In The Miso Soup

"You sicko!" my friend said to me, and I don't blame him. He'd just looked at the book I'd been reading, Ryu Murakami's In the Miso Soup, which has a picture of a grotesquely mutilated face on the cover. I'm not the type to get nightmares about what I read, but Murakami scared me well enough even when I wasn't sleeping. Miso is not only chilling, but also contains scenes of extremely brutal violence. The main gore-fest in the novel almost set off a wave of nausea as my imagination pictured the violence. It's almost like watching a horror movie, except perhaps even more unsettling because it all happens in your mind's eye.

But I have to admit, In the Miso Soup is a page-turner. I couldn't put it down as I followed Kenji, a 20-year-old "sex tour" guide, through Tokyo's red-light district--lingerie pubs, peep shows, and karaoke bars where you can do much more than karaoke. Almost right off the bat, Kenji suspects his client, an American tourist named Frank, of the recent murder of a teenage schoolgirl. Kenji then leads us through a three-night adventure with a man who could give Freddy Kruger the creeps.

Although the story is set at a suspenseful pace, nothing in this novel comes as a surprise--that's not what is scary about it. It's the mood that Murakami sets up, and the fact that this novel, first published in Japanese in 1997, describes a reality that exists today. Murakami reveals some of the problems in Japanese society that he sees as very destructive. The relationship between Japanese society and American society has recently been explored by movies such as Lost in Translation. Murakami also delves into this relationship between the two cultures, but does so with an uncanny knowledge of what happens when things go bad.

If you don't mind the violence, In the Miso Soup is a quick read that will get you thinking about some not-so-pleasant realities in society. And after reading it, you won't be caught dead in Tokyo's red-light district.

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