Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Uneven but Worth Trying, June 10, 2007
Rather surprisingly, this collection represents the first appearance in English of the amazingly prolific Japanese author of some 30+ novels and 40+ short story collections. According to his web site, Tsutsu's major influences are Darwin, Freud, and the Marx Brothers -- all of which are well in evidence in the somewhat uneven mix of thirteen short stories.
The mix of surreal and slapstick can be exceedingly successful, such as "Rumors About Me," in which a typical salaryman wakes up one morning to discover he is the topic of a TV news report. As the week goes on, his daily life becomes the subject of a rapidly escalating wave of media hype, in a sly poke at shallow celebrity culture. Another fine story with a touch of cultural critique is "Commuter Army," in which a salesman for a Japanese weapons manufacturer is forced to go to the front lines of a decades-long border war between two fictional small Asian countries. The war has dragged on to the point where the army is trying to entice people to commute to the front on a daily basis and there's an especially funny scene in which the Japanese man is trying to catch the train to the front so he won't be late his first day. Easily the best story in the collection is "Hello, Hello, Hello", which features a mysterious customer service rep from a bank, who pops (literally) in and out of the life of a financially strapped couple, to dictate what they shouldn't buy. It's a hilarious and scathing attack on consumerism.
However the uneven nature of the collection is such that other stories with similar sensibilities are somewhat less successful. For example, in "The Dabba Dabba Tree," a houseplant/tree blurs the line between sexy dreams and reality, resulting in mounting social chaos. It's a somewhat funny conceit, but is never taken anywhere beyond the obvious. Another blah one is "The Very Edge of Happiness" in which an unhappily married couple attempt to head to the beach one weekend morning only to see their trip slowly morph into a surreal mimicry of lemming behavior. Here the social commentary is so obvious and overt that it reads like something from a freshman writing class. "The Last Smoker" is another rather clunky and unsubtle piece, taking the rise of the anti-smoking movement to it's extreme end, as smokers are beaten to death on the streets by mobs, and a lone writer survives as the titular character. "The World is Tilting" is an equally clunky tale, and it's hard to know if some of this might have seemed much sharper when it was originally written and published 25 years ago.
In the end, like most short story collections, there are some gems, some duds, and a lot in between. It's definitely worth checking out by anyone interested in modern Japanese fiction, and it definitely makes me curious to sample some of his other work, especially his novels. Kudos to Alma Books for giving the English-reading world a taste of Tsutsui, and it's worth mentioning that Andrew Driver's translation is exceedingly smooth and readable.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty, stark, twisty, surreal, May 18, 2007
I picked up this book after reading an article about literary trends in the new wave of Japanese magical realism authors. Unsure of what to expect, I was delighted to find that the author possesses both a sense of whimsy and a morbid sense of humor. I was occasionally reminded of O. Henry short stories -- there are similar "aha" moments regarding the bizarre fruits of blind desire and irrational drives. Still, it's often hard to see the twist coming, even when there is one. The first two stories are considerably more light than the rest of the collection, but the author's snappy characterization and witty turns of phrase keep even the depressing stories from collapsing under their own weight. I was delighted to come across such an unexpected gem, and am only sorry that there's not more of the author's work available in English.
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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Expected more, August 4, 2007
I think this work might be better read in Japanese, I bought it while waiting for paprika to come out in theaters and was a little dissapointed. I highly recommend seeing paprika though, it is fantastic. There are some fun stories bit over all its a bit dry
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by Yasutaka Tsutsui
by Yasutaka Tsutsui
by Haruki Murakami
DVD ~ Satoshi Kon
~ Susumu Hirasawa
