Ryu Murakami: In the Miso Soup

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.As far as fans of sharp, contemporary Japanese psychological thrillers are concerned, Ryu Murakami is often the first names that spring to mind. Quite rightly too considering he wrote the original novel of Audition and has several of his other works published in English in recent years: I have to say I really enjoyed Audition and can easily see how it was made into such a popular film (which, to my shame I STILL haven’t seen). In the Miso Soup is in some ways pretty similar but interesting in aspects I never expected; I don’t see it as such a good contender for on-screen adaptation though.

The story follows Kenji, a young freelance Tokyo tour guide who takes an American businessman called Frank around town on a ‘sex tour’ of the city’s nightlife during the lead-up to New Year’s Eve. There are one or two things that seem amiss with Kenji’s new customer from the start but Kenji rejects the alternative of a quiet time with his girlfriend in favour of some much-needed work. He soon begins to regret his decision to accept this lucrative offer when a darker and more dangerous side to Frank begins to emerge.

The impersonal labyrinth of crowded streets and shady establishments provides a great backdrop to the events of the novel, and needless to say provide an excellent atmosphere of unease and foreboding. Murakami’s prose is excellent at whipping up the tension with a clear and no-nonsense style that gets straight to the point and makes it a real page-turner during its relatively short length; the concise, clear language fits the youth and cynicism of the narrator and the first-person viewpoint draws you into the vibrant yet seedy world he lives in.

The reason why I don’t think it likely that In the Miso Soup will make the transition to film very easily, for all its David Fincher-esque overtones, is that the most visceral and shocking moment occurs partway through and the narrative proceeds to fall back into simmering tension and introspection afterwards. The Hitchcock-style climatic scene that marked the end of Audition is instead replaced by its return to focus on cultural and personal issues, which makes the initial impression of it being a gory nailbiter a bit misleading.

This is a psychological thriller in some respects but it feels more like a social commentary piece trying to pass itself off as a psycho-thriller: it tosses in an episode of graphic violence that fits in with the course of the events but that event feels excessive in its brutality to the point of being gratuitous. I don’t feel like I’m giving a massive spoiler in pointing out to you that the guy who calls himself Frank is indeed very weird and potentially very dangerous; it’s highlighted very early on so doesn’t give as much of a twist as, say, Audition‘s Asami Yamazaki.

As a purely suspenseful piece In the Miso Soup is a bit of an anticlimax because its real intentions aren’t so much shock and tension; rather, it gives frequent insights into both Kenji’s and Frank’s heads during their journeys through the city and makes some pot shots at contemporary Japanese culture along the way. Kenji is in an unsavoury job, as many people he knows are, in order to escape: in his case he wants to move to the US. And yet, it’s also easy to argue that these people drifted into the situations they’re in; the big question is of course how voluntarily their decisions were.

I’m not convinced that modern Japan is a culture coming apart at the seams but I’m noticing a higher profile of the outspoken writers such as the two Murakamis in recent years, which suggests to me that the issues they address are more universal and far-reaching than just modern Japan and the problems it faces. Many of the people and situations seen in this novel – overworked salarymen, bored teenagers, seedy nightclubs, enjo kousai and so on – are more associated with Japan than anywhere else but the significance of the pervading themes of isolation and loneliness in today’s world goes without saying.

The sense of isolation shared by many of the characters is the cause and driving force of many events in the novel, so it’s appropriate that the story unfolds at the most lonely time of year: it’s when In The Miso Soup goes into introspection mode that it comes into its own. After the hair-raising middle portion I gave up on mentally preparing myself for more terrors and turned my attention to this instead, which turned out to be the correct course I think. After the unsettling feelings subsided I was left musing over a lot of things that I never expected a novel such as this to concentrate so keenly on.

Kenji and Frank, or more specifically the peculiar friendship that develops says a lot about how Japanese and Americans perceive one another; the culture gap exploration yields some interesting questions that are more rewarding when interpreted your own way rather than have me give my own, probably inaccurate, conclusions.

When the novel is as realistically gritty and as analytical as this, a considerable suspension of disbelief is unfortunately required because there’s a lot about Frank’s character that is at odds with this realism: basically a lot of him simply doesn’t add up. Even after discarding the façade of lies and make-believe it’s still hard to believe that someone like Frank can continue to live in the real world, let alone get by undetected and wander around in a foreign country. Given how true-to-life everything else around him seems, the fact that he’s a caricature rather than a character is a little jarring.

It’s common to leave antagonists’ backgrounds partially in the shadows to maintain their mystique and there are some lengthy explanations given for the way Frank is. Even so, it’s unsatisfying to be presented with someone so larger-than-life and unnatural with only their own childhood reminiscences to go on. Maybe I’m missing the point there in that Frank is supposed to be seen as a metaphor as many of the issues and situations examined here are, but he still feels out-of-place in the wrong ways as well as the right ones. I’d be interested to hear your take on it.