Snakes and Earrings

Recipient of the 2004 Akutagawa Literary Award
She was 19 when she wrote it, and this short novel contains ample sexual and visceral imagery. Although the award nomination committee accepted this work without much discussion, for a while both the book and the author were widely acclaimed amongst Japanese intellectuals with much debate and criticism. After all, the author was only 19 and, from the standpoint of the Japanese intellectual elite, what could a 19-year old possibly have to offer to our complex society?

The book was recommended to me by the English Department here, who all read it in English. I thought it would be neat to read it in Japanese (seeing how I'm fluent in the language anyway). Their reaction to the book varied, but was often one filled with a curious type of disgust and a desire to remain distant from, yet within reach of, the reality that it portrays. This reality, however, is the reality of youth culture in Japan, and although the author takes a radical example set from it, she still manages to show what it's like in the world that people rarely see.

(Breif analysis follows--it might ruin the ending. Read with discretion.)

"I'll be God myself."
They also thought that the reason why Loui goes 'back' to the tattooist, sadistic boyfriend Shiba (could be spelt Shiva, alluding to the Hindu god of life and destruction) is because she was lonely. I think there was much more to it than that. After her boyfriend Ama died, she didn't care and couldn't care less who she was with. The fact that the man was possibly related to Ama's death, in fact, only urged her to be with him. After all, Ama was dead and Shiba wasn't. The key was that this was another reality that she could change. She told herself, "It's okay, he might've killed him, but it's okay..." and then tried to change her surroundings--including the physicality of Shiba. While in some ways this probably was in an effort to get rid of everything tangible that existed and/or pertained to Ama's death, it was also a way for Loui to retain a will to live on. Loui's tendency to want to change the tangibles of her life was mostly apparent in her split tongue and her large tattoo on her back. 'Tis why Loui gradually lost the will to live as her tongue and tattoo were completed. By the end of it, she needed something else to change, something else to give her a purpose to live. Shiba was the answer.

At the same time, the reason for Loui's desire to make these changes is not necessarily because she needed constant change in her life. In fact, it is the ultimate paradox: the desire to change in order to attain perpetuity. She wanted to change Ama's hair color after finding out about the murder report on the newspaper not for the sake of changing, or just so that the police wouldn't recognize him, but also so that she can keep him, just the way he really is--gentle and at times childish, and always by her side. For her, changing his hair color would facilitate perpetuity. Then, when she loses Ama, she looks towards Shiba to provide her with the same opportunity, and it is here that her fundamental motive for change becomes particularly apparent (if it wasn't so apparent in Ama's case). At the end, she wants him to change how he looks, and she wants to change the scent of the incense, not because she doesn't want the police to find out in case there were any witnesses to his murder of Ama; rather, because she wants to make the change and make her desired reality stay. Just as she declared in the beginning of the novel, she had made herself 'God'.

Is such a phenomenon--the desire to always be changing but always be looking for a home plate--relevant? I think so, both on an individual level, as well as on the greater, cultural level, here in Japan. Highly recommended read.