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Paprika
Paprika - exotic, piquant, to be used sparingly. The eponymous heroine of Tsutsui's novel is the alter ego of brilliant and beautiful psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba, one of the leading brains in the Institute for Psychiatric Research. An expert in the use of 'psychotherapy devices' that trap a patient's dreams and display them on a monitor, Atsuko is able to manipulate those dreams, even enter them, as an aid to psychoanalysis. When treating private patients, Atsuko transforms herself into the guise of Paprika - a captivating girl of unknown age - to mask her true identity.As Paprika delves ever deeper into her realm of fantasy, the borderline between dream and reality becomes increasingly blurred. All the more so when a colleague at the Institute develops a new device that allows the dreams of several individuals to be combined simultaneously. With this, they enter dangerous territory - far from curing their patients, they could drive them insane. Rich in humorous dialogue and ridiculous situations, replete with the folly of human desires, yet with an underlying sense of menace that 'all is not what it seems', Paprika could be described as the very pinnacle of Tsutsui's art.
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
328 people are currently reading
8908 people want to read
About the author
Yasutaka Tsutsui
267 books362 followersYasutaka Tsutsui (筒井康隆) is a Japanese novelist, science fiction author, and actor. Along with Shinichi Hoshi and Sakyo Komatsu, he is one of the most famous science fiction writers in Japan. His Yume no Kizaka Bunkiten won the Tanizaki Prize in 1987. He has also won the 1981 Izumi Kyoka award, the 1989 Kawabata Yasunari award, and the 1992 Nihon SF Taisho Award. In 1997, he was decorated as a Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
His work is known for its dark humour and satirical content. He has often satirized Japanese taboos such as disabilities and the Tenno system, and has been victim to much criticism as a result. From 1993 to 1996, he went on a writing-strike to protest the excessive, self-imposed restraint of Japanese publishers.
One of his first novels, Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (1967), has been adapted into numerous media including film, television and manga. Another novel, Paprika (1993), was adapted into an animated film by the director Satoshi Kon in 2006.
His work is known for its dark humour and satirical content. He has often satirized Japanese taboos such as disabilities and the Tenno system, and has been victim to much criticism as a result. From 1993 to 1996, he went on a writing-strike to protest the excessive, self-imposed restraint of Japanese publishers.
One of his first novels, Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (1967), has been adapted into numerous media including film, television and manga. Another novel, Paprika (1993), was adapted into an animated film by the director Satoshi Kon in 2006.
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July 17, 2022
Paprika's cheeks were flushed with the thrill of the chase, as if she felt entertained by this quest for truth. To be sure, the challenge to unravel the mystery of dreams always came as a pleasure to her.
I am very conflicted and torn on how to rate and review this book.
Atsuko Chiba (age 29) and her colleague - the obese and infantile Kosaku Tokita - are psychiatric geniuses who are to awarded the Nobel Prize. This is because Kosaku has invented a DC Mini - a small patch which can be attached to one's head - which allows you to enter another person's dream. It is hoped to be used as a form of psychotherapy, in fact Dr. Atsuko Chiba has been 'moonlighting' as a dream therapist (illegally) for 8 years - taking the name and youthful appearance of 18-year-old "Paprika" and curing people by entering their dreams. Rich, older men usually. This is all done with full knowledge and consent.
But now the powerful, dream-altering DC Minis have fallen into evil hands. The line between reality and dreams is quickly blurring. People's dreams are becoming reality, reality is becoming a dream. People are dying and going insane. Can Atsuko and her friends stop this before it's too late?
...
THE GOOD
- The imagination of the author is simply stunning. Glorious. Dreams and reality blending together, having to fight the villains in dreams, using "dream powers," and being afraid to fall asleep are all amazing concepts that are executed with grace in this novel.
- The psychology - while not correct - is, of course, fun, futuristic and appropriately sci-fi. If you have a psychology background, you will really get a kick out of this.
- Vivid, clear writing that I really enjoyed. I heard a lot of people complaining about the writing in the book, but I for one loved it. It just really worked for me. I was enchanted by Tsutsui's writing style.
THE BAD
If you have a hard time with Japanese names - are unfamiliar with manga or anime - it might be helpful for you to grab a piece of paper and write down names and traits of people mentioned until you get into the swing of things. Since it's Japanese, you need to remember each character's last name, first name, and possible nickname - much like in Russian literature, all three will be used by different people depending on their rank and/or relationship with the person addressed. I'm fine with Japanese, so this was okay, but I strongly advise using my advice if you are unfamiliar with Japanese names.
THE UGLY
Oh, boy. Where should I start? We have four major problems in this novel.
1.) MISOGYNY
This is not a book where the misogyny is nuanced and can be debated. I mean, the book is woman-hating. Y punto. End of discussion.
This comes out most clearly during the rape scenes (there are four of them, to my recollection). Atsuko is always the target in these situations. Tsustui's attitude toward rape is very bizarre and disturbing. Here are some of the book's concepts about rape:
- Instead of fighting off your rapist, you should be passive, submissive, and try to relax and enjoy it.*
(*This also ties into a hatred of homosexuality, using a line of reasoning like: if a man is under threat of rape from another man, he should fight to the death to stop this from happening, because this is an abominable, shameful, horrifying situation where death is preferable. But if you're a woman? It's in your nature to submit to a man's dominance anyway, so even if a man is being violent and forceful with you, this is actually the natural way of things, so don't fight it.)
Yes, he was an enemy, and if she were a man she would have fought him until her dying breath. But she was a woman. She had no intention of aping a man's senseless insistence on fighting to the death.
- If your rapist is attractive, this makes rape more bearable. If your rapist is "raping you out of love," this makes the rape more bearable.
Of course, it did help that Osanai was so absurdly handsome, a fine gigolo indeed. And he'd professed his love for her, notwithstanding the means he'd chosen to express it.
- Women who haven't had sex in a long time will enjoy being raped, because they will be horny and any sexual advances (even unwanted, violent ones) will be welcomed in the end as a means of sexual release.
It had been some years since she'd had sex with a man. Having intercourse inside a patient's dream didn't count. She was of course preoccupied with her research and treatment, but even then, she'd occasionally noticed an unnatural flow in her libido and a sense of unfulfilled desire. Though not of her own choosing, this would be the perfect chance to satisfy that desire.
Did I mention that this is AFTER he's beaten her into unconsciousness and while he is still punching her in the face repeatedly? Yeah.
- After a rape attempt which is unconsummated (the rapist is unable to get an erection), a woman will be very turned-on but still unsatisfied, so she will call her lover or her crush in order to schedule a sexual rendezvous so that she can expel the sexual tension created by being almost-raped.
Atsuko was troubled by the thought that she couldn't satisfy her passion now that it was ignited. She could of course regulate her bodily functions with her mind, but all she wanted now was an outlet for her lust, as if a valve had been unblocked inside her.
Her face is swollen and bleeding from the attack and she was just sexually assaulted in her own home by a colleague. I mean, I fail to understand how Tsutsui could possibly think that now she is horny and in need of some sex from a man she actually likes.
Throughout this whole entire book, Tsutsui's bizarre ideas about rape and female sexuality kept stunning me even when I'd thought I couldn't be shocked anymore. o.O
That was Rape Scene #1. There are three more to get through, which seems excessive to this reader. I won't go into more detail - but you get the basic picture. It's disgusting freakazoid stuff. Not just rape, which is bad enough. And not even sensationalized rape (rape for excitement/titillation) which is even worse than "regular rape" in novels. This is on an even darker level - a "it's your feminine nature to submit," "why don't you just lie back and enjoy it," "after all, he's handsome and is in love with you" way of thinking that is frankly beyond horrifying. I know Tsutsui is male, but most men I know aren't this stupid (or fucked-up in the head), so I can't justify any of his ideas here. I know that Japan struggles with sexism, but this is beyond the pale.
Leaving aside the multiple rape (attempts) and the problems they create, let's focus on just plain woman-hating with no rape factor. Things like:
She could therefore put on a brave face, drawing on her feminine ability to become impervious to evil as necessity demanded.
and
Now, if ever, was the time to deploy a woman's disregard of logic.
These kind of "facts" about "feminine nature" are just casually sprinkled throughout the text like so many chocolate chips.
How about Paprika/Atsuko herself? She is the very embodiment of a "manic pixie dream girl." Always laughing and good-natured (even when being raped), every single man (EVERY SINGLE ONE) in the book falls in love with her. Even the gay men. (More on that in the "gay-hate" section.) Most "fall in love" with her after spending an hour or two with her. She is absolutely-super-fucking-gorgeous and this is discussed CONSTANTLY. Every man, gay or straight, wants to fuck her and thinks they are in love with her.
Here's what happens at a press conference early in the book:
Some social affairs correspondents who were attending for the first time let out involuntary gasps of astonishment at her ravishing beauty, which even exceeded its reputation.
We also see that Atsuko has no real backstory or "depth" beyond being a super-model-gorgeous genius. She has a personality (bubbly, cute, intelligent, fast-thinking, sexy) but no real history or flaws.
She is very attracted to older (around age 60) men who are rich and powerful. That's fine. However, she is a psychiatrist who has sex with her patients. She claims this is 'therapy' and 'cures them much faster.' There's a reason most of the clients she takes on are rich and powerful men in their sixties. And she's not just using them for sex! She develops romantic and loving feelings for all of them. By the way, they are all married with children. Just FYI. Her treatment of patients is VERY unethical and immoral.
Another aspect of this is that - because all men 'love' her and want to (or have) had sex with her - these men become a loyal army for her. Because they are all in love with her - would die for her, would kill for her, are protective of her - she has a huge male "base" to draw from in forming an "army" to defeat evil in this book. It's very reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.
Let's move on to Problem #2.
2.) HATRED OF HOMOSEXUALS.
I hate the term homophobia. ("Oh, I'm scared of gay people!") So I rarely use it. I'm not talking about being "frightened" of gay people here, I'm talking about being a homosexuality-hating fucking piece of shit. Okay?
Gay men get the brunt of the attack here. Two gay men are the villains of the piece, cackling and bent on world domination. Homosexual love is shown as a deviant, freaky, disgusting occurrence that is shameful and horrible. BTW, in case you're wondering - the gay men still want to rape Paprika/Atsuko. So. You know, how that happens and stuff. Also, the idea is that there is a secret, Christian-based gay cult where gay men... I don't know... pray and have sex with each other and fantasize about having sex with Jesus, or something?! Very weird.
Lesbians do not escape the hatred either. In the one scene where Atsuko/Paprika is hit on by a woman, she is "repulsed and disgusted." Being lesbian is described as "unnatural." So...
This hatred of homosexuality is frequent and very explicit. Again, like the misogyny - not subtle or debatable. IN YOUR FACE and explicit. Very disturbing - read at your own risk.
3.) Much less harped on, there is still another hatred presented here and that is a hatred of fat people. Kosaku is morbidly obese and (despite being a genius) is portrayed as infantile, a huge child, someone who is completely weak-willed, whiny, and has zero self-control. I found this highly offensive.
4.) There are a few digs at "the Chinese" in this book, but compared to the absolute avalanche of woman- gay- and fat-hate this could almost go unnoticed. It's like a full-time job keeping up with all the bigotry in this novel.
...
The movie is much better in that it tones down this woman-hating/homosexuality-hating rhetoric. The film is enjoyable if a bit confusing. This book will DEFINITELY help you understand the film better, in case you watched it and are a bit lost.
...
Tl;dr - *sighs* *puts head in hands* I don't think I can give this the one-star that it obviously deserves because Tsutsui's world and concepts (as far as sci-fi goes) are amazing and innovative. Such imagination! Such vivid colors! Dream detectives! Mystery! Horror!
However, typing all this out and going over word-for-word what a female-hating, gay-hating piece of shit this book is - I don't know. I hate this. I hate when a good writer has horrific worldviews that bleed into their fiction. Well, this isn't bleeding; this is gushing all over the place. 2 Stars, with a strong caveat to anyone considering reading this. Read at your own risk - This is NOT a drill. The misogyny and hatred of homosexuals is real and constant.
I am very conflicted and torn on how to rate and review this book.
Atsuko Chiba (age 29) and her colleague - the obese and infantile Kosaku Tokita - are psychiatric geniuses who are to awarded the Nobel Prize. This is because Kosaku has invented a DC Mini - a small patch which can be attached to one's head - which allows you to enter another person's dream. It is hoped to be used as a form of psychotherapy, in fact Dr. Atsuko Chiba has been 'moonlighting' as a dream therapist (illegally) for 8 years - taking the name and youthful appearance of 18-year-old "Paprika" and curing people by entering their dreams. Rich, older men usually. This is all done with full knowledge and consent.
