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A review by m_h_dahl
The Kingdom by Fuminori Nakamura
4.0
I don't understand why this book has gotten so many bad reviews. Because I really enjoyed reading this book???
Likewise, I get why this book might be difficult for someone to LIKE, because it explores some really dark parts of the personality though … ‘Cause there is a lot of sadistic relations between the characters in the book.
The protagonist, Yurika, is fascinating to follow. Her original thoughts, deep and complicated, makes her likeable, but also unlikeable. She seems so detached from the world around her. She is obsessed with understanding desire and the ways it correlates with destruction.
Yurika works as a freelancer in Tokyo’s underworld. She seems like just another prostitute who targets powerful men. But in Yurika’s case, that is for a reason. Instead of having sex with them, Yurika drugs the men and takes risqué photographs in order to blackmail them. The images are turned into the men she works for, a shady organization. It’s a lot of money and she can keep her identity intact, so Yurika is satisfied with this working arrangement, and has learned to do her job quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, a figure from Yurika’s past suddently makes her job difficult, and that makes her realize that her secret agenda may not remain secret much longer. Yurika is caught in a deadly game of secrets, desire, and bad intentions where her past, her present, and her future seem to collide and fall into the hands of some of the most powerful and sadistic men from Tokyo’s criminal underworld.
In this noir crime thriller set in modern-day Tokyo, Nakamura writes about the psyche of a woman who understands pain on a personal level; it’s a fine line between the grotesque and the beauty. His writing style is sharp. Still, you can easily read this book in a single sitting.
‘The Kingdom’ is dark and perpetually seductive. The atmosphere is nerve-wrecking, thrilling - some kind of a dark, twisted «fairy tale» - with destructive, huge cracks beneath the surface. The plot explores the lives of ousiders in a dark underworld in Tokyo.
Likewise, I get why this book might be difficult for someone to LIKE, because it explores some really dark parts of the personality though … ‘Cause there is a lot of sadistic relations between the characters in the book.
The protagonist, Yurika, is fascinating to follow. Her original thoughts, deep and complicated, makes her likeable, but also unlikeable. She seems so detached from the world around her. She is obsessed with understanding desire and the ways it correlates with destruction.
Yurika works as a freelancer in Tokyo’s underworld. She seems like just another prostitute who targets powerful men. But in Yurika’s case, that is for a reason. Instead of having sex with them, Yurika drugs the men and takes risqué photographs in order to blackmail them. The images are turned into the men she works for, a shady organization. It’s a lot of money and she can keep her identity intact, so Yurika is satisfied with this working arrangement, and has learned to do her job quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, a figure from Yurika’s past suddently makes her job difficult, and that makes her realize that her secret agenda may not remain secret much longer. Yurika is caught in a deadly game of secrets, desire, and bad intentions where her past, her present, and her future seem to collide and fall into the hands of some of the most powerful and sadistic men from Tokyo’s criminal underworld.
In this noir crime thriller set in modern-day Tokyo, Nakamura writes about the psyche of a woman who understands pain on a personal level; it’s a fine line between the grotesque and the beauty. His writing style is sharp. Still, you can easily read this book in a single sitting.
‘The Kingdom’ is dark and perpetually seductive. The atmosphere is nerve-wrecking, thrilling - some kind of a dark, twisted «fairy tale» - with destructive, huge cracks beneath the surface. The plot explores the lives of ousiders in a dark underworld in Tokyo.