Customer Reviews

My Year of Meats

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Did you ever read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair when you were in high school? I did, and for about a week afterwards my entire high school class were vegetarians. The descriptions of the meat packing industry at the turn of the century completely disgusted the majority of us, but eventually we went back to hamburgers on the assumption that "it was 90 years ago, it's much better now!"

I think I may start buying organic meats again, because this book gave me the same reaction. Like the main character, Jane, discovering the practices of the 20th century meat industry -- even with the FDA in charge -- has made me think again about what I'm eating.

Jane gets a job -- a dream job as she has no other and needs money -- to film a weekly series for Japanese television called "My American Wife." The show is to showcase different beef-based recipes in order to promote beef consumption in Japan. Jane meets many interesting families (think vegetarian lesbians -- these two were actually my favorite characters), eats some rather inspired beef-based dishes (beef fudge, for instance), and learns that there is more to the cow than just the cow.

What Jane ends up discovering is that not much has changed since Sinclair wrote The Jungle. Chemicals (such as DES, which really did cause a lot of health problems for mothers and infants in the 50s) and inhumane practices (you'll never believe what some of these cows are fed for dinner each night) are still in effect, and these result in meat that may not be as good for you as the FDA would like you to believe. The meat industry is still a market where more is better, no matter how you have to get it. Is it any wonder that people are getting sick?

Vegetarians will love this book. They will point to it and say, "Yes! This proves my point!" Japanese will nod knowingly and take another bite of sushi. Cowherders will cry out "But that's not the way we do it!" And the media will say, "We only show what the public wants to see."

This book opens your eyes and makes you wonder exactly how much of this is true and how much is from the imagination of Ruth Ozeki. You will also be unable to watch the evening newscast without wondering what they aren't telling you.

I think I'll stick to salad for a while.

It is quite rare for me to be so completely enthralled and delighted by the 17th page of a book, and one from a debut novelist to boot. Which is why my disappointment at the appallingly bad last half of the book is so acute.

First, if I had to rate the first half on creativity, humor, style, etc. I would surely give this book FIVE stars. Ozeki is a beautiful writer, the phrases and descriptions are exquisite and delightful.The humor sharp, acerbic. In particular, the depiction of cultural clashes between the Japanese crew in America was extremely funny and well-done. Much insight, real honesty and real verisimilitude. And the segments on American families--beautiful, glorious, heartwarming.

But what happened?! As I moved toward the end, my grief was palpable: I cringed. I wailed. I wanted desparately to go back to the beginning. For me, everything went downhill after the silly relationship with Sloane. The main character Jane, who WAS so brash, funny and aggressive, starts to become wimpy, wishy-washy and clueless in the arms of Sloane. Should she have the baby or not? Should she commit to this guy or not? It became a case study of post-feminist angst and it tired pretty quickly.

Secondly, what happened to all those three-dimensional characters? While I agree with the author's views on the beef industry, the characters came off as fake, superficial and cliche. Evil cattle rancher. Busty, young stripper-wife of cattle rancher. Evil wife-beating Japanese man. Timid Japanese housewife. She pits heroic, "good" stock characters against the "bad" cardboard villains of the beef industry. For e.g., the quiet. principled truck driver Dave who points out all the evils of the slaughterhouse seemed less like a solid character and more like a convenient plot device to get the anti-beef lecturing across. Akiko and John start off as delightful characters who also disintegrate into a syrupy soap opera cliche. Ultimately, Ozeki insults our intelligence by not letting us make our own decisions and does an injustice to the characters she originally created; the effect is as jarring and disturbing as a cattle prod.

That was the main problem of this novel. It started off as cynical and witty, but couldn't escape from sentimentality and a need for self-righteous closure. Bunny, Rose, the lesbian couple, etc. all cram themselves in to fit into a plotline that is more ideological rant than art. Ozeki backs off from her challenging narrative to give us a nice, fake bow at the end--somuch like TV! Despite the "hard-hitting documentary" style she professes, Jane (and Ozeki) are really just ... for the "happy ending." That means constructing a villain (the beef industry) at the expense of a good story. Even the graphic violence and bloodiness of the beef industry she tried to gruesomely convey, is all just conveniently part of a sugary-syrupy plot in the end. After Jane loses her baby, reunites with her lover, comesto terms with her Japanese mother, I felt like throwing this book into the offal and refuse of the cows she was describing--BUT not because it was bad! In fact, the first half could be described as 'brilliant'. But because this book let me down so much. That is an even bigger betrayal to me than to have written a bad book from the start. What could have been a promising debut has deteriorated into the plot of a soap opera with an ultimately dissatisfying ending.

