Lost in Translation Reading Challenge

guest review: every man dies alone

Tim from Progressive on the Prairie posted this review of Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada.

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post.

It’s what every reader longs for but experiences all too rarely. Just a few pages into a book and you realize there’s something special in your hands. German author Hans Fallada’s Every Man Dies Alone is just such a book. And what makes it perhaps that much more remarkable is that it is now being published in the U.S. for the first time more than 50 years after it was written. 

Every Man Dies Alone is far from the perfect novel. No one would expect it to be given the fact Fallada, the pseudonym for Rudolf Ditzen, wrote it in 24 days. From today’s perspective, his style tends to reflect the era in which the book was written. Additionally, he likes to wander a bit and uses coincidence as a plot mechanism perhaps a bit too much. Even with such flaws, the book deserves to be on plenty of this year’s “best of” lists. 

Every Man Dies Alone is based on the true story of a married couple who dropped postcards containing anti-Nazi and anti-Hitler messages throughout Berlin during World War II. In fact, the book includes reproductions of the Gestapo file on that case, including photos of several of the cards. Here, the couple is Otto and Anna Quangel, whose campaign begins after their only son is killed in the Nazi victory over France in 1940. Otto is a taciturn, staid foreman in a factory that goes from producing furniture before the war to coffins as the war progresses. Anna is a homemaker who, despite her self-imposed subordination, is close to an equal partner in their crusade. 

The book, translated by Michael Hofmann, essentially follows the investigation into their campaign and those — both noble and despicable — whose lives somehow intersect with their defiance. There’s plenty of people who are directly or indirectly swept up or affected by their actions. They include Eva Kluge, the postal worker who delivers their son’s death notice; other residents of their apartment building, from petty crook Emil Borkhausen to ardent and brutal Hitler Youth member Baldur Persickes to retired Judge Fromm. There’s also the fiancée of the Quangels’ son, the investigators, Anna’s brother and sister-in-law, and Enno Kluge, Eva’s ne’er-do-well, estranged husband who gets caught up in Emil Borkhausen’s mischief. 

Although the fact Fallada approaches the story from the investigative standpoint might lead one to think it’s a thriller, it isn’t. Rather, this is a book about life in exceedingly difficult times and how people react both ethically and morally. Fallada, who died in 1947 just weeks before the book was published, gives us a story that examines and raises the question of the value and impact of resistance. Each ensuing chapter takes us through another step in the investigation or the events that unalterably impact the lives of each character, always crafted with an almost palpable sense of dread. 

While I don’t usually put much stock in book blurbs, the statement on the front cover by Holocaust survivor and memoirist Primo Levi right on the mark: “”The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis.” That is particularly a huge statement given that Fallada is German. Yet that is perhaps what makes Every Man Dies Alone so powerful. It comes from someone who lived under the Nazi regime, who was familiar with the fear and surveillance, who was one of millions who, to at least some extent, went along to get along. But the book looks at the converse: what if you don’t go along. It is not the story of a broad-based and wide-ranging resistance movement. 

It is not the story of a pattern or campaign of industrial or other sabotage. It is simply a story of individual conscience on the part of an older couple. “At least I stayed decent,” Otto Quangel says at one point. “I didn’t participate.” Theirs is a story of resistance undertaken without knowing whether it produces results. It is a story of the ramifications of even mild defiance in a society where the Hitler and the Nazis are “everything, and the people nothing.” 

There is little doubt even such small acts of resistance are courageous. The more profound question is whether they ultimately have has any meaning after balancing the personal principles and redemption against the likely futility and body count. In exploring this dilemma, Every Man Dies Alone is a remarkable success. 

As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean that we are alone.

guest review: unseen

Danielle from A Work In Progress posted this review of Unseen by Mari Jungstedt.

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

A few months ago when I was reading Mari Jungstedt's most recent Anders Knutas novel I was enjoying a little mystery binge. How quickly things change as I've slowed down considerably on reading mysteries of late. I did just manage to squeeze in Jungstedt's first novel, Unseen, however. I'm glad I decided to go back and start at the beginning of the series. I felt as I was reading The Inner Circle that I was missing out on important backstory as relationships were already developed that I knew nothing about, and this helped me fill in the picture. Inspector Knutas became a more rounded character to me as well as his colleagues in the police department. 

