Customer Reviews

The Devil of Nanking: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A disturbed, young British woman, known only as Grey, arrives in Tokyo after a long hospitalization in a psychiatric unit. She has been hoping for nine years to find a piece of film recording the Nanking Massacre in China by the Japanese in 1937, a massacre of 300,000 people, which the Japanese deny happened. Needing a very specific bit of information that she believes is in the film, Grey contacts Shi Chongming, an elderly Chinese professor at a Japanese university, whom she believes has the missing film. She eventually agrees to try to unearth information he wants about a life-saving medicine used by an ailing Japanese gangster in exchange for information about the Nanking film.

Grey is a fragile and interesting character, bearing both physical and emotional scars, and when she is accepted as a hostess at the "Some Like it Hot" nightclub, run by the unforgettable Strawberry Nakatani, who believes herself a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, she meets the ailing gangster, Junzo Fuyuki. Other intriguing peripheral characters add to the drama: Jason, an American with a pre-occupation with death and a sexual fetish for "weirdos" like Grey; a pair of Russian twins, who are also hostesses; and Ogawa, the transvestite nurse of the gangster, who lurks in the background and acts as an enforcer. The various settings, especially that of a falling-down house occupied by Grey, Jason, and the Russian twins, showcase the bizarre characters and their actions.

The point of view alternates between Grey, as she tries to gain control of her life by finding this mysterious film, and that of Shi Chongming, who recounts in painful detail his memories of the Japanese invasion of Nanking and the attempts that he and his wife Shujing make to to stay alive. The author's ability to present both internal action and external terror is admirable, creating both tension and heart-stopping suspense, though she does resort to obvious foreshadowing to keep the reader going: "I knew that the answer I wanted was very nearby," for example, and "I was sure, without knowing why, that just behind those blinds...."

The plot and characters are intriguing for the first two-thirds of the book. Then, as the exact nature of Grey's quest on behalf of Shi Chongming becomes clearer, the plot veers into stomach-turning sadism and perversion. Sensational deaths and ankle-deep gore increase as Grey's shocking "crime," Fuyuki's pathology, and Shi Chongming's "sin" come together in dramatic fashion. Not for the faint of heart, this pop novel is nightmare-inducing, filled with pathological behavior and grotesque deaths, minutely described. (3.5 stars). Mary Whipple

"The Devil of Nanking", published as "Toyko" in some countries, is not your typical novel. For a start, the heroine is flawed with some mental and physical scars. Grey, the heroine, is obsessed with finding a film on which horrific footage of the Nanking massacres exist. As we find out during the course of the book, for Grey this is a particularly personal quest.

During her efforts to find and view the film, we are taken through 1990 Tokyo, with a well written cast. Jason the weird guy, the Russian girls, the Chinese professor who witnessed the crimes perpetrated in Nanking, and a mysterious Japanese gangster and his "Nurse", although only a couple of these are sketched out in great detail. The author isn't afraid to leave certain elements and characters of the story relatively vague, which makes for a more mysterious and dark feel to the story.

"The Devil of Nanking" is very well written, the author brings to life both the bright lights of 1990 Tokyo (her own experiences of night clubs in Tokyo no doubt proved useful material to draw upon in the writing of this novel) as well as the desperate dark period of December 1937 in Nanking. At the conclusion of the book, despite the revelation of what is revealed on the film (which I actually thought was fairly well signposted) Grey seeks and ultimately finds, you are left in an almost contemplative mood. I haven't read many books that have left me like that.

I don't normally read fiction, but I have developed a fascination with East Asia, having lived in Korea and visited both Japan and China, which attracted me to the book. I was not disappointed. The Devil of Nanking is defintely worth a read. Highly recommended, especially if you like more unusual novels and settings.

Postscript: If you are after some historical background information to the Nanking massacre, I recommend "The Rape of Nanking" by Iris Chang for a well written but controversial account (judging from the number of reviews for the book on Amazon) of the horrors that occurred in Nanking December 1937.

Mo Hayder does not have much in the way of formal schooling, but she has become an accomplished storyteller with a better-than-average writing skill. This novel is comprised of two stories intertwined to make a shocking whole. First and foremost, Hayder provides a realistic and accurate picture of what the IJA's (Imperial Japanese Army) destruction of Nanking, China must have been like.

Then the second story: Gray is a young woman who grew up only reading books--her parents did not have a television, nor were there other young people around while Gray was a child. She was reared on books; and somehow, a rare and terrifying account of Japan's genocide in Nanking comes under her intelligent adolescent scrutiny.

