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A review by willande123
The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto by Kenji Nakagami, Eve Zimmerman
5.0
The perfect example of why book covers matter. When I glanced at the cover and read the title, I thought Nakagami's writing was going to be crappy pulp fiction that I would breeze through and quickly forget. Thank God I was wrong.
Kenji Nakagami was a burakamin, born into Japan's stigmatized undercaste, and a spectacular writer. Japanese fiction is often introspective, clear, and intellectual, one of the reasons why I love reading it. But Nakagami lets nature, sex, family and other outside forces drive his narrative, a technique that I never thought I would experience when reading Japanese fiction. And it works. The raw appeal of his stories, steeped in taboo and myth, had me hooked from the opening lines of "The Cape," a magnificent novella.
"The night insects were just beginning to hum. If he listened hard he could hear them far away, like a buzzing in his ears. All night long, the insects would hum. Akiyuki imagined the smell of the cold night earth.
His sister came in with a large plate of meat."
In these three stories, Nakagami constructs an oppressive atmosphere with simple sentences. He evokes a sense of inevitability: the past is the past, and it will continue to affect the future. Fathers beat and abandon, suicide and murder dominate, and sex is power.
"Red Hair" was incredible and terrifying. I was pulled into the red-haired woman's emotions, her constant need and insatiable demand for sexual pleasure, the man's psyche, and their intertwined bodies. Nakagami creates a sticky, wet aura that lingers even after the reader finishes the story. Sitting here writing this, I still feel the pull of his words.
Give Nakagami a chance, despite the horrible cover and its "ghettoization" of his stories. His writing deserves international recognition.
(The book has a fantastic afterword written by the book's translator, Eve Zimmerman, which adds context to the stories that made the experience even more enjoyable. I can't recommend it enough.)
Kenji Nakagami was a burakamin, born into Japan's stigmatized undercaste, and a spectacular writer. Japanese fiction is often introspective, clear, and intellectual, one of the reasons why I love reading it. But Nakagami lets nature, sex, family and other outside forces drive his narrative, a technique that I never thought I would experience when reading Japanese fiction. And it works. The raw appeal of his stories, steeped in taboo and myth, had me hooked from the opening lines of "The Cape," a magnificent novella.
"The night insects were just beginning to hum. If he listened hard he could hear them far away, like a buzzing in his ears. All night long, the insects would hum. Akiyuki imagined the smell of the cold night earth.
His sister came in with a large plate of meat."
In these three stories, Nakagami constructs an oppressive atmosphere with simple sentences. He evokes a sense of inevitability: the past is the past, and it will continue to affect the future. Fathers beat and abandon, suicide and murder dominate, and sex is power.
"Red Hair" was incredible and terrifying. I was pulled into the red-haired woman's emotions, her constant need and insatiable demand for sexual pleasure, the man's psyche, and their intertwined bodies. Nakagami creates a sticky, wet aura that lingers even after the reader finishes the story. Sitting here writing this, I still feel the pull of his words.
Give Nakagami a chance, despite the horrible cover and its "ghettoization" of his stories. His writing deserves international recognition.
(The book has a fantastic afterword written by the book's translator, Eve Zimmerman, which adds context to the stories that made the experience even more enjoyable. I can't recommend it enough.)