Innocent World

by Ami Sakurai, Stephen Clark (Translator)

Enter a world of nihilism and self destruction. Enter a world of rape, incest, and trauma. Enter a world of violence, drugs, and prostitution. Enter an Innocent World .

Ami believes in nothing, hopes for nothing, and turns tricks because it's something to do. Her journey from the pit of despair to the precarious edge of something else captures the part of being seventeen that never makes it into words.

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature, Fiction, Asian Literature, Literature, Literary Fiction, Erotica

124 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1996

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm baring my soul on one level here, and admitting to my complete hypocrisy of criticizing others for gravitating to a book because of its cover when, in this case, I did that very same thing. I mean, look at it! This is not on my "dat cover" shelf for nothing. The publishing industry could rob me blind if it churned out novels with covers showing dainties dangling around the ankles or knees. They're such damned teases, those publishers.

So, why lie? I read this completely for the prurient interest value, all rarin' to go with a salaciously good romp of the "teacher teach my naughty ass a thing or two" variety. But no! That's not what this is at all, and, in a way, I was glad. The book is an exploitation novel pretending to be a serious angsty teen ennui story. It's a bit of both really, and for the most part it was often a pleasant surprise. It was also quite frequently gross, and not in an erotic way.

The book has one of those plots that is so filled with spoilers that critiquing it is tricky. As much as I'd like to address some of the serious issues the book raises about the protagonist's struggles with identity and self-worth, doing so would necessitate plot-point reveals.

So, let's just do this. The main character here is a 17-year-old Tokyo high school junior named, Ami. She's alienated from her parents (naturally), and tries to care for her younger mentally challenged brother, Takuya, whom she adores. She and some of her peers have set up a handy dandy teen prostitution ring catering mainly to older dudes, and in that world she finds the closest thing to family she's known. From there, it's spoiler city, so all I can tell you to look out for is incest (more than one variety), drugs, club/rave activities, gang rape, and some things that are even grosser than all of that.

It all builds up to a completely whacked finale that I can only express complete admiration for in its total audacity.

While reading it, I was reminded more than once of an excellent, serious and very poetic 2001 Japanese film called All About Lily Chou-Chou in which teen schoolgirls are prostituted and there's even a reference to Ami liking Debussy piano music, which also happened to be prominent in that film. I wonder if author Ami Sakurai got some of her ideas from that film. As it stands, this book is not exactly a terrific novel, but it's got the stuff for a pretty good screenplay.

There are actually some lovely things in this book, a lot of half-baked attempts at profundity, and some outright WTF? non-sequiturs that may or may not be due to fractured translation. The way quotation marks are used is haphazard and confusing. I'm OK with that if someone like, say, Hubert Selby doesn't use them, but Selby is a master and Sakurai is not. It's hard to defend the simile disaster of this sentence, even as you admire the attempt at poetry (after all, we know what the author is trying for here): "The metallic silence that lay at the bottom of the night came slowly to soak my empty heart." Almost there, but not quite.

The book goes for shock value, but on the whole it breezes by so fast that nothing heinous is lingered over too long. I wouldn't call this a coming-of-age novel, per se; it's more about a girl's struggle to find some justification for living. Or more precisely, an attempt to find out if she would ever want to bring another life into the world. In that quest she traverses the dark side of contemporary Japan.

I don't know if this is a profound or hackneyed observation but in seeking aimless diversions to numb the pains of life the Japanese seem to be searching through a dizzying maze for lost rituals, something to be grounded in, but failing for all the myriad of choices available. The new rituals, namely the conformist expectations of the working world, have not adequately replaced the old ones, and it is during the down-time where people seem adrift. There's a very nonchalant air to the youth in the book. Playing a video game or fucking your sibling seem roughly equivalent choices in this world, or so it would seem in this book.

By the end, Ami, tries to, in a sense, rebirth herself, and the way she goes about it is either completely fucked up or moving, or a little bit of both.

I, surprisingly, enjoyed the book -- having had low expectations for it going in -- but in doing so am not overlooking its considerable writing flaws and overt cringe-inducing moments.

So, I went in for the sex, and found something a bit more interesting. To its credit, it's short and definitely didn't outstay its welcome.

