Grotesque - who is the real monster?

Nowadays, the trend is to write books in which "we", the humans and/or the side that seems sympathetic at first, are the true monsters of society. Damn, we can go back to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and see the beginnings of a whole new theme that would soon be co-opted by a politician talking about the polar ice caps (although I doubt Shelley saw that coming). We are the monsters. Alternatively, it could be that the author is performing a clever shell con on us - while they make much attention in one particular character, it is another one that truly possesses ugliness.

Natsuo Kirino achieves this in her novel Grotesque, but with one major difference: many if not all of the main characters are true monsters.

Grotesque is a novel fascinated with the difference and blurred lines between beauty and ugliness. We are led through most of the book by an unnamed narrator who isn't even referred to by so much as her last name (interesting, especially considering that this was originally written in Japanese). Instead, she is merely, "Yuriko's older sister, " or "Yuriko's sister". She resents it, but believes herself to be better than her sister because Yuriko is a monster.

Yuriko has always been a stunningly beautiful girl. From childhood, when people thought she looked like a doll and she "stirred men's Lolita complex", to youth, where she was admitted to a prestigious high school for girls simply because she was beautiful, she has always possessed this beauty - even as an adult, she is a prostitute and admits that she is a nymphomaniac. She has never seen any reason to help anyone else out because she knows they'll take care of her. As a fading prostitute, she gets business here and there.

Until she is brutally murdered at the age of 37.

Yuriko's older sister isn't sad, surprised, or shaken at all - she hated her sister and envied her all at the same time. She maintains that she always knew Yuriko would get killed like that, so who cares? At the same time, she seems angry at the press for ignoring Yuriko's death. She says bitterly that it's all because Yuriko was only a prostitute - and who cares about another dead hooker? The way she turns from calling Yuriko a monster to sharply berating the newspapers for not talking about Yuriko more startles the reader, but makes us curious. Why is she like this? What did Yuriko do to her?

Kazue Sato is the third girl in the tragedy. She too has become a prostitute - all the more baffling because she is a successful, intelligent business woman working for a prestigious firm in Tokyo. She, like the narrator and Yuriko, attended Q School for Young Women. But where Yuriko naturally became popular because of her incredible looks, the narrator and Kazue were outsiders in an insider's paradise. The narrator brushes it off and says it wasn't worth it (words that are later called into question by the climax of the book), but Kazue was desperate to fit in. She tries everything she thinks of, but is just too normal for these privileged, rich girls.

Of all the characters, I identified with Kazue the best. She really was just a normal girl, growing up in a normal household. Her father doted on her and told her that if she wanted to do something, all she had to do was work hard and try her best. She wrote herself encouraging notes while studying for the Q School entrance exams. She only wanted to fit in and have friends.

The narrator, however, has other plans. Kazue, according to her, clamped onto her and wouldn't let go, so she decided to piss the stars right out of Kazue's eyes. She ridicules her for working hard, makes fun of her efforts and her family, and practically pisses all over Kazue's first crush.

That story in and of itself is telling. Kazue admits to the narrator that she has a crush on a boy named Takashi Kijima, who spends a lot of time with Yuriko. Since Yuriko is her sister, Kazue begs, couldn't she talk to Yuriko and find out what kind of girl he likes? The narrator senses an opportunity and mines it for all it's worth.

Kazue writes love letter after love letter to Kijima, asking the narrator eagerly to read them first. The narrator laughs at them behind her back, but graciously sends the most fervent ones on to Kijima. She tells a breathless Kazue that Kijima really likes a famous movie star, so he must like skinny girls. Kazue, a veritable twig, immediately frets aloud that she's too fat. The narrator slyly suggests that she cut back on the eating and trim herself up so that Kijima will finally like her - she'll be skinny, after all! Kazue subsequently develops both anorexia and bulimia, a habit that she never finds her way out of.

You see, Kazue is also violently murdered a year after Yuriko. Same way and allegedly the same man.

Kazue's life showed so much promise - so much more than the other two, so her ultimate fall is terrifying. Yuriko knew from an early age that all she wanted was to be desired and to have as much sex as she liked. Her sister was too wrapped up in her maliciousness (her "special talent", as she called it) to even contemplate the word promise. Kazue could have been so much more than what she was, and arguably she would have if only the narrator had not so wholeheartedly crushed and perverted her.

So do I recommend this book? Hell to the yes. Crime noir at its finest, it weaves in the Japanese dynamics between teenage girls, the sexes, and society so acutely it stings to read the brutal honesty in it sometimes. The ending is ambiguous and yet somehow obvious if you read between the lines. It is both beautful and ugly, much like the characters themselves. This is definitely on my new must-read list.