One of the strong points in this series is the setting. Gotland is a picturesque island off the southeast coast of Sweden and tourism is one of the main sources for the island's income. And Visby, where much of the action takes place is a medieval city which provides a nice atmospheric backdrop for a crime novel. Jungstedt spends much more time in Unseen describing Visby and the other locales and you get a sense of how people there live and how it looks and feels. It goes without saying I'd like to travel there now. 

Unseen opens with the grisly discovery of a murdered woman and her dog. The husband is the obvious suspect as they had had a violent argument the night before which had been witnessed by a houseful of people. To make matters worse the murder weapon is an axe which has his fingerprints on it, though perhaps this is not so surprising as it had been taken from the couple's property. It is not long before he's taken into custody and the case is considered closed. After two more brutal murders the detectives must start from scratch but are floundering this time with no credible suspects, and pressure is mounting from not only the mayor but the press as they call for fast results before more women are murdered. 

It's high summer and the tourist trade is about to take off, but with each new body that pops up both islanders and tourists alike become more and more fearful and anxious. Gotland is usually a quiet, serene place to live, violent crime being virtually unheard of. The population swells in the summer with so many holidaymakers particularly at Midsummer, which is their equivalent of our Fourth of July. 

Of course the press quickly descends ready to cover the salacious story of Gotland's serial killer. Johan Berg, a TV news reporter from Stockholm is sent to the island to cover the case. A source within the police ranks is sharing details of the crimes not meant for the public's ears, which causes tension between Berg and Inspector Knutas. Berg, always looking for new angles to the story begins interviewing the witnesses and ends up falling for Emma Winarve, the best friend of one of the murdered women. The situation is complicated as she's already married with children. It's an agonizing (yet exhilarating) situation for both of them as they try and resist but can't stay away from each other. 

This was very much a character driven story to me. Jungstedt has a knack for twining the characters' lives together and getting inside their heads--victims and murderer alike. Of course you expect this with a murder mystery (wanting to know the psychology of the why behind the crime), but it was this aspect of the story that really drew me in. The actual mystery thread felt a little bland to be honest, a problem I had with previous novel by her I read. Inspector Knutas seems to be of the intuitive school of detective work. There are lots of meetings of the detectives to sort through evidence and motives as well as interviews with witnesses and suspects. Really this sounds like typical detective fiction, but it somehow felt a little bit pedestrian and I'm not sure I can put my finger on just what about it that made me feel that way. 

Still, I found myself compulsively reading the novel, particularly when it came to the climactic final pages and the suspense built to the surprising end. I plan on picking up the next book in the series, Unspoken to fill in the gap and will read as much for the mystery as for the characters, as I expect them to continue developing and am curious to know more about Johan and Emma and how exactly they come together. Having already read the third book, I know that it ends with a cliffhanger, so I'll have to read that as well, though first have to wait for it to be published over here! In the interim I really must read Henning Mankell and some of his and Jungstedt's Swedish compatriots!

possibilities: night train to lisbon

Night Train to Lisbon 

By Pascal Mercier 

Translated from the German by Barbara Harshav 

Grove / Atlantic, Inc. 

"A huge international best seller, this ambitious novel plumbs the depths of our shared humanity to offer up a breathtaking insight into life, love, and literature itself. A major hit in Germany that went on to become one of Europe’s biggest literary blockbusters in the last five years, Night Train to Lisbon is an astonishing novel, a compelling exploration of consciousness, the possibility of truly understanding another person, and the ability of language to define our very selves. Raimund Gregorius is a Latin teacher at a Swiss college who one day—after a chance encounter with a mysterious Portuguese woman—abandons his old life to start a new one. He takes the night train to Lisbon and carries with him a book by Amadeu de Prado, a (fictional) Portuguese doctor and essayist whose writings explore the ideas of loneliness, mortality, death, friendship, love, and loyalty. Gregorius becomes obsessed by what he reads and restlessly struggles to comprehend the life of the author. His investigations lead him all over the city of Lisbon, as he speaks to those who were entangled in Prado’s life. Gradually, the picture of an extraordinary man emerges—a doctor and poet who rebelled against Salazar’s dictatorship." (from the publisher)

guest review: norwegian wood

Gege from Islandhopper Lives It Up posted this review of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. 