(KevinR@ky 2016)

[KillerBunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the writing, the story was pretty interesting but cut short. It could have been longer. My only problem was, some decisions of the main character didn't really make sense. And it was not really explained, why she did those thing. I wanted to learn a bit more about her job and though process

[Booklover Butterfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Austere, violent, and bleak, Innocent World explores a very dark side to one girl’s life and her self-destructive behaviour in a sickeningly mesmerizing way. Ami, a teenage girl, engages in prostitution in order to fund her incestuous relationship with her mentally handicapped older brother, Takuya. She becomes joyless and detached from life except for the fleeting pleasure and comfort she finds in her brother.

The characters were desolate and difficult to relate to, but there were moments when their vulnerability and emotions came through enough to make them seem plausible. Sympathizing with them wasn’t as challenging. Feeling pity for their situations and empty lives came naturally. Innocent World was ripe with angst, but it was strangely hard to tear yourself away from. The author did a good job of keeping the reader curious about the characters past and the motivation for their lifestyle.

On the item page for Innocent World, it is recommended for kids and teens. I assume this must be a mistake because the novella includes a brutal rape scene that is capable of making a person cringe, and the rest of the subject matter isn’t exactly appropriate for children either: prostitution, drugs, and incest. I’d recommend this book to adults who don’t mind intense reads with a lot of shock value.

[Hazel Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know I'm in the minority when I say I liked this book, but I did. It was a disturbing and uncomfortable story, and I understand that something may have been lost in translation, but the characters' indifference to an emotionally involved life was delivered perfectly. That cold candid narrative is the right voice for an exploration into the modern world of disillusionment in Japan right now, and I was left feeling the atmosphere of the tale for a long time after I finished reading it. Yes, it is 'Snakes and Earrings' all over again, but I liked that too.

[Guillermo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I'm going to give up on translations, well, at least ones that stem from Japan. Here is a story of incest, rape, and prostitution, which, I suppose, is meant to shock or enthrall you, but the writing (actually, I should say translation) is so horrid that, while I'm supposed to be disgusted/empathetic/sympathetic/insert-random-emotion here, I'm just distracted by the wording.

While I normally blame the author for this, I can't help to think maybe Steven Clark shouldn't be doing translations or anything with literature, ever. Because I don't read Japanese, I'll never know the point to this book as I learned nothing, as I don't feel sorry for the main character, as I don't even know what happened.

When you're introduced to her soon-to-be rapist, you're wondering why in hell you're being introduced to him. Again, Western literature has tainted me and I probably expect things to happen in such a way, but still, I didn't see much of a purpose of the whole chapter.

I'm still puzzled trying to see why a book like this (again, perhaps just the translation) - where a emotionally closed off girl has sex with her mentally handicapped brother, becomes a prostitute while continuing to have sex with her mentally handicapped brother, discovers she's the product of artificial insemination, searches out her biological father, only to have sex with him - well, you see my point - even exists.

Perhaps it seemed like a good idea where shock media sells, but when a translation is so horrible, you have to ponder that question in what a publishing house was thinking when they said, "It seems like a good idea." Did they even read it before pushing it out there?

I should add this is the first time I completed reading the book. I'd tried in the past several times, but each time opted that shoving a pencil through my eye would have been a better deal. However, I did spend money on it, so I felt like I had to read it.

This was Snakes and Earrings all over again.

[Ayesha (Seokjin's Version) ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyday I am grateful that my parents don't read because how would have I explained this.

Innocent World made me feel so sad. In my head, the incest and prostitution are just the surface of this book. Actually the book is about a teenage girls' deep desire to feel love. Her aloof and distant nature shows how lonely Ami is.

Someone also needs to confirm whether if even a single line of this story is true because I won't rest easy until I found out.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read filled with sex, violence, and incest. It's probably supposed to hit a person with shock value, but the whole thing blows by too fast to ever really develop. Maybe it lost something in translation?

[Eveline Chao · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was gross. I'm going to be charitable and assume a lot was lost in the translation.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every review I write of Japanese fiction seems to start the same: “The Japanese are weird.” And it’s true. There is a disturbing lack of agency among the main characters of various authors I’ve read. Starting with Mishima, the protagonists unerringly wind up on that other road that diverged in the Yellow wood, but not because they chose the one less or, God forbid, more traveled by.

