Review and Blog for All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe
Full Text of J. LeRoy Book Reviews
One of my many endeavors is to host web sites for people I know. When I do this, rather than taking their money directly I ask them to buy me books from my wish list on Amazon. This keeps me reading and means that they don’t have to spend too much for a web site and e-mail. You want this arrangement? Drop me a line.
This book was purchased for me by Karen Woodward, whose website is www.woodwardstudio.com. Go buy her art now.
All She Was Worth traces the movements of a Tokyo detective (on leave due to an injury) as he tracks what starts out to be a strange missing persons cases and end up being a bizarre case of identity theft.
The thing that most stuck with me about this book is that it, like the Tanizaki book reviewed below, deals with changing ideals within Japanese society. This book was written seventy years after the Tanizaki book. The act of identity theft was a bit harder for the characters in the book because the Japanese deal with a “family record” which is a written document that traces the movements of your family throughout time. They are supposed to be private, and therefore your identity is secure. But, in this case, that was not the case.
The book gets a bit preachy in the middle about the mechanics and evils of excessive borrowing, but the book reads fast and well. The characters are consistent. The desperation of debt in the Japanese psyche comes through very clearly. The Americans reading this would likely be “so what, you’re in debt, stop buying things, make your payments and get out.”
There are a lot of questions this book leaves unanswered and it makes a point of doing so. Indeed, the book ends at what could be a pivotal part. Partially to be provocative, I’m sure. But also to drive home the point that solving the case wasn’t necessarily the most important point of the book.
A nice twist is that the people at the end of the book all have a different motivation for seeing the case solved and the person who initiated the case no longer cares. A very nice easy read and a good glimpse into the post-economic boom world of Tokyo.
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Read between 20 August and 27 August 2003 in Seattle.
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Saw Blue / Orange at the Intiman Theatre.
This was a play about the various power struggles that we invent for ourselves and that others invent for us. Interestingly enough, a modern day play to invoke R.D. Laing. Always happy to see Laing pop up somewhere. Also happy to see that the play both credits and discredits his theories. I’m sure he’d be happy too. Blue / Orange was quite popular in London, where it is set. The Intiman did a wonderful job with it.