But now the powerful, dream-altering DC Minis have fallen into evil hands. The line between reality and dreams is quickly blurring. People's dreams are becoming reality, reality is becoming a dream. People are dying and going insane. Can Atsuko and her friends stop this before it's too late?
...
THE GOOD
- The imagination of the author is simply stunning. Glorious. Dreams and reality blending together, having to fight the villains in dreams, using "dream powers," and being afraid to fall asleep are all amazing concepts that are executed with grace in this novel.
- The psychology - while not correct - is, of course, fun, futuristic and appropriately sci-fi. If you have a psychology background, you will really get a kick out of this.
- Vivid, clear writing that I really enjoyed. I heard a lot of people complaining about the writing in the book, but I for one loved it. It just really worked for me. I was enchanted by Tsutsui's writing style.
THE BAD
If you have a hard time with Japanese names - are unfamiliar with manga or anime - it might be helpful for you to grab a piece of paper and write down names and traits of people mentioned until you get into the swing of things. Since it's Japanese, you need to remember each character's last name, first name, and possible nickname - much like in Russian literature, all three will be used by different people depending on their rank and/or relationship with the person addressed. I'm fine with Japanese, so this was okay, but I strongly advise using my advice if you are unfamiliar with Japanese names.
THE UGLY
Oh, boy. Where should I start? We have four major problems in this novel.
1.) MISOGYNY
This is not a book where the misogyny is nuanced and can be debated. I mean, the book is woman-hating. Y punto. End of discussion.
This comes out most clearly during the rape scenes (there are four of them, to my recollection). Atsuko is always the target in these situations. Tsustui's attitude toward rape is very bizarre and disturbing. Here are some of the book's concepts about rape:
- Instead of fighting off your rapist, you should be passive, submissive, and try to relax and enjoy it.*
(*This also ties into a hatred of homosexuality, using a line of reasoning like: if a man is under threat of rape from another man, he should fight to the death to stop this from happening, because this is an abominable, shameful, horrifying situation where death is preferable. But if you're a woman? It's in your nature to submit to a man's dominance anyway, so even if a man is being violent and forceful with you, this is actually the natural way of things, so don't fight it.)
Yes, he was an enemy, and if she were a man she would have fought him until her dying breath. But she was a woman. She had no intention of aping a man's senseless insistence on fighting to the death.
- If your rapist is attractive, this makes rape more bearable. If your rapist is "raping you out of love," this makes the rape more bearable.
Of course, it did help that Osanai was so absurdly handsome, a fine gigolo indeed. And he'd professed his love for her, notwithstanding the means he'd chosen to express it.
- Women who haven't had sex in a long time will enjoy being raped, because they will be horny and any sexual advances (even unwanted, violent ones) will be welcomed in the end as a means of sexual release.
It had been some years since she'd had sex with a man. Having intercourse inside a patient's dream didn't count. She was of course preoccupied with her research and treatment, but even then, she'd occasionally noticed an unnatural flow in her libido and a sense of unfulfilled desire. Though not of her own choosing, this would be the perfect chance to satisfy that desire.
Did I mention that this is AFTER he's beaten her into unconsciousness and while he is still punching her in the face repeatedly? Yeah.
- After a rape attempt which is unconsummated (the rapist is unable to get an erection), a woman will be very turned-on but still unsatisfied, so she will call her lover or her crush in order to schedule a sexual rendezvous so that she can expel the sexual tension created by being almost-raped.
Atsuko was troubled by the thought that she couldn't satisfy her passion now that it was ignited. She could of course regulate her bodily functions with her mind, but all she wanted now was an outlet for her lust, as if a valve had been unblocked inside her.
Her face is swollen and bleeding from the attack and she was just sexually assaulted in her own home by a colleague. I mean, I fail to understand how Tsutsui could possibly think that now she is horny and in need of some sex from a man she actually likes.
Throughout this whole entire book, Tsutsui's bizarre ideas about rape and female sexuality kept stunning me even when I'd thought I couldn't be shocked anymore. o.O
That was Rape Scene #1. There are three more to get through, which seems excessive to this reader. I won't go into more detail - but you get the basic picture. It's disgusting freakazoid stuff. Not just rape, which is bad enough. And not even sensationalized rape (rape for excitement/titillation) which is even worse than "regular rape" in novels. This is on an even darker level - a "it's your feminine nature to submit," "why don't you just lie back and enjoy it," "after all, he's handsome and is in love with you" way of thinking that is frankly beyond horrifying. I know Tsutsui is male, but most men I know aren't this stupid (or fucked-up in the head), so I can't justify any of his ideas here. I know that Japan struggles with sexism, but this is beyond the pale.
Leaving aside the multiple rape (attempts) and the problems they create, let's focus on just plain woman-hating with no rape factor. Things like:
She could therefore put on a brave face, drawing on her feminine ability to become impervious to evil as necessity demanded.
and
Now, if ever, was the time to deploy a woman's disregard of logic.
These kind of "facts" about "feminine nature" are just casually sprinkled throughout the text like so many chocolate chips.
How about Paprika/Atsuko herself? She is the very embodiment of a "manic pixie dream girl." Always laughing and good-natured (even when being raped), every single man (EVERY SINGLE ONE) in the book falls in love with her. Even the gay men. (More on that in the "gay-hate" section.) Most "fall in love" with her after spending an hour or two with her. She is absolutely-super-fucking-gorgeous and this is discussed CONSTANTLY. Every man, gay or straight, wants to fuck her and thinks they are in love with her.
Here's what happens at a press conference early in the book:
Some social affairs correspondents who were attending for the first time let out involuntary gasps of astonishment at her ravishing beauty, which even exceeded its reputation.
We also see that Atsuko has no real backstory or "depth" beyond being a super-model-gorgeous genius. She has a personality (bubbly, cute, intelligent, fast-thinking, sexy) but no real history or flaws.
She is very attracted to older (around age 60) men who are rich and powerful. That's fine. However, she is a psychiatrist who has sex with her patients. She claims this is 'therapy' and 'cures them much faster.' There's a reason most of the clients she takes on are rich and powerful men in their sixties. And she's not just using them for sex! She develops romantic and loving feelings for all of them. By the way, they are all married with children. Just FYI. Her treatment of patients is VERY unethical and immoral.
Another aspect of this is that - because all men 'love' her and want to (or have) had sex with her - these men become a loyal army for her. Because they are all in love with her - would die for her, would kill for her, are protective of her - she has a huge male "base" to draw from in forming an "army" to defeat evil in this book. It's very reminiscent of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series.
Let's move on to Problem #2.
2.) HATRED OF HOMOSEXUALS.
I hate the term homophobia. ("Oh, I'm scared of gay people!") So I rarely use it. I'm not talking about being "frightened" of gay people here, I'm talking about being a homosexuality-hating fucking piece of shit. Okay?
Gay men get the brunt of the attack here. Two gay men are the villains of the piece, cackling and bent on world domination. Homosexual love is shown as a deviant, freaky, disgusting occurrence that is shameful and horrible. BTW, in case you're wondering - the gay men still want to rape Paprika/Atsuko. So. You know, how that happens and stuff. Also, the idea is that there is a secret, Christian-based gay cult where gay men... I don't know... pray and have sex with each other and fantasize about having sex with Jesus, or something?! Very weird.
Lesbians do not escape the hatred either. In the one scene where Atsuko/Paprika is hit on by a woman, she is "repulsed and disgusted." Being lesbian is described as "unnatural." So...
This hatred of homosexuality is frequent and very explicit. Again, like the misogyny - not subtle or debatable. IN YOUR FACE and explicit. Very disturbing - read at your own risk.
3.) Much less harped on, there is still another hatred presented here and that is a hatred of fat people. Kosaku is morbidly obese and (despite being a genius) is portrayed as infantile, a huge child, someone who is completely weak-willed, whiny, and has zero self-control. I found this highly offensive.
4.) There are a few digs at "the Chinese" in this book, but compared to the absolute avalanche of woman- gay- and fat-hate this could almost go unnoticed. It's like a full-time job keeping up with all the bigotry in this novel.
...
The movie is much better in that it tones down this woman-hating/homosexuality-hating rhetoric. The film is enjoyable if a bit confusing. This book will DEFINITELY help you understand the film better, in case you watched it and are a bit lost.
...
Tl;dr - *sighs* *puts head in hands* I don't think I can give this the one-star that it obviously deserves because Tsutsui's world and concepts (as far as sci-fi goes) are amazing and innovative. Such imagination! Such vivid colors! Dream detectives! Mystery! Horror!
However, typing all this out and going over word-for-word what a female-hating, gay-hating piece of shit this book is - I don't know. I hate this. I hate when a good writer has horrific worldviews that bleed into their fiction. Well, this isn't bleeding; this is gushing all over the place. 2 Stars, with a strong caveat to anyone considering reading this. Read at your own risk - This is NOT a drill. The misogyny and hatred of homosexuals is real and constant.
August 28, 2015
I'm sure the translation wasn't the best it could have been, but I can easily look past the clumsy sentences and imagine that the original version was at least a little bit better. But the real problem here is not the language or the style or the pacing, it's what I perceived was the mindset of the author: that of a sexist and homophobic jerk.
I haven't read anything else by this author and I don't really know anything about who or how Tsutsui is, but the way he created these characters seemed to be just an extension of his way of thinking. Comments of disgust towards homosexuality were made by most characters and Paprika's own thoughts seemed, at times, to mirror those of a man (a really stupid man).
Leaving all this aside, there are some things about this book that are not entirely bad: the overall plot and some of the dream sequences are pretty good. But the ending was crap, so I don't recommend this book at all, unless you're doing a research on misogyny and homophobia or you really don't have anything else to read or do with your life.
I haven't read anything else by this author and I don't really know anything about who or how Tsutsui is, but the way he created these characters seemed to be just an extension of his way of thinking. Comments of disgust towards homosexuality were made by most characters and Paprika's own thoughts seemed, at times, to mirror those of a man (a really stupid man).
Leaving all this aside, there are some things about this book that are not entirely bad: the overall plot and some of the dream sequences are pretty good. But the ending was crap, so I don't recommend this book at all, unless you're doing a research on misogyny and homophobia or you really don't have anything else to read or do with your life.
July 1, 2014
So I don't know. Was this book seriously homophobic and misogynist? Was the structure really that formulaic and simplistic? Was I imagining the totally ridiculous, hyperidealized (and ultrasexualized) characterization of the female protagonist? Or do I just not get Japanese literature?
I keep trying. And the prime argument is that I'm not reading the right authors -- and yes, I'm sure that's true (recommendations?) to an extent. But I'm starting to think that there is something irreparably lost in translation; words and concepts and depth that just can't be conveyed in English (or with a Western context, for that matter).
Paprika has some awesome plot points and imagery (and I definitely checked to see whether "The Cell" had aped them), and the overall story is entertaining (if very uneven). The whole premise -- psychoanalyzing dreams, technological progress, and the fear of what happens when both get out of hand -- is way dystopian and cool. But the execution was oh so flawed, with events and ideas popping out of nowhere, and a total lack of rationale behind many of them. The idol worship (and, you know, REPEATED RAPE) of Atsuko was antiquated and deeply disturbing; likewise the comments about women and homosexuals. And then, when shit like office politics and religion start popping up with no context or explanation, but huge plot consequences...I dunno. You lost me, Tsutsui.
I keep trying. And the prime argument is that I'm not reading the right authors -- and yes, I'm sure that's true (recommendations?) to an extent. But I'm starting to think that there is something irreparably lost in translation; words and concepts and depth that just can't be conveyed in English (or with a Western context, for that matter).
Paprika has some awesome plot points and imagery (and I definitely checked to see whether "The Cell" had aped them), and the overall story is entertaining (if very uneven). The whole premise -- psychoanalyzing dreams, technological progress, and the fear of what happens when both get out of hand -- is way dystopian and cool. But the execution was oh so flawed, with events and ideas popping out of nowhere, and a total lack of rationale behind many of them. The idol worship (and, you know, REPEATED RAPE) of Atsuko was antiquated and deeply disturbing; likewise the comments about women and homosexuals. And then, when shit like office politics and religion start popping up with no context or explanation, but huge plot consequences...I dunno. You lost me, Tsutsui.
November 22, 2020
Two stars for being very inventive.
NEGATIVE THREE STARS FOR RAMPANT MISOGYNY.
NEGATIVE THREE STARS FOR RAMPANT MISOGYNY.