In this short (124 pages, as translated) Novella, Ami Sakurai writes in the first person an apparent autobiographical sketch. (After a couple of Japanese g/fs, and I didn’t mean Japanese-American, but rather Japanese, including one when I worked there, I’ve learned to assume names ending in “i” are women.) I’ll leave to others to formulate the ratio of fact to fancy.

Yet, within three pages you have a high school prostitution ring (something admittedly more common, because more lucrative, in Japan). But that’s not sufficient: next up is a retarted brother. Followed by fractured family dynamics. Then incest. Then pregnancy.

So, by 2/3ds of the way through the Novella, it is difficult to relate to any character: only the Author’s persona is well drawn; everyone else is cardboard, and the author enters into a indecisive fugue state.

So this is more than your average story. Until the author/lead character decides to “pull-up/pull-up” in the final two pages that deny the previous 122 pages. The end state isn’t so much puerile as purposeless. The writing and translation seem decent. But without additional characters, or a lead character with whom one can sympathize, this simply is Japano-phile titillation.

[Ciara · Rating 3 out of 5]

HOOOOO That was grimy as hell. There were aspects of this book I really loved, but I feel like a horrible person for saying something like that given the REST of the book's contents, so I'm not even going to try explaining why unless you buy me a coffee first and devote an afternoon of your life to listening to me frantically qualify and clarify.

[il. menestrello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questa recensione è fatta a caldo dopo una rilettura divisa in due giorni a distanza di anni dalla prima lettura di "Un mondo innocente" e devo dire di poter confermare il mio ricordo globale: disturbante è la parola giusta per descrivere questo lavoro; ma disturbante nel suo senso più profondo: è molesto, ripugnante, scomodo e chi più ne ha più ne metta!
I temi principali del romanzo cono la relazione incestuosa tra fratello e sorella, il ritardo cognitivo e la prostituzione minorile, tutti tasselli che andranno poi a incastrarsi tra altri temi difficili da digerire.
Parliamo di una narrazione in prima persona che getta il lettore in una mente contorta, mette a disagio e va dritta al punto anche nelle descrizioni più spinte, senza utilizzare giri di parole; questo al di là degli incontri con i clienti, o con suo fratello (che la protagonista sostiene essere una sorta di prolungamento di sé sin dall'inizio del romanzo), ma anche in situazioni sconvenienti: un esempio lo troviamo in quella che doveva solo essere una semplice serata "per staccare la spina", quando Ami viene drogata e poi stuprata in gruppo; in quell'occasione si entra in contatto con un vortice di pensieri al limite tra l'autolesionista e il desiderio di farla finita, quando Ami si troverà a credere di aver perso il figlio che aspetta a causa della violenza che sta subendo dal branco.
Un'altra situazione alquanto borderline è sul finire del romanzo, quando Ami incontra il donatore di sperma 307, colui che ha contribuito alla sua nascita affinché non riportasse le stesse problematiche genetiche del fratello. Anche questa volta Ami si sentirà attratta dal donatore e finirà con il consumare con lui un rapporto sessuale giustificando il tutto come un legame inesistente, ma allo stesso tempo esistente a livello di puri geni.
Ciò che ho trovato particolarmente interessante a oggi è stato lo sviluppo emotivo dell'indecisione sul tenere o meno un bambino nato dalla sua unione con Takuya: il cruccio, il dubbio di aver in qualche modo fatto qualcosa di sbagliato e che tuttavia è svanito per lasciare spazio a una risoluzione degna del personaggio assurdo e incomprensibile di Ami.

[Nicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can only really rate 3 stars as I really felt like this book was going on shock value. The author and the 17 year old protagonist are both called Ami. Is it a true story? I seriously doubt it. (I did try to research online, but there's not much in English about her and my Japanese reading is far from being able to read Japanese articles).
Either way, without doing major spoilers, there is incest, teen prostitution and a few other trigger topics jammed into this brief 120 page novella.
I am personally not easily shocked or offended, but I sure couldn't recommend this book to everyone. It was so much with the shocking turn of events that it got a bit ridiculous. Having said that, it flows well and is a quick read. I prefer Natsuo Kirino's books for shocking topics written well, but I'm not unhappy I read it.

[Mels ☆]

Bardzo mi się podobała, chyba nawet bardziej niż ta o samobójstwach

[Joel · Rating 1 out of 5]

What’s A Retard to Do?