She becomes obsessed with viewing a film that shows torture and murder perpetuated by a perverse monster in the IJA--the Devil of Nanking. She finds help in Tokyo from the elderly man who brought the film back from China back in late 1937. Eventually, we as readers get the portrayal of Nanking's destruction through snippets from the elderly man's journal as well as by information Gray gleans while privately investigating as a "hostess" in a Tokyo nightclub.

This was well worth reading. I miss Jack Cafferty, the detective who stars in her first two novels (Birdman and Treatment) but Mo Hayder is not an author to be ignored. Her works are shocking and unique, and they deserve attention from anyone with the courage to stomach their contents.

I had no idea about the massacre of Nanking until I read this book. I thought that perhaps it was fictional but after some research on the net, it all turned out to be true. The atrocities that the Japanese committed are unbelievable, and the fact that hardy anyone knows about it is astounding.

We start of with `Grey'. That's not her real name, it's the name a crazy girl who self harms gave her when they were in a psychiatric unit together.
Grey is on a mission...to prove her sanity. As a child she came across an old book in her parent's house accounting a virtually unrecognised massacre by the Japanese, on invading Nanking. Unfortunately for her, the book disappeared and her parents denied ever owning such a thing.

Desperate to prove that it wasn't something she just dreamed up, she became obsessed into proving her encounter with said book is true. She goes to college, learns Japanese and manages to discover that a film was made, depicting some of the events. The only problem is the guy that owns it, Shi Chongming, is currently teaching in Japan. So after selling most of her belongings she arrives in Tokyo, with a bag of clothes, Japanese Kanji books and rich tea biscuits(its an English thing, my mother buys them all the time, I think you would call it `cookies', dry, thick absorbent ones).

Disappointingly, Shin Chongming is very reluctant to offer her any information, and leaves her stranded. After spending a night on a park bench, she meets with the charismatic Jason, who seems very keen to have her come and work in a hostess club, owned by a Marilyn Monroe obsessed mama-san called strawberry.

It turns out however that Grey is incredibly uncomfortable at playing the hostess. Jason, who playfully nicknames her weirdo, makes her nervous, and with good reason. She finds out from her other co-workers, a couple of Russian girls, that Jason like to cover his bedroom walls with grotesque, gory pictures of dismembered humans, accidents etc and that he also rents out shady videos of the same sort. Thinking they might share something in common, Grey ends up sleeping with him, as long as she is aloud to wear apparel that covers her stomach. She also has to deal with some very shady clients, particularly an old, wheelchair ridden man, who possesses the elixir of life.

*The actual contents of this elixir came as no surprise to me. A couple of years ago I was avidly researching the concept of the Chinese eating aborted foetus's to keep them in good health. The abortion rate is very high in china due the hundreds of unwanted girls. Mothers boiling them up into soups for there children and abortionists smuggling huge jars of them(around 50 in each) to any individual who might ask(and pay). It reminded me of that controversial artist, Zhu Yu, who pretended (I think he pretended) to prepare, cook and eat a dead baby.*

This entire tirade links back to Shin Chongming, whose side story is spaced out in-between the actual events. I'll leave the rest for you to discover.
Grey is one of the most captivating characters I have ever read about, although the big `ignorance isn't the same as evilness' notion she spouts doesn't sit right with me, considering the atrocity she committed, a very long time ago.
I don't know if anyone here has read Black Beauty, but if you have, you will surely remember the chapter called `Only Ignorance' when little Joe Green, (unintentionally) nearly ends up killing BB. He meant well, just like the mother who accidentally kills her baby by applying some kooky herbal remedy instead of good old baby aspirin. But, as john says: Ignorance is next to wickedness, the devil etc.
Well I'll let you decide on that.
Buy this book (called Tokyo if you're in the UK) and prepare to be swept up in a world you could never imagine. The chilling fact is I didn't doubt the goings on for a second..

Mo Hayder's new novel a real page-turner! Its protagonist Grey grabs my attention from beginning to end as she searches for her own version of "holy grail." But in the end, I was not that satisfied. As someone who has been interested in the subject--the Rape of Nanking, I guess I was looking for things the novel was not meant to deliver: What it was really like during those horrific days in Nanking.

This I found in a new novel by a native son of Nanking titled When the Purple Mountain Burns. The main character of the novel is a 12-year-old girl trapped inside the ancient city as the Japanese Imperial army went in for the kill. The whole time I was reading, I was so breathlessly drawn into the story and felt I was right there when it was happening, and when good and evil were wrestling with each other on an epic scale with hundreds of thousands of lives hanging in the balance.

