I feel dirty

About a year ago, I went on Stevereads and said a few kind words about Out by Natsuo Kirino. Kirino is a popular, so the dust jacket claims, Japanese mystery author. Out was her first book translated into English and, to be frank, it was a rush. Four female factory workers band together to dismember and dispose of the remains of their friend's husband before anyone catches on to the murder. It was gritty realism at its best, full of physical and psychological details and it really got under my skin.

The latest book to be translated is Grotesque, brand new in paperback. I'm still trying to digest this novel but like the veal scallopini they served us in college, it just won't stay down. I feel as if I've been dragged through every cesspool and love hotel in Tokyo and am none the wiser for it. So break out the penicillin and join me on a run through the plot and characters.

I can't remember the first narrator's name and I'm not sure we were ever given it, so let's just call her Sis. Sis is the older of two biracial siblings. Her younger sister Yuriko is a perfect blend of genes and is the most beautiful creature that any human being ever laid eyes on. Sis is described as unattractive and is therefore wildly jealous of Yuriko. She becomes warped by this jealousy. When her dad takes the family back to Switzerland, Sis stays behind and wins a place in the Q School of Girls. She does this mainly to get away from her sister, whom she describes as a monster. At Q school, she meets the other main characters of the novel, Kazue and Mitsuru. Kazue is the classic dork. She tries too hard. She does the wrong thing in any social situation. All the other girls make fun of her, but she doesn't have the self-understanding to see it. She wants to be the smartest girl in the class but just isn't smart enough. Mitsuru is her opposite, smart and well accepted.

Everything starts to unravel when Yuriko returns from Europe and joins Q School. Yuriko is dumb as toast but gets in because her beauty charms the professor in charge. She immediately causes trouble for everybody, not maliciously but because of her perfection. For example, whereas Sis was previously ignored, she is now the center of attention because no one can believe that the two girls are related, Beauty and the Beast. Kazue falls into the web formed by Sis's hatred and ends up ruined. I'm not sure how Mitsuru ties in, but I do know it's all the fault of Sis and Yuriko.

Years go by and the girls are grown. Yuriko, clearly understanding her worth, has become a prostitute. She states in her journal that she hates men but loves sex. She loves the power her beauty has over them, but claims that it only lasts until she gives in, then she must find another man. Kazue has a Corporate job but is not satisfied. She wants to be loved for her body and since that is unlikely, goes into prostitution as a second job. Both women end up murdered by one of their johns. Sis becomes the center of attention again, and again it's because of Yuriko (with the added kick of having been schoolmates with Kazue.)

The problem with this book is twofold. First off, the women are brutally unpleasant. Except for Mitsuru (who becomes part of a group of religious nuts who gas a bunch of innocent people - which only lets you know how bad the rest of them must be), they are totally unlikable. They are all monsters, which I think is Kirino's point. Yuriko is completely heartless. It's as if her skin shelters a completely empty psyche. She is only there for sex, and that is totally cold no matter what Brian thinks. We eventually get to read Kazue's diary, which reveals her to be a total nutjob. She continually brags about her beauty while at the same time reporting how everyone refers to her as ugly or a bag of bones. I can't really pin down what makes Sis so terrible, she just is. Maybe it's that there is nothing redeeming about her with which to contrast the evil.

The second problem that I have with Grotesque is the way it is narrated. The story was told in a string of first person narratives. We start with Sis talking to someone, representing us. There are too many instances of things like "You ask me what I thought of...?" No, actually, I didn't. Yuriko and Kazue both tell their stories in diary form. Now I'm not saying that a prostitute wouldn't keep a diary but I'm sure she wouldn't be focusing on how long someones hair was or what color shoes the john had. It was not believable. There was also a confession by Zhang who admits to killing Yuriko but not Kazue although he did "do" her on several occasions. He is as unreliable as Kazue, but where she is self deluded, I think he might be lying. There are some letters addressed to Mitsuru but I can't figure out what they may be about other than to refute some of the things that Sis and Kazue have said.I think Kirino would have been better off with an omniscient 3rd person narrator. Maybe not. That might have created even more problems. I'm a reader, after all, not a writer.

All that having been said, I can't really recommend this book to anyone unless I want them to feel as dirty as I do. But you can bet I'll read the next book Kirino puts out in the US and I suggest you all keep your eyes open for it (and go read Out!) Any writer that can get me to finish their book when I didn't like it and wasn't forced to read it, has got something special about them.