Me Against the World

by Kazufumi Shiraishi, Raj Mahtani (Translator)

A jaded journalist inherits an abandoned manuscript penned by an old acquaintance who has recently passed away. The writing―a collection of ruminations on the nature of existence by a fifty-three-year old businessman who, as far as the journalist remembers, was a kind and gentle soul―is nothing short of shocking. In it, this apparent everyman―whom we know only as Mr. K―writes that he has a son, daughter, and wife, but has no love for them. He claims that humans are like cancer cells, destroying Mother Earth with their unrestrained propagation. He looks at our mortal destiny with an unflinching honesty and turns to psychic mediums for clues to the afterlife, wondering what immortality―if it were possible―would mean for our spiritual well-being. Me Against the World takes the reader down the rabbit hole of the raging mind of this man, who only rejects the world in order to save it from itself.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Kazufumi SHIRAISHI (白石 一文) is a Japanese writer. He is the son of novelist Ichiro Shiraishi. The two are the only father-son pair to have both received the Naoki Prize, the father on his eighth try after numerous disappointments and the son on his second, for the 2009 Hokanaranu hito e (To an Incomparable Other); at his prize press conference the son got a laugh by joking that he had always "hated" the Naoki because of the grief it had put his father through. The younger Shiraishi's first job out of college was as an editor and magazine reporter at Bungeishunju. He published his first work, Isshun no hikari (A Ray of Light), in 2000, and three years later quit his company to become a full-time writer. In 2009 he received the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize for Kono mune ni fukabuka to tsukisasaru ya o nuke (Remove That Arrow from Deep in My Heart); other novels include Suna no ue no anata (You upon the Sands; 2010). Shiraishi's stance toward love and life powerfully informs many of his works, lending them a philosophical ring.

Source：http://www.booksfromjapan.jp/authors/...

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting version of the essay-as-novel; it's a work of fairly generic literary existentialism (Japanese style), juvenile, moderately interesting, but humorless (the key to the great works of LitEx being that they're funny: Bernhard, Kafka, even Dostoevsky). And then, in the last few pages, Shiraishi somehow leads us into something interesting and affecting and moral and touching. I have no idea how he pulls it off.

[Serdar]

A star rating for this may not be applicable. Not a novel, more like an elongated essay, one that makes a single useful point ("Love can never overthrow death, but that's why love can come close to us"). A poor man's "Notes from Underground".

[Lorenzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for every person struggling with the weight of "a hope/love-saturated" education or philosophy. The best birthday gift I bought for myself.

[Patrick Hanlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel reads much more like a non-fiction or philosophical piece about the challenges and absurdities of life and occasionally takes objectionable positions. Still it is an intriguing read with a firm, though occasionally strident, position on how to live through life’s absurdities.

[Heidi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tedious, but the last five pages surprised me. I think they made the whole book worth reading.

[Geoffrey Whitehall · Rating 5 out of 5]

WORDS without BORDERS compared this to Nietzsche and Camus in their review (http://bit.ly/2m2N0bQ), which I am sure would delight the author. Raj Mahtani, the translator has done a brilliant job translating this title, which must have been a herculean task. It was a pleasure to read, which is something I often don't feel about translated novels, even the ones which are much less philosophical and thought provoking. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much as it is really a memo or series of philosophical notes more than a work of fiction. However, many of us think about the issues written about in a similar rambling manner to Mr. K in the book, which in a sense makes it more accessible, familiar and in an odd manner comfortably reassuring.

[Jennie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nope.

Too depressing-I lost interest in the story.