In the Miso Soup

published	March 28th 2006 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
binding	Paperback
isbn	014303569X (isbn13: 9780143035695)
ebook
pages	224
description	From postmodern Renaissance man Ryu Murakami, master of the psychothriller and director of Tokyo Decadence, comes this hair-raising roller-co...more [close] From postmodern Renaissance man Ryu Murakami, master of the psychothriller and director of Tokyo Decadence, comes this hair-raising roller-coaster ride through the nefarious neon-lit world of Tokyo's sex industry. In the Miso Soup tells of Frank, an overweight American tourist who has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's sleazy nightlife. But Frank's behavior is so strange that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion—that his new client is in fact the serial killer currently terrorizing the city. It is not until later, however, that Kenji learns exactly how much he has to fear and how irrevocably his encounter with this great white whale of an American will change his life. [close]
date added	12-22-06 edit book

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anne rated it:

02/14/08

Read in January, 2006

In the wasteland of Tokyo’s red light district, Kenji is a passive young Japanese man employed as an erotic tour guide. Frank is an ugly and boisterous American tourist intent on going off the beaten path, so to speak. He’s radiating some disturbing signals, and within a very short time Kenji comes to believe his newest client is not only a compulsive liar but possibly a serial killer.

These two heavily symbolic central characters obviously embody some sort of post-war cultural conflict, ...more In the wasteland of Tokyo’s red light district, Kenji is a passive young Japanese man employed as an erotic tour guide. Frank is an ugly and boisterous American tourist intent on going off the beaten path, so to speak. He’s radiating some disturbing signals, and within a very short time Kenji comes to believe his newest client is not only a compulsive liar but possibly a serial killer.

These two heavily symbolic central characters obviously embody some sort of post-war cultural conflict, and as they tour Japan’s erotic underground on the approach of New Year’s Eve, the author crafts an implicit message of bleakness and moral ambiguity. Tension builds with creepy and visceral details, such as the small bit of skin Kenji discovers stuck to his front door or Frank's ability to terrify and apparently hypnotize strangers. Kenji recognizes the danger and fears for his own life and his girlfriend June’s, but having no real evidence he walks right into a bloodbath.

His ambivalence is infuriating, but credible I suppose. As a sex guide you’re bound to encounter the dregs of humanity and Kenji wouldn’t keep his job long if he made judgments. Functioning as a walking metaphor, the passive young man is incapable of action because he’s complicit. Not only does he see Tokyo going to shit, but he holds the door open wide.

As Frank slaughters a room full of bystanders with a knife in the most outlandish and repulsive scene since the perpetually overrated American Psycho, the guide watches mutely. He is allowed to walk free afterwards, but is in complete thrall and unable to extricate himself from Frank’s mind games, which probably saves his life in the end.

Kenji is allowed to return to his girlfriend after a lengthy sequence in which Frank reveals how he sank to such inhuman levels. Both sinister and affable throughout, he seeks redemption through Kenji. This was a bit of a stretch, but okay, it's got to end somehow. Together they celebrate the beginning of the New Year in which we are supposed to believe that Frank feels reborn. The conclusion is satisfying in that Silence of the Lambs kind of way, when the serial killer really does leave the protagonist to go on to bigger and better things and the reader has closure and can go to sleep with the lights off.

Translated to English in 2003, Murakami’s writing here is concise and intense, although uneven. The plot loses steam in the jumble of Frank’s psychoanalysis. Otherwise, the majority of the novel is decidedly cinematic, and leaps off the page. The sadistic gore is particularly disturbing, but it works. Whereas I despised Bret Easton Ellis’ similar use of gratuitous violence, I found a pulse underneath all this necrotic tissue. It may even be humorous to some readers, in the way that some (not me) find The Shining funny. Maybe it’s the careful balance of all things Japanese and American –even if they are the ugliest things– that makes this short, quick read work.
I’d even read it again to try and get deeper into the symbolism I know is there, but frankly, it was just too gross.
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In the Miso Soup

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