April 14, 2021
Подытожим. Заунывный производственный роман о секте коварных пидарасов, основанной в Вене Фройдом, которая старается принести в Японию, край непуганых идиотов, идеалы греческой красоты и плотской любви к мальчикам. Им доблестно противостоит японская народная блядь с золотым сердцем, которой за японское народное блядство (больше не за что) должны выписать Нобелевку. А коварные пидарасы хотят Нобелевку себе, поэтому напускают на героиню и ее корпоративных клиентов всякую мутную хуйню из подсознания, заимствованную из христианской и еврейской демонологии. Ну и японских народных барби в довесок. Наши герои отбиваются традиционными японскими матрешками. Всё. Мораль: ебаться надо с любовью к родине.
Мультик покойного Сатоси Кона тоже был довольно идиотский, но экранизация по любому пошла книжке на пользу.
Мультик покойного Сатоси Кона тоже был довольно идиотский, но экранизация по любому пошла книжке на пользу.
May 1, 2023
Well, you did it Tsutsui. You have written what I consider to be the stupidest book in existence. Here’s your trophy, now go back home and stay away from anything that involves writing.
Trigger warnings: misogyny, homophobia, sexual abuse, a woman asking to be raped (???!?!?!!?!)
Paprika has a very interesting premise. A small group of Japanese psychoanalysts has created this machine that allows them to see the dreams of their patients and insert themselves into them. Putting the machine into use for treatment used to be illegal, but it is not anymore. Yet, back in the day, people received treatment and they all remember a certain woman named Paprika curing them from their mental health struggles. Paprika is back and this whole dream situation is getting messy because the shrinks are ‘catching’ schizophrenia from their patients.
Do you like the idea? Cool. Keep it inside of your brain and move on. Stay away from this dumpster fire of a book. This novel only exists for Tsutsui to show off that he’s read a few Wikipedia pages about psychoanalysis. Good for you, babe. Other than that, it’s just a man writing a woman. A man who’s homophobic and misogynistic as it gets.
How bad can it be? Well, let me tell you about the patients/biggest interactions Paprika has with people:
1. Talking about food with his obese colleague while she’s very thin because she skips meals.
2. His first patient called her ‘very smart, clearly’ because she says “Hey, how are you?” I’m not even joking, she asks this and, I’ll copy-paste the guy’s reaction: “She may speak plainly but at least she knows her manners, thought Noda. She must be exceptionally clever.” ??? ARE WE OKAY???
3. Her next patient is this dude that “has always mistrusted women.” And, obviously, he asks her to have sex in his dream, and she says yes while reaffirming to him “Yes, it’s me. You are doing this to me.” And then he apologizes because “I think I have messed up your sheets.”
4. Getting shit because of having dream sex with a patient only to end up having sex with the man that hates her. Turns out he hates her… because he desires her.
5. Every single dude in her office having a crush on her? Seriously?
6. Two of his patients gang up to follow her car to discover her real identity and it’s ok??? Like my god are we alright??
7. The homophobia. UGH. This woman trying to shame someone because they have a “gay lover.” Please, dude.
8. Work-wise, how everyone can do whatever they want without any ethics assessment because ‘scientists work better when they don’t have to respond to anyone.’ And yet they want to get the Nobel prize? I mean. Tsutsui, sir, with all due respect, did the Wikipedia article you checked not explain how formal research has an ethics panel before it can start?
9. When she is told “Calm down. It may be impossible for you, but please calm down.” Because, as we know, women are always hysteric.
10. New patient is struggling with the treatment. Why? “Hashimoto couldn’t wake up. The stimulus of his involuntary embrace with Paprika had aroused his libido. He had an erection.” GASP.
11. That one bit where she screams “Don’t wake up!” Paprika cried. “You mustn’t! Please! Rape me, here and now!” That, Tsutsui, is disgusting.
And I’ll stop.
This was nonsensical. The story could have been interesting but there were so many pointless blabla and lame infodumps that weren’t even interesting, it was like the author adding ‘plot devices’ but they had nothing to do with the plot. They were just there so he could show off that he had read that one Wikipedia article.
But seriously, the misogyny. The stupid comments. The homophobia. The fact that he has a woman asking to be raped ffs. I’m certain I have damaged my brain after the number of times I’ve eye-rolled reading this thing. Yuck.
Trigger warnings: misogyny, homophobia, sexual abuse, a woman asking to be raped (???!?!?!!?!)
Paprika has a very interesting premise. A small group of Japanese psychoanalysts has created this machine that allows them to see the dreams of their patients and insert themselves into them. Putting the machine into use for treatment used to be illegal, but it is not anymore. Yet, back in the day, people received treatment and they all remember a certain woman named Paprika curing them from their mental health struggles. Paprika is back and this whole dream situation is getting messy because the shrinks are ‘catching’ schizophrenia from their patients.
Do you like the idea? Cool. Keep it inside of your brain and move on. Stay away from this dumpster fire of a book. This novel only exists for Tsutsui to show off that he’s read a few Wikipedia pages about psychoanalysis. Good for you, babe. Other than that, it’s just a man writing a woman. A man who’s homophobic and misogynistic as it gets.
How bad can it be? Well, let me tell you about the patients/biggest interactions Paprika has with people:
1. Talking about food with his obese colleague while she’s very thin because she skips meals.
2. His first patient called her ‘very smart, clearly’ because she says “Hey, how are you?” I’m not even joking, she asks this and, I’ll copy-paste the guy’s reaction: “She may speak plainly but at least she knows her manners, thought Noda. She must be exceptionally clever.” ??? ARE WE OKAY???
3. Her next patient is this dude that “has always mistrusted women.” And, obviously, he asks her to have sex in his dream, and she says yes while reaffirming to him “Yes, it’s me. You are doing this to me.” And then he apologizes because “I think I have messed up your sheets.”
4. Getting shit because of having dream sex with a patient only to end up having sex with the man that hates her. Turns out he hates her… because he desires her.
5. Every single dude in her office having a crush on her? Seriously?
6. Two of his patients gang up to follow her car to discover her real identity and it’s ok??? Like my god are we alright??
7. The homophobia. UGH. This woman trying to shame someone because they have a “gay lover.” Please, dude.
8. Work-wise, how everyone can do whatever they want without any ethics assessment because ‘scientists work better when they don’t have to respond to anyone.’ And yet they want to get the Nobel prize? I mean. Tsutsui, sir, with all due respect, did the Wikipedia article you checked not explain how formal research has an ethics panel before it can start?
9. When she is told “Calm down. It may be impossible for you, but please calm down.” Because, as we know, women are always hysteric.
10. New patient is struggling with the treatment. Why? “Hashimoto couldn’t wake up. The stimulus of his involuntary embrace with Paprika had aroused his libido. He had an erection.” GASP.
11. That one bit where she screams “Don’t wake up!” Paprika cried. “You mustn’t! Please! Rape me, here and now!” That, Tsutsui, is disgusting.
And I’ll stop.
This was nonsensical. The story could have been interesting but there were so many pointless blabla and lame infodumps that weren’t even interesting, it was like the author adding ‘plot devices’ but they had nothing to do with the plot. They were just there so he could show off that he had read that one Wikipedia article.
But seriously, the misogyny. The stupid comments. The homophobia. The fact that he has a woman asking to be raped ffs. I’m certain I have damaged my brain after the number of times I’ve eye-rolled reading this thing. Yuck.
August 30, 2009
It's always interesting reading a book after watching (and being a big fan of) its movie version, especially in this case where the book's translation was only finished after the movie came out. Perhaps the main difference in this story about dreams taking over reality through stolen psychotherapy devices is that, unlike in Satoshi Kon's anime, where the more surreal imagery leaps from the screen within the first ten minutes, Tsutsui takes more than half the book for the content of dreams to become manifest. In fact, a quarter of the book passes before the dream detective Paprika enters someone's dream at all. Despite the potential for this to seem really slow, and less interesting than the more frantically paced movie, Paprika the novel actually works best by holding off the potential for surreality to manifest itself, because that allows the author to create a familiar and logical real world first, which is necessary in order to make the weirder elements read as believable. Another interesting twist is that many of the inter-character plot elements held till the end of the movie are given at the novel's beginning, making the story less about finding out how the characters interact but seeing how these interactions change in the face of embodied subconscious impulses.
As someone who has spent a lot of time working with my own dreams in a narrative context, it was interesting seeing some of the ideas that Tsutsui uses for his dream detective's dream interpretation methods, such as having dream characters really represent other people from our memories, which I find a little too simplifying with how dreams actually seem to work, but was necessary for the novel's cohesion. One unique concept is that of "dreason," which opposed to the reason in dreams that allows us to control our subconscious imagery (the translator should have called this lucidity, but for some reason didn't), dreason is the awareness of where logic falls apart in dreams, which keeps us from accomplishing even the most simple task and eventually wakes us up through being startled by frustration, guilt, etc, an idea that I've come up against in my own dreamwork and have called thwartedness, though I think the term dreason captures the scope of it better, and Tsutsui does a good job of displaying this in action, letting dream scenes and characters morph into each other, startling the dreamers who aren't always quite aware when they are dreaming.
One of the deeper themes of the novel, and a necessary one in talking about dreams vs. reality, is unfortunately not introduced (either directly or indirectly) until near the end of the novel, and I would have liked to see be played out from the beginning, more as it is in the Kon's movie: that goodness and evil (or god and the devil in religious terms), are imaginal constructs that are not opposed to each other but are opposed to the banality of everyday life/ human waking existence, the idea being that such extreme aspects of psyche necessitate each other, and the wilder, surreal parts of life, whether desired or feared, are at odds with life as it is lived on a daily basis. Unfortunately this idea just seems tossed off or unfinished, as the setting of a cutting-edge psychiatric institute is not exactly everyday enough to see the range/ struggle between reality and the dreams. Similarly, there is no resolve: good triumphs over evil as if it was reality triumphing over the dreams, which is certainly a common ending, but it perhaps would have been more interesting, and more in line with some of the Jungian psychology that the book draws on, to have the characters find a balance, a place where both good and evil, dreams and the everyday, could coexist as equally real and important, since humans after all are the ones who created these ideas of psychic extremes in the first place and still must learn what to do with them through our imaginations.
Those critiques aside, this book is fantastic, mesmerizing, and full of so many novel ideas and writing techniques that it is a must read for anyone interested in dreams, science fiction, psychology, and plain human behavior.
As someone who has spent a lot of time working with my own dreams in a narrative context, it was interesting seeing some of the ideas that Tsutsui uses for his dream detective's dream interpretation methods, such as having dream characters really represent other people from our memories, which I find a little too simplifying with how dreams actually seem to work, but was necessary for the novel's cohesion. One unique concept is that of "dreason," which opposed to the reason in dreams that allows us to control our subconscious imagery (the translator should have called this lucidity, but for some reason didn't), dreason is the awareness of where logic falls apart in dreams, which keeps us from accomplishing even the most simple task and eventually wakes us up through being startled by frustration, guilt, etc, an idea that I've come up against in my own dreamwork and have called thwartedness, though I think the term dreason captures the scope of it better, and Tsutsui does a good job of displaying this in action, letting dream scenes and characters morph into each other, startling the dreamers who aren't always quite aware when they are dreaming.
One of the deeper themes of the novel, and a necessary one in talking about dreams vs. reality, is unfortunately not introduced (either directly or indirectly) until near the end of the novel, and I would have liked to see be played out from the beginning, more as it is in the Kon's movie: that goodness and evil (or god and the devil in religious terms), are imaginal constructs that are not opposed to each other but are opposed to the banality of everyday life/ human waking existence, the idea being that such extreme aspects of psyche necessitate each other, and the wilder, surreal parts of life, whether desired or feared, are at odds with life as it is lived on a daily basis. Unfortunately this idea just seems tossed off or unfinished, as the setting of a cutting-edge psychiatric institute is not exactly everyday enough to see the range/ struggle between reality and the dreams. Similarly, there is no resolve: good triumphs over evil as if it was reality triumphing over the dreams, which is certainly a common ending, but it perhaps would have been more interesting, and more in line with some of the Jungian psychology that the book draws on, to have the characters find a balance, a place where both good and evil, dreams and the everyday, could coexist as equally real and important, since humans after all are the ones who created these ideas of psychic extremes in the first place and still must learn what to do with them through our imaginations.
Those critiques aside, this book is fantastic, mesmerizing, and full of so many novel ideas and writing techniques that it is a must read for anyone interested in dreams, science fiction, psychology, and plain human behavior.
June 26, 2015
If you like your heroines to be smart, beautiful, Nobel-prize winning doctors, you might at first glance think this book is for you, but you would be wrong. Things start off innocently enough--a well-respected doctor moonlights as Paprika, a "dream detective" navigating her way through her clients' dreams as a way to find and isolate the source of their waking anxiety. Things start to get a little weird when Chiba's alter ego shows up at her client meetings disguised as a teenage girl, and everything quickly goes south. Naturally, every recommended treatment is for Paprika to have sex with the client, either in their dreams, in real life, or both if you have the right electronic equipment. Even if you don't want to have a go, Paprika will take all the guilt away--"please rape me," she begs one hesitant client. One trip into Paprika's magical dream vagina is all you need to cure you of your mental problems.
