Story: 7.5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 6
Prose: 7 ( )

This book would have been better if all the men in the story had died instead.

The dog, whether because of the pain or because of whatever drug he had been administered, was unable to bark or move, but his eyes said it all. They were the eyes of a creature gazing at his own death, a creature who had been robbed of every last vestige of courage and dignity, and they filled Toyama with horror. Never before had he seen in any eyes, animal or human, such a look of utter despair. ( )

This was originally written for my blog: http://turnthepage.travel.blog/2019/05/05/audition-by-ryu-murakami/

This book is written by the same author as In the Miso Soup so I had to read it! I missed Miso Soup’s weirdness, suspense, and creepiness so I was anxious for something to fill that void in my little book loving heart. Did this book succeed?

This novel focuses on Aoyama, seven years after his wife died of cancer. He’s eating breakfast with his teenage son one morning when he’s asked about why he doesn’t start dating someone. Aoyama is caught off guard by his child’s question as it’s not something he has given much thought to.

Later that day he is speaking to his friend Yoshikawa who is listening to his woes. He’d like to date but he wants a woman who is attractive, and interested in classical arts such as opera and ballet, someone who is refined. The problem is, he doesn’t know how to find someone who ticks all of those boxes. Yoshikawa suggests that they put an advertisement on the radio looking for this type of woman. The plan they devise is to pretend that they are looking for a woman to play a leading role in a romantic movie. The advert states that the woman should have a background in classical arts to allow her to identify with the leading character.

A few days later they begin to sift through the applications and the narrow them down to twenty, mainly based on the photograph each woman included with their resume, but also based on some background information. These women are called in for interviews.

A specific woman named Yamasaki catches Aoyama’s eye when he sees her application and he can’t stop thinking about her, this intensifies during her interview. In her application she explained how she participated in ballet when she was younger but had to stop due to a hip injury, this upset her so much she compared it to “accepting death”. Aoyama is captivated by this raw emotion and openness and decides that she is definitely the girl he wants to date.

Aoyama calls Yamasaki to meet for lunch a few days later, she happily accepts. The more Aoyama learns about her life, the more he adores her and the more he wants to marry her, but things take a step in the wrong directly after they spend the weekend together.

Back to my question at the start, did this book sate my hunger for more Miso Soup? No.

This book is just over 200 pages long, nothing happened until around page 180. The first three quarters of the book is just Aoyama and Yamasaki going on dates, no suspense, no weirdness. Honestly, if I didn’t know who the author of this book was I would have spent the first 75% of the book thinking I was reading a “slice of life” type novel. I know I am comparing this to Miso Soup, and maybe I should be, but in Miso Soup the author build suspense by making Frank a liar. In one moment he talking about how he grew up in a city apartment where he was the oldest sibling and had three younger sisters, the next minute he’s talking about playing baseball in a field next to the farm where he lived with his brothers, obvious lies and deceit. In Audition the only attempt at this is when Yamasaki is talking about going to family restaurants as a child, then during the next date she admits that this was a lie and her parents weren’t together when she was younger, she had pretended to have a “normal” childhood for the sake of fitting in. That’s it. No lies and backing that leaves the reader confused and in suspense, no areas where you’re wondering is any of what she says actually the truth, no sections that left me dying to find out more about her, nothing.

The ending felt rushed and didn’t make much sense to me. I can’t say much about this point without spoiling the story, so I’ll have to be vague but the reason gives for why the antagonist does what they do to people just made no sense to me, I just felt that the author tried to stop the ending from being obvious so they just made it obscure rather than clever. I am aware that this author is known to push boundaries and have no limits, but the gore at the end just felt added in for the sake of it rather than serving any actual purpose for the story. Also, as a warning to animal lovers like myself, there is graphic animal abuse towards the end of the book.

I would not recommend this book to fans of In the Miso Soup as it is not comparable in any positive way. I feel that if this was the first book I had read by Ryo Murakami I would not have given him a second chance, however I will try reading more of his books in the hope that this one is a weak link. If, however, this book is one that you are interested in then it’s worth reading as it is only 200 or so pages long so it can be easily read in a day so even if you dislike it it won’t take up too much of your time. ( )

TW: Animal cruelty and death and the end of the book; dismemberment at the end of the book; misogyny. The movie's apparently terrifying, and I read that the author adored the adaptation, which is great! I went in knowing vaguely the book involved disembowelment and was apprehensive, but that was all I knew. I'm so glad the movie is well-received and has a solid place in the horror genre, because this book is not remotely horror. It's barely a suspense thriller, and it reads like a teenager is trying his writing skills out. I don't mean that as "teenagers can't write." I mean the mentality of the forty-year-old narrator is that of a teenager. And yet, he has barely any characterization. His only characterization is to be become obsessed with a woman he barely knows and THINK the whole novel. NOTHING HAPPENS. All he does is THINK and it's walls of text and huge monologues and oh, this is boring.

He and his friend genuinely think holding auditions for a fake film will lead to him finding a wife. He only dates again because his son asks him to. This man has no real will or agency of his own. He doesn't tell his younger date at any point he has a teenage son, and takes awhile to tell the young woman even that his wife died. NOOOO YOU STUPID. And his thought process towards dating is a lot like Western teenagers, complete with "dating is practice for marriage" turning to "we could someday marry" to "me dating you for a month will lead to lifelong marriage." I had an ex who said lots of this to me and related things, and she had boundary issues. She was twenty-five, I was twenty-one, and I was asking her to slow down. I was her first relationship ever, which is fine. She was absolutely shocked when I broke up with her after three months--she'd been pushing for us to move in together. It's a queer stereotype, yes, but that doesn't mean everyone ever does it. So, reading this was indeed creepy when the narrator's thoughts were such. Because...he's forty. He has life experience enough and it's stated he's watched his friends divorce, enough so that he should know his thoughts are unrealistic at best.

Otherwise...boring. Gonna make myself watch the movie I think; it's probably gonna be gory but I'm so curious what the film version will do once all that inner monologue and zero characterization is done away with. ( )