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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)
Price: £15.00 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 180 pages
  • Publisher: Kodansha International Ltd (29 Feb 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 4770029578
  • ISBN-13: 978-4770029577
  • Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.4 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 514,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

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

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Product Description

Review

"Murakami has won some nice press for his unflinching look at violence and the underbelly of modern Japan; there's no doubt that it's deserved. His latest oozes darkness and ambiguity and reads like a cross-Pacific bullet train." -Entertainment Weekly
" . . .It is a testament to the strengths of Ryu Murakami's novel that it is ultimately defined not by its explicit depictions of violence and sex but instead by its misfit characters. In this skillful translation by Ralph McCarthy, Kenji is an appealing narrator, observant without being judgmental and nervous without being melodramatic; even the intensely creepy Frank is not entirely unsympathetic . . . Murakami deftly drops into this slim book both fascinating sociological details about the sex industry and often moving philosophical arguments about the forces that shape individual and national identity." -New York Times Book Review
"In this stark story by the iconoclastic Japanese filmmaker and novelist, originally published in Japan in 1997, a psychotic American sex tourist hires a young man top shepherd him through Tokyo's seedier side. Surrounded by the brute sexual violence and urban intrigue, the unlikely pair inhabits an eerie world between Asian noir and Pulp Fiction." -Details magazine
"In the Miso Soup is by turns comic and shocking-and then, all at once, both-but it is always memorable, and offers a window onto a world few Americans will ever see." -Pages magazine
"Murakami exposes the myth behind the exoticism of sex tourism...the 'Great Omiai Pub Massacre' reads like pure Miike [the film Audition] mania . . .perhaps will play well on the big screen one day."
-VLS, The Village Voice
"RyuMurakami's In the Miso Soup, just released in English translation, presents a postmodern movement in a doomed tango between cultures that simultaneously attract and repel each other . . . Since his debut novel Almost Transparent Blue, brimming with sex and drugs near a US military base, won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976, Murakami has balanced on the cutting edge of Japanese popular culture. His resume includes rock drumming, political and economic commentary and a stint as a talk-show host, but it is his novels and cult films that shock audiences." -Asia Times Online (www.atimes.com)
"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. Shocking but gripping." -Kirkus Reviews
"A wicked meditation on the worst traits of American and Japanese society, this is a creepy culture clash indeed." -Booklist


Kirkus Reviews

‘One of the most savage thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs. Shocking but gripping’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
My name is Kenji. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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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)
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7% buy
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Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (10)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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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
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.

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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.
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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)   
This review is from: In the Miso Soup (Hardcover)
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.

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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
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4.0 out of 5 stars Will give you nightmares.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Kenji's ordeal
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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
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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
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I picked this up after reading other Japanese fiction and found it one of the most rewarding reads so far. Read more
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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
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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
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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
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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
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