Snakes and Earrings is a harsh novel that turned me off early; I wonder why I finished it.
Author Hitomi Kanehara is one of the youngest author ever to win the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for this in 2005. Translated into 16 languages, a film was made in 2008.
I am open to all voices (this is not my first Japanese BDSM novel), but I read for quality of language, entertainment, and insight. Besides pushing boundaries, I can't think who would like this.
19 year old Lui is fascinated when she sees the surgically forked tongue of Ame. She is also into body modification, stretching her earlobes with ever larger rings. He describes how it is done, and takes her to the tattoo shop where his friend Shiba applied the dragon image that covers his back. Having her tongue pierced gives both men a sexual thrill, as does her asking for a full back tattoo of a Kirin. Shiba's price: one fuck. While Shiba draws on her, they have rough sex that goes beyond sucking nipples and asphyxiation, as they both get off on punishment and torture.
"Looking at your face gets the sadist in me all revved up... Seeing you suffer makes me so hard, I'd just love to stab this neck with a needle".
"Well, I'm a masochist, so perhaps I'm giving off that kind of vibe."
For the months it takes to complete the tattoo she has sex with both men, but raw descriptions do not elevate the novel or build the character, it just seems like immature writing.
Walking the night streets pissed out of their minds, her tattooed mowhawked boyfriend Ame usually scares people away, but that night he starts a fight with a petty gangster and beats him to death.
A month after her Kirin is finished, she loses interest in it, in life and in eating, retreating to an alcoholic world where she loses the will to live.
When her boyfriend is found raped and tortured to death after a long disappearance, life becomes meaningless - perhaps her fantasy of being killed by Shiba (and his sexual fantasy is to kill her,) is the most attractive thing.
The Japanese theme of dying for love, the romantic thrill of being killed by your lover, I have read before, but this does not have foundation or depth behind it; this is the shock of underground teenage life mixed with boredom and apathy for everything. Neither scenario is pleasing to read, and it wasn't exceptionally written. I have read that the author lives a life much like her characters and some found the level of media attention she brought to herself and this subculture eclipsed the novel's literary merits.
I can't recommend it on any level.
2005 / Hardcover / 120 pages
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