A delightful part of reading certain good books is realizing that you've fallen in love with the protagonist. The experience is heightened if you come to this affection a little reluctantly and with distinct misgivings. But best of all is closing in on the conclusion thoroughly hooked, mincing along that classic balance between comedy and tragedy. "My," you suddenly think. "She's really not taking good care of herself. Say, this could end very badly. Oh, golly, not that..."

So it is with Jane Takagi-Little, the hero of Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats." She first appears as an out-of-work (hungry) documentarian who gets an offer to work on a Japanese TV series to be called "My American Wife!" The series pretends to be about America and Americans, but really, "Meat is the message." Every week, a family of "real" Americans will share their life-and their favorite meat recipe. A council of beef producers (BEEF-EX) wants to sell Japanese housewives more meat. I was doubtful, but Jane needed to pay the rent. She bit.

Soon we're on the road with Jane and the meat show. The Japanese production crew needs her language and negotiating abilities to make TV programs with ordinary people. Right away we sense the exploitative flavor of making programs that are more interested in what people eat than who they are. But Jane is interested in people. Yet, she's definitely a edgy character-six androgynous feet tall with streaks of purple hair. First doubtful thing she does is take up with a vaguely menacing guy that she met through phone sex. Hmmm.

Just when we've had about enough of Jane for awhile, the narrative POV shifts to Akiko Ueno, a shy woman who watches My American Wife! at home in Japan and loves the show and really wants to eat more meat. Not coincidentally, Akiko is married to the sponsor's representative. And this is just the beginning of the complications.

Structurally, this is a thoroughly modern text. Instead of a straight narrative line, it weaves together first and third person voices, classical Japanese literature and, of course, meat recipes. But it's never heavy; in fact, it's increasingly hilarious. Some of the most riotous series are exchanges of faxes and emails between the producers and Jane. The slightly mangled syntax of Japanese English is letter perfect. And Jane's obsequious, double-edged replies are masterful-particularly for anyone who's ever had to write such a memo to ones higher-ups. Increasingly, Jane comes into conflict with her producers-ultimately with BEEF-EX itself-and the supposedly fawning memo is her first line of attack.

Why? Because Jane really does care. She finds beauty and nobility in the American heartland and she wants to tell the truth about it-even if that means making meat something of a side dish. And she has the artistic sensibilities to do a great job. First there's the Cajun couple who happen to have adopted 12 orphans of various races. (Think of all the meat they can eat.) Then there's the charming congregation of a primitive Baptist church. Trouble is, their best recipe is for fried chicken-not beef at all--and there's an odd thing about chicken. Wait a minute, these aren't the good corn-fed, wholesome Americans we had in mind. The producers are getting nervous. The pot really comes to a bubble when Jane decides to produce a segment about a really sweet lesbian couple. What's their favorite recipe? Unfortunately...

So now I'm sold. Jane's a keeper. This book is funny. But just when it seems like the novel is sorting itself out into a safe little farce, the gravy starts to burn. Jane starts doing research about the hormone DES-sometimes used as a feed supplement in livestock production. Here, things got distinctly personal for me. Wait a minute, DES? DES is what they mistakenly gave pregnant women back in the 50s and never found out that anything was wrong with it `til their daughters started developing cervical cancer 20 years out. My mother was part of the DES experiment in a Chicago research hospital-she got the placebo, or so I'm told. And every year or so, I get a letter from the DES research council checking to see if I'm alive. But what about Jane? Oh, this could be really bad...But I've got to stop writing about it before I give something away.

Ruth Ozeki is the genuine article. She hits on every level and sneaks around and hits again. The Penguin edition has an informative series of appendices. They include a remarkable interview with Ozeki that convincingly spells out how the book evolved from a series of sketches about her experiences doing TV production. That sense of evolving artistic sensibility and the adventure of documentary research shines through at every turn. I have some critical quibbles about the structure of the ending. But I'm going to zip my trap because I want everyone to read it for themselves. No dessert `til you've finished your main course.

