Monkey Brain Sushi : New Tastes in Japanese Fiction edited by Alfred Birbaum (Kodansha International)

Monkey Brain Sushi is a collection of short stories by Japan’s up and coming talent of writers. It was first published in 1991 and is a great introduction to contemporary Japanese fiction. Some of the writers have gone on to become successful worldwide, the most notable being Haruki Murakami.

American translator Alfred Birnbaum had this to say about the new crop of writers, “Starting from the early ‘80s, a new generation of Japanese writers has emerged to capture the electric, electric spirit of contemporary life in Japan’s mega-cities. Choosing to speak through the medium of popular magazines - rather than literary journals”. 

He further states that the new writers are more influenced by Western culture than their native land. The writers featured in this collection were all “born and raised in an Americanized postwar Japan. Their Japanese lifestyle they know has as much to do with jeans and hamburgers as tatami mats and miso soup.

Monkey Brain Sushi includes eleven stories in all that are as diverse as they are entertaining. A wide range of genres are featured in this collection. Some have an element of fantasy while others may be hard to stomach for the weak of heart. There are stories that are mundane and ordinary and stories that may have you tilting your head as you wonder what the writer was trying to convey.

The book leads off with a story by Haruki Murakami titled TV People. This story is rather surreal as three TV People arrive unannounced at a man’s house on a Sunday evening. The narrator says the TV People are slightly smaller than normal, about twenty to thirty percent smaller. The TV People never knock or ring the doorbell. They don’t say hello. They just walk right in. One opens the door and the other two bring in an ordinary size Tv. They also leave as quietly as they came.

Sproing by Eri Makino is written as one long monologue with a woman talking to one of her friends who drops by her house. Not once does the woman give her friend a chance to speak. It’s one long story of her talking about different episodes in her life. It sounded as if she just needed someone to complain to about her less than extraordinary life. 

In Mazelife, Kyoji Kobayashi writes a story about a man named K creating his own God. In order to create his God, he comes up with six requirements. A God needs devotees who will worship it with their entire being. The God needs a priest to conduct its ceremonies, a God needs a place where it can be worshiped, a God needs commandments for its devotees to follow, a God needs a myth to give it divine authority and finally a God needs enough power to satisfy its devotees. Can K really create a God?

One of the most disturbing stories included in this book is Amy Yamada’s excerpt from her novel Kneel Down and Lick My Feet which was based on her two month experience of working at an S&M club in Tokyo.

Shinobu, who works at an S&M club called the Queen’s Palace, is teaching her younger sister, Chika, the ins and outs of working in such a place. She tells her sister, “it behooves us to use words that elevate our actions”, spouting off a phrase like, “Beseech the queen that you might grovel before her honorable legs and receive the venerated punishment”. 

Michio Hisauchi’s The Junglest Day is written in manga form and the main characters, Lieutenant Onada and Sergeant Yokoi are based on real Japanese soldiers who were discovered on a remote island in the seventies, almost thirty years after the war ended. 

Back in the early nineties, it was hard to find hard-edged fiction by Japanese writers. Most of the books available in English were Japanese literary giants such as Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe and Yukinari Kawabata. There were a few others but they pretty much followed in the same vein as Mishima and company. 

Now, there are many young Japanese writers for the Western world to explore. Murakami has written quite a few novels. The mysteries of Keigo Higashino and Miyuki Miyabe are also now available in English. If you thought Japanese fiction was dry and serious, it’s time for you to pick up a book by any one of these new generations of writers. ~Ernie Hoyt