Snakes and Earrings
by Hitomi Kanehara (Vintage, ¥1,449)

The book that put forked tongues on the cultural map, Snakes and Earrings isjust the kind of novel that sells a million copies: A journey of sex, violence and body modification that won the prestigious Akutagawa literary prize for its beautiful 19-year-old author, Hitomi Kanehara.
Lui is a beautiful, young “Barbie girl” who descends into the Shinjuku underworld after meeting Ama, whose forked tongue mesmerizes her. Akutagawa Prize judge Ryu Murakami (who won the award himself in 1976 for Almost Transparent Blue) clearly considers Kanehara an heir to his literary kingdom of permissive sex, drugs and aimless youth, and Kanehara’s prose is clipped and meticulous in a way that has both traditionalists and the literary avant-garde excited about a new Japanese style.

Whereas top dog Haruki Murakami’s minimalism is abstract and dreamlike, Kanehara’s is uncomfortably immediate and graphic. It’s a style that well suits the taboo-defying teenagers who confidently straddle Japanese pop culture. Punching text messages into their mobile phones, they are perfectly trained in the new Japanese literary style: short, shocking, and morally unbound.

Some people resent Kanehara for her age, her culture, and her pulchritude (Lui is as much of a hottie as the author whose photo dominates the inside back cover). The thing is, it really is hard to sympathize with a main character whose good looks and stable upbringing mean she’s never had the experience of not being wanted, either physically or emotionally. Lui’s response to her silver-spoon environment—by extension Japan’s broader consumer-driven society—is to descend into violent and invasive sex, alcoholism, anorexia, and a total lack of moral empathy with other human beings (her only major emotional response being when her boyfriend mysteriously disappears: “Why? Why did he leave me all alone?”).

If there is such a thing as a modern Japanese zeitgeist of alienation this seems to be it: I have everything therefore I have nothing. It’s just a bit hard to look past the too-cute, too-rich teenage girl who doesn’t care about anything. For her age, Kanehara’s writing is tight; maybe with time she’ll have something more to say. C. Thomas

The Very Small Home
by Azby Brown (Kodansha International, ¥3,500)

The business of squeezing into tight clothing can be a terrifying experience. The business of squeezing into an even tighter home can be a dream come true, that is, if you live in the homes featured in The Very Small Home: Japanese Ideas For Living Well In Limited Space. Author Azby Brown, an architect and Yokohama resident, traveled Japan surveying the tiniest of houses and his book profiles 18 inspiring homes with innovative solutions to a “very small” problem.

Brown favors a big idea approach to small design. (As any artisan will tell you, building without restriction is easy, it’s simplifying structures to their purist elements that require real skill). Brown believes that to live in a very small house one must choose a major design feature or key idea and let it define the home. It could be a wall of glass, a central atrium or changes in floor or ceiling levels. Brown uncovers unconventional ideas too, like a living room looking directly into the garage (for a couple in love with their sports car) or a house made entirely of glass shutters.

This book is aimed at those intending to build. It is an ideas book to help create a home with “good bones.” At the back, there are useful chapters on flexible partitioning, compact storage solutions, strategies for brightening the home, designing nooks, configuring the bathroom and kitchen;— all fully detailed with simple easy to understand sketches. Trina O-Hara-Thawley

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