a great read though, a comment on the importance of being one of 'the beautiful ones' or 'the privileged ones' in our society, and even then, sometimes the grass isn't so much greener on their side. Life's funny, they say 'it is what you make it', but you can never actually control all that you want to. I'm really starting to enjoy these Japanese authors, I previously read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and enjoyed that immensely, and have started A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe. They, at least these three, seem to struggle with the ways of society and the world, as I often do, and write beautifully about it. I really enjoyed the changing narrators in Grotesque, also, as it allowed you to see what the different characters thought about themselves, and how they saw themselves, and how others saw them. Very interesting contradictions. I really enjoyed this book.

This was not the book I was expecting..Natsuo Kirino, known for her crime fiction in Japan, has turned the genre inside out in this one, only the second of her 19 novels to be translated into English. There is a crime, to be sure: two prostitutes are slain, years apart, which we learn within the first ten pages. But there is little detective work here, as the murderer quickly confesses, and actually very little discussion of the crimes themselves. Instead of the typical whodunit or police procedural, GROTESQUE takes the form of a psychological study of the main characters in a stark and chilling style: there’s popular Yuriko, a girl so beautiful her sister hates her and calls her a monster; unpopular, awkward Kazue Sato, intelligent, driven, not-so-beautiful classmate of Yuriko at the Q High School for Young Women -- she’s everything Yuriko is not.Zhang, the Chinese immigrant, user of women and confessed murderer; and, the nameless narrator, older sister of Yuriko, who seems to hate everyone, with special venom, her beautiful sister. Through the first-person narration of Yuriko’s sister, and various letters, Kazue’s journals, Yuriko’s diary, and court transcriptions of Zhang’s trial, we hear from the primary actors, and we are led to sort out their truthfulness. This is a novel in which everyone lies.The novel delves into some of the darkest, most disturbing areas of the human psyche. Author Kirino is brilliant at exposing the innermost workings of her characters, the desires, the lies, the jealousies, the self deceptions. There are no winners here. These are damaged, ravaged souls. As I read, I saw the characters, oblivious themselves to the dangers they were facing, falling deeper and deeper into moral depravity. Kazue, despite her education and excellent job, seeks a different form of acceptance as a prostitute by night, leading ultimately to her murder. Yuriko, the girl, then woman, who had it all, finds attention from men to be her only source of comfort and worth.I haven’t given anything away in this review -- there are few secrets withheld in GROTESQUE. Everything is out in the open, raw, uncensored. Which brings me back to the unexpected nature of this book. I anticipated a more conventional crime story, or I should say, conventional for Kirino, for her crime fiction is a unique category all its own, brutal, honest, starkly told. GROTESQUE is a difficult book to rate: I admire its boldness, and its cast of deeply drawn characters. I guess after 500+ pages I wanted it to take me somewhere. It left me sort of cold and stunned. There is no linear plotting to speak of, certainly no happy ending.This is a bleak, lurid, stark and disturbing look at modern Japanese hierarchical culture, especially its treatment of women.

This book was sublime.Every character speaks for themselves which leaves the reader to sift through the lies and the bias so you can make your on conclusion on whom is being honest and whom is merely trying to make themselves look greater than they are.Great social commentary for how toxic Japanese culture is to the women whom live there.

A long book, written in several autobiographical sections narrating the action from contradictory points of view. It's an innovative and engaging structure.For me, this novel had three distinct parts.(1) commentary on Japanese treatment of women as students and professionals, with a focus on treatment of outcasts - articulate and plausible, very well-done,(2) the story of a set of girls growing into woman and finding their profession - somewhat less plausible, as many of the characters are more extreme in one way or another than most people I know, but still engaging and full of surprises, and(3) the decline and demise of two characters who lost their way - grotesque, implausible, and infused with a hopeless, violent, and self-destructive philosophy, which had no redeeming appeal to me.I can't recommend this book due to the bizarre musings and surreal, degrading situations in its last 50 or so pages. I wonder just how beyond-the-pale was the section that other reviews here mention as being excised in translation must have been.

Kirino capta la dureza y poesía de nuestra realidad. Tanto, que podía sentir la bilis en mi paladar. Duro, muy duro.

Very compelling and fascinating, a rare insight into women and into the very competitive nature of Japanese society. I highly recommend it!

英語で読みましたが、面白かった！　”I”と一人称で語る人の話を、普通の正常な人の話だと信じて読んでゆくうちに「おや？」と思うところが出てくるのです。そして次第に…！安心していた相手が思いがけないものに変身していくコワさを味わいました。　女性作家の特徴のようなものを感じました。女ごころは怖い！友人にすすめ、"Out"も買おうと思っています。

If ever there was a book about the truth of prostitution in it's true and gritty reality this must be it. Forget about 'Pretty woman and Belle de Jour' with their glamourised and glossy images this is much more likely to be the real, and very mentally disturbing thing.2 women become prostitutes for their own sad reasons of maybe wanting to be wanted, and end up dead - killed by their clients. The sister of one of the victims, the poor plain, bitter, overlooked one who is still a virgin at 40 years compiles the musings of the various people connected to the crime. The 2 mursered women, the suspect - a Chinese immigrant, herself, giving the background of the lives of the murdered women and a kindly teacher from the snobbish classist elite school they all attended. It all evokes a complicated background made so much worse by the hellish elitism of the 'Q' school with it's snobbish class ridden structure, maybe the school is a microcosm of the whole of Japanese society, I dont know. I wonder myself why not one single person in the whole book has a normal relationship of any sort with anyone, whether a parent, lover, sister or friend. Is this Japanese or just for the benefit of the reader I thought?Poor sad Kazu - one of the murder victims, seems to have got off worst despite her lifetime of hard study and work, her determination to always try her best,but she is rarely recognised for any achievement. Her looks, which are truthfully more important than anyone will admit, did let her down it seems, but she becomes the most deluded person in Tokyo seeing herself as desirable despite ridicule from one and all. From her pathetic Ralph Lauren self styled socks with their home sewn on logos, her Elizabeth eyes - apparantly a gimmick to make eyes look western, her anorexic body and bizarre make up she degrades herself totally in a pathetic effort to be someone attractive and wanted by almost anybody.The final part of the book becomes disturbing and quite horrific as we join Kazu in the dirty,perverse and disgusting world of the street walker doing just about anything to earn a few yen. The disrespect she endures whilst probably suffering from mental illness as well as severe anorexia makes would make this quite heart rending if it were not that Kazu is depicted as quite an unpleasant person throughout the book. Still people cannot help being what they are and Kazu seems to be the result of an ultra competitive home and school, making her really very deluded.I was disappointed at the very end but I wont spoil the story.I love Natsuo Kirino's style - I sincerely hope that she is a feminist as the book casts aspertions at a society that values youth and beauty like so many here in the west too, then casts women aside at a surprisingly early age.This is a fascinating and modern book which opens new doors to a very different culture, one we may not wish to dig too deep into less we find it endlessly disturbing.

I love Natsuo Kirono's work. Her writing have a raw anger and she portrays the plight of Japanese women in a way that is raw and rare. For those of you who have come here after Out, do not expect an edge of the seat thriller. This is more of a novel on the expectations of women in Japanese society with some very incisive comments on 'beauty' and how we view the beautiful through rose-tinted lenses which can be and are flawed. There are many issues discussed here and if you are not a fan of dystopic novels and you don't want to read about such issues in such great depth don''t buy this book. I personally liked the issues discussed but I felt the book was 50 pages too long, the points the author was making were becoming laboured and repetitive. Still Grotesque is worth a read to discover facets of Japanese society that you won't discover elsewhere, at least not in English