There is also some sort of mystery subplot here about a pair of mincing gay guys stealing electronic equipment and using the collective human subconscious as a playground for sex games and for bringing mythological demons to life, but the terrible translation makes it difficult to follow that particular storyline. Additionally, the inevitable weird sex stuff is told using exactingly clinical terms--"he's having a nocturnal emission" observes one character--which to me made it even squickier than if it had been described using more crass language. Overall, Paprika was a spice that I could have lived without.
There is also some sort of mystery subplot here about a pair of mincing gay guys stealing electronic equipment and using the collective human subconscious as a playground for sex games and for bringing mythological demons to life, but the terrible translation makes it difficult to follow that particular storyline. Additionally, the inevitable weird sex stuff is told using exactingly clinical terms--"he's having a nocturnal emission" observes one character--which to me made it even squickier than if it had been described using more crass language. Overall, Paprika was a spice that I could have lived without.
August 12, 2015
Sentimientos encontrados.
Así como me encanta la locura que destila esta historia, toda la parte onírica y de "investigación" de sueños, así como la atmósfera de ciencia ficción… hay muchas cosas que me han superado. Especialmente la MISOGINIA y machismo que se respira en el ambiente, que básicamente me ha estropeado el libro.
Aunque me ha encantado la parte de la acción y he logrado disfrutar de la historia, de verdad que ese tipo de acontecimientos me han estropeado por completo la novela D:
En conclusión: Me quedo sin duda con la película de Satoshi Kon
Así como me encanta la locura que destila esta historia, toda la parte onírica y de "investigación" de sueños, así como la atmósfera de ciencia ficción… hay muchas cosas que me han superado. Especialmente la MISOGINIA y machismo que se respira en el ambiente, que básicamente me ha estropeado el libro.
Aunque me ha encantado la parte de la acción y he logrado disfrutar de la historia, de verdad que ese tipo de acontecimientos me han estropeado por completo la novela D:
En conclusión: Me quedo sin duda con la película de Satoshi Kon
April 15, 2022
The premise of this book sounds so cool! A brilliant psychotherapist called Atsuko Chiba learns that a device used to invade people's dreams is stolen and most go on a wild goose chase in the dream world as her in-dream alter ego Paprika to find the culprits and keep dreams from invading reality. The actual book however read less like a cool sci-fi story and more like the author's wet fever dream.
The plot took a long while to really get going and in the meantime you're introduced to a lot of characters and concepts described in the most pedantic language possible. No easy-peasy reading by a long shot. The first big chunk of the book was also rather boring to me with a lot of company politics and board meetings (or bored meetings amirite? .....sorry). I liked Atsuko at first. She was brilliant and unrelenting in an ostensible male-dominated corporate environment. At first, I thought that the occasional sexist comments by other characters towards her were meant to illustrate that, but BOY WAS I WRONG!
Anyway, the first red flag was the fat-shaming towards Tokita, the inventor of the devices that allow you to enter people's dreams, though I could kinda understand it since from what I heard that is quite common in Japan where obesity is relatively rare. The second one was when it became clear that it was common for Paprika when invading patients dreams to treat them by having sex with them. And it actually works! Dream sex by the way is often described as more pleasurable than real sex and results in orgasm in the real world, so it's basically real. So, it's heavily implied that a main source of Atsuko/Paprika's success as a therapist is not her learning or insight (because how could a woman be a good therapist in her own right), it's her vagina. And literally every important male character in the book save Inui only becomes her ally because they're in love with her, though lust is a more appropriate word. One guy literally confesses by saying 'Oh, Atsuko, look how hard I am. I love you'. Just... Ugh. In the end, she literally has a harem of guys who she has dream orgies with, while they should be chasing down the villain who is still wrecking havock and killing people! Speaking of the villain, one important reason you're supposed to hate him is because he's gay, and being gay is disgusting. So, let's see, so far we've got fat-shaming, sexism, homophobia... Am I forgetting anything? O right, this fucking scene:
"She realized that this man fully intended to force himself on her, to maintain his pride if nothing else. He didn't mind how badly he injured her, even if he had to half kill her in the process. Atsuko didn't care about the dress. She just didn't want to be hurt anymore. She decided to let him rape her. She would think of him not as a vile beast, but as a man with the mind of a child. That would make it bearable. After all, she didn't dislike childish men. He probably didn't have any disease, his breath wasn't disgusting, he wasn't dirty. Yes, he was an enemy, and if she were a man she would have fought him until her dying breath. But she was a woman. She had no intention of aping a man's senseless insistence on fighting to the death. [...] she'd often noticed an unnatural flow in het libido and a sense of unfulfilled desire. Though not of her own choosing, this would be the perfect chance to satisfy that desire."
You heard it here first guys! If you're good-looking and insistent, hot girls will enjoy being raped by you! Uuuuhhggg So yeah, I've wanted to throw this fucking book out the window multiple times. I only finished it, because I dislike leaving books unfinished and I wanted to see how much worse it got later on. Answer: a lot. Some of the dream-stuff was really imaginative and I kind of liked Tokita and Shima. Also, I have to give the author points for originality. If you strip away all the horrible elements and the pedantic writing, like Satoshi Kon did for the movie adaptation, you're left with a legitimately good story. I'm torn between 1 and 2 stars, but I'll leave it at 1 out of spite.
So yeah, sorry for the long rant. This was one way of getting the anger out of my system. Another will be throwing this book in the trash. Go watch the movie folks!
The plot took a long while to really get going and in the meantime you're introduced to a lot of characters and concepts described in the most pedantic language possible. No easy-peasy reading by a long shot. The first big chunk of the book was also rather boring to me with a lot of company politics and board meetings (or bored meetings amirite? .....sorry). I liked Atsuko at first. She was brilliant and unrelenting in an ostensible male-dominated corporate environment. At first, I thought that the occasional sexist comments by other characters towards her were meant to illustrate that, but BOY WAS I WRONG!
Anyway, the first red flag was the fat-shaming towards Tokita, the inventor of the devices that allow you to enter people's dreams, though I could kinda understand it since from what I heard that is quite common in Japan where obesity is relatively rare. The second one was when it became clear that it was common for Paprika when invading patients dreams to treat them by having sex with them. And it actually works! Dream sex by the way is often described as more pleasurable than real sex and results in orgasm in the real world, so it's basically real. So, it's heavily implied that a main source of Atsuko/Paprika's success as a therapist is not her learning or insight (because how could a woman be a good therapist in her own right), it's her vagina. And literally every important male character in the book save Inui only becomes her ally because they're in love with her, though lust is a more appropriate word. One guy literally confesses by saying 'Oh, Atsuko, look how hard I am. I love you'. Just... Ugh. In the end, she literally has a harem of guys who she has dream orgies with, while they should be chasing down the villain who is still wrecking havock and killing people! Speaking of the villain, one important reason you're supposed to hate him is because he's gay, and being gay is disgusting. So, let's see, so far we've got fat-shaming, sexism, homophobia... Am I forgetting anything? O right, this fucking scene:
"She realized that this man fully intended to force himself on her, to maintain his pride if nothing else. He didn't mind how badly he injured her, even if he had to half kill her in the process. Atsuko didn't care about the dress. She just didn't want to be hurt anymore. She decided to let him rape her. She would think of him not as a vile beast, but as a man with the mind of a child. That would make it bearable. After all, she didn't dislike childish men. He probably didn't have any disease, his breath wasn't disgusting, he wasn't dirty. Yes, he was an enemy, and if she were a man she would have fought him until her dying breath. But she was a woman. She had no intention of aping a man's senseless insistence on fighting to the death. [...] she'd often noticed an unnatural flow in het libido and a sense of unfulfilled desire. Though not of her own choosing, this would be the perfect chance to satisfy that desire."
You heard it here first guys! If you're good-looking and insistent, hot girls will enjoy being raped by you! Uuuuhhggg So yeah, I've wanted to throw this fucking book out the window multiple times. I only finished it, because I dislike leaving books unfinished and I wanted to see how much worse it got later on. Answer: a lot. Some of the dream-stuff was really imaginative and I kind of liked Tokita and Shima. Also, I have to give the author points for originality. If you strip away all the horrible elements and the pedantic writing, like Satoshi Kon did for the movie adaptation, you're left with a legitimately good story. I'm torn between 1 and 2 stars, but I'll leave it at 1 out of spite.
So yeah, sorry for the long rant. This was one way of getting the anger out of my system. Another will be throwing this book in the trash. Go watch the movie folks!
August 11, 2014
Oh my... what to do when you review a book that it's both praised and hated? (and you're in the middle?)
The book is... well... weird to say the least. I approached it coming not only as anime "aficionado", with a hobby of studying japanese culture, and a psychologist (with psychoanalitic orientation) so I guess I can contribute my two pennies worth.
Starting with the good - the book is a nice sci-fi take on the dangers of technology, of the battle of new innovations and deeped seated traditions; as well as the dangers of when new technologies are not used, but abused. It also deals a lot with dreams, which a topic that is seldom developed, and that adds a nice touch.
The book is also remarkable in one other way. To explain this I would have to mention a bit on the "logic" of dreams. As anyone who has ever had a dream knows, things work different in dream-like states, and new groups of rules happen. For example, different objects may be meshed into a single object (condensation), or the emotions associated with an object might be attached to another (displacement)... etc etc. So, you can dream about a cat, who is also your mom, and feel a deep hatred towars that object... but you don't really hate the cat/mom, you really hate your infant child who keeps you up at night, but since its horrible to hate your child, in the dream you hate this cat/mom since your relationship with her is kinda of rocky.
The above text makes little or no sense, and the book from a point onwards becomes more and more dream-like, to a point when the reader is not sure if he is reading a dream, or what is happening in reality (or if the difference makes any sense). It's a brilliant deconstruction of reality and common sense, and speaks a lot of the author's understanding of dreams and basic psychoanalytic theory.
But then... the whole setting is so Freudian, everything has to do with childhood traumas, and sex and sexual pulsions are so abundant... Up to the point where it can be kind of unbearing to some readers. There are several ways we can understand the use or abuse of sex in the book. It can be written from a Freudian perspective simply to make an effect on readers - or it can be a subtle criticism to neo-freudians. Another interpretation comes from japanese culture - the early japanese psychoanalist theorized that japanese people have incredible highs levels of repression of all base desires (because its a very organized society where everyone is so polite) and so all the violent and sexual pulsions must find other outlets (yeah, think of all that "tentacle-hentai" or violence anime or movies, and you get the point), and in the book the author might try to contrast the difference between these very nice and well-behaved people (in public) with their more animalistic side on their dreams.
Finally there are the characters... especially Dr. Atsuko Chiba (aka Paprika). The book is very much a character driven story, so it depends heavily on her, the "dream detective". I expected her to kick-ass, I expected her to be brilliant, I expected her to overcome. I didn't mind when she gets kicked around, nor her "male" helpers, or her sexual life, or her faults - since all of those make her a better character. But in the end she, who is our heroine, takes a window seat in the story... she gets pushed aside so completely as to be nerve breaking. She might have been one of the greatest female characters written in japan in early 90's... and she ends as a footnote. That last scene on Radio Cafe got it all wrong, Paprika is not dead now... she had been dead a long time.
But... read ahead if you have finished the book.
I would rather believe that interpretation, and think of this as a good book. Of course, its for everyone to interpret.
The book is... well... weird to say the least. I approached it coming not only as anime "aficionado", with a hobby of studying japanese culture, and a psychologist (with psychoanalitic orientation) so I guess I can contribute my two pennies worth.
Starting with the good - the book is a nice sci-fi take on the dangers of technology, of the battle of new innovations and deeped seated traditions; as well as the dangers of when new technologies are not used, but abused. It also deals a lot with dreams, which a topic that is seldom developed, and that adds a nice touch.
The book is also remarkable in one other way. To explain this I would have to mention a bit on the "logic" of dreams. As anyone who has ever had a dream knows, things work different in dream-like states, and new groups of rules happen. For example, different objects may be meshed into a single object (condensation), or the emotions associated with an object might be attached to another (displacement)... etc etc. So, you can dream about a cat, who is also your mom, and feel a deep hatred towars that object... but you don't really hate the cat/mom, you really hate your infant child who keeps you up at night, but since its horrible to hate your child, in the dream you hate this cat/mom since your relationship with her is kinda of rocky.
