Audition (1997) – 4 stars
I think I talked about this in a past review, but I was a huge movie buff in college. My girlfriend at the time and I particularly loved Japanese horror, and this was the height of that particular genre, with Ringu, Ju-on, and a slew of other movies. One of the better films of the era was a quiet little movie called Audition. I loved it so much, I bought the book and first read it close to twenty years ago.
Aoyama is the middle-aged single father of a teenage boy. His friend encourages him to set up an audition for a fake television show in order to meet a woman. Aoyama hasn’t dated since his wife died seven years prior, and his friend thinks this a clever way of ending his dry spell. The book was published in 1997 – so, well before online dating was common. One of the women who auditions for the fake role is named Yamasaki Asami, and Aoyama falls for her immediately. They meet a few times, and their relationship grows slowly – but Aoyama’s friend doesn’t have a good feeling about the woman. Her CV can’t really be verified, and there seems to be more to her than she initially lets on. Moreover, Aoyama begins noticing a few odd things surrounding her. For instance, on one of their dates, a young man in a wheel chair notices Asami and a look of terror crosses his face.
I’m not going to give away the story, but I will say that this isn’t a romance. It’s a horror novel – and the horror stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of the book. Aoyama is kind of a pathetic middle aged man, and his love interest – Asami – is a fairly thin character. This isn’t really meant to be a character study. But it is affecting. I mean, I first read this book almost two decades ago and still think about it.
The movie, it’s worth noting, is a phenomenal adaptation. It takes the spirit of the novel and translates it perfectly. If anything, it might be more impactful than the book.
Piercing (1994) – 4 stars
The novel begins with a man named Kawashima standing over his sleeping infant. He’s shining a penlight down on his daughter’s face, and he has an icepick in his hand. He’s fantasizing about stabbing her with it.
Kawashima had an abusive childhood. This abuse left him…damaged. He doesn’t appear to be a homicidal maniac – or at least that doesn’t appear to be Murakami’s intention with the character. He’s just a severely damaged person. As a young man, he was in a relationship with an older woman who was also incredibly abusive towards him. He came home once and tried giving her a hug, but she pushed him off of her. He tried again, and she again rejected him. The next thing he knew, he stabbed her in the stomach with an ice pick. She lived, and he didn’t suffer any legal consequences, but it’s an incident that has stuck with him. Now in a healthy relationship with a woman named Yoko, he has an irresistible intrusive thought that leads to him being afraid that he’s going to stab his daughter with an ice pick.
His answer to this? Take out his urge on a prostitute.
Unsurprisingly, the sex worker he finds is also a severely damaged person – a woman who’s lived through her own horrible abuse. Together, they….misunderstand and hurt one another.
I wasn’t shocked by this story. I’d already read Audition, after all, but Murakami doesn’t waste any time here. He lets you know immediately what kind of story this is going to be: gruesome and uncomfortable.
I think it’s probably necessary to add some trigger warnings to this book, because it spends a lot of time focusing on self-harm and child sex abuse.
This wasn’t an enjoyable read….but it was an interesting one. I don’t think it ever treated the material lightly, necessarily, but these are seriously damaged people. Bringing them together doesn’t benefit anyone. And you aren’t going to walk away feeling good about the book. Still, I got something out of it – I’m just not really sure what.