怪物們的晚宴

by Natsuo Kirino, 桐野夏生

人間，存在著兩個世界，
表與裡、右與左，
天國與地獄，
幸福的晚餐，以及怪物狂歡的晚宴…

女人往往溫柔，女人往往順從。
然而，當正常的渴求逸出常軌，
溫柔轉為瘋狂，順從變成憎恨，
如一個個猙獰修羅，奔向熊熊的地獄之火。

藉由十五年前的懸案一夕脫胎換骨的恐龍妹、
玩弄遊民於股掌間的外籍放浪女子、
不甘揮別有婦之夫的女作家、
各懷不可告人祕密的三名粉領族、
身如飄萍的文豪之女、
想方設法欲置繼父於死地的私生女、
遭遇學生意外身亡，不倫戀曝光，
愛人離去三重打擊的女教師……

七篇超現實特異小說，七段女性狂想，一幕幕光怪陸離的場景，解構人生深沉且無奈的悲傷。
從幸福絕頂看到的景色之所鮮明美麗，也是光明製造出的暗影之濃。

Genres: Japan

Paperback

First published October 14, 2005

About the author

NATSUO KIRINO (桐野夏生), born in 1951 in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) was an active and spirited child brought up between her two brothers, one being six years older and the other five years younger than her. Kirino's father, being an architect, took the family to many cities, and Kirino spent her youth in Sendai, Sapporo, and finally settled in Tokyo when she was fourteen, which is where she has been residing since. Kirino showed glimpses of her talent as a writer in her early stages—she was a child with great deal of curiosity, and also a child who could completely immerse herself in her own unique world of imagination.

After completing her law degree, Kirino worked in various fields before becoming a fictional writer; including scheduling and organizing films to be shown in a movie theater, and working as an editor and writer for a magazine publication. She got married to her present husband when she turned twenty-four, and began writing professionally, after giving birth to her daughter, at age thirty. However, it was not until Kirino was forty-one that she made her major debut. Since then, she has written thirteen full-length novels and three volumes of collective short stories, which are highly acclaimed for her intriguingly intelligent plot development and character portrayal, and her unique perspective of Japanese society after the collapse of the economic bubble.

Today, Kirino continues to enthusiastically write in a range of interesting genres. Her smash hit novel OUT (Kodansha, 1997) became the first work to be translated into English and other languages. OUT was also nominated for the 2004 MWA Edgar Allan Poe Award in the Best Novel Category, which made Kirino the first Japanese writer to be nominated for this major literary award. Her other works are now under way to be translated and published around the world.

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few short stories are interesting, but the other ones............I can't even bring myself to finish them. So it's a DNF book.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

普通と力がないや能力やないの人達の日常短期生き方もの語り。酷い感じと素晴らしい感じと憂鬱な感じとして、ただたまに曇りの日によって太陽の光が突然はある一瞬もあれば。私は平成の10年間の世代ちょっと懐かしいとおもって、「air du temps」世代の雰囲気のそれとも他の人に一寸つまらないかもしれません。