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August's choice is Real World by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Philip Gabriel. (Of our two new books, we're starting with Real World because August is Women in Translation Month (#WITmonth)!. You can learn more about the impactful global movement here: . (#WITmonth is partially to thank for our access to Sayaka Murata, Mieko Kawakami, Natsuko Imamura... So we have real reasons to celebrate.) Here's a #WITmonth thread: /topic/show/...

Spoiler tags apparently don't work on mobile, so please be aware the next three paragraphs are copied from the ŷ������ entry on Real World.

A stunning new work of the feminist noir that Natsuo Kirino defined and made her own in her novels Out and Grotesque.

In a crowded residential suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls indifferently wade their way through a hot, smoggy summer and endless “cram school�� sessions meant to ensure entry into good colleges. There’s Toshi, the dependable one; Terauchi, the great student; Yuzan, the sad one, grieving over the death of her mother—and trying to hide her sexual orientation from her friends; and Kirarin, the sweet one, whose late nights and reckless behavior remain a secret from those around her. When Toshi’s next-door neighbor is found brutally murdered, the girls suspect the killer is the neighbor’s son, a high school boy they nickname Worm. But when he flees, taking Toshi’s bike and cell phone with him, the four girls get caught up in a tempest of dangers—dangers they never could have even imagined—that rises from within them as well as from the world around them.

Psychologically intricate and astute, dark and unflinching, Real World is a searing, eye-opening portrait of teenage life in Japan unlike any we have seen before.

If you've never read Kirino, note that she should always come with content warnings. I've never read this particularly Kirino, but booktriggerwarnings.com lists death, murder, suicide, and violence. Traditionally, Kirino's violence is pretty graphic.

Alison wrote: "August's choice is Real World by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Philip Gabriel. (Of our two new books, we're starting with Real World because August is Women in Translation Month (#WITmonth)!. You ca..."

FWIW, I just wrote an abbreviated bio of Kirino for a WIT project I'm working on:

Natsuo Kirino is a hugely popular crime novelist in Japan, and probably the best-known female Japanese crime novelist abroad. A lawyer by training, she began her career as a romance novelist, before quickly shifting to often-gruesome stories dissecting (sometimes literally) some of the darkest aspects of human psychology and Japanese society. For example, Out (translated by Stephen Snyder) is about Japanese housewives who put their cooking skills and sharp knives to work disposing of bodies for yakuza. While it is superficially a crime story, it also looks at the marginalized position of women who leave their careers to raise families and are then forced to take unappealing jobs when they try to return to the workforce. Grotesque (translated by Rebecca Copeland) takes up prostitution, prejudice, and Japan’s attitudes about immigration. Kirino’s The Goddess Chronicle (also translated by Copeland) is somewhat different from her other work in English—it retells Japan’s creation myth from The Kojiki to explore the misogyny woven into the fabric of Japanese society. Would-be readers should note that every single Kirino novel should come with content warnings of its own, but these almost always include graphic violence and murder and often include sexual assault.

So far Real World is grim and sad. It seems to me that the 5 characters are struggling against self-perceived fated personal destinies that have no redemption or positive resolution. It is an interesting work but I have to put it down frequently to get some distance.

maybe a better description is gritty. The characters make me sad but that is a resonance with my unrealistic hopes that children and young adult should have a chance of a meaningful, and not oppressive, life.

The other thing I noticed is that the underlying social commentary is focused on issues in Japanese society. That is, the story was not written intentionally to be translated for a world market. Therefore the characters' lives and situations are culturally oriented.

I know this is what many of us desire when we read Japanese literature in translation, that the stories inform us about a culture that fascinates us.

Friends have told me that they didn't consider Real World to be her strongest work in (English) translation so I want to try the other two I have on my tbr piles, Grotesque and The Goddess Chronicle. I should have access to Out via the library. The Goddess Chronicle is translated by Rebecca Copeland, of whom I have great admiration for her academic works.

