Connie’s Reviews > Audition: A Novel > Status Update

“Apparently what the Japanese wanted wasn't a better life, but more things. And things, of course, were a form of information. But as things became readily available and information began to flow smoothly, the original aspiration got lost in the shuffle. People were infected with the concept that happiness was something outside themselves, and a new and powerful form of loneliness was born. Mix loneliness with stress and enervation, and all sorts of madness can occur. Anxiety increases, and in order to obliterate the anxiety people turn to extreme sex, violence and even murder. Watching marathon runners on TV back in the day, you got the sense that everyone shared certain fundamental aspirations, but things were different now: it went without saying that each person was running for his or her own private reasons.”

'…I just happen to think that nothing gives a person self-confidence like being classically trained. A person without self-confidence is incapable of being independent, and people who are dependent on their partners always create unhappiness. Always.'

‘Shit is free, after all, unlike bullets and helicopters.’

“But sometimes things happen that no one hopes for. Events that cause everything you've worked towards, the life you've carefully constructed piece by piece, to come tumbling down all around you. No one is to blame, but you're left with a wound you can't heal on your own and can't believe you'll ever learn to accept, so you struggle to escape the pain. Only time can heal wounds as deep as that – a lot of time – and all you can really do is place yourself in its hands and try to consider the passing of each day a victory. You tough it out moment by moment, hour by hour, and after some weeks or months you begin to see signs of recovery. Slowly the wound heals into a scar. But you can't expect children to understand that. For months after Ryoko's death, Shige had behaved as if he were on a sort of manic mission. He took lessons at two different tennis clubs, played video games and messed about on the computer all night long, and even began getting into fights at school, sometimes coming home with a bloodied face. It was as if he'd abandoned himself to his despair, but in fact, Aoyama knew, he was fervently searching for something. Something that, once found, would keep him from having to feel the pain of his wound. To just entrust oneself to time was to exterminate oneself, to temporarily accept a kind of death. Children aren't capable of that sort of detachment. For Shige it wasn't a question of whether he could find what he was searching for or not: the very act of searching served to create distance from the wound.”

'I'm no expert,' he said, 'but obviously you suffered severe abuse as a child, both physical and emotional. And to my knowledge, people with that sort of background generally have a difficult time relating to others. They tend to be riddled with complexes and basically unpleasant to be around. I once read that when victims of child abuse grow up they unconsciously do things to make other people dislike them, because they actually feel more at ease being disliked, which makes a certain twisted sort of sense, I suppose. But you're not like that at all. You don't seem like someone who's been – how to put this? – scarred by it all.'

'Everyone at the counter [facing the itamae-san] becomes a member of the group. In some sushi bars, all the customers are regulars and they all know each other. As an outsider, you need courage to walk into a place like that and take a seat. It's a tight-knit little community, and harmony is of the utmost importance. Nobody's confronting anyone else individually. The conversation all proceeds through the chef, who's like a moderator or a master of ceremonies. You couldn't spend some quiet time with a lover, for example, in a place like that, because you'd be isolating yourselves from the others and spoiling the atmosphere for everyone.'

'But no matter how bad your situation is, you need to eat. And spicy food is a powerful ally when your reserves of courage and energy are low, because it stimulates your appetite. Sushi and kaiseki don't have that sort of power. The portions are cold and fresh and bite-size and soft and go down easily, but they aren't foods that lend you strength when you don't have the strength to take sustenance. My theory is that sushi and kaiseki are dishes that evolved in peaceful, prosperous times, when eating well was the normal state of affairs. In this country we have the illusion that there's always this warm, loving community we belong to, but the other side of that is a sort of exclusiveness and xenophobia, and our food reflects this. Japanese cuisine isn't inclusive at all – in fact it's extremely inhospitable to outsiders, to people who don't fit into the community.'

“All his memories of her were ambrosial and poisonous, in equal measure. He remembered with brutal clarity every detail of every date, to say nothing of those last, ecstatic hours in Izu. And beautiful memories, he’d come to realise, were the sledgehammers of despair.”

“You didn't normally strike someone unless in the grip of some powerful emotion. That's what violence was: emotion leaking out from consciousness into the physical world, linking up with the muscles of the arms and shoulders and diaphragm and, inevitably, the face. Stifle emotion during an act of violence and the face becomes a blank, unreadable mask.”