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/lit/ - Literature

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22083676 No.22083676 [Reply] [Original]

Just finished this

It was pretty okay

>> No.22083699

>>22083676
I thought it sucked but a lot of people asked me about it when I was reading in public. I had the sexier cover design though.

>> No.22083706

>>22083699
Yeah I did too, had to bury the book into my lap or on a table when I read it at work

>> No.22083754

>>22083706
They didn't ask me like I should be embarrassed or anything--they were genuinely curious. I only took it out in public once though--to the dentist where both the receptionist and hygienist asked me about it and then I read it in a park on my way home for a bit, two strangers asked me what it was. I told them "it's about a tour guide in Tokyo's red light district who thinks his client is a serial killer. It's a thriller that isn't as shocking as it thinks it is and I'm only going to finish it because it's short."

Not to shit on your taste or anything. Just not for me. Above decent for genre fiction though--I'll give it that.

>> No.22083760

>>22083706
Also, it's good enough to give the author a second try.

>> No.22083914

>>22083760
But the author only has one book

>> No.22083964

>>22083914
No he doesn't. Off the top of my head he also wrote Audition, Piercing, and Almost Transparent Blue. I'll probably go with that last one but I'll wait until I find it randomly in a used bookstore.

>> No.22083969

>>22083914
>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Fatherland,_with_Love
Just looked him up and this one sounds interesting. Not really a unique plot but could be fun.

>> No.22083970

>>22083964
Almost Transparent Blue is just the author describing Asian girls getting fucked by black men and doing drugs.

>> No.22083983

>>22083970
Figures. If I find it I'll still read it, odds are it will take years, but I will now read Audition, which I'm more likely to come across, instead. I've found copies of Piercing a few times but it sounded lame.

>> No.22084005

It was fun, but not too deep beyond that. There is one little section that I love though, to the point that I go back and reread it regularly.

>A woman and her little boy and girl came into the shop. The woman was in her thirties, I’d say, the kids in elementary school. They were having a good time deciding which kind of cake they wanted. The kids were well behaved but gleeful, full of life. The mother was wearing a tasteful suit under a tasteful coat, and her interaction with the waitress was natural and courteous. When Jun turned to look their way, her eyes met the little girl’s, and the little girl beamed at her. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have looked on this sort of scene with cynicism, if not loathing. I’m not so innocent. I know what malevolence is about, which is why I thought I was able to judge that Frank was a dangerous man. Malevolence is born of negative feelings like loneliness and sadness and anger. It comes from an emptiness inside you that feels as if it’s been carved out with a knife, an emptiness you’re left with when something very important has been taken away from you. I can’t say I sensed a particularly cruel or sadistic tendency in Frank, or even that he fit my image of a murderer. But what I did sense was an emptiness like a black hole inside him, and there was no predicting what might emerge from a place like that. I’m sure we’ve all experienced really malevolent feelings once or twice in our lives, the desire to kill somebody, say. But there’s always a braking mechanism somewhere along the line that stops us. The malevolence is turned back, and it sinks down to the bottom of the emptiness it emerged from and lies there, forgotten, only to leak out in other ways—a passion for work, for example. Frank wasn’t like that. I didn’t know if he was a murderer, but I knew he had a bottomless void inside him. And that void was what made him lie. I’ve been there. Compared to where Frank was at, it may have been like a Hello Kitty version, but I’ve been there.

That's one passage that taught me what it meant to write honestly, that it's better to write honestly than flowery.

>> No.22084364

>>22083754
>Not to shit on your taste or anything

I didn’t think it was all that good, just okay

>> No.22085473

>>22083676
I've only read his novel "Coin Locker Babies". It was great.

>> No.22085480

so far piercing is the best of his i've read. just really taut and well done

>> No.22085498

>>22083964
> I'll wait until I find it randomly in a used bookstore.
You'll be waiting a while.

t. have bought the damn book three times

>> No.22085517

>>22084005
this is terrible

>> No.22085525

>>22084005
Yeah the protag's thought process is very nicely done, I just really like the red light district descriptions and the desolate baseball scene. Coin Locker Babies and Almost Transparent Blue are his best, CLB's ending made me think I was dying.

>> No.22085706

>>22083676
I liked it. I played all the Yakuza games so the tight streets and underground bars greeted me like old friends. Also, Frank talks exactly like some of my American friends. Always curious and always wondering how I do certain things. That whole bit about schoolgirls willingly prostituting themselves vs colombian women who send money back to their families was interesting too.

>> No.22085714

>>22085517
It's good for being terrible in its greatness

>> No.22085733

>>22083676
Great book.
Any other book to fulfill my mind control fetish lads?

>> No.22085743

>>22085733
Forgot about that part. Honestly really interesting. I want to believe he really did hypnotize people.