I really had no expectations with Sakurai’s book except that I expected it to be on the same level as Baise Moi (which is a contradiction in itself, since I expected this to be grim). The synopsis of Innocent World reads as follows:

Enter a world of nihilism and self destruction. Enter a world of rape, incest, and trauma. Enter a world of violence, drugs, and prostitution. Enter an Innocent World.

Ami believes in nothing, hopes for nothing, and turns tricks because it’s something to do. Her journey from the pit of despair to the precarious edge of something else captures the part of being seventeen that never makes it into words.


And this was what Kiyoshi Kurosawa (director of such films as: Cure, Kairo, Doppelganger, Séance, and Retribution) had to say about the book:

“A girl is finally freed from the cluthes of her own DNA. The small step Ami takes is, I think, a giant step for humankind.”

Now, idolizing Kurosawa for years, I naturally had to get this book because “it is” after all, “a giant step for humankind.” After reading the first chapter, I still forgave it for its faults.

Some inane phrases from Innocent World:

Page 27: “The imaginary number i is a non-existent constant used only as a matter of convenience. Thus the value of my existence, too, is infinitely artificial and scant.”

Page 48: “A neon of phosphorescent animalcules swimming on the night sea’s calm surface.”

Page 53: “I’d finally met the man who could solve the differential equations that were Takuya and me.”

Page 56: “I didn’t care if he was an old man on his deathbed; he had to be made to click on all the constants that I needed to solve the differential equation of my existence.”

Page 88: “If you can’t keep up with my biorhythm, you don’t have the right.”

Now, what the hell do these things meant? Nothing. This book. Save your hard-earned money and buy Ryu Murakami or Natsuo Kirino instead. Or better yet, please get Virginie Despentes’s Baise Moi (Fuck Me).

Don’t bother asking me about the plot because my reaction to this book is of total disinterest.

The other thing that got to me was that I paid 600p for this and then National’s Mall of Asia was selling it for 75p. Now, how infuriating is that?

[M. P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a little torn by this book. Depending on what it's intentions are, in terms of the emotions delivered, it might actually be worth more stars than two.

Is the purpose of the story to throw so many shocking occurrences in your face as humanly possible, at such a frequency that you immediately become numb and indifferent to it? Is the purpose to suck the reader's mind into a state of nihilism, where nothing happening in the book really seems that shocking, touching, or significant in the first place? Is the purpose to simply present a bleak, indifferent account on one girl's life?
If yes, the book succeeded marvelously, being even worthy of four stars. I couldn't give less of a fuu about the main character, or anyone else in the story for that matter, nor did I feel like being particularly shocked about the themes in the book, for they were presented in such a whatever kind of manner.

On the other hand, if Innocent World was supposed to fill you with disgust, shock, making you feel like you'd either like to help the character or just slither away from her immediate surroundings because it's making you feel too uncomfortable, then it doesn't do a very good job at all at it. The pace was too fast to my taste, and nothing's explored nearly as deeply as I'd have hoped. I wanted to care about the characters, but found it exceedingly hard. Hence, I gave this book two stars, as it didn't present me with the qualities that usually consist an enjoyable book to yours truly.

Anyhow, it's an extremely quick read, so you won't exactly manage to waste a huge portion of your life checking it out for yourself.

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ami's a teenage entrepreneur. With a couple high school classmates, she's started a business to earn money after school. That business being a prostitution ring. With the help of a computer savvy friend (this is 1996, back when being computer savvy was still a thing) they post messages to BBSes seeking salarymen willing to spend a hundred thousand yen to bang a schoolgirl. It's a good gig for the most part, and Ami earns plenty of money which she's planning to use so she and her mentally-disabled brother can move into an apartment together and spend every day making mad, passionate love to each other.

Yeah.

Ami Sakurai is trying so hard to be transgressive here, but she's not Hitomi Kanehara. She's not even Kusano Kouichi, though she does at least deserve credit for not going with the cop-out "By the way, it turns out we're not actually related, so now we can sleep together with clean consciences because it's totally not creepy for adopted siblings who grew up together to have sex" ending that's disturbingly common in Japanese sis-con and bro-con stories. And yes, such things are common enough to be their own genre in Japan.

