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A review by deathfulwitch
La Ballade de l'impossible by Haruki Murakami
Did not finish book. Stopped at 46%.
i really wanted to stick it out in the hopes that the book would take a turn and start dissecting and criticizing its own characters; their composition, their actions/motives, and their environment, but that moment never came and i lost hope so here we are. i get that some people will read this book and argue that it simply writes what is, and that it depicts people exactly as they are in life (and death). i don’t agree. if the goal here was to show authentic people and their struggles, we should not be seeing it through the lens of a misogynistic, self-serving and chauvinistic man, who so badly wants us to believe that he’s a nice guy. spoiler alert: he really isn’t.
i honestly didn’t mind the non existent plot as much as i minded the objectification of women and the endless sexualization of women’s trauma. added to that, the perversity of the sexual scenes in this book (and there are a LOT of those), where women and their adult bodies are compared to children, was alarmingly disturbing to me, as it should be for everyone. oh and, nothing in the book told us that naoko’s first time was consensual so mc is an offender. such a nice guy.
also, the perpetuation of harmful narratives e.g. that women are no longer beautiful when they turn 30 (because everyone knows that’s when their transformation into gollum is finalized), that “it is only natural” for a woman to satisfy a man even if she doesn’t really want to be intimate with him, etc. made my reading experience even more unbearable, to say the least.
in conclusion, the message in this book is terrible, i do not understand how it became so popular, and tonight i will be putting myself in rice so i can heal from it.
p.s: the only good point i can think about is that the writing was beautiful.
i honestly didn’t mind the non existent plot as much as i minded the objectification of women and the endless sexualization of women’s trauma. added to that, the perversity of the sexual scenes in this book (and there are a LOT of those), where women and their adult bodies are compared to children, was alarmingly disturbing to me, as it should be for everyone. oh and, nothing in the book told us that naoko’s first time was consensual so mc is an offender. such a nice guy.
also, the perpetuation of harmful narratives e.g. that women are no longer beautiful when they turn 30 (because everyone knows that’s when their transformation into gollum is finalized), that “it is only natural” for a woman to satisfy a man even if she doesn’t really want to be intimate with him, etc. made my reading experience even more unbearable, to say the least.
in conclusion, the message in this book is terrible, i do not understand how it became so popular, and tonight i will be putting myself in rice so i can heal from it.
p.s: the only good point i can think about is that the writing was beautiful.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual assault and Misogyny