Tokyo Decadence: 15 Stories

Many years ago, before going to Tokyo myself, a guide book told me about how little poverty there was in Japan. Unlike Western cities the book told me (I'm paraphrasing here, of course), Tokyo is free of the down-and-out. Oh is it? I thought, walking through a tent city around, if memory serves me correctly, Ueno Station. The guide book was only a year or two old, so unless sudden poverty struck, the guide book was either blind or just plain wrong.

I kept coming to that memory while reading Tokyo Decadence, fifteen stories of, as the back blurb says not-so-average Tokyoites. This isn't the Japan I saw on the news growing up, full of economic marvels and glossy apartment blocks and white-plated robots. This is the grittier part of Japan, the struggling to keep going Japan, the seedy bits that my guidebook chose to ignore. It shouldn't surprise me that this all exists; I mean, I was in Nagasaki when its mayor was shot by the yakuza. There's an underbelly everywhere, and Tokyo Decadence skims along it, going up into the lower working classes, down into drug dealers, around the love hotels and hostess bars. I can't really say that the collection is hopeful, but it isn't hopeless either. It's like a dark fantasy, except real, which I guess is what all gritty fiction should feel like.

Tokyo Decadence by Ryu Murakami went on sale March 15, 2016.

I received a copy free from Librarything in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This is a hard one for me to review. The writing is good (and the translation is well done). I've read Ryu Murakami's work before and I've enjoyed some of it but this didn't grab me as much as I would have hoped (though that may have more to do with me at the moment that I read it than it has to do with the book itself). The stories are fascinating and they have a range that covers sides of humanity that aren't always pretty. I didn't mind the brutality in the stories. That is a part of what makes it interesting, though it can also be repulsive in its way. Sometimes the stories are lighter and sort of funny and that also has a certain charm. As I said, it's hard for me to review. It's good, and I'm glad to have read it, but I still don't really feel that I loved it. ( )

I am a sucker for Japan, so I looked forward to reading these short stories about all kind of people, living in Tokyo. However, it went as all Ryu Murakami's books do: over the top.
I did not read about different people, I read about men doing drugs and having sex. Even when the characters in the story were female, they still thought and behaved as men. As men, regarding to Murakami.
Still however, he can write. Most storylines were promising, some endings lived up to these expectations. ( )

I requested this book on LibraryThing Early Reviewers as I had heard of the author and thought a collection of short stories would be a good way to get introduced to his writing.

I don't know how representative this selection is of his books in general- I have seen some very positive reviews for his novels but I have to say that based on this collection I struggle to understand why.

When I read fiction, I want to be made to feel something for the characters, whether positive or negative, and if I'm lucky, understand something from a perspective very different from my own.

In the case of these stories, the majority made me feel nothing. The couple more drastic ones made me feel a slight revulsion, but even this felt bland.

It took me a long time to get through this smallish volume; not because it was a particularly difficult read, but because I was bored and found it hard to muster up the energy to work myself through another joyless story about characters to whose fate I was thoroughly indifferent.
Simply not for me I'm afraid. ( )

Note: I received a copy of this book through the Early Reviewer program of LibraryThing.

This collection of short stories by Ryu Murakami contains stories from several other collections. The stories vary from 'normal' (about relationships) to pretty gruesome (about violence, torture and murder). Definitely not for the faint of heart. I enjoyed reading this collection, although the more gruesome stories were a bit too much for me. I do think I will read more by Ryu Murakami, and all other stories lead me to give this collection 4 out of 5 stars. ( )