Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

 

- This little novel is so unbelievably powerful. It’s a must read.

- It’s the 1990’s. He is 14 and bullied by Ninomiya and his friends at a Middle School in Japan. A girl classmate, Kojima, who is also bullied, asks to be his friend. Kawakami describes the  bullying in graphic detail and it's horrific.  

- The unnamed boy, the narrator, has a lazy eye, hence his nickname ‘Eyes’. Kojima struggles to be ‘normal’. They write letters to each other and talk freely. Both are from broken homes and unhappy marriages. 

- They are thoughtful, inquisitive and caring, despite suffering immense pain and sadness. 'Why do you think they do it? Why do you think they treat us like they do?’ 

- Kawakami allows her characters to indulge in Nietzschean philosophical musings on these fundamental moral issues. What is 'the right way to act’ here? Kojima is of the firm belief that fighting back with courage is a negative. I know there's so much pain in this, but we have to keep going...A time will come when everything will be clear. The reader can't but be unimpressed. It's a heavy handed moral imperative which is so unrealistic it's virtually other worldly. Nietzsche explored this in his tract Thus Spake Zarathustra, where he castigated the commitment to poverty, humility, chastity and asceticism as 'moralistic mendaciousness'. 

- Kojima also celebrates poverty and isolation. She conspicuously avoids being social, even to the point of rarely washing her hair or bathing. Unsurprisingly she's vehemently opposed to Eye’s consideration of undergoing surgery to fix his eye. She loves his eyes as they are. She refuses in the end to see him again or answer his letters, and begins to starve herself. She's become a victim of a moralistic cult.

- A counter perspective comes from one of the bullies. When challenged by Eyes he justifies his behaviour as having no meaning. It's an amoral universe. Everyone just does what they want...They’re acting on urges...Nothing’s good or bad…Nobody does anything because it’s right. That’s not why people do things.

- Kawakami gives us a superb and beautifully written ending. She could well have opted for sadness and tragedy, but she choses hope. 

(This review in the New Yorker is well worth reading)

(Pan Macmillan have priced this small 167 page paperback at $32.99, which is a complete and unforgivable rip off. In the UK it retails for £9.99. At the current exchange rate it should be no more than $24.99).