July 13, 2009
In the style of Autofiction, a review of sorts:
22nd year, Winter
Wow! I’m so annoyed I could die. First, the cover of this book is so exactly like the cover of that old guy Murakami’s books. It’s really so stupid. I don’t know why anyone should fall for such a dumb stunt. Wait, I did. Uu? Anyway, it’s just unbelievable. It’s not the same as Murakami really. It’s not as dreamy as his stuff. My friend Kana would probably do him. She doesn’t care who she spreads her legs for. The main character is so annoying! Have you ever met someone so hysterical as this Rin person? In fact, I think I’m going to coin a new genre of fiction based on this kind of narrative: the simple hysterical present.
At the start of this book is Rin is on a plane with her cute husband Shin. A flight attendant spills some champagne on Shin’s knee, and she wipes it off. Rin gets really angry and jealous. But she’s so in love with Shin! She wishes the plane would fall out of the sky so they could die together. Shin goes off somewhere and Rin starts imagining that he is cheating on her with the flight attendant. How did someone get so crazy?
18th Summer
Okay, so now we’re going back in time. That’s cool, I can understand that. She’s with some loser called Shah who lies to her. But I guess the lies he tells her are not so bad. She gets angry about a lot of things. What a stinker! Why is she so angry all the time? She loves dancing and going to parties but at these parties there’s a lot of sex. She doesn’t seem to question it though, so whatever. In fact she knows she’s cute and that guys want her but that’s the limit of her self-awareness really. Rin’s so micro! I don’t think this book is interested in issues other than personal issues.
16th Summer
Whoa, now she’s with a real asshole who makes Rin support herself by going to pachinko parlours. She’s not allowed to get a real job. I guess you can really see why she’s so screwed up all the time. It’s a bit of an obvious trick but you can still feel sympathetic towards her. Some really bad stuff happens to Rin. It’s sad.
15th Winter
Whoa, another asshole. So I guess Rin has a really bad life. And though she’s annoying you really feel sorry for her. Even if you want her to go away because she’s so crazy. This going-back-in-time structure is pretty good! Even though all the parts that show why she has no self-control are so obvious and the language is a bit stupid sometimes, there are also some parts where you really feel sorry for Rin. Sometimes she is really fun! She seems more together when she is younger.
Okay, I’m going to dance to Non-Stop Techno Adventure now.
