The Floating World

by Cynthia Gralla

I see you changing before my eyes, becoming something so marvelously new that I am enthralled beyond measure. . . . Forgive me for even trying to probe the most deeply scented corners of your soul.

A beautiful young American travels across the world, only to surrender to another culture’s macabre nightmares. The Floating World transports us to present-day Tokyo, where avant-garde dancers twist their lives together with renegade geisha, and reality bleeds into fantasy like desire into flesh.

Liza leaves her Ivy-league life behind and escapes to Tokyo, a place where art, politics, and sex seep into each other, and the irradiated ghosts of World War II pulse beneath the neon nightlife. She intends to study butoh, otherwise known as the dance of utter darkness, with master teacher Oshima Kenzo. While working in one of Tokyo’s infamous hostess bars, Liza meets the mysterious Maboroshi, leader of the maiko, a group of neophyte geisha whose expression is as violent as the dance of utter darkness itself. Liza’s journey culminates in the discovery of the most exclusive restaurant in Japan, where men eat intricate delicacies directly off a naked human body. Descending into this midnight underworld, Liza becomes fragmented, delicate, a stranger in her own skin.

From an exciting new voice in fiction comes a sexy, dark literary debut steeped in the rich customs and rituals of Japan. As tempting and tactile as folds of silk, The Floating World is an evocative novel of the flesh that will seduce readers with its sensuous prose. Like the dance that runs through it, the story is a hypnotic a movement of back and forth, open and shut, secret and revealed.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Asian Literature, Female Authors

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2003

About the author

Cynthia Gralla's only published novel was inspired by her own experience as a hostess in Japan.

She lives in Sydney, British Columbia with her husband.

Reviews

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was like reading a drug and becoming entwined in a foreign boundary-less netherworld of the senses. To say it was lyrical is totally inadequate. It was a labyrinth of discovery, a mesmerizing, poetic, erotic journey into the unknown.

I've never, ever become immersed in a book the way I did with this one. I felt as if I'd tumbled into the story and become Liza. It left me dizzy, dazed, exhausted and wanting more. I highly recommend this book if you want to truly experience another culture. The language is pure magic and the plot ingenious.

[Tocotin · Rating 2 out of 5]

What was that?!
Seriously, I don't remember anything apart from the impression that it was one huge Orientalism fetish vehicle.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Highly over rated, extremely pretentious and boring. This author takes herself way to serious. Not worth the time or the effort to waste reading it. There are far better books worthy of attention and a persons valuable personal time.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book more for the raw story than its narrator. Liza, who could have been a great character had the book been written in the third person, came off often times as much to egotistic for my tastes, very cliche and self-important and much more concerned with her aesthetic (it seemed) than her actual content. I found her melodramatic at times, or perhaps the word I'm searching for is one-dimensional. There are stretches of chapters where her metamorphosis is either stagnant or far too slow to capture succinctly on paper.

HOWEVER (and this is a huge however),
the story itself is very beautiful, well-constructed, intricate, and at times (from the other POVs) poetic and composed fabulously. It is probably that my personal interests run parallel to Gralla's experiences as a hostess, dancer, and horinouchi server which kept me engaged more than anything, but I will give her credit for making a great story. Overall an okay read, if you can get past the protagonist's character flaws. That could be too large of a task for many people.

[DoctorM · Rating 5 out of 5]

An expat novel set in the Japanese demimonde of foreign hostesses and nyotaimori clubs--- and in the world of Butoh dance/performance art. Gralla was herself a hostess and Butoh student in the early 2000s, and her articles for Salon.com led me to "The Floating World". It's an eerie and powerful novel, and I fell utterly in love with her doom-haunted heroine. This is a book I habitually give to girls with whom I'm involved, and it's very much recommended.

[Jessica]

The maiko and ukiyo bring the world of the geisha to a modern dance perspective that makes you take a different look at what we consider punk or alternative in American culture.

[Tammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This reads like something written by a literature major. There is a plot of sorts, but mostly it is a story of a woman's self-discovery and self-exploration as she pushes her limits in Japan. It is a story of allegory and symbolism, which is sometimes beautiful (I took pictures of many beautiful passages) and sometimes eye-rolling.

The author is not Japanese, which means that cultural observations should be taken with a grain of salt. I think this is navigated somewhat well by the main character being a foreigner, so the perspective we see is told through the eyes of someone new to Japan.

This is not your typical travel memoir. It borders on mystical-realism, and in fact, there is a love interest that seems to view the world through a Quijote-lens, referring to the main character as Lady Dulcinea. The end of the book has a readers' guide to help explain what motivated the author to write about this unusual topic in this way.

The story is told a bit as an interpretive dance. At times I found myself skimming over certain dreamy passages, wanting to read more about the plot and the "real" things that were happening, but I would force myself to re-read what my eyes had passed over and sometimes was rewarded with demystified passages.

But would I recommend this book about the lesser-seen (and at times imaginary) side of Japan? The hostess bars, the maiko, butoh dance, and secret exclusive sushi bars?

I think if you love mystic-realism and have a heavy tolerance for metaphor, this is an interesting book of one woman's self-explorations.

I feel like I also need to add that there is present anorexia in the book. If you struggle with body image issues or food, you may want to skip this book.

I did enjoy the conversations surrounding women's self-control and the line between women's subjugation and empowerment.

Definitely outside the realm of what I typically read. And that is what happens when you grab books at random based on their cover.

[Cathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally finished this endless book. It was an entire phantasmagoria: sequences of real or imaginary images like those seen in a dream. I didn’t know half the time if the main character Liza was going crazy or living in some fantasy world. I didn’t care for any of it and often wanted to throw the book against a wall. The only reason I kept reading was because I hate to quit books partway through. Thank goodness it was short.

The writing is pretentious and the character Liza is narcissistic; I don’t know how many times the author used outrageous metaphors to describe Liza or the floating world of Tokyo as fragmented, or fragmenting, or breaking into millions of pieces. Shards everywhere and Liza won’t eat yet serves food to men off her naked body. She can’t love or be loved and honestly, I didn’t care what ruin she brought on herself. The ending seemed contrived. And was she La Argentina? What was that all about.

Thank goodness the whole experience is now over for me.

[Ellis Amdur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lush and f*cking crazy

Captures the sharp edges and elbows of butoh, and swirls you deep into decadent Tokyo of a few decades ago. Anorexia as spiritual endeavor, harpies masked as maiden geisha with a heroine who will do anything not to be trapped as ‘one thing only.’ The women are queen bees and wasps, venomous, while the men, even the best of them, stingless drones. Yet within is an extended love-letter to the founders of ankoku butoh, a form of dance that is about ugliness, endurance pain and the transgressive power of movement that no longer looks like something a human would do.

[Owen O'Neill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, full disclosure: the author is a friend of mine. But I don't think this book is brilliant and beautifully written because she's my friend, since I read this book before we became good friends (and this book was a catalyst for that).

This book will immerse you in a foreign world (given you're not from there) the way literature rarely does.

[Ivan Izo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's called "The" Floating World so maybe it's a phenomenon in itself, but the main character has created her own. She floats from one type of work / experience to another, never tied down anywhere. So floating. And she's going through an anorexia that seems almost spiritual. A strange unique novel. I wish she'd write more.

[Laura Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book a long time ago (over a decade, to be exact). I remember enjoying it very much. I also remember that her grandmother felt her most powerful when she was naked and she smoked cigars. That's pretty cool.

[Gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating look into a subculture that I know very little about.

[Mo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heart u, Cynthia Gralla!

[victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Freeze Frame Dissolve of darkest dance & loveliest Liza. This is a must read for all those longing and lovely. A most treasured recommendation.

[Constance Plumley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightfully dark and rich.