Vibrator, by Mari Akasaka

To get this out of the way, Vibrator is probably not the best title for this novel; it alludes to the vibrations felt by troubled freelance magazine journalist Rei Hayakawa, vibrations that are linked to the dissonant voices that crash around in her head.

It hit me when I saw myself reflected  in the glass of the Family Mart fridge.

When I was drinking I always though I was just drinking, that was all; alcoholism was a problem for old geezers in some other world. But in fact I was totally dependent. I was dependent, I wanted to use alcohol as the organic solvent it actually is, use it to dissolve the ever-present, unavoidable feeling that that I was out of place, that what was outside my skin didn't match...

She selects a bottle of wine, a bottle of gin, then flicks through a magazine with a feature a on a footballer's wife, and their Ralph Lauren and Emporio Armani lifestyle, and her determination still to be on an exercise bike in the eighth month of pregnancy.

Just them, for the first time in almost ten years in the business, I truly grasp what it is to edit... The editor endeavours to create an image of a certain person or group of people by accumulating scenes and epiosodes. To make each and everyone of these scenes, she or he must select the moments that give off the most brilliant light and string them together, and then all the parts that have been cut, tons and tons of them, have to be scrapped.

Parts trashed for the sake of selected parts, chucked out together with all the work that went into them - all the monotony the boredom, the exhaustion, the depression - unfavourable conditions, that's how things are day after day, and we live the greater part of our lives on the side of everything that gets cut.

Ultimately the gap between the celebrity wife's lifestyle, described in the magazines and your own life is all that really matters, that's what motivates consumption -

As Rei is processing the choices she hears, seeing linkages with her magazine work, she becomes aware of the judgments others - men - are constantly making about her.

But before these ideas can be resolved she sees a young truck driver.

She follows , climbs into his cab, and another journey begins. Okabe is tough, a one-time gang member and drug smuggler. Now he drives a juggernaut, and amuses himself by dipping in and out of the coded conversations of trucker CB radio.

More voices, more snippets to collate and assemble...

This a short but powerful novel - almost as soon as the reader gets attuned to its unsettling voice, the story is over.

• Vibrator, by Mari Akasaka,  trans. Michael Emmerich (Faber & Faber). 

 

Comments

[Dorte H]

I liked her first very much (recommended by Maxine) so I will get round to this one at some point - whenever I need more books ;)

[austin]

Hey there! I've been reading your website for a long time now and finally got the bravery to go ahead and give you a shout out from Austin Texas! Just wanted to say keep up the fantastic work!