I HIGHLY recommend Shouhua Qi's When the Purple Mountain Burns--a truthful, intimate, riveting fictional account of real historical event--for anyone who's interested in knowing more about history, war, and about ourselves.

I am stunned by some of the reviews here for this novel. Gripping? Rare art? Masterful? Deeply felt? Did these reviewers read the same book? This is a hackneyed, cliche-ridden piece of fluff and nonsense that is vaguely offensive. I was shocked by the stereotypical Japanese characters - wacky Mama-san, glib entertainer, silent and deadly gang boss - until I realised everyone in the story is a stereotype, regardless of nationality. I try not discuss the plot in reviews, but in this case you will thank me. A woman, Grey, comes to Tokyo and meets a young guy, Jason. Jason gets her a job in his club, a club that coincidentally is frequented by a yakuza boss who coincidentally is the historical enemy of a Chinese academic who coincidentally has the film Grey wants to see. She meets Jason in a park, quite a coincidence in a city of 23 million people. So much coincidence in a "masterful" novel... I wasn't scared, aroused, excited, challenged, enlightened or moved once by this novel. I was, however, highly amused on one occasion. Grey, working in a hostess bar in Tokyo, lets us know that she gave a long account of the Japanese atrocities in Nanking to her salarymen customers. When she was finished, they said nothing, but they `rewarded' her with the biggest tip of the night. That little anecdote had me in tears of laughter. Japanese businessmen cowed and humbled by a Brit waitress's account of the war atrocities committed by their grandfathers? And Japanese `tipping'? The very thought of it has me in giggles again....

Devil of Nanking was an impulse pick from the library's "new" shelf and my first Mo Hayder--definitely not my last. China and Japan fascinate me anyway, but Hayder raised the stakes considerably when she wove history and psychology into an unforgettable tale. Dark, disturbing, haunting, riveting, and sometimes breathtaking.

The Nazi Holocaust was the visible side of a horrific inkblot, but on the other side of the world the Nanking Massacre is the unseen half; here the atrocities are commited by the Japanese on the Chinese citizens of Nanking in 1937. These inhuman acts serve as the springboard for Hayder's bizarre cast in 1990s Tokyo. And what a cast! The main character, Grey, is so off-kilter, you don't know whether to hug and protect her or smack her back to reality. But you will care about her. The "care" you'll feel for a few of the other characters is the care you take to stay far far away from them. Hayder may have done too good a job: I'm not convinced they live only in this book's pages.

You'll need a high tolerance for gore and revulsion (not my favorites), but the Devil of Nanking was certainly worth the upset. I learned a lot from the hisorical aspects and am left to ponder the psychology involved. The thriller aspect was really riveting--almost impossible to put down. Very imaginative, quite satisfying, and probably not to be read in public as your reactions might draw attention!

If not for the Japanese war theme, I would want to discuss the atmosphere of this excellent book with Japanese for their assessment of how love is described so obliquely but there it is. The author included a number of emotional knockouts in small asides throughout the book and that's what's driving the mood and in this case, the mood is the story while the details tell the story like stepping stones on a path.

I know this is a drippy review but I am sincere and trying to be accurate. I recommend this book.

I prefer non-fiction to fiction but a friend introduced me to the earlier works of Mo Hayder (Birdman and The Treatment) and I found them well written and interesting. Gruesome and disturbing as well. I find my reaction to her ugly tales to be the same fascination I find in the works of Shirley Jackson. I have always willingly gone wherever Jackson pointed me and I find with this latest book, I do that with Mo Hayder. I've read the Iris Chang book on Nanking and found it very enlightening. Mo Hayer's book reaches me emotionally on this topic the way Chang's did intellectually. I have now relented and eagerly added Mo Hayder's name to my list of authors to watch for new offerings. I know I won't be disappointed.

As thrillers go this book ranks right up there with the best of them! Mo Hayer does a fantastic job of incorporating actual historic events with authentic locations in Japan, and tying them all together with a story line that just keep giving and giving until the final chapter.

The book focuses on the main protagonist, Grey, and her research in to the atrocities that Japan inflicted on China in 1937. The story, which starts out with a historical tone, quickly changes gears and lets the reader embrace the history and culture of modern day Japan, while somehow always managing to bring the reader back to those historic times in 1937.

Although I would like to say more about this novel, I really don't want to give too much away. The plot is just that good. Pick this book up. You will NOT be disappointed.