Book Review: Heaven by Mieko Kawakami (translated by Sam Bett&David Boyd)

´Not paradise, it´s Heaven´. 

I was not very impressed by Breasts and Eggs, and the Ms Ice Sandwich was just fine. However, Heaven by Mieko Kawakami - co-translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd - that I had access to as audiobook read by Scott Keiji Takeda is by far a masterpiece in its own genre. 

Set in the 1990s, the novel is mostly about two teenagers - boy and girl - being permanently bullied. Told by the boy, the story is finelly recording all the fine emotions and changes that will slowly eventually challenge the destiny that was accepted by the two. Accepted partially because it seems they do not think about changing a destiny that mostly left them without choices.

The easy read of the book is about a novel of coming of age, of two characters observed within a limited amount of time during which their lives will dramatically change: from their mindset to the relationship to themselves - both their thoughts and their body. The two of them do have strong voices and their story is unique in its cruelty, although it resonates with all the bullied teenagers in this world. The society context is therefore less relevant and it´s vaguely assigned a national identity - except that the characters do have Japanese name - but the situation can be easily translated into no matter which national context.

However, there is also a different level of reading this book which is largely philosophical and with strong nitzschean accents. It´s that feeling of ´what doesn´t kill you make you stronger´ and the meaning of weakness revealed during the phlegmatic exchange between the victim and one of the perpetrator. What it is really outstanding is that there is exactly this kind of revelation about survival of the fittest and everyday cruelty that may be revealed at this age. There is nothing false in the voice of each of the two, although they are talking about very serious topics. Their conclusions are of the kind one may reach when teenage and bullied - respectively a bully.

In the painful revelation of the truth, the existential truth, art may play the role of a Dionysian transfiguration. That picture of heaven letting itself being read by the viewer, as a radical act of reinterpretation of reality. 

The book has a relatively simple structure, but clear and leaving enough space to the story to unfold and to the characters to tell their story. Brevity and concision are very important features of Heaven, by far one of the most important books of Kawakami to date - at least in my humble reader´s opinion.

Rating: 4.5 stars