16 used & new from £0.01
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
In the Miso Soup
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book

In the Miso Soup (Hardcover)

by Ryu Murakami (Author), Ralph McCarthy (Translator) "My name is Kenji ..." (more)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


4 new from £5.01 11 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £4.80
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 11 used & new from £4.49
Paperback (New edition) £6.99 £4.51 46 used & new from £0.01

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Piercing

Piercing

by Ryu Murakami
3.9 out of 5 stars (10)  £5.06
Coin Locker Babies

Coin Locker Babies

by Ryu Murakami
3.5 out of 5 stars (8)  £7.39
Audition

Audition

by Ryu Murakami
3.5 out of 5 stars (4) 
Autofiction

Autofiction

by Hitomi Kanehara
4.0 out of 5 stars (5)  £4.49
Sixty-nine

Sixty-nine

by Ryu Murakami
4.2 out of 5 stars (4)  £4.93
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (7 Feb 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747574057
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747574057
  • Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.2 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 279,710 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #9 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors > Murakami, Ryu

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Review

'A blistering portrait of contemporary Japan, its nihilism and decadence wrapped up within one of the most savage thrillers since THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.' Kirkus Review 'Deft and fascinating a grisly tour of the darkness and confusion of the human mind.' The New York Times 'In the Miso Soup is quality pulp made out of Japan's crushed, dark heart: our pride, it suggests, is matched only by our self-hatred In the Miso Soup often reads like a collaboration between Stephen King and Michel Houellebecq, with off-key karaoke going on in the background. He gives you shocking blood-violence, but the social critique is never far behind.' LA Weekly 'His latest oozes darkness and ambiguity and reads like a cross-Pacific bullet train.' Entertainment Weekly


Kirkus Reviews

‘One of the most savage thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs. Shocking but gripping’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
My name is Kenji. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(15)
(11)
(7)
(6)
(5)
(5)
(3)
(2)
(2)
(2)
(2)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

In the Miso Soup
77% buy the item featured on this page:
In the Miso Soup 4.1 out of 5 stars (24)
Piercing
7% buy
Piercing 3.9 out of 5 stars (10)
£5.06
Audition
6% buy
Audition 3.5 out of 5 stars (4)
Real World
6% buy
Real World 3.8 out of 5 stars (13)
£5.49
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (10)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Strange, unpleasant and essential reading., 17 Nov 2004
This review is from: In the Miso Soup (Hardcover)
Murakami wrote the screenplay for the deeply nasty film "Audition".

I have to say that I didn't know this when I first read this book, which I picked up on the strength of one of his other books "Coin locker Babies" (which I picked up in mistake for a Haruki Murakami novel... a happy error!).

This book is every bit as nasty.

I will give nothing away, except to say that the book gives a completely convincing account of contemporary Tokyo and the place of the outsider within it, be that outsider foreign or one of the many "underclass" who seem to wander the streets of the city, and that once you have started it, you will be reading non-stop to the end.

Comment Comments (3) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Miso Soup, 1 May 2006
By Fred Stidston (Cranborne, Dorset) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In The Miso Soup (Paperback)
Started well with a lot of promise and mystery.
Enjoyed it alot with alot of expectation for the ending. Nice writing style too, though could have been more sensitive in places.

However, for me, the ending for me was too simple.

Once it had built up to the climactic halfway point all the questions in your mind that made the story extraordinary and exciting were simply answered.
In place of the earlier excitement was a generally more philosophical tone that was too subtle and underplayed to be engaging and failed to add anything essential or valueable.

I got well into the book and couldn't put it down, but after The Main Event of the story, my continued enthusiasm was not well rewarded.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars In the Miso Soup, 14 Jun 2005
By E. PARRY (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
What at a glance appears to be a fairly standard concept for a novel - is our protagonists client the serial killer at large? - is taken in a very different direction by the time the story ends. It's a direction that I can only imagine a Japanese author taking it: disturbing but poignant, and maybe a little frustrating in its ambiguity - though it's the frustrating things that are ultimately most rewarding. Of course only a Japanese author could have written it because the novel is essentially about the closed nature of Japan's society: alienating to foreigners and in a state of self-denial.

I'm usually a slow reader but this novel hooked me in from the start and I finished it in less than 24 hours. The writing style is much more fluid and rich than other Japanese novels I've read, such as Haruki Murakami's, though I'm never sure exactly how much of that is down to the translator rather than the original author. The author does, however, clearly have excellent ability when it comes to the pacing. Perhaps around the last third of the novel it loses its narrative drive, but the change to a slower, more thoughtful style is what gives the book its unique edge, taking it from being simply a gripping read to a novel that leaves a lasting impression and screams out to be read again.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars No Country For Old Men goes sex tourist Japan
This dark thriller is my favorite Ryu Murakami book so far. It's about a real terror who walks into another person's unguarded life and creates an inescapable sense of real... Read more
Published 21 days ago by J. Axup

4.0 out of 5 stars Will give you nightmares.
A Japanese tour guide specialising in showing tourists around the sexier elements of Tokyo nightlife is hired by an eccentric customer but as the gruesome murders begin to pile... Read more
Published 6 months ago by DDH255

5.0 out of 5 stars Kenji's ordeal
This book is superb. A genuinely unsettling tale, the atmosphere of dread and the mood of inevitable tragedy are expertly constructed. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Black Mask

4.0 out of 5 stars In The Miso Soup
The story is told by Kenji, an unlicensed tour guide of Tokyo, however this isn't the normal tourist traps, he is a guide of the darker back streets and red light district. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Simon Savidge "savidgeread...

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing Writing
This is my favourite book.

Fast paced plot line but always clear and sensitive, total sense of being there but never over-descriptive, short but with everything said,... Read more
Published 16 months ago by J. Carpenter

4.0 out of 5 stars Noirish nightmares
I picked this up after reading other Japanese fiction and found it one of the most rewarding reads so far. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Minkle MacTinkle

5.0 out of 5 stars Psycho-thriller that reflects on loneliness
In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami is on the surface a gritty hard boiled thriller set in the Kabuki-cho red-light district of Tokyo as the approaching New Year leaves near empty... Read more
Published 20 months ago by John

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting ... and unsettling
This is an excellent read. It's very compelling, and although it might get a bit daft towards the end, 'In the Miso Soup' is a really interesting meditation on Japanese culture... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Lord Faddington

4.0 out of 5 stars A smooth and intensely gripping read
I was bought this book by a friend as a birthday present. I found it compelling, very atmospheric, evocative and chilling. Read more
Published on 2 Aug 2007 by Ms. Carrie Van der Zee

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary and chilling
This was a FANTASTIC book. The beginning is a little slow but once Kenji's suspicions are raised about Frank the plot thickens. Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2007 by SJSmith

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.