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

So I have decided to be a Murakami fan. And this book made me do it. Not because it's the best one I've read of his thus far, even though it is. But because Murakami's voice is becoming a familiar one, and I'm liking it. Of course, a big part of that voice is that of translator Jay Rubin. And then there are the voices of his characters, each one distinct and to me quite endearing.  

Toru Watanabe narrates in a voice reflective of Nick Carraway's in The Great Gatsby, Toru's favorite book. His is a voice that tries to subdue itself as the other characters assert themselves, loudly, emotionally. Just a few steps away from being a fly in the wall, he observes life around him and lets the other characters move him. He moves as the seemingly sane and stable character in a sea of broken souls.

I fell in love with the most broken among them, Naoko. Naoko and her beautiful sadness. And her hair slide. And her troubled past. And her attempts to set her life right in an asylum where the objective is not just to "correct the deformation" in their characters but to recognize and accept them, and still continue to live. "That's what distinguishes us from the outside world: most people go about their lives unconscious of their deformities, while in this little world of ours the deformities are a precondition. Just as Indians wear feathers on their heads to show what tribe they belong to, we wear our deformities in the open. And we live quietly so as not to hurt one another." She makes me think about my deformities, those I acknowledge and those I hide.

Like Toru, I was also torn between Naoko and Midori. Midori, the light against Naoko's dark spirit, the one who represents hope amid and despite a life filled with death and pain. Lively, wild, offbeat, her voice is a necessary one in a novel that would otherwise be too dismal for enjoyment. Her quirky language, her micro-minis, her bizarre dreams, her even stranger daydreams and fantasies, all lovable.

And then there's Reiko, the one who should have had the life of a successful pianist. Instead, she lives her days in an asylum to escape the outside world, a world which has battered her soul. Her voice is the most musical of all in a novel that's typical Murakami, heavily spiked with music. Reiko plays her guitar for her healing as much as for the healing of others around her. The Beatles' Norwegian Wood is among her repertoire.

There are other voices as well. The voice of Japanese youth in the 60s. Nagasawa's (Toru's college buddy and sexcapades mentor), charismatic, intelligent. The world is his for the taking, and he takes all that he possibly can. Kizuki's (Toru's childhood best friend and Naoko's boyfriend) voice from the dead, that continues to haunt and affect Toru's and Naoko's life.

But Toru speaks back to Hizuki: Hey there, Kizuki. Unlike you I've chosen to live - and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that's something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I'm stronger than she is. And I'm just going on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do... I have to pay the price to go on living.

These voices haunt me even weeks after the reading. And I've got Murakami to blame for it.

guest review: detective story

Tim from A Progressive on the Prairie just posted this review of Detective Story by Imre Kertesz.

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

Orwellian. Kafkaesque. Both terms are universally recognized shorthand for certain types of tales. Yet the terms are bandied about all too often. While the title of Detective Story by Imre Kertész calls to mind some noir novel, it is far more faithful to Orwell and Kafka than most other books for which those authors are invoked. 

Kertész, an Auschwitz survivor, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2002, the first Hungarian author to do so. Originally published in Hungary in 1977, Detective Story is actually set in a fictitious Latin American country. Its appearance in the U.S. this year sadly reinforces it is still relevant. 

Detective Story actually has three narrators. The main one is Antonio Rojas Martens, a career policeman who transfers into “the Corps,” a secret police outfit. His story, however, is introduced by a defense attorney representing Martens, who has admitted to and been convicted of various counts of murder after the regime he served has itself been overthrown. Essentially, Martens wants to explain his involvement with and what happened to “Federigo and Enrique Salinas, father and son, proprietors of the chain of department stores that are dotted all over our country, whose deaths so astounded people.” In so doing, Martens quotes extensively from Enrique’s diary, which was confiscated in a search of the Salinas home, making Enrique co-narrator of the memoir (although it beggars the imagination that Martens would have access to the diary while incarcerated.) 

