Customer Reviews

On Parole: A Novel by the Author of Shipwrecks

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If you are buying just one book this week or month, make it this one. On Parole is beautifully and intelligently written. The story itself is so gripping that you won't be able to put the book down until the very end. And then you will take a deep breath and think it all through.Truly an amazing book.

This is a story of a man paroled from an indefinite sentence for a double murder - a man who is driven by fear and revulsion but whose only sense of guilt is in his inability to feel guilt.

The novel begins on his first night on parole; it slowly reveals his past, his slow adjustment to the freedom from prison and the burden of life-long parole, his tentative reaching out for relationships with other humans ...

The story is well-written in a slow pace that matches the adjustment to a world outside prison quite unlike the world at the time of his imprisonment. The joy of the book is in the details - the seeming heaviness of shoes after years of prison canvas shoes, the steaming miso after years of soup cooled before it reached your cell. Through these details the author provides a psychological novel exploring guilt, redemption, freedom, restriction, social ties ....

This book is well worth reading, well worth a thoughtful reading.

Shiro Kukatani, a high school English teacher, has been released on parole after 15 years in prison. He slowly reacquaints himself with the society he knew prior to his imprisonment. Feeling guilty that, despite his long years of confinement, he feels no remorse for his crime, Kukatani must adapt to living independently again albeit under the supervision of his probation officers.

ON PAROLE is a story unadorned with fluff, moving slowly and simply with words that evoke deep thought and emotions. It examines Kukatani's feelings of tentativeness as he emerges from prison. Speaking of his attempts to reenter a world beyond prison bars, the reader can feel Kakatani's yearning to reach back into his former life, the fascination and repulsion of discovering an environment that continued to change despite his stagnant years of imprisonment, and his longing to connect to other people while overpowered by his fear to do so. In essence, the story describes how a parolee's life can never return to that of the past. The deed that sent Kukatani to prison is not the story, but rather it's the psychological adaptation of a parolee to what lies beyond the prison's gate and the question as to whether there is such a thing as true rehabilitation of a criminal.

I liked this book very much. It appealed strongly to my emotions and to my intellect, and it stayed with me long after I finished the final chapter.

What is the nature of justice? What are the limits of freedom? What is the value of human life? Why do we find some murders less reprehensible than others and punish them with lesser sentences? When rehabilitation works, who deserves the credit? Who is responsible when it fails? How do we create our own prisons out of our past experiences? These are just some of the questions that the book raised for me. They are not questions with easy answers and, thankfully, the author does not offer any.

What Yoshimura does offer is a well-written story about Kikutani, a paroled murderer trying to adjust to life outside of prison and a freedom that is limited by the law and by himself. At many times I felt a tension between sympathy for Kikutani and disturbance by some of the things he does and thinks. The writing is excellent, and the author presents many provocative images. One of my favorite images is that of Kikutani caring for fish in an aquarium, much like his parole officer takes cares of him. As we notice the similarities between Kikutani and his fish in their worlds restricted by glass or invisible attitudes, we are invited to think about the restrictions of the parole officer's world and of our own. Another part that resonated with me was the loneliness and feeling of separation that Kikutani felt when he returned to a favorite place from his childhood and found it barely recognizable. In these ways and many others, I found Kikutani's story deeply moving and fascinating.

A 1988 Japanese novel translated into English in 1999. The story follows a newly paroled man who in a fit of passion killed his wife, and mistakenly killed the mother of his wife's lover. The character is sympathetic despite his action. I was troubled by the attitude of the various characters accepting the justification for the killing, but the story's end addresses this issue as expertly as can be hoped.

The story keeps a meditative pace, but always stays interesting as it explores the intricacies of a long-term prisoner now paroled into a world vastly different from what he left. The reader gradually learns of the circumstances of the parolee's crime and his inner feelings about his actions including what those who are now responsible for helping him expect of him. The story's end is not too unexpected, but in keeping with a philosophy of fatalism. It gives an interesting view, if it is accurate, into the Japanese penal and criminal justice system.
I don't easily give books the highest possible rating, but I wouldn't be surprised if others rate this novel higher than do I.

Above all, the parolee is Japanese, but his story's ending is all too common for the everyday newspaper reader. It is about a criminal and how his incarceration fails to address the crime that was committed. If it is not an indictment of the failure of justice, then it may be a tacit endorsement for capital punishment. For anyone familiar with the American criminal justice system, the story's duration would seem almost unbelievable--the model prisoner who is paroled into society, works hard and takes but baby steps back to ways of normalcy--drink, smokes, t.v., a new wife. In this country, the parolee is a criminal first and left with few resources to meld him back to productivity. Only in this story's end, do the American and Japanese systems find a common space.

