Out
Natsuo Kirino's novel tells a story of random violence in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works a night shift making boxed lunches brutally strangles her deadbeat husband and then seeks the help of her co-workers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime.The ringleader of this cover-up, Masako Katori, emerges as the emotional heart ofOutand as one of the shrewdest, most clear-eyed creations in recent fiction. Masako's own search for a way out of the straitjacket of a dead-end life leads her, too, to take drastic action.The complex yet riveting narrative seamlessly combines a convincing glimpse into the grimy world of Japan's yakuza with a brilliant portrayal of the psychology of a violent crime and the ensuing game of cat-and-mouse between seasoned detectives and a group of determined but inexperienced criminals. Kirino has mastered a Thelma and Louise kind of graveyard humor that illuminates her stunning evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds and the friendship that bolsters them in the aftermath.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
4mentions
4people
2018–2024years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- There are hundreds of great ones, but Tale of Genji (classic), The Master of Go (amazing if you like the board game Go), Coin Locker Babies (Ryu Murkami > Haruki Murkami), Out by Natsuo Kirino.
- I enjoyed "Out" by Natsuo Kirino.
- I've been on a Japanese literature kick for a while now.
For me the characters are the main difference from American literature. The article mentions this briefly, but I find that in the novels I've read (admittedly translated), Japanese novel characters have much more depth. They're flawed people often with selfish motivations, and it's much more reflective of real life.
Plot structure is very different as well with most of these novels not having a true setting > rising action > climax > falling action style plot like American literature tends to have. The books often just end without much resolution at all.
Probably the biggest reason I've been reading them though is that I'm just tired of "young adult" books that have so much popularity here in America. It's like a tag you can throw on to shield your bad writing. It feels like everything popular here is written with 6th grade grammar. Maybe this phenomenon exists in Japan too, but we have the filter that translation provides. Presumably most translated novels are at least somewhat successful and well written, or else they wouldn't have been translated.
For reference, of the translated fiction I've read, I'd recommend -
Lady Joker by Takamura
Devotion of Suspect X by Higashino
Out by Kirino
Breasts and Eggs, Ms Ice Sandwich, and Heaven by Kawakami
Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings by Murata
The Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and Kafka By The Shore by Murakami
Snow Country by Kawabata
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Kawakami
No Longer Human by Nazai
I am a Cat by Netsuke
The Memory Police by Ogawa
- > It’s impossible to overestimate the depth of his influence on contemporary Japanese literature and culture,
This is complete 100% pure grade A nonsense. It's like saying "it's impossible to overestimate the depth of Dan Brown's influence on contemporary America literature and culture." Haruki Murakami has lots of obsessive fans, but he has had almost zero influence on Japanese literature or culture because nobody other than his rabid fans cares about his writing.
> Japan’s current literary and cultural scene takes in “light novels”, brisk narratives that lean heavily on sentimentality and romance and often feature visuals drawn from manga-style aesthetics, and dystopian post-apocalyptic stories of intimate violence, such as Natsuo Kirino’s suspense thrillers, Out and Grotesque.
This is also total garbage. "Light novels" are specific (terrible) genre of young adult novels with anime style illustrations (yes, illustrations, not just "aesthetics") that are probably aimed chiefly at middle schoolers. Natsuo Kirino’s books are not "light novels." This article is intentionally trying to conflate these completely different things in order to misleadingly suggest that actual Japanese literature has been influenced by "manga-style aesthetics."
> Music plays a prominent role in much contemporary Japanese literature; but it is not mere metaphor. Murakami...
Yes, Haruki Murakami loves to litter his books with references, Ready Player One style, but this is not something that is normal in Japanese literature.
> But there are larger currents at work that make today’s Japanese stories, poems, animations and manga so vivid as domestic cultural artefacts, and so ripely attractive to the rest of the world.
> Ten years ago I wrote in my book Japanamerica:
So basically, "Having written a book about the popularity of anime in the US makes me an expert on Japanese literature." Please.