The country, led by “the Colonel,” has become a totalitarian society in which surveillance is endemic. “There are these police types everywhere, eavesdropping, sniffing around, and they think nobody is paying any attention to them,” Enrique notes in his diary. “They’re right, too, people don’t pay them any attention. All it has taken is a few months, and already they have grown accustomed to them.” For example, the Corps shoots 120 rolls of film when Enrique spends a bit of time at the beach with a group of college-aged acquaintances Martens calls “shaggy-haired weirdos.” 

Enrique’s diary reveals that he is chafing under the government’s state of emergency, particularly since it has closed the universities. But other than what Orwell called “thoughtcrime,” Enrique has done nothing to attract the attention of the Corps, other than to be photographed with the presumably subversive “weirdos.” That matters not. “Any person who was in the records was going to end up a suspect sooner or later, no question,” Martens writes. Moreover, simply being in the records meant “Enrique was going to perpetrate something sooner or later. As far as we were concerned, his fate was sealed, even if he himself had not yet made up his mind.” 

Thus, Kertész blends the Orwellian world with a Kafkaesque one. Whether Enrique or his father are guilty of treason or trying to overthrow the government is wholly irrelevant. They, like almost anyone else in the country, are powerless to change their destiny. Having been identified as a potential threat to “Homeland security” due only to association, Enrique and, in turn, his father are inexorably entangled in the jaws of the leviathan. Detective Story is, thus, like many detective novels. The story isn’t in the end result, it’s what brought the characters to that end. At just more than 100 pages, this is more a novella than a novel. It is written in sparse, straightforward prose, something retained in Tim Wilkinson’s translation. In fact, Detective Story was on the longlist for the first annual Best Translated Book Award. Characters are portrayed more from a psychological standpoint than any other. Martens seeks to expiate his conscience, noting that although the Corps “brainwashed” him, it wasn’t enough. Yet he still invokes some bit of excuse, saying that as the “new boy” on his interrogation team, “I was aware that a different yardstick applied here at the Corps, but I thought there was at least a yardstick.” 

Enrique’s conscience is similarly plagued by guilt, but guilt over the benefits his family’s status affords him and the perceived complacency of the citizenry, himself included. He expressly takes an existential view of the meaninglessness of life under the current regime and he burns to do something, anything, to bring value to his life. His father’s conscience, meanwhile, will suffer the repercussions of his own deceptions. Thus, the power of Detective Story is not in its character description but showing how easily it is for evil to be viewed as a temporary necessity until it simply becomes accepted. As the defense attorney says in introducing the story, “Let me add, not in his defense but merely for the sake of the truth, that this horror story was written not by Martens alone but by reality, too.” 

The present is just temporary.

guest review: solaris

Joy from Joy’s Blog just posted this review of Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Published by Harvest/Harcourt, 1987, 205 pages

Translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox

Translation copyright 1970, Faber and Faber Ltd.

What's It All About?                 

From the publisher's synopsis: "When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the planet Solaris to study the ocean that covers its surface, he finds himself confronting a painful memory embodied in the physical likeness of a past lover. Kelvin learns that he is not alone in this, and that other crews examining the planet are plagued with their own repressed and newly real memories. Could it be, as Solaris scientists speculate, that the ocean may be a massive neural center creating these memories, for a reason no one can identify?" Kelvin and the other researchers on the Solaris space station are being "visited" by loved ones who should not be there. Are the visitors as real as they themselves seem to believe? And if so, why are they there? How have they materialized in this place at this time? And is their sudden appearance benign or is it part of a more sinister development, somehow tied to the planet the scientists are studying? 

What Did I Think About It? 

In his novel Solaris, first published in 1961, Polish author Stanislaw Lem managed to pull off that most difficult and most vital of tricks for the science fiction writer – the creation of a completely unique and authentic (even though mysterious) fictional world. Or, in the case of Solaris, a unique and authentic body of literature and information about that fictional world. Much of the book is taken up with detailed descriptions of the discovery and documentation of the planet Solaris, and the academic industry that grows up around it over a period of years. I suppose, depending on your personal tastes, this can be endlessly fascinating or endlessly boring. I have to admit that after a few chapters of "Solarist" minutiae, I started skimming over the details in order to get to the actual story. 