The above text makes little or no sense, and the book from a point onwards becomes more and more dream-like, to a point when the reader is not sure if he is reading a dream, or what is happening in reality (or if the difference makes any sense). It's a brilliant deconstruction of reality and common sense, and speaks a lot of the author's understanding of dreams and basic psychoanalytic theory.
But then... the whole setting is so Freudian, everything has to do with childhood traumas, and sex and sexual pulsions are so abundant... Up to the point where it can be kind of unbearing to some readers. There are several ways we can understand the use or abuse of sex in the book. It can be written from a Freudian perspective simply to make an effect on readers - or it can be a subtle criticism to neo-freudians. Another interpretation comes from japanese culture - the early japanese psychoanalist theorized that japanese people have incredible highs levels of repression of all base desires (because its a very organized society where everyone is so polite) and so all the violent and sexual pulsions must find other outlets (yeah, think of all that "tentacle-hentai" or violence anime or movies, and you get the point), and in the book the author might try to contrast the difference between these very nice and well-behaved people (in public) with their more animalistic side on their dreams.
Finally there are the characters... especially Dr. Atsuko Chiba (aka Paprika). The book is very much a character driven story, so it depends heavily on her, the "dream detective". I expected her to kick-ass, I expected her to be brilliant, I expected her to overcome. I didn't mind when she gets kicked around, nor her "male" helpers, or her sexual life, or her faults - since all of those make her a better character. But in the end she, who is our heroine, takes a window seat in the story... she gets pushed aside so completely as to be nerve breaking. She might have been one of the greatest female characters written in japan in early 90's... and she ends as a footnote. That last scene on Radio Cafe got it all wrong, Paprika is not dead now... she had been dead a long time.
But... read ahead if you have finished the book.
I would rather believe that interpretation, and think of this as a good book. Of course, its for everyone to interpret.
January 12, 2017
This is a difficult book to rate, but I think the average score at this point (3.27) is probably fair. I see other reviews mentioning misogyny, or the rape sequence- I don't know Tsutsui personally, and I don't know that he's a misogynist. There are characters in the book that are clearly misogynistic, but that doesn't necessarily mean the book, or the author, is misogynistic. However, the characterization of females here could be off-putting to some- myself included. Tsutsui is known for his dark humor and for being a satirist, though, and I have to wonder if we're losing something in the translation, but I'll come back to that in a moment.
Regarding the rape sequence, I'm not "triggered" by rape scenes in stories, and considering the content of the story, it seems to fit in (it's even in the movie, though a little more subtle)... however, the thought processes of those involved is baffling. In fact, throughout the book, the thoughts and actions of characters are baffling. Intelligent characters do frustrating and illogical things (as though in a dream...?). The problem may actually be in the translation. Characters use words like "bloke," "git," trollop," and "higgledy-piggledy(!!!)," which is just as off-putting as anything else in the story, giving me the feeling that we are reading this through a couple of obstacles. Atsuko's car is very nearly ALWAYS referred to as a "moss-green Marginal," Matsukane is very nearly ALWAYS referred to as "Matsukane of the Morning News"... is that a pun? A Japanese formality? We don't know!
While I appreciate that someone did translate Paprika, I think it would benefit from a new translation, and a collection of hefty footnotes. There are a lot of cool ideas going on here, and if you're a fan of the movie, you'll pick up some things that the movie never explained (like what the DC in DC Mini stands for), but in its current state, I wouldn't call it a must-read. Kon expertly distilled Paprika down to its important elements, and I think this is one of those rare cases where the movie surpasses the book.
Read it if you must, and if you work in the publishing industry, do us all a favor and investigate the merits and possibility of a new translation.
Regarding the rape sequence, I'm not "triggered" by rape scenes in stories, and considering the content of the story, it seems to fit in (it's even in the movie, though a little more subtle)... however, the thought processes of those involved is baffling. In fact, throughout the book, the thoughts and actions of characters are baffling. Intelligent characters do frustrating and illogical things (as though in a dream...?). The problem may actually be in the translation. Characters use words like "bloke," "git," trollop," and "higgledy-piggledy(!!!)," which is just as off-putting as anything else in the story, giving me the feeling that we are reading this through a couple of obstacles. Atsuko's car is very nearly ALWAYS referred to as a "moss-green Marginal," Matsukane is very nearly ALWAYS referred to as "Matsukane of the Morning News"... is that a pun? A Japanese formality? We don't know!
While I appreciate that someone did translate Paprika, I think it would benefit from a new translation, and a collection of hefty footnotes. There are a lot of cool ideas going on here, and if you're a fan of the movie, you'll pick up some things that the movie never explained (like what the DC in DC Mini stands for), but in its current state, I wouldn't call it a must-read. Kon expertly distilled Paprika down to its important elements, and I think this is one of those rare cases where the movie surpasses the book.
Read it if you must, and if you work in the publishing industry, do us all a favor and investigate the merits and possibility of a new translation.
Read
February 20, 2018No soporto este libro, empezó muy bien, todo el tema del estudio de los sueños y la manipulación de los mismos para curar enfermedades mentales me parecía una idea muy original pero los derroteros que empieza a tomar no me gustan. No me está gustando la forma en la que tratan todos los personajes masculinos a la protagonista, parece que todos y cada uno de los hombres que aparecen en el libro se sienten atraídos por ella, menospreciando su intelecto y valorando por encima de todo su físico y esta frase ha acabado exasperándome ''todas las científicas eran así, infértiles a un nivel intelectual. No era una cuestión de misoginia, se decía Osanai, sino simplemente de reconocer su disposición natural'' así que... hasta luego Yasutaka.
December 26, 2012
If there is any single reason I could finish this novel is because I have watched the movie; it brought me here. But what’s going on? Is it error in translation? Because honestly the prose… It feels like fresh coming out from a really bad hack. It’s not purple prose—it’s something else, what colours are worse than purple? Shit colour? It’s shit prose then. But in all fairness, aside from the prose (I’m trying to comment purely on the story here), the story falls like a cheap sci-fi telenovela shot by a director who can’t stop thinking about jerking off.
Okay I’m going to stop here. Just watch the movie.
Okay I’m going to stop here. Just watch the movie.
February 22, 2014
The 2006 film directed by Satoshi Kon is a visual and narrative masterpiece, and one of my favorites. Perhaps because of that, I opened the pages of Yasutaka Tsutsui's work expecting to find brilliance. But, even considering the book by purely its own merits, I was generally unimpressed with most of it.
Tsutsui's writing style is very straightforward, but without being beautiful in a minimalist way. The pacing of the action felt very plodding; "and then ___, and then ___," interspersed with odd bits of repetition and exposition clumsily placed in the mouths of characters. The science in this science-fiction work was also muddled; Tsutsui attempted to explain certain mechanisms for the sake of realism and detail (I assume), but the effect was more like the vocab-dropping gibberish of an early Star Trek script; believable only on the very surface of things. Considering how far our understanding of neuroscience has come since even 1993, when the book was written, these explanations also unfortunately date this piece. Overall, and most importantly, I had a hard time really believing that the Nobel prizewinning characters were truly groundbreaking scientists, based on their thoughts and actions.
To be fair, I learned that this novel was originally written for Marie Claire magazine, and serialized in four parts. I wonder if that was something the author was aware of as he was writing, or if MC's editors required certain elements that I've complained of above (the action repetition, the exposition). I also wonder if the publisher, or the author, (or both, given Japanese culture's gender norms) is more responsible for the casual sexism throughout. (There was even one sentence that amounted to women being closer to evil than men, in order to excuse Atsuko's moral ambivalence about truly terrible shit unfolding around her. I imagine this was supposed to be a mysterious divulgence of womanhood's true nature by a coy author, but it's just a tired trope and lazy writing that conveniently let him ignore the impact of the events he was describing.)
We're supposed to believe that the main character, Atsuko Chiba, is beautiful and intelligent, but neither of these traits are ever described or given depth. Indeed, few of the characters are given depth, and only the men are given agency. The whole love hexagon that unfolded around Atsuko was less liberating (from a pro-polygamy/anti-traditional point of view) and more confusing, because the reasons behind this infatuation with Atsuko, a character I feel I barely got to know, were really hazy. It felt forced, and a lot of the sex involved seemed unexplainable, or dropped in to make the piece more modern and edgy. Yawn.
The symbolism also felt forced, particularly the occultish dabblings of the main antagonists. I also rolled my eyes at the use of their homosexual bond as either titillation fodder or evidence of their corruption--whichever the author intended was unclear, but certainly their relationship was evil and unhealthy, and I'm tired of seeing gay characters portrayed this way.
I could go on. There's a lot to digest in Paprika, and there are some interesting and good scenes, but overall the writing style was not redeeming, and there are many lazy plot elements. You're much better off watching the movie, in which Satoshi Kon took a truly brilliant idea--a psychologist traveling into the world of dreams, and the blurring of reality there--and executed it with more artistry than Tsutsui.
Tsutsui's writing style is very straightforward, but without being beautiful in a minimalist way. The pacing of the action felt very plodding; "and then ___, and then ___," interspersed with odd bits of repetition and exposition clumsily placed in the mouths of characters. The science in this science-fiction work was also muddled; Tsutsui attempted to explain certain mechanisms for the sake of realism and detail (I assume), but the effect was more like the vocab-dropping gibberish of an early Star Trek script; believable only on the very surface of things. Considering how far our understanding of neuroscience has come since even 1993, when the book was written, these explanations also unfortunately date this piece. Overall, and most importantly, I had a hard time really believing that the Nobel prizewinning characters were truly groundbreaking scientists, based on their thoughts and actions.
To be fair, I learned that this novel was originally written for Marie Claire magazine, and serialized in four parts. I wonder if that was something the author was aware of as he was writing, or if MC's editors required certain elements that I've complained of above (the action repetition, the exposition). I also wonder if the publisher, or the author, (or both, given Japanese culture's gender norms) is more responsible for the casual sexism throughout. (There was even one sentence that amounted to women being closer to evil than men, in order to excuse Atsuko's moral ambivalence about truly terrible shit unfolding around her. I imagine this was supposed to be a mysterious divulgence of womanhood's true nature by a coy author, but it's just a tired trope and lazy writing that conveniently let him ignore the impact of the events he was describing.)
We're supposed to believe that the main character, Atsuko Chiba, is beautiful and intelligent, but neither of these traits are ever described or given depth. Indeed, few of the characters are given depth, and only the men are given agency. The whole love hexagon that unfolded around Atsuko was less liberating (from a pro-polygamy/anti-traditional point of view) and more confusing, because the reasons behind this infatuation with Atsuko, a character I feel I barely got to know, were really hazy. It felt forced, and a lot of the sex involved seemed unexplainable, or dropped in to make the piece more modern and edgy. Yawn.
The symbolism also felt forced, particularly the occultish dabblings of the main antagonists. I also rolled my eyes at the use of their homosexual bond as either titillation fodder or evidence of their corruption--whichever the author intended was unclear, but certainly their relationship was evil and unhealthy, and I'm tired of seeing gay characters portrayed this way.
I could go on. There's a lot to digest in Paprika, and there are some interesting and good scenes, but overall the writing style was not redeeming, and there are many lazy plot elements. You're much better off watching the movie, in which Satoshi Kon took a truly brilliant idea--a psychologist traveling into the world of dreams, and the blurring of reality there--and executed it with more artistry than Tsutsui.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 14, 2020
La historia central está muy buena, la idea de tratar enfermedades psicológicas través de los sueños mediante el uso de nuevas tecnologías me encantó, pero, la forma en la que trata y plantea ciertos temas y sobre todo, en cómo es tan misógina la postura que se desarrolla hacia la protagonista, hizo que el libro decepcionara... 2 estrellas, porque la idea central de los sueños y todo eso es llamativa y realmente me gustó, pero el resto, no, nada nada nada, pésimo.
July 20, 2022
2.5 estrellas y estoy siendo generoso.
En un futuro cercano existe una empresa que ha logrado el monitoreo y la intervención de los sueños como medio para tratar los trastornos mentales en lugar de la terapia tradicional y las drogas. Atsuko Chiba es la científica más destacada en este campo y utiliza su alter-ego Paprika para infiltrarse en los sueños de los demás y tratar sus enfermedades. Su colega, el brillante y obeso Kōsaku Tokita ha creado una versión miniatura de los dispositivos de análisis de sueños existentes en el Instituto, llamándolo DC Mini. La historia comienza cuando alguien se roba estos DC Mini, lo que permite que el agresor entre en la mente de cualquier persona y promulgue el control mental llevándolos a la locura.
Tsutsui explora temas bastante llamativos, tiene un muy buen manejo de las enfermedades mentales como la ansiedad o la depresión, menciona teorías de Carl Jung respecto a los sueños, y también aborda teorías Freudianas en cuanto a comportamientos familiares y sociales, lo cual es de aplaudir.
