Almost Transparent Blue in Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Jun 17, 2009 Chloe rated it really liked it

Shelves: not-owned, joyous_nihilism, fiction, 1001-list, japan

Those who know me are well aware that I have an almost visceral love of twisted literature. Books that are the literary equivalent of a car crash; hedonistic revels that fade into subterranean nightmares. In other words, such extreme excess that you can't help but approach them with a mixture of sick curiosity and nearly overwhelming trepidation. For the longest time that has meant the blasted imaginations of my trifecta of favorite authors (Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh and Bret Easton Ellis) and occ Those who know me are well aware that I have an almost visceral love of twisted literature. Books that are the literary equivalent of a car crash; hedonistic revels that fade into subterranean nightmares. In other words, such extreme excess that you can't help but approach them with a mixture of sick curiosity and nearly overwhelming trepidation. For the longest time that has meant the blasted imaginations of my trifecta of favorite authors (Palahniuk, Irvine Welsh and Bret Easton Ellis) and occasional one-offs by up-and-coming writers such as Jeremy Robert Johnson's Angel Dust Apocalypse. Very rarely do I stumble across an author with a well-established body of work of the sort that I like to mainline like a junkie fresh from rehab.

Which is why I'm more than a little excited to have been exposed to Ryu Murakami. Within the first three pages of his Akutagama-winning debut novel, Murakami's disaffected Japanese youth growing up in the shadow of an American military base huff glue, shoot up some heroin and have sex in a flophouse that Burroughs would feel at home in. The next 100-odd pages are packed to the brim with more of the same- violent orgies with American servicemen, madcap mescaline adventures that end with them crashing a car onto a runway, more heroin, flashmobs beating security guards senseless and other signs of impending armageddon.

Murakami's plotless (pointless?) novella pinballs between the restless ennui of Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero and the senseless violence of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. At times extremely disturbing (I could have gone my whole life without reading the scene with the foot), Murakami still manages to paste together an interesting tale of cultureless youth emulating what they see as a stronger people, the servicemen who blow a mean sax, have the best drugs, and that suave intoxicating confidence of knowing you can do no wrong. A phenomenally quick read, not for the faint of heart, that has me excited to finally get to his more well-known books such as In The Miso Soup and Coin Locker Babies. ...more

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Jul 26, 2007 Jessi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a snapshot of the life of young Asians who do lots of drugs and engage in promiscuous acts. While on the surface, it may seem to be about sex and drugs, it is actually about sex and drugs in the same way that the movie "Kids" is about sex and drugs. It contains those things, but is more about a way of life. ...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Deanne rated it liked it

Shelves: 1001-books-2008

Not sure why I liked it, Ryu is fairly graphic about the drug scene in 70's Japan, and the warts and all descriptions made me wonder why people would put themselves through that. The plot is non-existent, but it doesn't seem to need a plot. ...more

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