I, too, greatly enjoyed My Year of Meats. Though the "meat" side of the novel was impossible to miss -- it is, obviously, crucial to the plot -- I found that it had very little to do with what made the book so enjoyable. I'd seen the book around in bookstores for years, but never bought it because I thought that I had the meat industry covered, having read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Don't make the same mistake I made! My Year of Meats is SO much more. Jane Takagi-Little is a documentarian who accepts an offer to make a series of half-hour shows for Japanese television entitled "My American Wife!" and sponsored by the American beef industry. She takes the opportunity to do more than simply showcase beef, repeatedly breaking orders from Japan and filming the most unusual and intriguing "American Wives" she can find -- a couple in Louisiana who have adopted Asian children, and even vegeterian lesbians! In the process, Jane learns a lot about the beef industry, and begins to plan to subversively expose the shocking details meat-eaters would rather not know. Unlike some other reviewers, I didn't find this part of the novel to be excessively preachy; it fit in with the plot nicely. Along the way, the reader also learns about Jane's private life and what makes her tick, fleshing out her character nicely.

On the other side of the globe we have Akiko Ueno, the wife of one of Jane's bosses. Through her eyes the reader is able to learn much about the Japanese culture. Akiko is abused by her husband, who she was set up with by her boss and married out of obedience. Eventually the lives of Jane and Akiko intertwine with fascinating end to the novel. Set to exquisite sections of The Pillow Book, My Year of Meats is a captivating read.

I stayed up late to finish this book, and have heartily recommended it to friends. But I do have to give a mixed review.

First and foremost, it was one of the funniest books I've read in a long time. At one point, I started laughing out loud (to my horror -- I was reading on the subway and no doubt looked like an idiot). I also thought the literary device of uniting the Japanese and U.S. portions of the story through those great faxed memos was clever. The whole thing just felt fresh and creative. Simply put, I really enjoyed reading this.

On the other hand, however, by the end of the book the development of the story and the characters had pretty much given way to heavy-handed moralizing about the meat industry, or at least the author's perception of the industry, which I suspect may be a bit exaggerated. Perhaps exaggeration is the primary flaw here. The characters were exaggerated to an extent that caused me to distrust the author and discount her perspective. And did we really have to be bludgeoned quite so hard with the Wal-Mart as Evil Empire theme? Finally, I thought that the way all the diverse characters and episodes tied together into a big happy ending was unduly contrived.

Despite these points, my final impression is that it was a gripping, worthwhile, and memorable read, and I will be watching for Ms. Ozeki's next book.

I've just read the previous 71 reader reviews, and they make a lot of good points. The book is PC, yet funny and hard to put down. Some of the characters are two-dimensional, yet others are so believable that I wish I could sit down to lunch with them. The picture of Japanese society is narrow and basically negative, yet the picture of American society shows lots of variety, love, ignorance, intelligence, warts and all. Etc.

One theme nobody seems to have brought out yet is the leitmotif of fertility. The two central female characters have fertility problems for complementary reasons; many of the "American Families" have physical, moral, or political issues related to reproduction; Ueno needs offspring to prove his manhood; a pre-school girl and a middle-aged man are both well on the way to womanhood with a little help from the meat industry; and of course the industry itself has a critical interest in the fertility of its animals, and spends enormous sums on ways to control it. Indeed, most of these examples are about an impersonal, mechanical consumer culture controlling (or trying to) the deeply personal, organic life impulse. A PC message, perhaps, but told in such a wonderfully engaging way that I didn't mind at all.

Written by a very intelligent and probably very cool Japanese-American woman, MY YEAR OF MEAT is about a very intelligent and cool Japanese-American woman named Jane Takagi-Little whom everyone, Japanese and Americans alike, call Takagi. In addition to some ambivalence about her bi-polar ancestry, she's also quite tall and prefers spiky hair. Not, perhaps, a perfect cultural ambassador (or "cultural pimp," as she says), she nevertheless falls into a job coordinating and finally directing a Japanese TV show to be shot in America for the purpose of promoting US beef in Japan.

The show, "My American Wife," is a weekly documentary featuring typical (read white, middle class, wholesome, meat-eating) American families and their favorite meat recipe. Takagi goes along for a while, but then starts to feel that she has a greater mission-to bring the true strength (diversity!) of America into Japanese homes. So she starts filming people like a bayou couple who have adopted eight Korean kids, and an interracial lesbian vegetarian couple. Not exactly what the sponsors and the Japanese agency jerk ("John" Ueno) had in mind. But the meat really hits the fan when she stumbles onto a story about what meat can do to you (and ME and YOU!). This appears to have been well researched, so I'm with you Oprah: no more beef!

