In the Miso Soup

I read a book not on the list, In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami ( New York: Penguin, 1997). I was getting my hair done and needed to read something to avoid small talk with the hair dresser.

Kenji guides tourists who want sex in Japan. An American, spouting standard psycho killer babble, hires him. This book was disturbing. Violence to genitals. Tampons. Need I say more?

There I was sitting, getting my hair wrapped in foil, and reading about sex and blood spurting from someone's body parts. It was twisted.

I don't like violent books but I understand sometimes there is a need for violence to prove a point. Having said that, the quality of Ryu's work or his overall point (Japan has a seedy side) doesn't justify the amount of violence he uses.

What book warrants violence? Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird, 1976. Horrific scenes and circumstances caused by war. That book changed me. I began to understand how tragic war is and realized that terrible things happen which are beyond what we who live in first world countries can imagine or would want to know.

No progress on the thesis yet. I'm going to school tomorrow so I'll borrow something.