Parade

by Shūichi Yoshida

Genres: Japanese Literature

Paperback

Published July 1, 2014

About the author

Shūichi Yoshida (吉田 修一) was born in Nagasaki, and studied Business Administration at Hosei University. He won the Bungakukai Prize for New Writers in 1997 for his story "Saigo no Musuko", and the Akutagawa Prize in 2002 (the fifth time he'd been nominated for the prize) for "Park Life". In 2002 he also won the Yamamoto Prize for Parade, and for winning both literary and popular prizes Yoshida was seen as a crossover writer, like Amy Yamada or Masahiko Shimada. In 2003 he wrote lyrics for the song "Great Escape" on Tomoyasu Hotei's album Doberman. His 2007 novel Villain won the Osaragi Jiro Prize and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, and was recently adapted into an award-winning 2010 film by Lee Sang-il.

Reviews

[Iris · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a small apartment in Tokyo live four young people in their twenties: Ryosuke, a student whose favourite pastime is to wash his car. Kotomi, who faithfully waits in front of the telephone for her lover to call. Mirai, manager of an import company who spends her nights getting drunk in gay bars. Naoki, who works for a film distributor and goes running for stress release. Although they live together in rather cramped conditions with boys and girls sharing one bedroom respectively, each of them more or less remains to themselves.

Then Satoru is brought home by Mirai, and the 18-year-old who “works in the night” stays on the couch in the living room. His sudden appearance promptly upsets the fragile balance of the roommates, and cracks begin to show…

The book is written in five parts – one from the viewpoint of each protagonist. Although the story stays chronological, this change of viewpoint makes it feel a bit fragmented. Also, the fact that the four roommates are “good at playing friends” without actually being so – as Satoru observes – did not make me care for the characters or draw me into the story. And the end – a shocking revelation about one of the five, which was shrugged away and covered up by the others – left me very dissatisfied. This can’t be how young people live these days?

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yoshida’s second novel, originally published in Japanese in 2002 and in English in 2024, this is a slice-of-life novel about four twenty-something people sharing an apartment in Tokyo whose lives intersect with a teenage male prostitute. The characters in the order of their narration are:

- Ryosuke - a cowardly college student who stalks his friend's girlfriend
- Koto - beautiful love-addicted girl who is the girlfriend of a male TV heartthrob
- Mirai - an alcoholic freelance illustrator who socializes with gay guys
- Satoru - a clear-eyed teenage male prostitute who likes to break into people's homes
- Naoki - a health-obsessed jogger who works for a film distributor

Lurking behind the scenes is an unknown assailant who has brutally assaulted several woman in the vicinity. The book has five sections, each narrated in the first person by one of the five main characters. It’s a short novel (230 pages), so I read it in a day.

I enjoyed Yoshida’s spare prose (and pleasantly readable translation by Philip Gabriel), and the way the sections overlap like linked stories, but the novel lacks tension, aside from the violent climax. It’s a chilly glimpse of alienated youth living empty, unsatisfying lives in Tokyo in the Aughts. These characters are selfish, unemotional, and incapable of forming meaningful relationships; they have lost their humanity. Not a pretty picture of modern Tokyo.