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Snakes and Earrings Hitomi Kanehara Books

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Snakes and Earrings Hitomi Kanehara Books

Snakes and Earrings is not a book for the tenderhearted; even though it does become tender every now and then. Actually this is a very harsh story, talking about a hard world; the world of Lui, Ama and Shiba-san. It's a story about a different way of life; a way of life that breaths and breeds in the darkness of the human soul; of life without hope.
The three heroes live inside this world of ours, but mostly at the side of it. They know everything about its conventions, but they do not abide to them. They are just themselves and the road to destruction is paved by their own hand.
It all begins when Lui, a kind of a Barbie girl with as many earrings as one can get, meets Ama, a total freak who has even more piercings on his body than her. They hit it off right away and before too long she moves in with him. What did she find so attractive about him? What else did you expect but his forked-tongue and his tattoos? She's mystified by this creature. And she feels jealous. She needs a tongue just like his. But not only that; she also wishes to have engraved on her body the most original tattoo anyone ever made. It's exactly because of her dark wishes that she finds her way, along with Ama, into the workshop of Shiba-san, a real master in the arts of piercing and tattooing. As she walks through that door, the floodgates of hell seem to open wide and the oncoming waters are bound to rush her into the abyss.
Lui is an extreme character. She likes falling down psychologically time and again; to dive in with no regrets into the worlds of sin; to torment her body without giving it a second thought. She seems to live in order to suffer, and it's exactly this pain that keeps her alive. She may be an item with Ama but she doesn't hesitate to sleep with Shiba-san; even after he says that he really wants to kill her. At the same time she feels almost ecstatic at the idea of her forked-tongue. Actually she's so eager to get it that she places herself into a spot of insurmountable pain; almost flirting with insanity. Ama, despite his looks, is quite a sensitive man and he really loves Lui. He hates watching her doing bad things to herself but doesn't seem to have the power to stop her. He'd even kill for her; if she didn't kill herself first that is. As for Shiba-san, well, he's a man without a trace of humanity in him. He likes inflicting pain and that's probably why he's doing what he's doing for a living. However, maybe, just maybe, he's not completely lost, and a tragic event is all that it will take to bring some samples of goodness out of his dark heart and into the light.
Snakes and Earrings is mainly a book of characters. The plot is not so important. The author doesn't treat her creations with a gentle hand by with extreme harshness. She has a story to tell, and she'll stop at nothing, in order to do so. The modern Japanese society comes under the microscope, goes through her fine filter and comes out at the other side just as bad as it could ever be. Sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, fears; she talks about all these matters in a masterful way, in a raw language that could be hard to cope with, but which is the only one that could describe things as they really are.
This is a hell of a novel, about the hell of some people's everyday lives.


Tags : Amazon.com: Snakes and Earrings (9780452287310): Hitomi Kanehara: Books,Hitomi Kanehara,Snakes and Earrings,Plume,0452287316,2152214561,Literary,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Literary,General,Japanese Novel And Short Story

Snakes and Earrings Hitomi Kanehara Books Reviews

Hitomi Kanehara’s debut novella is a sparse and detached tale of a girl and her two lovers. The characters are part of the punk scene in Tokyo wherein tattoos, piercings, and all forms of body manipulation are the coin used in social circles, and the story revolves around a tattoo shop owner and his two young clients, the lovers Lui and Ama.

Lui narrates the book, as a prototypical nihilistic nineteen year-old barely enduring the ennui and existential angst that wrap her in a blanket of clichés. Perhaps such soggy self-pity appealed to the then-twenty year-old author or to her presumed young adult audience, but for me it was trite and maddening. Stuffed into the repetitive defeatist rambling is a thin murder plot that is as predictable as it is pointless.

Yet, there remains a splinter of something that lingers under my skin. Kanehara writes very graphically albeit with a dispassionate cold-blooded style. It’s chilling how she vividly describes sex, the processes of body art, and even torture in such a detached manner. It’s creepy, yet disturbingly compelling. Snakes and Earrings is a quick read but one that stays with you long afterward, whether you want it to or not.
As a follower of contemporary Japanese literature, I was quite taken back by this book. Definitely not what you would expect if you like authors such as Banana Yoshimoto.