I also greatly admire Rebecca Copeland!

The Goddess Chronicle isn’t like anything else by Kirino in English. This is a piece I wrote on it a while ago. I had a uni professor assign it to her students, which was cool. Spoilers, though.

Natsuo Kirino is impeccable at showcasing and getting in the head of unlikable people, peeling the layers of a person who seems very simple on the outside. Real world is an allegory of who we are on the inside (real world) and what we show on the outside (the outside world). We follow four girls: toshi, Teruachi, Yuzan and Kirarin who orbit the mess of a person/incel boy Worm.

I think I didn't like this book as much as I liked OUT or Grotesque bc:
1) There wasn't much to Toshi as a character. She is just a nice girl who is in an eclectic group of girls.
2) I do understand that portraying Worm as pathetic was choice, but his character felt superficial to me and his reasoning for commiting a crime did not have a satisfying reason besides him being an incel.
3) This book didn't have the strong element of spite and resentment that main Character in OUT and Grotesque had. Teruachi had the strongest case for being spiteful, but she was underdeveloped. She just rambled on about things that cannot be undone and her logic was hard to follow.
4) Yuzan had her troubles at home and outside. But her logic to help Worm was just too convoluted and did not seem intelligent. She is just so engrossed in her own world to make coherent choices.

My favorite character was Kirarin. Yes she is shallow, she is admittedly not going to Harvard any time soon. But she is true to herself. She doesn't disguise her disgust to worm, and there's a plot-twist. Her story was well written because it showed the extent of rabbit hole we can get sucked into when we just can't let go of something that tears at us.

please note that Gianluca Coci is the translator of the Italian edition of Real World.
I liked Gonza's review:
"
The thing that always amazes me about this author is how she manages to create chaos from more or less normal people or at least from absolutely fortuitous circumstances. Moreover, her female characters are wonderful, for better or worse.

La cosa che sempre mi stupisce di questa autrice, é di come riesca a creare il caos partendo da persone piú o meno normali o quanto meno da circostanze assolutamente fortuite. Inoltre i suoi personaggi femminili sono meravigliosi, nel bene e nel male. Soprattutto nel male.
"
Especially in the bad.

Thanks :)

I started over on real world with more focus on the character portrayals.
In chapter 5 Kirarin quotes the Imperial Rescript for Solders and Sailors (1882). The larger quote is �� neither be led astray by current opinions nor meddle in politics, but with single heart fulfill your essential duty of loyalty, and bear in mind that duty is weightier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a feather. Never by failing in moral principle fall into disgrace to and bring dishonor upon your name.��
Worm is dwelling in his solder allusion and maybe comparing himself to Mishima.
I am not sure if Kirarin is aligning the quote to Worm, herself, or both of them in relationship to the Real World.

I value these literary references. They can add depth to a story and a cultural relevance. I did not find the references out of character for either Kirarin or Worm, in that the rescript and Mishima would fit in the high school curriculum. The reference added a complexity to Kirarin’s character. The rescript is woven into the story and referenced by several characters.

Real World is more a character study than a story about a murder. We get deeper in to each young adult as the POV rotates to the end.

Terauchi contemplates the irreparability of certain actions or things. It is beyond murder or death. She says, “Something that’s really irreparable is more like this: a horribly frightening feeling that keeps building up inside you forever until your heart is devoured. People who carry around the burden of something that can’t be undone will one day be destroyed.�� This is a terrifying insight for a teenager.

If anyone has read Real World in Japanese:
In chapter 6 of the English translation, Terauchi says,”There really are things that are irreparable.�� There is a concept of irreparable injury or fault in American law and, I think, Kirino has a Japanese law degree. I was wondering if that was the intent of the original text or it if was more like doshigatai 度し難い which means "irredeemable," or “beyond salvation�� (perhaps in a Buddhist sense)?

Thank you, Jack