With plot tangents involving Takagi's love life, Ueno's persecuted wife (who does indeed have her consciousness raised by the show), and various other engaging characters, all interspersed with quotes from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, this is a book that will grab you, hold you, scare you and, with surprising frequency, jab you in the gut so you get a bit short of breath and fluttery eyed. It's a damn good book.

More Japanese women should go to Smith College. If so, perhaps Japan would be full of self-confident young women writers who can be different, entertaining and thought-provoking. Ruth Ozeki manages to capture Japanese ideas about work, home, and the role of women (which has been done before) and western themes about self-expression of women (which has been done before) and manages to combine them in one book well, which has not often been accomplished. She has chosen a lively motif of meat, which is a totem in both the Japanese and American cultures she combines.

The prose is spare and the pace quick. Ms. Ozeki draws us into the life of her heroine and lets us laugh and ache with her on her year of producing meat stories for a Japanese cooking program. The book moves to an unpredictable, yet fulfilling resolution. We are left with hope for Ms. Ozeki's heroine and for Ms. Ozeki herself - that she will bring us another book as funny, moving and original as this one.

Ruth Ozeki's debut is not a perfect book. The plot Has Everything if you're in any way po-mo--indictments of capitalism with links to sexual politics, racial prejudice, environmental issues and meat-eating: all valid topics for a novel, to be sure, but spliced together in a way that has its utterly precious moments and begs indulgence for them owing to the underlying ethic of protest. Which doesn't go so far as to keep one of the heroines, Jane Takagi-Little, from enjoying all that the po-mo fleshpots of modern cities have to offer, as dished up to her by a lover whom she treats almost as callously as her nemesis, boorish Japanese businessman Joichi "John" Ueno ("Wayn-o") treats his wife. Yadayada. Off-putting though its more cliched moments are, and despite the certainty that they will date the book in some years' time, this is still a very likable book. Beneath the ironic glitter, there is a book with a heart, and a writer with a mind tough enough to avoid escaping into anything so simplistic as a screed in favor of universal vegetarianism (though the presence of two vegetarian lesbians may make a few readers think so). While Ozeki is unsparing about the corruption of the meat business, anti-carnivores will have to contend with the moment in which Akiko Ueno begins to assert herself by consuming the whole dinner of lamb chops she has prepared for her husband, and the parallels between meat and (hetero)sex are exploited with any amount of sensuous delight. The plot turns on the moment when Jane submits to unprotected sex with her lover--about as un-PC an act as one can imagine in these days, and zestfully described in Ozeki's wonderful prose.

The problem with this novel, for me, was not so much in its politics as in its actual execution, hinging largely on the character of Jane. She's meant to be sympathetic but too often, she is not a real woman so much as a filter of attitudes and perceptions, lacking the consistency that would allow us to believe deeply in her reporting. She veers from contrived ruthlessness and shallowness to the compassion that Ozeki obviously feels for the many victims of capitalism (and there's a haunting subtext to this novel, in which America, usually the imperialist villain in anti-capitalist writing, becomes itself a vanishing culture as seen through Japanese eyes). Ozeki does a better job with minor characters, especially the Japanese, whom she brings to life with no mercy and a lot of warmth and respect.

This is not the best book Ruth Ozeki will ever write, but it's one which readers may well treasure in the future: their first time listening to a major voice of the new milennium. Bon appetit.

My Year of Meats is a good book - it might not be one of the greatest classics, but it's good. It certainly makes you think. I love her style of writing, which is very sensitive yet powerful.

However, I was bothered by how Akiko was portrayed. Yes, I understand Ozeki tried to depict a stereotypical Japanese woman whose utmost virtue is considered as obedience to husband. But Akiko's gone too far. The woman doesn't have common sense! Degree of her submissiveness is unrealistic.

I am a Korean girl, brought up by conservative family. I lived majority of my life in Korea and am studying in college in the States. I've witnessed how a number of women had to struggle or sacrificed their life because of gender inequality. So when I encountered Akiko first, I expected to read about realistic account of a woman's journey to discover herself and confront gender inequality. Instead, Akiko was a ridiculously exaggerated 'symbol' (not a character), or another Oriental fantasy constructed by Westerner's point of view. And hurray! She leaves her authoritative Japanese husband and gets rescued by this progressive, awakening American idea! She's completely dazzled! Wow! How beautiful and touching is that!

My point is, Ozeki has gone too far. Yes, there are a lot of women who achieved their dream in the United States while they couldn't do so in their own country. But Akiko was a severely exaggerated and unrealistic character. Her personality and "change" were too predictable and...cliche.

I apologize for my poor English. But I just had to post this.