Snakes and Earrings
by Hitomi Kanehara
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hitomi KaneharaEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-30
ISBN: 0452287316
Number of pages: 128
Publisher: Plume
Book Reviews of Snakes and Earrings
Book Review: "Then must you speak of one that lov'd not wisely but too well."
Summary: 3 Stars
Scratch the surface, and Kanehara Hitomi's debut novella here is just about the oldest tale there is. Yes, the good old-fashioned love triangle. "Snakes and Earrings" is in structure pretty much a contemporary permutation on this oldie but goodie that's worked for everyone from Murasaki Shikibu to Natsume Soseki, not to mention a host of romance novelists. And it works rather well here too, drawing readers into the drama and involving them--probably despite themselves, because on its surface the story is raw and repellent, grim and graphic. Set among the urban punk subcultures of Tokyo, there's the aimless girl protagonist with her vernacular nihilism, her ostensible boyfriend with the dragon tattoo and forked tongue who's gentle but prone to violent extremes of jealousy, and his friend and her lover the kindly sadistic tattoo artist (a backstabber in more ways than one, I suppose). Cue here a lot of unsettling body modifications and even more unsettling rough sex and throw in a bit of booze and then some extremely unsettling unsolved murders and you realize how amazing it is that you even care what happens to these folks. But you do, so hats off to Kanehara on that score.
If it sounds like she's torn a few pages out of Murakami Ryu's playbook, though, she likewise has a similar ability to hide little mines of serious transcendence in the sludge: the tattoo artist's aesthetic dedication and concentration, realistically amateur speculations on theology, descent into slow death and gradual resurrection. You have to really dig for these, though, whether because of the author's skill or lack thereof is somewhat hard to tell. In fact, the novella as a whole has many of the telltale marks of being a first effort, like a promising but still unripe sample from a college creative writing class. Kanehara often makes the mistake of telling rather than showing. The storytelling can be clumsy and artificially obvious in spots, and the characters not always consistently rendered. The ending is abrupt and largely unconvincing. And yet for all that, the story has a lot going for it and, while no classic, is definitely a worthwhile read from a writer with a lot of potential. Besides, if nothing else, bizarre love triangles are never boring.
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