Hasta aquí una sinopsis interesante, una trama que engancha y en general todo bien... Hasta que el autor empieza a meter cantidades ingentes de misoginia, sexismo, homofobia y demás cosas que no me hicieron para nada disfrutable la lectura. Esta perla es de la primera página del libro:
"(...) Visto por el lado bueno, la falta de apetito de la doctora Atsuko se traducía en que nunca engordaba ni ponía en peligro su silueta, una figura que los canales de televisión buscaban casi a diario. Pero ella, por desgracia, no tenía interés alguno ni en su aspecto físico ni en salir en televisión; sin embargo, sí lo tenía en mejorar el tratamiento de sus pacientes."
O esta otra:
"(...) Al ocultar intencionadamente el hallazgo de un asesinato, le pareció, cada vez con más fuerza, estar convirtiéndose en cómplice. El premio Nobel era la causa de todas sus calamidades. Pese a todo, y por fortuna, no se sentía culpable por ganarlo. Por lo tanto, lejos de perder su sangre fría, lo que hizo fue aprovechar su habilidad femenina para hacerse insensible al mal en su propio beneficio."
Esto sin mencionar las ¡¡¡3!!! ocasiones en las que intentan violar a la protagonista, lo cual obviamente es provocado por su irresistible belleza, y por si fuera poco, el autor acota que en estos casos el comportamiento ideal de la víctima es adoptar una actitud de sumisión "estratégica". Y así podría seguir...
En conclusión, un libro con un muy buen planteamiento, una trama digna de los mejores tecno-thrillers (dicen que Christopher Nolan bebió de acá para la trama de Inception), que lastimosamente se ve opacado por todo lo que comenté anteriormente.
En un futuro cercano existe una empresa que ha logrado el monitoreo y la intervención de los sueños como medio para tratar los trastornos mentales en lugar de la terapia tradicional y las drogas. Atsuko Chiba es la científica más destacada en este campo y utiliza su alter-ego Paprika para infiltrarse en los sueños de los demás y tratar sus enfermedades. Su colega, el brillante y obeso Kōsaku Tokita ha creado una versión miniatura de los dispositivos de análisis de sueños existentes en el Instituto, llamándolo DC Mini. La historia comienza cuando alguien se roba estos DC Mini, lo que permite que el agresor entre en la mente de cualquier persona y promulgue el control mental llevándolos a la locura.
Tsutsui explora temas bastante llamativos, tiene un muy buen manejo de las enfermedades mentales como la ansiedad o la depresión, menciona teorías de Carl Jung respecto a los sueños, y también aborda teorías Freudianas en cuanto a comportamientos familiares y sociales, lo cual es de aplaudir.
Hasta aquí una sinopsis interesante, una trama que engancha y en general todo bien... Hasta que el autor empieza a meter cantidades ingentes de misoginia, sexismo, homofobia y demás cosas que no me hicieron para nada disfrutable la lectura. Esta perla es de la primera página del libro:
"(...) Visto por el lado bueno, la falta de apetito de la doctora Atsuko se traducía en que nunca engordaba ni ponía en peligro su silueta, una figura que los canales de televisión buscaban casi a diario. Pero ella, por desgracia, no tenía interés alguno ni en su aspecto físico ni en salir en televisión; sin embargo, sí lo tenía en mejorar el tratamiento de sus pacientes."
O esta otra:
"(...) Al ocultar intencionadamente el hallazgo de un asesinato, le pareció, cada vez con más fuerza, estar convirtiéndose en cómplice. El premio Nobel era la causa de todas sus calamidades. Pese a todo, y por fortuna, no se sentía culpable por ganarlo. Por lo tanto, lejos de perder su sangre fría, lo que hizo fue aprovechar su habilidad femenina para hacerse insensible al mal en su propio beneficio."
Esto sin mencionar las ¡¡¡3!!! ocasiones en las que intentan violar a la protagonista, lo cual obviamente es provocado por su irresistible belleza, y por si fuera poco, el autor acota que en estos casos el comportamiento ideal de la víctima es adoptar una actitud de sumisión "estratégica". Y así podría seguir...
En conclusión, un libro con un muy buen planteamiento, una trama digna de los mejores tecno-thrillers (dicen que Christopher Nolan bebió de acá para la trama de Inception), que lastimosamente se ve opacado por todo lo que comenté anteriormente.
January 3, 2015
I seldom give out 1 star ratings and am disappointed that I have to give it to the author that wrote the story for the very good anime film "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time." Perhaps this novel fails because of the translation. "Paprika" is a disjointed and unpleasant mess that ran the spectrum from boring, to frenetically incomprehensible to insulting.
The premise is fantastic. Two researchers develop a machine that allows them to enter the dreams of mentally ill patients in order to treat them. The machines end up in the hands of a jealous rival whose mental demons overwhelm him and spread chaos in the minds of others and eventually into the real world.
Unfortunately, the ills of this book are many. The characters are poorly defined. Point of view changes from paragraph to paragraph. Established characters are reintroduced over and over by their full titles (i.e. Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police Department).
The characters also do not behave like real people. They go from one fantastical episode to the next without any resulting impact on their psychological evolution. There is little difference between the dialog spoken by the characters. Their dreams and nightmares are also barely distinguishable from each other. The villains are cartoon-like with hints of psychological depth that is never explored.
Shock value and generally insulting scenes: Paprika (the female lead) has a bizarre attitude to being raped by one of her rivals. The homosexual relationship between the villains seems to be pointing at a hatred toward women, but it is poorly defined and ultimately has no relevance to the plot. Offensive images of Jesus, the Buddha and other religious icons. All of these issues in themselves could have been portrayed in a better context. Sexual imagery and the psychological allure of Paprika are "told" to us rather than explored as a plot point. She is a psychiatrist, yet she seems to find nothing wrong with having sex with her patients in their dreams. My complaint is that all these elements could have had a place in the plot, but instead they are thrown in haphazard. They come off as crude and insulting.
The expanding threat of nightmares entering the real world is poorly managed. The incidents are disorienting and unsettling from a narrative perspective. Mysteries, thrillers, psychological delusions all require a "structure" to the madness that allows the reader to enjoy the disorientation and to wonder what is real and what is not. This book simply threw me into a blender to the point where I no longer cared.
The vanquishing of the villain comes and goes with barely a notice. I actually had to reread the paragraph to realize they had defeated him.
Finally, I guess the last two pages are supposed to represent a twist -- a surprise ending. I have no idea.
Apologies to the author for such a disrespectful review. Perhaps I am missing something or the translation into English was poor. The author has many international awards.
The premise is fantastic. Two researchers develop a machine that allows them to enter the dreams of mentally ill patients in order to treat them. The machines end up in the hands of a jealous rival whose mental demons overwhelm him and spread chaos in the minds of others and eventually into the real world.
Unfortunately, the ills of this book are many. The characters are poorly defined. Point of view changes from paragraph to paragraph. Established characters are reintroduced over and over by their full titles (i.e. Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police Department).
The characters also do not behave like real people. They go from one fantastical episode to the next without any resulting impact on their psychological evolution. There is little difference between the dialog spoken by the characters. Their dreams and nightmares are also barely distinguishable from each other. The villains are cartoon-like with hints of psychological depth that is never explored.
Shock value and generally insulting scenes: Paprika (the female lead) has a bizarre attitude to being raped by one of her rivals. The homosexual relationship between the villains seems to be pointing at a hatred toward women, but it is poorly defined and ultimately has no relevance to the plot. Offensive images of Jesus, the Buddha and other religious icons. All of these issues in themselves could have been portrayed in a better context. Sexual imagery and the psychological allure of Paprika are "told" to us rather than explored as a plot point. She is a psychiatrist, yet she seems to find nothing wrong with having sex with her patients in their dreams. My complaint is that all these elements could have had a place in the plot, but instead they are thrown in haphazard. They come off as crude and insulting.
The expanding threat of nightmares entering the real world is poorly managed. The incidents are disorienting and unsettling from a narrative perspective. Mysteries, thrillers, psychological delusions all require a "structure" to the madness that allows the reader to enjoy the disorientation and to wonder what is real and what is not. This book simply threw me into a blender to the point where I no longer cared.
The vanquishing of the villain comes and goes with barely a notice. I actually had to reread the paragraph to realize they had defeated him.
Finally, I guess the last two pages are supposed to represent a twist -- a surprise ending. I have no idea.
Apologies to the author for such a disrespectful review. Perhaps I am missing something or the translation into English was poor. The author has many international awards.
July 14, 2015
2.5 stars.
Oh Paprika, you were doing so well to begin with.
I saw (and was thoroughly confused by) the animé film adaptation of this story a few years back, and couldn't wait to dive into the original source material in the hopes that the plot would be a little easier to digest the second time around. Unfortunately it didn't really work out that way - although the general premise is not difficult to understand, things get confusing pretty quickly, before everything ends up becoming just bat-shit crazy by the second half.
Beautiful psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba and her work partner Kosaku Tokita work at the Institute for Psychiatric Research in Tokyo. They are well on their way to winning the Nobel Prize for their work on a device that allows the user to enter people's dreams and with it treat psychiatric problems. However, when the prototypes for the device are stolen, it becomes clear that the person is using the device to manipulate people's dreams and turn them insane. Chiba must take on her alter-ego Paprika, the 'dream detective', in order to work out who has stolen the prototypes and put a stop to the threat as nightmares slowly start to become reality.
I'm not lying when I say that I thought the second half of this book was a bit of a mess. By the time the meshing of the dream world and the real world was fully underway, I found the onslaught of weird images and dream-hopping to be far too much to take in. The central plot and motivations for the bad guys also took a backseat at this point, which I'm pretty sure is not a good thing.
Another issue I had with this book was the homophobic and sexist elements present throughout the text. Particularly with the homophobia, sometimes it's a blink and you'll miss it type of deal, where you could cast it aside as nothing really on first reading. The further I read, however, the more I felt like the author was peddling a serious homophobic agenda, and throwing in some lovely woman-hating with it.
It's such a shame that this book had these negative elements to it, because I wanted to love it and the first third of the book had so much promise. It just ended up descending into total chaos, and the underlying messages throughout it really didn't sit well with me.
Oh Paprika, you were doing so well to begin with.
I saw (and was thoroughly confused by) the animé film adaptation of this story a few years back, and couldn't wait to dive into the original source material in the hopes that the plot would be a little easier to digest the second time around. Unfortunately it didn't really work out that way - although the general premise is not difficult to understand, things get confusing pretty quickly, before everything ends up becoming just bat-shit crazy by the second half.
Beautiful psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba and her work partner Kosaku Tokita work at the Institute for Psychiatric Research in Tokyo. They are well on their way to winning the Nobel Prize for their work on a device that allows the user to enter people's dreams and with it treat psychiatric problems. However, when the prototypes for the device are stolen, it becomes clear that the person is using the device to manipulate people's dreams and turn them insane. Chiba must take on her alter-ego Paprika, the 'dream detective', in order to work out who has stolen the prototypes and put a stop to the threat as nightmares slowly start to become reality.
I'm not lying when I say that I thought the second half of this book was a bit of a mess. By the time the meshing of the dream world and the real world was fully underway, I found the onslaught of weird images and dream-hopping to be far too much to take in. The central plot and motivations for the bad guys also took a backseat at this point, which I'm pretty sure is not a good thing.
Another issue I had with this book was the homophobic and sexist elements present throughout the text. Particularly with the homophobia, sometimes it's a blink and you'll miss it type of deal, where you could cast it aside as nothing really on first reading. The further I read, however, the more I felt like the author was peddling a serious homophobic agenda, and throwing in some lovely woman-hating with it.
It's such a shame that this book had these negative elements to it, because I wanted to love it and the first third of the book had so much promise. It just ended up descending into total chaos, and the underlying messages throughout it really didn't sit well with me.
May 28, 2017
Kosaku Tokita es un brillante científico, responsable de crear los "dispositivos de psicoterapia" que permiten ver (o incluso entrar a) los sueños de los pacientes. La protagonista de este libro, Atsuko Chiba, es la otra pata de este singular equipo y está encargada de tratar a pacientes depresivos o esquizofrénicos usando los dispositivos de Tokita. Cuando entra en este rol de "detective de sueños" toma una personalidad más juvenil y desdenfadada a la que llama Paprika. El eje de la historia es el robo de uno de estos dispositivos por parte del vicepresidente del instituto donde ellos trabajan, quien lo utiliza con fines oscuros.