I've had Solaris on my TBR list for over thirty years now, ever since I first heard about it in the 1970s. But I probably wouldn't have been nudged into reading it if I hadn't finally seen the Steven Soderbergh movie from 2002, starring George Clooney as Kris Kelvin. It's a haunting, thought-provoking film that really caught my attention; I've watched it several more times. And since I read the novel, I've also seen Andrei Tarkovsy's 1972 version. Neither film is completely faithful to the book, though each is different in its own way. And the novel is, to some extent, both more and less interesting than either film. It's certainly more cerebral. 

For me, one thing that really stood out in the novel (as opposed to the films) was the relative lack of modern computer technology. Which is a little odd, since science fiction of the time was full of early imaginings of cyberspace and computers. After all, 2001's HAL was only five or six years down the road. However, there's very little of that in Solaris. When Kelvin begins his research on the possibly sentient ocean that covers the surface of the planet, he does it the old fashioned way – using books from the space station's library shelves. In a way, of course, that was refreshing; but also a little strange and disorienting. 

Would I Recommend It? 

Though I hate to admit it, I was a little disappointed in the book. Maybe it's just a result of reading about it for so many years: I've seen it receive so much praise from so many reviewers, perhaps my expectations were just too high. I didn't hate it, though; and I'm still very impressed with Lem's achievement. But if you like your sci-fi speculation mixed with more than a passing nod at action and drama, this probably isn't the place to look.

possibilities: poetry in translation

Favorite independent bookstore here in DC, Politics and Prose, recently posted this list of poetry in translation. All currently available of course. From them would be great as you won't find this list on Amazon.

guest review: the alchemist

 

David from Absorbed in Words just posted this review of The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. 

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

Tonight I’ll write a short, formal letter to my boss stating my intention to resign from the company. I’ll bring the letter with me to work tomorrow, and as I hand it over I’ll explain that I’ve decided to pursue my own “Personal Legend”. I’ll tell my boss that I had a dream—no, a vision even—that my place in this world is to be a writer, and if I don’t chase after this dream then it’d be like going against nature and my life would deem to be a failure. He won’t understand me right away, of course, so I’ll just tell him to get a copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and read it. 

Yes, that is what I will do after having read The Alchemist . . . if I really thought that life is all that simple. 

The book’s real message, I believe, goes beyond feeling a spark of inspiration or taking big leaps out on a whim. In fact, it wouldn’t really be wise for a reader to take the book in its plain, literal sense. For instance, it obviously would be irrational to believe that “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it”. Perhaps more than half the world’s population have life stories that attest to how that isn’t the real case in our universe. And unlike “the alchemist” himself, many people wouldn’t think it fair that if a woman’s love is really “made of pure matter”, then a man can go away to concentrate on his own personal aspirations and expect that he “can always come back” to his woman who will patiently and selflessly await his return. Indeed, these wouldn’t be good lessons to absorb from the story. 

With several references to Biblical and Islamic precepts as well as ancient proverbs, the book is like a string of tied-up parables with the epic twist of an adventure story. And throughout the protagonist’s journey, he meets different characters offering different philosophies, and sometimes even contradicting points of view. An old king encourages the boy Santiago to follow his dreams, while another character teaches him about being truly happy by concentrating on the present. Contradicting as they may sound, both are actually lessons about having a positive attitude. Some lessons are outspoken in unadorned sentences while others are bound in mystery, almost entirely vague. And if you think about it, the book doesn’t really claim to teach a single absolute truth. Indeed in order to assimilate something good out of the story, one must look past the mystical elements and focus on how it should influence him personally. 