[Brian James · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books that never feels fully developed. There are a lot of concepts at work, and I think I understand the intent of showing the main character's taboo sexual displays as a means of transforming the notions of what is appropriate, and in a feminist sense, allowing her to own all of these acts, even her rape. In that way, the book reminded me of the amazing books by Kathy Acker, however this book didn't quite achieve its end. I know what it was trying to say, but I don't think it earned it. It may have worked better with fewer, more focused scenes, but as is, most of the ideas in the book ended up going nowhere. And perhaps it could have worked as a document of modern nihilism, demonstrating a youthful view of life without consequence, except that doesn't really work either because the main character cares too much about what happens to her and her brother.

Despite all the problems I had with the structure and overall effectiveness of the novel, I actually enjoyed the read. I read it in a matter of hours and quite enjoyed the mood of the work. The characters are all well-formed and the world feels very alive. It's only real flaw is that it sets out to deliver more than it actually does.

[Riana · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was just full of what the heck moments. While there was some pretty description of nature scenes sometimes, this book was just about gross incestual relationships, rape, and prostitution. The prostitution I kind of expected from the summary, and I was expecting something meaningful even if quite sad, but this was not the case for the book. The character was also annoying in that she made a lot of things weirdly worse for herself, and I don't know how necessary it was - this was also a thought I kept having all throughout the entire book in terms of plot points as well. She has 'friends' sort of but never asks for help. The were multiple attempts to try to say something profound that were either messed up in translation or were never good from the start. I suppose the story was about the main character's misunderstanding of how to express love generally, but the book as a whole simply wasn't good enough to make it meaningful.

You simply wanted to hurry to the end of the book to find out if things would turn out fine and get fixed, only to see more dumb decisions that just felt strange rather than trying to tell the reader something profound.
Luckily this book was so fast paced, odd, and bland that I honestly think I'll forget about it pretty quickly.

[Kiku · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though this book is more like a novella than a novel, it has a lot of substance. The main character is a girl who gets through life as a prostitute, though she's still in high school, which would be interesting enough, but then she discovers that the only thing that sexually satisfies her is her incestuous relationship with her mentally disabled brother.

[エレオノラ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Probably the ugliest book in the world.

[Sara ❥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disturbing yet mesmerizing read. Incest, prostitution, drugs, rape, underage pregnancy and the list goes on. Definitely worth reading.

[jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

almost threw up twice while reading this

[Jelena · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ne znam gdje zaista nađem ove knjige ili kako one nađu svoj put do mene. Polovičan odgovor je sigurno u tome što je u pitanju japanska književnost.

Elem, o prvencu Ami Sakuri, šta reći? Vrlo brutalna, ogoljena i na momente gadljiva priča. Ali ne zbog same radnje, koja se uglavnom vrti oko maloljetničke prostitucije, veze sa autističnim bratom, silovanja, koliko zbog samog načina pisanja. Manjka stila tj. kohezije između stila i atmosfere te se dobije neki mučni osjećaj.
Najveća falinka jeste građenje likova, koji su distancirani od spolješnjeg svijeta svojom unutrašnjom duhovnošću (?), što je crveni konac japanske literature, ali u ovom slučaju vrlo nerealno izgleda.

[Paolo Pozzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un racconto lungo. Per tirare 140 pagine hanno aumentato l'interlinea.

Un breve spaccato di un mondo problematico. Scorre senza approfondimenti e con un finale ad effetto immotivato. Forse un climax ad arte, la scelta di fare sesso con il donatore di sperma che ti ha generato non ha motivazioni nemmeno per la razionalità contorta della protagonista.

[Nick Rogers · Rating 2 out of 5]

An odd novel of a girl from an unconventional family doing destructive things. From time to time, there are profound moments. Otherwise, I'm unsure what to make of the novel. It's not terribly written but I don't know what the point is of the book. Nothing for me to take away as such, other than the dangers of being self-destructive in Japan.

[Katarzyna · Rating 1 out of 5]

1,5

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

more like three-and-one-half stars… it ended well

[Manojlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can explain this book as modern Japanese literature. Story is morbid, catchy, but as always it depends on your personal preferences and likings.

[eden · Rating 3 out of 5]

digestible, knocked this out in about 40 minutes
no other notes for now