Title: Outlet
Japanese Title: コンセント
Author: Taguchi Randy (田口ランディ)
Translator: Glynne Walley
Publication Year: 2003 (America); 2000 (Japan)
Publisher: Vertical
Pages: 269
First of all, I would like to say that Vertical does not publish crap. If you pick up one of their books, you can rest assured that your money has been well spent. Second, I do not review crap. This is a public forum, and I don’t want any authors or translators sending me nasty e-mails. Also, if the book I’m reading turns out to be crap, I tend to put it down and go do something else with my time. Graduate students are very busy and important, you see.
That being said, Outlet is pretty crappy. I was on an airplane and stupidly didn’t bring anything with me that wasn’t an academic text, besides Outlet, so I ended up reading the novel from cover to cover. Thankfully, my effort was rewarded, as the novel isn’t consistently crappy, and its crappiness is good-hearted and quite amusing. At one point, I had to quickly excuse myself to go to the bathroom so that I could laugh out loud for sixty seconds or so. In the end, I have to say that I recommend this book, perhaps because of its very crappiness. Also, the translation is excellent.
The blurb on the front flap of the book states, “A brisk, bristling story of survivor’s guilt, treacherous sex, and unexpected redemption, Outlet opens the door to a spiritual dimension that is both new and age-old.” Well, I can’t agree with most of that, but at least they got the “sex” part right. There is a lot of sex in this novel. If there is a male character in the book, the protagonist has sex with him. The majority of this sex is a hot, dirty, leaning over the sink in a public restroom, fingers up the anus type of sex, and it goes on for pages. This sex is too smutty to be erotic, and, in all honesty, it made me giggle, flip to the author photograph on the back flap, and giggle some more. Oh, Randy.
Don’t let the sex distract you from the plot, however. Outlet’s protagonist, Yuki Asakura, works as a freelance writer and editor for a business magazine and follows the stock market (and has lots of sex) in her free time. When her brother is found dead in his apartment, however, her life takes a turn for the weird, as she keeps seeing the phantom of her dead brother (with whom she had lots of sex maybe) and smelling the death smell of his apartment at inopportune moments. In order to cure herself of this malady, she goes to her old psychology department advisor from college (with whom she had lots of sex) in order to receive counseling (so that she can continue to have lots of sex). On campus, she runs into an old acquaintance, who introduces her to the concept of shamanism and to her psychiatrist husband (with whom the protagonist has lots of sex). In the end, Yuki learns that she is not crazy but rather a type of shamaness who can tune into the vibrations of the universe and heal people (by – get this – having lots of sex with them). Spoiler alert: an “outlet” is something you plug something else into.
If we can ignore the sex scenes for a moment, this novel has some extremely interesting and informative passages on psychology, neurology, Japanese funerals, shamanism, and what happens to an apartment after someone has died in it. In fact, I think this novel is worth reading for its description of the Okinawan yuta (spirit mediums) alone. Although Taguchi’s thesis that schizophrenic people and hikikomori are merely shamans and shamanesses who have not yet learned to control their powers is somewhat silly, it’s an interesting proposition. Especially if you’re into “Eastern mysticism” like Zen or Daoism – or pot brownies; it really doesn’t matter here.
In any case, Outlet is a trashy yet intellectually engrossing novel, and it has a bright and shiny cover featuring a naked Asian woman. It’s good reading for a plane ride and can double as a good conversation starter if left on your coffee table. I will chalk this book up to another solid editorial decision at Vertical. They have not failed me yet.
Contemporary Japanese Literature 