...and when each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises. —The Alchemist 

Coelho stated that The Alchemist is a “metaphor” of his own life. Much like the story’s protagonist, he already had a job from which he took pride and pleasure in doing, a woman whom he surely loved, and as well as other necessities in life for which to be content with. What he didn’t have, however, was the fulfillment of his dream. His “Personal Legend”, as it’s constantly called throughout the book. I guess for some, the idea relates to their concept of destiny, or for others perhaps their so-called purpose in life. Others might simply call it their ambition, or lifelong aspiration. But whatever it is, Coelho’s story endeavors to inspire the reader to pursue it. And this is what the novel is ultimately all about—to have the passion, the courage, the faith and the unfailing determination to follow something you believe in. The book also teaches that in our pursuit to find our life's treasure, what we pick up along the journey—the people we meet and the experiences we get—is sometimes even more valuable than what we had set out to look for, and the original treasure becomes more of a trophy for what we've already accomplished. 

That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’ —The Alchemist 

In any case, this of course does not make the book unique. Coelho’s allegorical novel is essentially a romanticized self-help book. What actually makes it good, however, is the story itself. The story of Santiago's quest is simple and pleasant. But like any good fable, the book’s simplistic form is only somewhat of an innocent deception that masks its highly philosophical quality. The short prologue by itself is a lovely story. Retelling the tale of Narcissus with an amusing twist, the book begins with a wonderful lesson from an unlikely story—the lesson that if we reflect the beauty of others, allowing them to see through our eyes that they are special, we too in effect make ourselves beautiful and special. 

All in all, The Alchemist is an entertaining read that, more often than not, will leave its reader in a delightfully good mood. 

The Alchemist - Gift Edition is a hardcover edition that contains colorful illustrations by artist James Noel Smith and comes with an elegant bookcase. 

Producer Harvey Weinstein announced plans for a Hollywood film adaptation of The Alchemist. It is reported that Laurence Fishburne will both direct and star on the film.

guest review: ambiguous adventure

Matt from Matt’s Book Blog just posted this review of Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane. 

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

Taking What Heaven Gives vs. Paddling Your Own Canoe 

Written in the early 1960s, Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane is an early example of an African intellectual writing about his experience reconciling traditional culture with a western education and expatriation in Europe. The protagonist attends a madrasah in rural Senegal and distinguishes himself with his memory, voice, and manners that befit the son of a local chief. His aunt points out, however, that due to the French, their people have the “choice” “that we should agree to die in our children’s hearts and that the foreigners who have defeated us should fill the place, wholly, which we shall have left free.” Indeed, the protagonist is such a fine student that he sent to France for university. He loses all sense of God, ease with himself, and firmness of purpose. He seems to himself “like a musical instrument that has gone dead.” Obviously, this is a sad novel, but it examines still relevant issues.

guest review: real world

Harvee from Book Bird Dog just posted this review of Real World by Natsuo Kirino.  

Have you read this one too? Email me the link to your review, and I will add it to this post. 

How would you react to a writer who names her books Grotesque and Out? I read the latter some time ago and found it so fascinating, I readily picked up Real World, (by Natsuo Kirino of Tokyo) when I found it on the New Releases shelf at the library.

Out portrayed the lives of a group of women harassed at work and/or at home in a male dominated society. They support each other through thick and thin in an "unholy" alliance of women. They get even, as I remember it, and cover for one another.

This new book, Real World, is about four teenage girls who suspect a local boy of committing a murder and are curious enough about him that they go out of their way to befriend him. Two are bored with their humdrum lives and want to be part of a new "adventure," so they befriend the boy, helping him in his escape. One gives him her bike and a new cell phone. Another takes the train to join him for a time while he runs from the authorities, paying for a cheap hotel where he can take a bath and get some sleep. A third is coerced into writing a "story or poem" of confession for him, which he wants to carry around in case he is ever caught by the police and has to answer to them. They all carry on conversations with the boy by cell phone.

The boy fantasizes that he is the Japanese soldier he saw in a film in grade school, a soldier being beaten and stabbed by an old Filipino woman and a man, evidently as a revenge for the Japanese occupation during WWII. This image seems to haunt him, and he sees his own demanding and nagging mother as the Filipino woman.

The four teenage girls who are curious about the boy and the 17 year old boy himself try to escape the reality of their lives, humdrum or horrific. They feel that what people see on the outside is different from what they are.

Real World is another noir novel by Kirino, this time about teens facing the consequences of the decisions they make.

***** Five stars for this novel!