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Real World Editorial Review:
A stunning new work of the feminist noir that Natsuo Kirino defined and made her own in her novels Out and Grotesque.
In a crowded residential suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer and endless “cram school” sessions meant to ensure entry into good colleges. There’s Toshi, the dependable one; Terauchi, the great student; Yuzan, the sad one, grieving over the death of her mother—and trying to hide her sexual orientation from her friends; and Kirarin, the sweet one, whose late nights and reckless behavior remain a secret from those around her. When Toshi’s next-door neighbor is found brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor’s son, a high school boy they nickname Worm. But when he flees, taking Toshi’s bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers—dangers they never could have even imagined—that rises from within them as well as from the world around them.
Psychologically intricate and astute, dark and unflinching, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.
Customer Reviews:
Nothing Spectacular
I picked this up, having read everything available by Haruki Murakami and Yoko Ogawa, hoping that it would be equally good. It wasn't.
The story is summarized elsewhere, so I won't bother. Instead, I will focus, as usual, on what is good and what is bad.
The good things about the book are that it is relatively introspective. The characters might be stupid and vapid, which I will address again shortly, but the story itself at least has some merit. Unlike Murakami, who also focuses on the otherness around us and our inability to understand it or ourselves, Kirino actually takes a stand with her characters. This is both good, in that it requires a person to take a stand and actually make a point, and bad in that it alienates some readers who don't identify with the characters as well. That was about all that was good about the book.
The bad was more obvious. First, the characters were stupid, vapid, and indistinguishable. The four girls, who are supposed to be entirely separable characters, are not. The four of them are completely stupid, believing that they have problems and that they know the world. Probably they do have problems and probably they do know the world, but very little of either. Listening to their existential angst is almost painful in its absurdity.
It's worth reading if you are really curious about modern Japanese youth, but there really isn't a lot to it. Just don't get your hopes too high.
C
Harkius
Thin but still Kirino
I've read three of hers (also Grotesque & Out) and this is the thinnest both in size and insightfulness. There's a 'ripped from the headlines' feel to Kirino's tentative insights into teenage psychology. Not sure if that is adequate to or respectful enough towards the young mostly female minds she gives voice to here. The Kirarin character, on the other hand, is very well done in my humble opinion, and a decent stab (ouch!) is made toward getting inside the young male mother murderer. A much richer novel might've been attempted that would've involved Kirino's much better/deeper insights into middle-aged Japanese women, the ones raising the five main characters here. (Ah, yes, wasn't "Out" great!?) Finally, the ending is implausible; in all three of her novels Kirino has had difficulty with 'how to end it'. Despite the weaknesses, the audacity of what Kirino is attempting to do here and her complex, world-weary perspective enrich the teenage anger and ennui enough to earn four stars.
weak analysis of messed up Japanese youth
'Real World' is a short novel of four Japanese girlfriends who entangle themselves with a high school boy on the run for killing his mother. Yes, it is all rather shocking at how indifferent these girls are to the horror of the situation. And in the end everything comes crashing down.
Although shrewdly observed and well written, 'Real World' is somewhat of a let down. It pales in comparison to Kirino's horror masterpiece 'Out' or the very good 'Grotesque'. Actually the book is similar to 'Grotesque' in that it focuses on psychological analysis of Japanese girls. But 'Real World' is too short with too many characters; the author glosses over them such that the reader doesn't get into their heads.
Bottom line: certainly a worthy read for those interested in modern Japanese youth and/or are fans of the author.
How Much Do You Hate Your Parents?
A group of college (high school in US) age girls attending a cram school get to do something different in their lives from norm, protect a boy who murdered his mother. They think it is cool and really exciting to be able to do this. Their lives seem to belong to others who tend to be distant and not too involved with them. Parents come and go, schools bully students and judge them on success, there isn't a lot of care for these children. So when the boy performs the ultimate act, the girls protect him and aid in his escape. What can become of crawling so far away from the normal? Unfortunately, most of it is not very good. A thought provoking novel of cultural disconnect and how people react when they are not fully cared for.
suchi que
This 207 page 6X9" book with five characters and many unfamiliar place and object names was a tough slog. The characters were Tokyo high school students attending outside cram schools to qualify for college. They were a brain, a lesbian, a matricide, and one betrayed by her lover. The last few pages were slow reading, because I had repeatedly to stop to wipe away tears.
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