Book Review: In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami, Ralph McCarthy (Translator)

 

 

 

 In the Miso Soup by Ryū Murakami, Ralph McCarthy (Translator)

217 pages, Paperback

First published January, 1997

Last year in our best reads of the year podcast Marc said to me I should read this book and in April he gave it to me and still it took me until  December to read it. The combined pressure of library books and stuff for the podcast kept pushing this back. On paper I should dig, Tokyo Vice was one of my favorite shows, I like international-based crime novels, and the idea of a Japanese 8MM is a pitch that works. I have seen comparisons to American Psycho. Not for me.

Kenji is our point who is tour guide for perverts that come from other countries. You see American perverts do this. Most of them are not savvy enough to get around a foreign country. I am sure they are party to some awful shit. Kenji has a bad feeling about the homely-looking Frank who is visiting from America. As he takes him around to the various clubs and places it becomes apparent Frank is a scary dude.

I don’t know much about the author Ryu Murakami but it sounds like he is like a combo of Conan O Brian, and David Lynch. For a guy who is a popular celebrity this a violent, violent book. I suspect some of the noir vibe of the Tokyo streets is lost in translation. I have read about some horrible places so honestly until the serial killing started I thought this seemed tame.

Having watched Catch a Predator, and seen documentaries about sex tourism I found this first bit of this novel to be not very shocking.   What I did like was a few moments of off-hand observations that seemed to express Kenji’s way of seeing the world.

Some were dark…

“You don't know what cold is until you've experienced the cold you feel when the blood is draining out of your body.”

That one gave me a little shudder, but I tended to find those moments less interesting than the moments of commentary. Like this one that stopped my reading flow.

“All Americans have something lonely about them. I don't know what the reason might be, except maybe that they're all descended from immigrants.”   

So he was hanging out with an American serial killer but he is commenting on all of us. He is making a sly comment on how we don’t have the national identity they do. I don’t think that is the reason, but it was interesting that he thought so. (also all Americans?)

Anyone who reads my reviews knows I look for mission statements. A part of the novel that I think expresses what it is all about. In The Miso Soup, I feel the author is exploring how his country becomes a vacation spot for people like Frank. At the same time, he is clear. Don’t blame the art. Perhaps my favorite passage makes this point.
 
“People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.”

In The Miso Soup is a good horror novel, and the setting is fascinating. It should appeal to horror and noir readers but it didn’t knock my socks off. I thought it was a good read but I was hoping for a great read. Now I want to see this dude’s movie and talk show.