Tsutsui nos sumerge de lleno en este mundo de psicoanálisis, máquinas futuristas y escenas oníricas. Me resultó interesante como intruducía conceptos del psicoanálisis en la historia, particularmente porque es un tema que no me atrae para nada, así que es todo mérito del autor que me haya enganchado. Las escenas de los sueños son espectaculares y muy bien narradas, aunque el final me pareció un poco ambicioso.
Como puntos negativos, el autor muchas veces cae en la misoginia y la homofobia. Personajes femeninos que "se dejan violar" o justifican las violaciones por la belleza del perpetrador. También se habla negativamente de gays y lesbianas en varios pasajes del libro. Creo que este es el mayor error de Tsusui.
No vi aun la versión animé de esta historia aunque pienso hacerlo en breve. Me gustaría que se filmara una versión live-action también, creo que lo amerita. Aunque Nolan ya se robó varias ideas de esta novela en Inception, je.
Tsutsui nos sumerge de lleno en este mundo de psicoanálisis, máquinas futuristas y escenas oníricas. Me resultó interesante como intruducía conceptos del psicoanálisis en la historia, particularmente porque es un tema que no me atrae para nada, así que es todo mérito del autor que me haya enganchado. Las escenas de los sueños son espectaculares y muy bien narradas, aunque el final me pareció un poco ambicioso.
Como puntos negativos, el autor muchas veces cae en la misoginia y la homofobia. Personajes femeninos que "se dejan violar" o justifican las violaciones por la belleza del perpetrador. También se habla negativamente de gays y lesbianas en varios pasajes del libro. Creo que este es el mayor error de Tsusui.
No vi aun la versión animé de esta historia aunque pienso hacerlo en breve. Me gustaría que se filmara una versión live-action también, creo que lo amerita. Aunque Nolan ya se robó varias ideas de esta novela en Inception, je.
May 27, 2018
It was a little hard for me enjoy it completely because I made the mistake of watching the movie before reading the book, so my brain was betraying me into making Paprika an animation image several times.
Apart from thar, it was a really intriguing book, and maybe the central idea of the plot its the best: what if we could enter other people dreams?, and even more disturbing, what if the things we imagine in our dreams and nightmares could turn into reality?
The scene where all the monsters from everyone's nightmares attack reality just made me think of Ghosbusters movie, wonder if the author was thinking about that when writing it.
Is true there a lot of sex escenes, that can be analyzed as misogynist, but come on, they're suppose to be dreaming!!! Never heard of someone capable to control whats in their sexual dreams, I mean everybody has them, and usually, everybody hides them because they can result disturbing when analyzing on a conscious mind. I found it realistic whatsoever. Also lots of homosexual sex, so yeah, again I find it realistic.
Apart from thar, it was a really intriguing book, and maybe the central idea of the plot its the best: what if we could enter other people dreams?, and even more disturbing, what if the things we imagine in our dreams and nightmares could turn into reality?
The scene where all the monsters from everyone's nightmares attack reality just made me think of Ghosbusters movie, wonder if the author was thinking about that when writing it.
Is true there a lot of sex escenes, that can be analyzed as misogynist, but come on, they're suppose to be dreaming!!! Never heard of someone capable to control whats in their sexual dreams, I mean everybody has them, and usually, everybody hides them because they can result disturbing when analyzing on a conscious mind. I found it realistic whatsoever. Also lots of homosexual sex, so yeah, again I find it realistic.
February 26, 2013
A surreal and thought-provoking look at sanity, dreaming, and the politics of scientific research. Driver's translation is sometimes clumsy, as is Tsutui's handling of sexual content. It's not clear how much the former affected my perception of the latter. The book gave me a better understanding of Satoshi Kon's movie adaptation (which is overall the superior version).
Read
October 6, 2023DNF
Started this more than two years ago and finally decided to stop trying.
I was really intrigued by the concept but it's just SO freaking boring to read. I could not get into it at all. Also it got progressively more misogynistic and homophobic and I'm just not interested in reading something like that.
Started this more than two years ago and finally decided to stop trying.
I was really intrigued by the concept but it's just SO freaking boring to read. I could not get into it at all. Also it got progressively more misogynistic and homophobic and I'm just not interested in reading something like that.
November 25, 2022
A pesar de que me gusta ver producciones de animé y leer mangas, jamás había leído una obra literaria japonesa y digo obra, porque sé que para los japoneses no es lo mismo que una novela ligera pueda ser considerada verdadera literatura, a diferencia de como lo vemos nosotros. Pero por algo se llaman diferencias culturales. Obviamente, había visto la película de Satoshi Kon, que es mi segunda favorita de su filmografía, siendo la primera Millennium Actress. Y también soy de las que le sorprende la similitud de las tomas con Inception de Christopher Nolan, pero lo cierto es que, sin la novela, no existiría la película y más cierto aún es que, sin la obra de Kon, tampoco podríamos tener el libro traducido al español.
Me ha sorprendido encontrar en Goodreads y en otras páginas de internet que la mayoría de las reseñas son negativas. Lo acusan de machista, misógino, con frases degradantes a la mujer y que sexualiza, subiendo desmedidamente el ego masculino. Pero haciendo un análisis, puedo decir que sí, es cierto que tiene sus partes que pueden sonar machistas y anticuadas, personalmente no me molestaron y eso no me hace menos mujer o con menos sororidad a mi género. Más bien, hay que entender y aceptar una verdad: Paprika fue publicada en los años noventa y en general, la sociedad japonesa es machista. Tengo entendido que Yasutaka Tsutsui también es misógino, según artículos, pero como dije antes, Japón es un país machista. Todos los fans service que vemos tanto en el animé y manga, el modo en que dibujan la anatomía femenina y algunos de sus géneros morbosos son señales más que claras. También hay excepciones en otros autores que buscan una mejor representación femenina e igualdad de géneros. En mi opinión, Satoshi Kon suavizó varias cosas con su adaptación.
Dejando las polémicas de lado, me gustó la novela y disfruté con las secuencias de los sueños y como éstos pueden mostrarnos lo que muchas veces escondemos, olvidamos o reprimimos. El subconsciente actúa de extrañas maneras y hace que me pregunte si realmente olvidamos todo o solo queda flotando a la deriva en algún rincón de nuestra conciencia. Siendo una persona que sueña casi todos los días, siempre busco saber qué quieren decir mis sueños. O cómo sería encontrarme con Paprika, la detective de los sueños y real identidad, la doctora Atsuko Chiba, dos personajes muy distintos a pesar de ser la misma persona, me sorprendió la habilidad de pasar de la frialdad analítica a la ternura en un segundo, interactuando con todos los personajes que las rodean. Aquí nos encontramos con un lenguaje directo, sin muchos adornos, con una trama que combina entre el thriller, la ciencia ficción y el lado oscuro de los progresos, dándonos una atmósfera que poco a poco se va volviendo opresiva. Había leído en Oda a Kirihito de Tezuka cómo la corrupción afectaba al sistema sanitario de Japón, donde los poderes burócratas y hasta religiosos buscan intervenir en los progresos medicinales a su antojo, en este caso, los Mini DC, convirtiéndolo en algo horrendo y pecaminoso, sobre todo en un país que no es precisamente conocido por exteriorizar sus emociones. Es curioso que en sus medios audiovisuales fomenten las emociones mientras que detrás de cámaras sean todo lo opuesto. Otro detalle que me llamó la atención fue lo delicada que ya estaba la salud mental en Japón por aquellos años. Si actualmente, la salud mental se ha convertido en una prioridad mundial, debido a la pandemia y crisis económica, no quisiera imaginarme cómo estarán allá. Si algo puedo rescatar de este libro, sería que, hay que ser fiel al “yo” interno y no luchar contra lo que uno fue y es, sino hacerlo parte de uno.
En resumen, Paprika no es una novela para cualquiera. Si has visto la película de Satoshi Kon, no esperes encontrar lo mismo. Si no estás acostumbrado a leer literatura japonesa, diría que comiences poco a poco antes de saltar a este libro. Recomiendo leerlo con la mente abierta y separar las cosas, que esto es una obra de ficción y disfrutarla lo más que puedan. Yo definitivamente disfruté con el concepto del arquetipo de la sombra de Carl Jung.
Me ha sorprendido encontrar en Goodreads y en otras páginas de internet que la mayoría de las reseñas son negativas. Lo acusan de machista, misógino, con frases degradantes a la mujer y que sexualiza, subiendo desmedidamente el ego masculino. Pero haciendo un análisis, puedo decir que sí, es cierto que tiene sus partes que pueden sonar machistas y anticuadas, personalmente no me molestaron y eso no me hace menos mujer o con menos sororidad a mi género. Más bien, hay que entender y aceptar una verdad: Paprika fue publicada en los años noventa y en general, la sociedad japonesa es machista. Tengo entendido que Yasutaka Tsutsui también es misógino, según artículos, pero como dije antes, Japón es un país machista. Todos los fans service que vemos tanto en el animé y manga, el modo en que dibujan la anatomía femenina y algunos de sus géneros morbosos son señales más que claras. También hay excepciones en otros autores que buscan una mejor representación femenina e igualdad de géneros. En mi opinión, Satoshi Kon suavizó varias cosas con su adaptación.
Dejando las polémicas de lado, me gustó la novela y disfruté con las secuencias de los sueños y como éstos pueden mostrarnos lo que muchas veces escondemos, olvidamos o reprimimos. El subconsciente actúa de extrañas maneras y hace que me pregunte si realmente olvidamos todo o solo queda flotando a la deriva en algún rincón de nuestra conciencia. Siendo una persona que sueña casi todos los días, siempre busco saber qué quieren decir mis sueños. O cómo sería encontrarme con Paprika, la detective de los sueños y real identidad, la doctora Atsuko Chiba, dos personajes muy distintos a pesar de ser la misma persona, me sorprendió la habilidad de pasar de la frialdad analítica a la ternura en un segundo, interactuando con todos los personajes que las rodean. Aquí nos encontramos con un lenguaje directo, sin muchos adornos, con una trama que combina entre el thriller, la ciencia ficción y el lado oscuro de los progresos, dándonos una atmósfera que poco a poco se va volviendo opresiva. Había leído en Oda a Kirihito de Tezuka cómo la corrupción afectaba al sistema sanitario de Japón, donde los poderes burócratas y hasta religiosos buscan intervenir en los progresos medicinales a su antojo, en este caso, los Mini DC, convirtiéndolo en algo horrendo y pecaminoso, sobre todo en un país que no es precisamente conocido por exteriorizar sus emociones. Es curioso que en sus medios audiovisuales fomenten las emociones mientras que detrás de cámaras sean todo lo opuesto. Otro detalle que me llamó la atención fue lo delicada que ya estaba la salud mental en Japón por aquellos años. Si actualmente, la salud mental se ha convertido en una prioridad mundial, debido a la pandemia y crisis económica, no quisiera imaginarme cómo estarán allá. Si algo puedo rescatar de este libro, sería que, hay que ser fiel al “yo” interno y no luchar contra lo que uno fue y es, sino hacerlo parte de uno.
En resumen, Paprika no es una novela para cualquiera. Si has visto la película de Satoshi Kon, no esperes encontrar lo mismo. Si no estás acostumbrado a leer literatura japonesa, diría que comiences poco a poco antes de saltar a este libro. Recomiendo leerlo con la mente abierta y separar las cosas, que esto es una obra de ficción y disfrutarla lo más que puedan. Yo definitivamente disfruté con el concepto del arquetipo de la sombra de Carl Jung.
June 10, 2023
Se ha desarrollado la tecnología para entrar y alterar los sueños de pacientes con enfermedades mentales. Apesar de ser algo novedoso tiene riesgos muy grandes, alguien empieza a "infectar" los sueños que estudian los médicos tratantes y ellos se "contagian" de esquizofrenia. Mientras tanto, Paprika trabaja como la terapeuta que usa estos aparatos en personas que no desean una atención común, quieren que sus problemas mentales desaparezcan sin que nadie sepa lo que les pasaba. Una historia que viaja entre la ciencia ficción, el thriller y la fantasía.
Honestamente me gustó más la primera mitad que tenía sus toques de ciencia ficción, la segunda parte de sintió tan desordenada y puede que esa sea la intención, pero no estoy segura. Los personajes son interesantes, pero en algún punto se vuelve tedioso que todos giren sus intereses y actividades en torno al físico de Paprika, quien es una de las médicos principales, y a veces menosprecian su trabajo debido a su apariencia.
Las motivaciones del villano llegaron al punto de ser ridículas, como un mero berrinche en donde si él no obtuvo lo que quería, entonces los demás tampoco deben tenerlo. Primero se puso a tontear con la tecnología que adquirió y después quiso desquitarse con Paprika de la manera más baja, enviando a su secuas para que abusara de ella.