However, it is true to its description, an excellent portrait of today's Japanese youth, without euphemisms and without beating around the bush. I would deifintely recommend for manga readers and anime viewers.
Watched the movie and couldn't help to buy this book, I absolutely love it! I can say hands down this is my favorite Japanese film, which has this book to accompany it!
The book starts out with the main character, Lui, wanting to get a split tounge. Written from her point-of-view, she goes on to talk about her relationship with her boyfriend Ama, and a tatoo artist named Shiba, and the facination she has with split tounges and tatoos. As the story goes on she becomes more and more depressed with her life and the point of it all. Since she is the one telling the story you can really feel what she is feeling, and it's facinating to see the emotional places she takes you.

Throughout the book she continues to put larger studs in her tounge as to prepare it to be split. This ends up being a sort of reference to where she's at physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I won't ruin the ending but I guarentee it will be a suprise and that you will read it more that once.

Truly an amazing book, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something a bit different, and something that will remain with you after finishing it.
Love this book. It's a very particular one, you need to like the genre, but I think it makes you think quite a bit.
I loved the movie how dark and twisted it was the book was no long, and I realized that it was written by a very young run away it was twisted and very well enjoyed
I loved this book!! It has an unexpectedly beautiful and raw representation of generation in Japan's post-bubble era....Lui is a lost black sheep among the Barbie girls of Tokyo's underground youth...She, Ama, and Shiba-san are the trio that epitomizes the adage "Misery loves company,", and apparently it loves pain, too, as Lui claims that it is the only way she can feel anything lately. BDSM abounds in the book...but the film adaptation was surprisingly alot different. This book is recommended for its snap-shot photos of urban youth culture. It is also a good intro to Japan's contemporary culture.

Flowers & Water A Poetry Collection
Snakes and Earrings is not a book for the tenderhearted; even though it does become tender every now and then. Actually this is a very harsh story, talking about a hard world; the world of Lui, Ama and Shiba-san. It's a story about a different way of life; a way of life that breaths and breeds in the darkness of the human soul; of life without hope.
The three heroes live inside this world of ours, but mostly at the side of it. They know everything about its conventions, but they do not abide to them. They are just themselves and the road to destruction is paved by their own hand.
It all begins when Lui, a kind of a Barbie girl with as many earrings as one can get, meets Ama, a total freak who has even more piercings on his body than her. They hit it off right away and before too long she moves in with him. What did she find so attractive about him? What else did you expect but his forked-tongue and his tattoos? She's mystified by this creature. And she feels jealous. She needs a tongue just like his. But not only that; she also wishes to have engraved on her body the most original tattoo anyone ever made. It's exactly because of her dark wishes that she finds her way, along with Ama, into the workshop of Shiba-san, a real master in the arts of piercing and tattooing. As she walks through that door, the floodgates of hell seem to open wide and the oncoming waters are bound to rush her into the abyss.
Lui is an extreme character. She likes falling down psychologically time and again; to dive in with no regrets into the worlds of sin; to torment her body without giving it a second thought. She seems to live in order to suffer, and it's exactly this pain that keeps her alive. She may be an item with Ama but she doesn't hesitate to sleep with Shiba-san; even after he says that he really wants to kill her. At the same time she feels almost ecstatic at the idea of her forked-tongue. Actually she's so eager to get it that she places herself into a spot of insurmountable pain; almost flirting with insanity. Ama, despite his looks, is quite a sensitive man and he really loves Lui. He hates watching her doing bad things to herself but doesn't seem to have the power to stop her. He'd even kill for her; if she didn't kill herself first that is. As for Shiba-san, well, he's a man without a trace of humanity in him. He likes inflicting pain and that's probably why he's doing what he's doing for a living. However, maybe, just maybe, he's not completely lost, and a tragic event is all that it will take to bring some samples of goodness out of his dark heart and into the light.
Snakes and Earrings is mainly a book of characters. The plot is not so important. The author doesn't treat her creations with a gentle hand by with extreme harshness. She has a story to tell, and she'll stop at nothing, in order to do so. The modern Japanese society comes under the microscope, goes through her fine filter and comes out at the other side just as bad as it could ever be. Sex, violence, drugs, alcohol, prostitution, fears; she talks about all these matters in a masterful way, in a raw language that could be hard to cope with, but which is the only one that could describe things as they really are.
This is a hell of a novel, about the hell of some people's everyday lives.