Piercing
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| Bloomsbury |
Ryu Murakami
1994 (Japanese)/ 2008 (English)
“That's when he hit her, when he saw how scared she was. He couldn't bear it that she was frightened and asking for help. Asking for help is wrong. Because there isn't any such thing as help in this world.”
Normally when I pick a quote to slap at the top of these here reviews, I try to (quickly) choose one that feels to me as though it presents the essence of its originating book in a positive light. Today it's a little different, as the above quote from Ryu Murakami's psychological horror novel Piercing very much annoys me, more so, in fact, the more I look at it. It's the short, stark sentences that attempt to punch through the page in a blunt, straightforward manner that purports to give the reader no-bullshit truth. It desperately wants to look both cinematic and alternative, and it sounds like something written by an author desperate for you to think he's really cool, like the next coming of Chuck Bukowski or something. Of course it's possible I might be looking a little too much in to this, but, to get to the point, to me that quote does indeed represent the essence of its origin, but this time as a collection of pretty much everything wrong with it. Yes, this is going to be a negative review of a book written by a man named Murakami, but thankfully this time it's a different one.
I first came across a book by Ryu Murakami almost ten years ago. I took out In the Miso Soup from the trusty Aberystwyth Public Library and told myself afterwards that I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind reading more of this man. I'm not sure if I trust my more adolescent self with book reviews (and thus inevitably seem to always find myself going back to those books), and my experience with Piercing suggests I'm right to be suspicious. Let me start off by saying that I didn't hate the book by any means, and actually read through it very quickly, curious to witness the ending. In a sense, my quickness in finishing Piercing can be seen as a quite relevant criticism based on what Murakami was trying to achieve. The blurb on the inside of the hardcover jacket sums up what that is quite succinctly, by describing the scenario of a main character who is trying to resist the urge to stab his newborn baby with an ice-pick. So, incredibly weird Asian horror bloodbath it is, then.
In reality though, that blurb fails to accurately describe the bulk of the book, which is about the psychopathic inner struggles of a very disturbed man named Kawashima Masayuki. As the book begins he's leading an apparently normal life as a married man and new father, but Kawashima suffered a stereotypically disturbed childhood that left him with demons he struggles to conceal from his family. In a bizarre attempt to alleviate the pain, Kawashima decided that the thing to do is to murder a prostitute, and so he books a holiday off work, tells his wife he's going on vacation, and sets his plan in motion. Once Kawashima decided upon a suitable victim, Murakami inserts her into the narrative as almost a co-lead character and starts delving into her own twisted back story. The girl, named Chiaki, is just as insane as Kawashima, and the main action of the book takes place once the two of them properly meet.
I do respect Ryu Murakami for the effort he put in to writing what is intended to be a very thoughtful, philosophical psychological horror novel, and efforts in trying to make it more than the average horror genre peace through various narrative techniques (the most prominent of which being the parallels between the two main characters), but unfortunately it didn't make the grade. The chief problem for me was that the quality of Murakami's prose is far too limited to achieve his goals. I think the movie director in him was searching for a precise atmosphere of darkness, unpredictability and self-loathing to reflect the characters, but I found almost every sentence to be far too clunky and detached to achieve that effect. It was detachment from the attempted atmosphere that enabled me to read the book quickly; since I wasn't apprehensive about what might happen to any of the characters and I didn't at all feel the need to slow down to absorb any impressive prose.
From what little I know of Ryu Murakami as an author, film maker and all-around creative force, it seems to me that he was looking for something that reflected notable alternative literature like Palahuniuk's Fight Club or East Ellis' American Psycho, a modern suburban mindfuck designed to leave a long-lasting mark in the reader's mind. Unfortunately I don't think Murakami, Oriental renaissance man that he is, is a particularly good writer, or at least no better than an average horror genre scribe. Coming up with a shocking premise with hidden depths sounds great, but when what's meant to be meaningful is lost in generic mediocrity then the shock value isn't worth much either.
I first came across a book by Ryu Murakami almost ten years ago. I took out In the Miso Soup from the trusty Aberystwyth Public Library and told myself afterwards that I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind reading more of this man. I'm not sure if I trust my more adolescent self with book reviews (and thus inevitably seem to always find myself going back to those books), and my experience with Piercing suggests I'm right to be suspicious. Let me start off by saying that I didn't hate the book by any means, and actually read through it very quickly, curious to witness the ending. In a sense, my quickness in finishing Piercing can be seen as a quite relevant criticism based on what Murakami was trying to achieve. The blurb on the inside of the hardcover jacket sums up what that is quite succinctly, by describing the scenario of a main character who is trying to resist the urge to stab his newborn baby with an ice-pick. So, incredibly weird Asian horror bloodbath it is, then.
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| Ryu Murakami |
I do respect Ryu Murakami for the effort he put in to writing what is intended to be a very thoughtful, philosophical psychological horror novel, and efforts in trying to make it more than the average horror genre peace through various narrative techniques (the most prominent of which being the parallels between the two main characters), but unfortunately it didn't make the grade. The chief problem for me was that the quality of Murakami's prose is far too limited to achieve his goals. I think the movie director in him was searching for a precise atmosphere of darkness, unpredictability and self-loathing to reflect the characters, but I found almost every sentence to be far too clunky and detached to achieve that effect. It was detachment from the attempted atmosphere that enabled me to read the book quickly; since I wasn't apprehensive about what might happen to any of the characters and I didn't at all feel the need to slow down to absorb any impressive prose.
From what little I know of Ryu Murakami as an author, film maker and all-around creative force, it seems to me that he was looking for something that reflected notable alternative literature like Palahuniuk's Fight Club or East Ellis' American Psycho, a modern suburban mindfuck designed to leave a long-lasting mark in the reader's mind. Unfortunately I don't think Murakami, Oriental renaissance man that he is, is a particularly good writer, or at least no better than an average horror genre scribe. Coming up with a shocking premise with hidden depths sounds great, but when what's meant to be meaningful is lost in generic mediocrity then the shock value isn't worth much either.
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