Book Review: "Coin Locker Babies" by Ryu Murakami

Japanese Literature has never ceased to amaze me. Whether it be the modern golden age of writers such as Yukio Mishima with his wonderful “The Sailor who Fell From Grace with the Sea” or whether it is Junichiro Tanizaki with his incredible “Makioka Sisters” or even Yasunari Kawabata and his “Thousand Cranes”. From then on, Japanese Literature has really been a staple of the modern classic novel. Writers such as Haruki Murakami have made the surrealist novel a popular subgenre of literary fiction, coming across with books such as “Killing Commendatore”, “1Q84” and my personal favourite Murakami novel, “After Dark”. One of the most prominent modern voices of Japanese Literature though has to be Yoko Ogawa with the brilliant bibliography that includes both “Revenge” and “The Memory Police”. But from Sayaka Murata to Hiromi Kawakami, from the olden Natsume Soseki to the newer Banana Yoshimoto, each phase of Japanese Literature has had its own taste of greatness. Books of extreme imagination, the likes of which the west has hardly seen, get told in awe-inspiring depth and this is also true for the surrealist writer - Ryu Murakami. His book “Coin Locker Babies” being a perfect example of 80s surrealist fiction before surrealist fiction was really taking off.

Hashi and Kiku are both abandoned by their mothers in the summer of 1972 and put in lockers of a Tokyo train station. They become orphans and develop wholly different personalities. Kiku becomes tough and athletic, whereas Hashi is shy, picked on and overly polite. They are soon adopted by a set of foster parents who live on an island - they are called the Kuwayamas. Hashi becomes a rockstar and falls in love. Kiku becomes a pole vaulter and also falls in love. Within this, we witness the breakdown of society, the sound and the fury of anger and revenge pouring out of the bones of those who have been forgotten by the system and shoves around as if on a chess board.

Through shocking twists and turns, this book allows fate to step in, take the wheel and lead everyone halfway to hell. A brilliant cyber-styled increasingly tragic novel of pain, shock, terror and devastation, this book shows the darkest sides of humanity regarding what happens when we let ourselves spin out of control.

One of the things I loved about this book is the mixture of genres. One of the genres of this book is surrealism. Surrealism regards the tone of the book - an almost unreal complex of Tokyo in which revenge and isolation breed for the 16-year-old boys exists within this space between childhood and adulthood. It is symbolic of the way in which emotional outlooks, though so different, can lead people down similar paths if one is willing to be influenced by the society in which they live and the pitfalls they have experienced. Another is the bildungsroman, the coming of age novel, a perfect addition to the book since it deals with two boys growing up and learning about their true selves - even though they may not like their true selves very much at all. The next genre is horror. Yes, horror. Horror takes place in the events of the novel, though recognised and realised by fate, they are interlocked for the reader to experience moments of absolute terror because of the way they have been dealt to the characters.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and I can’t get over the fact that I have never even heard of it before this. It was a brilliant formed, amazingly written book with great amounts of detail which shift the novels events in the most outstanding ways.