3.5 ✨
Honestamente me gustó más la primera mitad que tenía sus toques de ciencia ficción, la segunda parte de sintió tan desordenada y puede que esa sea la intención, pero no estoy segura. Los personajes son interesantes, pero en algún punto se vuelve tedioso que todos giren sus intereses y actividades en torno al físico de Paprika, quien es una de las médicos principales, y a veces menosprecian su trabajo debido a su apariencia.
Las motivaciones del villano llegaron al punto de ser ridículas, como un mero berrinche en donde si él no obtuvo lo que quería, entonces los demás tampoco deben tenerlo. Primero se puso a tontear con la tecnología que adquirió y después quiso desquitarse con Paprika de la manera más baja, enviando a su secuas para que abusara de ella.
3.5 ✨
March 7, 2025
There’s a decent sci-fi story here but it’s buried under so much unnecessary misogyny and scenes that just drone on that I have to ask myself… is it really worth reading?
And the answer is no. Having seen the movie and now reading the original, I can wholeheartedly say that the movie cuts out all the unnecessary controversial scenes/characters (I have to think some of what’s here is the author’s personal views and that’s just icky) and focuses on the surrealist nature of the story and goes full throttle with it.
And it’ll save you a few hours of having to sit down and read lol
And the answer is no. Having seen the movie and now reading the original, I can wholeheartedly say that the movie cuts out all the unnecessary controversial scenes/characters (I have to think some of what’s here is the author’s personal views and that’s just icky) and focuses on the surrealist nature of the story and goes full throttle with it.
And it’ll save you a few hours of having to sit down and read lol
August 31, 2016
Let me start off by saying that the premise of this book is absolutely brilliant: surrealist, psychoanalytic sci-fi, which is something that I personally adore. A team of two brilliant scientists working on dream therapy reach a breakthrough in their research, developing the DC Mini – a tiny device that allows you to share your dreams and slip into other people’s dreams once attached to your head. Dream therapy is still a controversial thing in the land of psychoanalysis; even so, lead scientist Dr. Atsuko Chiba has been using the method illegally for years, treating high-end patients suffering from mental disorders through their dreams as her alter ego Paprika.
The first half of the book attempts to go deeper into the details of psychoanalysis and dream sharing, all the while exploring pretty hefty office politics. There’s a rift at the institute where Chiba works – some of the board members, including the Vice President, are against the idea of developing technology to such an extent that “normal” psychoanalysis will become a thing of the past. Working hard to continue her research on the DC Mini (and being able to continue her illegal dream therapy practice), Chiba tries her best to navigate these politics.
The second half goes off into the bizarre, surrealist deep end due to some of the side-effects of using a DC Mini for a longer period of time: it makes you hyper sensitive to sending and receiving dream images, and eventually the real world and people’s dreams start to blur in monstrous, frightening ways. Unfortunately, this is also where the plot starts turning more and more disjointed and haphazard. The villain(s) are handed simple backstories on a platter without any extra development or gradual information, and the story doesn’t seem to know where it wants to go.
There is a RIDICULOUS amount of sexist tripe in this book, followed up with homophobic messages and undertones. Some of it is built up rather slow and some things are mentioned almost off-handily, but it’s there. Uncomfortable, violent, and used in bizarre ways to justify certain actions or behaviours.
And it’s just jarring and difficult to get through, especially if you’re just there (like me) to enjoy the bizarre journeys into dreamland while trying to solve murder/theft mysteries. The concepts are cool and amazing, but the rest is just one big swamp of nasty things that you have to waddle through. It also didn’t help that the further along the book got, the more and more I got the feeling that Chiba is some sort of dream-woman to the author – the ideal one, superbly intelligent and otherworldly beautiful, always ready to have sex with you (even if it’s rape) and always falling for elder, “manly” middle-aged men. (The psychoanalytic parts of the book are also outdated and incorrect, by the way.)
Go and watch the film, and skip this book. Visually, the film’s gorgeous, and it has none of that ridiculous sexist and/or homophobic nonsense. It’s a little bit more confusing than the book but hey, who wouldn’t expect a film about the merging of dreams and reality to be complicated?
The first half of the book attempts to go deeper into the details of psychoanalysis and dream sharing, all the while exploring pretty hefty office politics. There’s a rift at the institute where Chiba works – some of the board members, including the Vice President, are against the idea of developing technology to such an extent that “normal” psychoanalysis will become a thing of the past. Working hard to continue her research on the DC Mini (and being able to continue her illegal dream therapy practice), Chiba tries her best to navigate these politics.
The second half goes off into the bizarre, surrealist deep end due to some of the side-effects of using a DC Mini for a longer period of time: it makes you hyper sensitive to sending and receiving dream images, and eventually the real world and people’s dreams start to blur in monstrous, frightening ways. Unfortunately, this is also where the plot starts turning more and more disjointed and haphazard. The villain(s) are handed simple backstories on a platter without any extra development or gradual information, and the story doesn’t seem to know where it wants to go.
There is a RIDICULOUS amount of sexist tripe in this book, followed up with homophobic messages and undertones. Some of it is built up rather slow and some things are mentioned almost off-handily, but it’s there. Uncomfortable, violent, and used in bizarre ways to justify certain actions or behaviours.
And it’s just jarring and difficult to get through, especially if you’re just there (like me) to enjoy the bizarre journeys into dreamland while trying to solve murder/theft mysteries. The concepts are cool and amazing, but the rest is just one big swamp of nasty things that you have to waddle through. It also didn’t help that the further along the book got, the more and more I got the feeling that Chiba is some sort of dream-woman to the author – the ideal one, superbly intelligent and otherworldly beautiful, always ready to have sex with you (even if it’s rape) and always falling for elder, “manly” middle-aged men. (The psychoanalytic parts of the book are also outdated and incorrect, by the way.)
Go and watch the film, and skip this book. Visually, the film’s gorgeous, and it has none of that ridiculous sexist and/or homophobic nonsense. It’s a little bit more confusing than the book but hey, who wouldn’t expect a film about the merging of dreams and reality to be complicated?
March 4, 2013
there are things i love tsutsui's writing for, and although this is an early book of his (at least in terms of what's been translated into English), those are all thoroughly on display: his very badly-behaving, un-Japanese characters; the weird and wild situations they get it; the utter disregard for any sort of verisimilitude.
then there are things that make me a little squeamish. more on those in a bit.
in this book, tsutsui's heroine is a shrink who is in line for the Nobel prize in medicine. she and her partner Tokita have developed a device that can help a shrink see and enter a patient's dreams, using the dreams for analysis and therapy. the most fun part of the psychology aspect of this novel is how apparent is tsutsui's nose-thumbing at verisimilitude in the science--he doesn't really care what current psychological theory is, or how actual therapy is done, or even the terminology for the field. he just makes it up as he goes along, and it all sounds sort of plausible, but often it just sounds like the purest hogwash. i don't know why i find this so amusing, but after the earnestness of so much western sf, i find it rather like a little kid making fun of how the adults talk. i really really enjoy that.
one does not read a tsutsui book for character development, either. the characters are all just a few irritations short of total derangement. watching their tempers flare over the stupidest of things, hearing them sling invective like roadhouse hash, pulling justifications for their behavior out their butts--it's all just good fun.
however! the weird sexual overtones (and they are overtones in this book) are not so amusing. there's so much in japanese art and literature that a theoretically well-adjusted westerner would just consider degraded or perverse... i don't understand where this sort of violent, victimizing bent comes from. (try reading The Future is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan. if you don't believe me.)
this book also suffers from some info-dumpiness (often mitigated by the ridiculousness of the explanations) and repetitiveness, but one can get past it by skimming. the book's not for fans of Kenzaburo Oe or Yukio Mishima, for sure. but might be a good one for fans of my deity, Kurt Vonnegut.
then there are things that make me a little squeamish. more on those in a bit.
in this book, tsutsui's heroine is a shrink who is in line for the Nobel prize in medicine. she and her partner Tokita have developed a device that can help a shrink see and enter a patient's dreams, using the dreams for analysis and therapy. the most fun part of the psychology aspect of this novel is how apparent is tsutsui's nose-thumbing at verisimilitude in the science--he doesn't really care what current psychological theory is, or how actual therapy is done, or even the terminology for the field. he just makes it up as he goes along, and it all sounds sort of plausible, but often it just sounds like the purest hogwash. i don't know why i find this so amusing, but after the earnestness of so much western sf, i find it rather like a little kid making fun of how the adults talk. i really really enjoy that.
one does not read a tsutsui book for character development, either. the characters are all just a few irritations short of total derangement. watching their tempers flare over the stupidest of things, hearing them sling invective like roadhouse hash, pulling justifications for their behavior out their butts--it's all just good fun.
however! the weird sexual overtones (and they are overtones in this book) are not so amusing. there's so much in japanese art and literature that a theoretically well-adjusted westerner would just consider degraded or perverse... i don't understand where this sort of violent, victimizing bent comes from. (try reading The Future is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan. if you don't believe me.)
this book also suffers from some info-dumpiness (often mitigated by the ridiculousness of the explanations) and repetitiveness, but one can get past it by skimming. the book's not for fans of Kenzaburo Oe or Yukio Mishima, for sure. but might be a good one for fans of my deity, Kurt Vonnegut.
November 22, 2020
Libro japo 40:
Uff qué complicado estuvo de terminar.
Este es un libro que parte primero en la carrera dándolo todo y se desinfla con creces, ya agotado, al final.
Paprika tenía mucho caos y temas que resolver por culpa del invento en el que hacía terapia a través de los sueños. Este invento creaba figuras oníricas en la realidad, como grifos gigantes, que mataban personas y destruía edificios como si de Godzilla se tratase. Y Paprika , en vez de buscar la forma de destruir estas criaturas o resolver el problema de raíz, estaba más preocupada de su premio Nobel e incluso viaja fuera de Japón a recibirlo, dejando todo este caos detrás porque le vale un huevo todo.
Otro tema que llama mucho la atención es que como terapeuta, Paprika se acostaba con sus pacientes y todos se enamoraban como si no existiese el sexo solo por placer. Creo que el autor pensaba de manera muy católica y moral la sexualidad de su protagonista.
No he visto la película, pero todas estas escenas oníricas me tincan mucho visualmente, así que la veré, y espero el final se resuelva de manera más coherente. Si no, bueno no importa igual estuvo interesante dentro de todo. La idea lo era, solo los personajes tenían este problema de profundidad y que rebuscasen tanto sentido a querer tener sexo porque se atraían y fin.
Uff qué complicado estuvo de terminar.
Este es un libro que parte primero en la carrera dándolo todo y se desinfla con creces, ya agotado, al final.
Paprika tenía mucho caos y temas que resolver por culpa del invento en el que hacía terapia a través de los sueños. Este invento creaba figuras oníricas en la realidad, como grifos gigantes, que mataban personas y destruía edificios como si de Godzilla se tratase. Y Paprika , en vez de buscar la forma de destruir estas criaturas o resolver el problema de raíz, estaba más preocupada de su premio Nobel e incluso viaja fuera de Japón a recibirlo, dejando todo este caos detrás porque le vale un huevo todo.
Otro tema que llama mucho la atención es que como terapeuta, Paprika se acostaba con sus pacientes y todos se enamoraban como si no existiese el sexo solo por placer. Creo que el autor pensaba de manera muy católica y moral la sexualidad de su protagonista.
No he visto la película, pero todas estas escenas oníricas me tincan mucho visualmente, así que la veré, y espero el final se resuelva de manera más coherente. Si no, bueno no importa igual estuvo interesante dentro de todo. La idea lo era, solo los personajes tenían este problema de profundidad y que rebuscasen tanto sentido a querer tener sexo porque se atraían y fin.
March 16, 2015
This book is completely ridiculous. The premise is ridiculous, the individual events are ridiculous, and .... even the baseline behavior of the characters in _any_ situation is ridiculous. It's so extreme that I was honestly a little put off near the start, until I realized I have to read it like a caricature, like some sort of comic book.
The shocking thing is that despite all the surreality, the book is extremely detailed and internally consistent. It also has very little fluff, the telling feels extremely tight. It is one of the most intense books I've ever read, to the extent that I sometimes held off reading it because I dreaded hearing/experiencing what awful things were going to happen to everyone involved.
All the preceding statements contribute to the book's vividness, which is quite shocking. The book is completely ridiculous in every way, but somehow was gripping and did not feel like nonsense. It's about dreams merging with reality, and I felt like there was another layer as I merged with the dreams/book and entered a merged universe during the reading.
Warning: author is horny. Normally this would bug me but this book was so ridiculous that all the new rules of reality were accepted and I just hitched along for a ride.
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