Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Tokyo Vice

When both Paris Match and the NPR book list highlight books on the same topic, I generally think that means I should read up, doubly so when the topic is anything to do with Japan these days. NPR suggested People Who Eat Darkness and Paris Match suggested Tokyo Vice. The former wasn't available at the library, so I went with the latter, by Jake Adelstein. Both books are about the dirty underbelly of Tokyo - prostitution, human trafficking, drugs, yakuza - and the oftentimes cozy relationship between the cops and the criminals. So basically everything I hope my students' parents will NOT associate with Japan!

From the standpoint of being a book about a side of Japan about which I knew nothing, Tokyo Vice was a compelling read. By the end, and by the middle if I'm honest, I was really tired of the author.  It wasn't only that he constantly inserted himself into the story, even when it seemed gratuitous, sometimes the story seemed to veer off on tangents with no clear purpose other than relaying a story about the author. Whether Adelstein was proclaiming his greatness or self-flagellating, I no longer cared. For me, he wasn't the story; the narrative he was writing could have stood on its own without a running commentary on how many cigarettes he smoked on a given day or how long he and his wife and been trying to have a child. By the end, it seemed like the personal information offered nothing new - if he wrote one more time that he was a Jewish American from Missouri, I might have screamed. Also, I know,I know, you're really, really great, but I don't care. I think thou doth protest too much.

The bottom line: if you're really curious about Tokyo's criminal underworld, by all means, this book will initiate you and then some. I'm actually curious about People Who Eat Darkness, just to see how the treatment of the topic varies, but I think I've had enough of the yakuza for awhile. Still, Adelstein irritated me enough in Tokyo Vice that I'd probably recommend PWED even though I haven't read it.

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