"On Parole" by Akira Yoshimura is a straight forward and rather intense walk through the life and mind of an ex-con as he attempts to re-integrate himself with a society that has almost completely changed from the time he was originally imprisoned. Not only must he reacquaint himself with simple day to day tasks, but he must do so under the watchful eye of his Parole officers as well as a seemingly omniscient and oppressive new surrounding that was once familiar to him but now stands terrifying and foreboding in his eyes. The entire focus of his "Parole" is built around the assumption that he regrets his past actions; however when we discover that this is not the case, the remainder of the work becomes almost mystery-like in genre. This sense of the unknown in conjunction with Yoshimura's masterful descriptions and writing style will keep you guessing until the very last pages; rest assured this is one story not easily defined by any one genre.

If you enjoy a fairly simple bit of literature which tends to scratch at the surface of psychological and social dynamics instead of mushrooming into an all out Freudian exploration of the human psyche, I highly recommend this book to you. Originally published in 1988 through Shincho-Sha Co, this descriptive and detailed work needed only wait for a little over a decade before Stephen Snyder's masterful translation and republication through Harcourt Inc. brought it into the American limelight. Although some might argue the work is more Americanized than necessary, I found that the integration of Western wordplay and slang served to make the read all the more interesting and quite appealing to the intended audience of the translator.

The morally ambiguous take on a convict's rehabilitation was quite enjoyable as well. Though I usually dislike works that focus on grey areas of right, wrong and truth, this book gave a refreshing and in-depth study of the criminal psyche that could be interpreted in a number of ways; even for those who might have stone-set views of what they would consider to be flawed or acceptable. I also enjoyed the light pacing of the book; nothing too heavy or compact that required a bit more than a simple glancing thought at the subject. It's my belief that a book should be a fun and leisurely experience, not a highly demanding study session in which you're so tied up trying to understand what exactly was meant by each sentence that you lose interest in the work itself.

Don't be fooled, this is not your average tale of crime and repentance. If you're looking for a fairly short yet immensely enjoyable read, defiantly consider this: "On Parole" by Akira Yoshimura.

Akira Yoshimura tells a clever and detailed tail of a man who becomes paroled from a life prision sentence and now must learn to reconnect with the outside world. Yoshimura lets the reader ponder and wait through many pages before you find out why this seemingly gentle mannered former school teacher named Kikutani obtained a life sentence in prison. I enjoyed this element of suspense and found it continued throughout the book making it not only clever but compelling. Certainly, knowing that this book is a japanese translation, you still get a distinct flavor not only for the author and his style but the japanese culture through the eyes of Kikutani. Kikutani is a character that the reader neither totally likes nor dislikes. The story unfolds through his experience reintegrating his life back into society. His fears are sometimes suprising. And, I wonder if the severe embarrassment of his crime and punishment is enhanced by the japanese culture itself and the distinct element of privacy. The attention to detail lets the reader explore this culture through Kikutani's eyes. We see his transformation in the story including the reader's almost shocking discovery that he has absolutely no remourse for his crime. All this leads to a very satisfying ending only because it fits with the story. Yoshimura is one of the premier authors in Japan, which attracted me to this book, and this is an excellent sample of his work, which is precise, detailed, clever and distinctive.

Yoshimura has truly written an excellent novel. If you enjoy the central plot points of Imamura's movie "The Eel" and the unique writing style of Japanese novels, you will love this book. A great book to read and an excellent place to begin your exploration of Japanese literature.

This provocative novel from prolific Japanese author Yoshimura is only the second of his works to appear in English. The story follows a middle-aged Shiro Kikutani, who after 16 years in prison for an initially unspecified crime, is paroled and released into a Tokyo which has changed almost beyond his comprehension. For the first 100 pages or so, the reader is treated to an almost anthropological examination of his transition from the simple, regimented life in jail to a new chaotic life in the scary outside world with its myriad of options and outrageous (to him) prices. With the aid of two very humane parole "officers", he slowly starts to build a normal life with his own apartment and a job at an egg processing plant. One element that will be interesting to the American reader is the level to which being an ex-con is a stigma in Japanese society-Kikutani lives in fear that someone will discover his past and thus makes no friends. Similarly, he must stay away from his brother and his former hometown because of the shame of his crime. Another interesting element is the role of his two parole officers, who act as civilian counselors or mentors rather than the standard representative of American law enforcement. Yet, while they are clearly benevolent, they are almost Orwellian in their knowledge of his affairs, which makes Kikutani question the true nature of his new freedom.

Meanwhile, Kikutani finds that he is not in the least bit remorseful for his crime-which is alluded to, but not detailed until page 110 or so. Thus the central theme of the novel is brought forth: whether redemption can occur without true remorse and forgiveness. Yoshimura muddies Kikutani's case by casting him as a respected member of society (a teacher), who commits a crime that is understandable if not conscionable, but in an ambiguous approach. Kikutani attempts to revisit places from his past in his quest to understand himself and how he became a murderer, and what it all means, but cannot find solace or aid, leading to a tragic and fatalistic ending. The book's tone is not unlike Yoshimura's other two translated novels, Shipwrecks and One Man's Justice, check those out as well.