SansPoint

I don’t watch much television, and it’s not because I’m trying to be an elitist, literary asshole. It’s mostly because I don’t get home in time to watch much TV these days.^[1] The writer’s strike, therefore, isn’t really affecting my life. However, as a writer with dreams of publication, royalty checks, film adaptations and other fun things, I’m curious to see what’s going to happen with this.

Really, it’s hard to take the side of the studios when they’re making more money than they have in ages, or suing YouTube for one billion dollars.^[2] If online content is worth one billion dollars of lost profits to Viacom, shouldn’t the creators of that content get at least a pittance? Clearly, the studios think not. It’s a classic tactic in discussing copyright and the internet to trot out how downloading movies and TV shows deprives poor, starving artists, actors, writers and stagehands their fair share. They stick this PSA in front of every movie now. Of course, the writers aren’t actually seeing any money from legit downloads of these things. They’re getting less than half a percent of the gross from home video sales. This may have made sense when home video was new and untested, but now it’s big money, and nearly all of it profit.

I’ve never seen any compelling argument for the studios, except for online distribution of media being an untested market. This cries of bullshit, especially with the rapid growth of video-on-demand and streaming through sites like YouTube. People are definitely interested in getting things without physical media. The biggest obstacle there is bandwidth, and it’s quickly becoming less of an issue. Of course, it’s important that we do hear the studio executive’s side of the argument, too. Equal time and all.^[3]

Combine the greed of media executives with the growing amount of consolidation in the media arena, and you have a recipe for disaster. What’s likely to happen if this strike doesn’t work is a mass abandonment of the traditional media companies in favor of independent production, Internet distribution, and other means of spreading out entertainment without getting involved with big media. If it does work, writers actually make money from the distribution of their works online, and big media has to settle for 98% of their current profit margins.^[4] One way, the studios shoot themselves in the foot. Another way, they survive with only damage to their pride. I’ll be happy with either.

1. I do, however, make it a point to watch The Food Network when I can. Good Eats is the greatest cooking show since Graham Kerr put a pan to a stove, and The Next Iron Chef was a just plain good culinary soap opera. ↩
2. It’s hard to read that amount without putting your little finger to the corner of your mouth, like Dr. Evil. ↩
3. Mad scientist’s assistant, studio executive, TV’s Frank can do it all. ↩
4. This percentage pulled out of my rear, but the point remains. They’re not hurting—the writers are. ↩

I read this novel as part of a class on Modern Japanese Literature at Temple University. It’s been an absolutely incredible and fun class with the largest percentage of pleasurable reading of all my classes save one. Grotesque is the penultimate novel in the class. We’ll be finishing with Haruki Murakami’s new novel After Dark, and you can expect a full, detailed, and probably adoring review when we get there.

Natsuo Kirino began her literary career as a romance writer then switched to writing crime fiction. I can’t comment on her previous novel, Out, but Grotesque is no typical crime novel. This is no “whodunit”. Kirino uses the murder of two prostitutes as an excuse to provide character sketches of some horrifyingly unredeemable people. There is no character to root for, no good guy, no hero. Everyone has something to loathe about them, including the unnamed narrator, the older sister of late prostitute Yuriko who presents these people to us in a way that makes you wonder just how legit the story even is. No matter how reliable the narrator, however, Kirino uses her and the other characters to reveal a dark underside of Japanese society that is shocking, and yet not unexpected.

What’s shocking here is not the graphic sexuality and dark undertones of the narrative.^[1] In fact, any Internet user in their late teens and early twenties is likely to have seen more bizarre sexual practices and fetishes to associate with Japan. The shock comes from Kirino’s depiction of Japanese society, and how it treats anyone who does not fit in with the societal norms. Each major character has some element that puts them out on the fringes of the Japanese world. The narrator and her sister Yuriko are “half”, having a Swiss father and Japanese mother. Kazue, who attended the same prestigious High School as the narrator and Yuriko, comes form a working class background and constantly tries to make herself fit in. Zhang, Yuriko’s murderer, is an illegal Chinese immigrant with an incest fixation. Another classmate, Mitsuro, makes it to number one in her classes, though is a high school social outcast, and falls in with an Aum Shinrikyo style cult after leaving medical school.

Kirino casts a sharp, critical eye on Japanese social structures through the scenes at Q High School. Q is the most prestigious educational institution in Japan, and has a strict social stratification; if you’re lucky to get in at pre-school level, you’re part of the inner circle. You have power, you have social clout, and the only way to join if you get in later is to be rich, beautiful or both. Beauty is a reoccurring element—Yuriko is the most beautiful girl in the school, setting on fire a whole holy host of lusts among students and teachers. Sex becomes a tool to get what she wants. Kazue is her polar opposite: poor, ugly, and unpopular, deluded into believing that hard work can get her everything she wants: good grades, beauty, money, and popularity. Likewise, Yuriko’s beauty casts the narrator in a strongly negative light; they look nothing alike, and few can believe they’re related, least of all the narrator herself. Even in discussing her sister, or anyone else, the narrator admittedly fudges details to emphasize what she wants.

How Yuriko and Kazue fall into prostitution speak to the position of women in Japanese society. For Kazue, in a fashion, sex becomes the way she can exert control over her environment and her life. For Yuriko, sex is a formality in getting the male attention she craves. Neither follows the ascribed path of “school, work, marriage, children” that is de rigeur in Japan. Neither does the narrator, a single woman and freelance employee. Japanese society, in turn, casts them out into the fringes, and further out as they age, making redemption that much more difficult, if it’s desired at all. The novel’s climax reinforces the futility of this problem of Japanese society, seemingly leaving the narrator with no potential release from the trap that caught Yuriko and Kazue.

For anyone with a curiosity about Japanese society that extends beyond Hello Kitty and tea ceremonies, Grotesque is required reading. Kirino’s criticism, as the Japan Times notes, “cuts too close to the bone”. Any society based on repression of difference is bound to give rise to a dark underside where those differences with be maintained. Grotesque shows it to us, and it lives up to the novel’s name. Though it does drag somewhat in the middle, particularly during Zhang’s testimony and trial, Grotesque comes highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Japan that extends beyond the popular conception.

1. Though it’s worth nothing that the American version was censored to remove a section involving underage male prostitution. There’s a number of references to underage female prostitution left intact, but sex involving young boys is apparently a no-no for American publishers and audiences. ↩

This post marks the start of a new SansPoint. Rather than post about a hodgepodge of random, assorted, and unrelated topics, I’ve decided to focus on something important to me: literature. I’m hoping to have something that’ll inspire me to write on a regular basis, and focus on something that’ll bring people in to read me. Since 2004, I’ve been focusing on studying literature, and I’ve been writing fiction and poetry for a number of years now. This should give me the opportunity to share my love of it with the world. At the very least, however, it’ll be an amusing diversion for a few months.

I’ve got a good bit of things planned: reviews of books—new and old—worth reading, critical essays, and my own fiction and poetry. More could come later: interviews, perhaps? The sky’s the limit. Until then, relax and prepare for a good read in the future.

If you’re looking for some good stuff now, here’s a few links that you may be interested in:

• The Writer’s Almanac
• McSweeny’s
• Kittysneezes
• Bookslut
• Audible^[1]

1. $15/month and you get one new audio book per month. I’ve read some great stuff this way. ↩