Tokio Whip

Arturo Silva

2.86 · Rating details · 7 ratings · 2 reviews

Roberta, Lang and their friends experience the great Japanese city in all its manifestations to thei....

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Paperback, 370 pages

Published July 14th 2016 by Stone Bridge Press

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Dec 19, 2019 Ian Josh rated it liked it

There is something about the poetry of this work as a whole, and especially at spots, that makes it difficult to really dislike... however, it took me over 3 years to complete after I bought it brand new, and that’s not high praise.

I know more about Tokyo today than I did three years ago, and I think that helped the second half become more digestible. However, I don’t like pompous city dwellers any more today than I did then, and even if our author is judging his characters alongside us as we re ...more

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Dec 14, 2016 Patrick McCoy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction

I was inspired to read Arturo Silva's latest novel, Tokio Whip (2016), after reading a friend's review in The Japan Times, which asks if this is the first great Tokyo novel written by a non-Japanese. An intriguing question. On Facebook we had a discussion about other works, I thought there were some good novels but no great ones and offered up David Peace's two post-WWII crime novels Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City as my two favorites. Now that I have read Silva's book I can say that I don't t I was inspired to read Arturo Silva's latest novel, Tokio Whip (2016), after reading a friend's review in The Japan Times, which asks if this is the first great Tokyo novel written by a non-Japanese. An intriguing question. On Facebook we had a discussion about other works, I thought there were some good novels but no great ones and offered up David Peace's two post-WWII crime novels Tokyo Year Zero and Occupied City as my two favorites. Now that I have read Silva's book I can say that I don't think it is the great novel in question, but I can say it is probably the best novel about Tokyo written by a non-Japanese writer. I don't know much about Silva, save the facts in the author biography, and other than that he edited The Donald Richie Reader. But he has written a compelling love letter to Tokyo. The book is structured into two parts and 12 chapters which take their names from 24 of the 29 Yamanote line train loop stations (e.g. Chapter 1. Kanda-Tokyo). There is a love story that takes place between the main protagonists, Lang and Roberta, in Tokyo that allows for Silva's musings on the city to envelop. However, it gave him an opportunity to have them separate and live in two different areas of Tokyo(West-Kichijoji and Shitamachi-Yanaka), which allowed him to discuss the merits of both areas.It also has experimental unlabeled conversations between the two lovers and people from their circle of friends. For this reader, these two aspects were less compelling than his musings on Tokyo and the numerous "Stories and Myths of Tokyo": Kazuyoshi Miura: Murder in the Media, Sir William Rutland, Musashino Fujin, The Teigin Incident, Hazuko's Hoax, The Loves and Death of Osugi Sakae, Osen and Sokichi, Okisan, Bakin and the Eight Dogs, Hiraga Gennai and "Dutch Learning," 1657: The Fire of Long Sleeves, and 1457: Ota Dokan. I also liked how he dropped in cinematic references throughout the novel (he is said to be teaching cinema in Austria these days). He is a fan of Kenji Mizoguchi in a particular-as am I. There is a long description of one of his minor, but compelling films The Lady From Musashino. Interestingly, Silva makes no concessions for people unfamiliar with Tokyo and Japan-he uses Japanese phrase throughout and doesn't explain locations of the places he talks about. So for me, it is nostalgic and completely familiar, but for the general reader it might be somewhat mystifying. I applaud the decision to write it how he felt it. ...more

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