Book Review
Title: Piercing
Author: Ryu Murakami
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Rating: ****
Review: So from what I can gather from the synopsis, Piercing follows a similar set of themes that are present in his other book In the Miso Soup, so I was excited to get into this one. Piercing definitely starts out with the right creepy notes, we observe Kawashima Masayuki standing over the crib of his four month old daughter, Rie as his wife Yoko sleeps. Everything seems normal about this about Kawashima pulls out an ice pick and begins telling himself that he isn’t going to stab his baby, We learn that Yoko left an abusive relationship with an older man when they met 6 years before and Kawashima was abused by his mother because he reminded her of his father and he eventually ended up in a home for abused children. Kawashima has also suffered from insomnia and night terrors which have got worse as he grew older. His night terrors leave him distraught and in the past he has even stabbed someone with an ice pick but his wife remains unaware of this. Piercing definitely has the same creepy, atmospheric vibes that In the Miso Soup had and I am excited to see where this goes.
When he leaves their apartment for a walk, he ends up at a convenience store and he ponders why he is having these urges to stab Rie and not Yoko, he realises that Yoko can talk to him and that overrides his imagination. Also in that convenience store, he has a sort of hallucination where a baby on a pack of diapers talks to him and tells him the only way he can get rid of these urges to kill his daughter is to stab someone else with the ice pick. We also get a flashback scene where we see Kawashima is in a relationship with an older woman who is a stripper and he stabbed her with an ice pick although his memories are vague as he doesn’t remember what happened after he stabbed her and dropped the ice pick. We know the police cannot have been involved otherwise he would be in prison but we don’t know if she survived or not. Afterwards, Kawashima takes some time off work and travels to Tokyo even though he tells Yoko it is for work. Once there he starts to plan this murder, he knows he has to use a prostitute and decides an S&M one is best as she won’t mind being tied up or gagged. His thought process in this time is meticulous and he doesn’t leave a thing out, he even orders a prostitute as a dry run just to get an idea of how the process works and then he feels ready.
We are then introduced to Sanada Chiaki also known as Aya-chan who seems to be the unfortunate girl who has been assigned to Kawashima for the night and I am instantly on high alert waiting to see what would happen, would Kawashima go through with it or would he chicken out at the last moment? Kawashima was planning to go through with killing the girl but Aya turns out to be as haunted as he is and when she stabs herself repeatedly in the leg, he tries to help her only making her more afraid. She lashes out at him but he continues to sooth her even when she bites deep into his head. During this battle between them, Kawashima knows that the plan has gone bust but he is determined to start all over. However, when he exits the room after Aya passes out, she ends up running into the hotel corridor naked and he has to go back before someone sees her and he gets into trouble. He convinces Sanada to get dressed and takes her to the hospital and despite his fears she doesn’t alert anyone and even asks him to wait for her while she gets stitched up and Kawashima agrees. After she returns, she offers for him to spend the night at her place and he agrees intent on killing her since she read his notes and knows what he was planning to do.
When they arrive at Sanada’s apartment they engage in normal conversation but Sanada drugs Kawashima and when the drugs kick in he has hallucinations which make her realises he is as haunted as she is and despite attacking and injuring him again, he doesn’t fight back and comforts he again before he attacks her and shares his secret for blocking out the pain, he even tells her what he is planning to do and before he can he passes out. Sanada doesn’t know what to do and contemplates killing him but she doesn’t. In fact, she decides in that moment she is going to pierce her other nipple and as she makes the preparations Kawashima awakens and watches her fascinated. The ending of this novel was really abrupt but it suited the tone of the novel, I do have many unanswered questions about what happened after, did one kill the other? Did Kawashima return home to his wife and child or did he stay with Sanada? Despite these questions I really enjoyed Piercing but it didn’t quite reach the same level of creepy as In the Miso Soup but still enjoyable.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Also see: In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami
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