Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino
In one of those “I wish I had all the time in the world” fits I occasionally throw, I wish I could learn Japanese. My aptitude for languages is terrible; I’ve never tried learning anything remotely far east Asian. But I want to do it just to read Natsuo Kirino’s amazing books in their original form. Like her stellar work Out, which was one of the best things I read last year and would have been the best thing I read most other years, Natsuo Kirino […]
Out by Natsuo Kirino
I read a previous novel by Katsuo Kirino, Real World, and among other things I found that book to be a little weird and experimental in form and style. I had a more or less lukewarm feeling about it. This book is a little more straightforward as a crime thriller. The novel begins at a food production facility preparing what the novel calls (or at least translates to) a lunchbox factory–I imagine worrying that “bento” wouldn’t make sense to English language readers. Anyway, we’re at the […]
Out by Natsuo Kirino
Rarely am I able to describe books in one word but I can do so with Out: kaleidoscopic. Natsuo Kirino is a popular writer in Japan and I’ve wanted to get into her work for some time. Personally, I had wanted to start with Grotesque but I saw this at a bookstore for a reasonable price and figured What the heck? Well sometimes fate deals you quite a hand. Coincidentally, this is a major theme in Out: how the actions and behaviors of others impact people. We’ll get to […]
Last year, the estimable yesknopemaybe reviewed this book and found it arduous and almost iredeemable. But her summary of the book left me fairly curious, especially after reading The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino last year, which sounded vaguely similar. Her comparing it to Crime & Punishment didn’t hurt, considering that’s one of my favorite books. So, given what I expected based on her review, I can honestly say that I was pleasantly surprised for nine-tenths of the book. Though I did find […]
Ugh. I wish I didn’t have to write this review. I was so excited to read this book and had heard good things about it, but I just hated it. HATED it. The only reason it’s getting two stars instead of one is because the translator handled the prose magnificently. Too bad the story stunk. Out centers on four women who work the night shift making boxed lunches. Masako is the smart one, Yoshi is the kind one, Kuniko is the selfish one, and Yayoi […]
