Declare Books During Grotesque
| Original Title: | グロテスク [Gurotesuku] |
| ISBN: | 1400044944 (ISBN13: 9781400044948) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Japan |
| Literary Awards: | Izumi Kyoka Prize (2003) |
Natsuo Kirino
Hardcover | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 3.69 | 8982 Users | 925 Reviews
Point Of Books Grotesque
| Title | : | Grotesque |
| Author | : | Natsuo Kirino |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | March 13th 2007 by Knopf (first published 2003) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Japan. Asian Literature. Japanese Literature. Mystery. Crime. Horror |
Explanation To Books Grotesque
Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue have been brutally murdered, their deaths leaving a wake of unanswered questions about who they were, who their murderer is, and how their lives came to this end. As their stories unfurl in an ingeniously layered narrative, coolly mediated by Yuriko’s older sister, we are taken back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school—where a strict social hierarchy decided their fates — and follow them through the years as they struggle against rigid societal conventions.Shedding light on the most hidden precincts of Japanese society today, Grotesque is both a psychological investigation into the female psyche and a work of noir fiction that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s electrifying gifts.
Rating Of Books Grotesque
Ratings: 3.69 From 8982 Users | 925 ReviewsCrit Of Books Grotesque
Natsuo Kirino is an impressive author. She has the power to really portray characters so vividly that I felt them get under my skin. I found myself detesting a character as if she was real. I found myself wrinkling my nose in distaste, hating some stupid things a person would keep doing, their blindness... I had to stop and remind myself that this was fiction and yet, time and again, Natsuo would draw me in. This is a rare gift and one that Natsuo employs to astounding results in this book. ItMaybe one day I'll be able to read Natsuo Kirino in Japanese, because I don't think this translation did her justice. At least I'm assuming it didn't, because I struggled with the language more often than not. It's stilted and choppy. I'm imagining it's a style that works in Japanese and doesn't in English. Or maybe the translator just wasn't the best.I'm not sure I liked this book. It was intriguing and fascinating but at the same time I disliked all characters. Most of them were hateful,
(3.75) The other reviews can reveal what this book is about. What I wanted to share is the extreme responses this book incited in my boyfriend and me. He alternately found himself loving the narrator, Yuriko's sister, for her brutal honesty and hating her for her malice and psychological bullying of Kazue. Meanwhile, I found myself rooting the narrator on as she spoke the cruel truth about the pitiful hopelessness of Kazue's meritocratic dreams, but a moment later I wondered if that made me a
Few books start with a crackerjack opening; Lolita, Anna Karenina, The Journalist and the Murderer and Tale of Two Cities are the only other ones I know of. This is the 5th. And for a while she reuses the opening idea when other characters are introduced. An innovative technique.That is, she's walking down the street, see's a man she's attracted to,and begins to wonder what a baby would look like if she had one with him.His eyes? His mouth? His chin? His ???Do women all around the world think
Signs of Lack of Authorial Control, and Their Relation to IntrospectionThis is not the voice of a major novelist. She has gotten some great reviews, both here on Amazon and in print, but the reviewers are mainly discussing her work as a reflection of contemporary Japan: in other words, they are reading it as documentary evidence of social phenomena. As a novel, "Grotesque" is fairly poor. Two points about that. 1. In three sections of the book, we read texts written by characters other than the
Grotesque is an exploration of many things. Japanese society, coming of age and also the yearnings / struggles of privileged women. I should probably mention that I read the Chinese translation of this book, and also that I didn't end up finishing the book. I thought the book was long, drawn out and tedious. The book revolves around a girl of mixed heritage (Yuriko) who is beautiful to the point of unnatural, like she should not even exist on this earth. The girl's older sister is the unnamed
I'm hovering between a 2 and 3 star rating for Grotesque. I think the main reason that I'm leaning towards a 2, is that the book felt tedious. But the lives of these people were tedious so really I was just feeling the emotion of the novel. I also struggled with reading a book where every character was so horrible; and not really horrible in an interesting way - like an outrageous gangster, or a powerful, crooked politician; horrible in a way that is similar to the vein of nastiness that
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