‘Cannibals’ by Shinya Tanaka (Review)

Prizes aren’t everything, but they can be a good indicator of a book’s quality, and one of my favourite overseas awards is the prestigious Akutagawa Prize handed out in Japan.  Announced twice a year for the best piece of short(ish) fiction by a new or up-and-coming writer, it’s a hallmark of quality, and over the years I’ve covered a fair few prize recipients on the blog, albeit not quite as many as I would have liked.  In fact, after a quick browse of the Wikipedia page, I realised that today’s book turns out to be my twentieth Akutagawa winner – and very good it is, too.

*****
Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals (translated by Kalau Almony, review copy courtesy of Honford Star), joint-winner of the Akutagawa Prize in the second half of 2011, is an atmospheric work set over the northern summer of 1989, centred upon the seventeen-year-old Toma Shinogaki.  Living with his father and his father’s partner, Kotoko-san, in a house by a rather dirty river, he spends his time having sex with his girlfriend, Chigusa, or popping in to see his mum, who lives not far from his home.  This is a corner of the city where nothing much happens, and the stifling summer heat seems to make the people by the river even more lethargic than usual.

However, change is on its way.  For one thing, Kotoko-san is pregnant, meaning Toma must think how the arrival of a sibling might affect him, and his position in the family.  More importantly, though, the youth is starting to discover certain urges, inherited from his father, which will have a devastating effect on his relationship with Chigusa.  As the summer drags on, there’s a sense that this is all the calm before the storm, both literal and metaphorical, and that things will be very different when it hits.

Cannibals is a powerful novella, a dark Bildungsroman with hints of certain other Akutagawa winners.  There’s the teen angst of Ryū Murakami’s Almost Transparent Blue, the setting of Teru Miyamoto’s River of Fireflies and the sex and violence of Kenji Nakagami’s The Cape.  Just like these illustrious predecessors, Tanaka uses his work to take a gritty look at a less glossy version of Japanese life – there won’t be much cherry-blossom viewing round these parts…

Toma’s father is known for beating women during sex, the reason Toma’s mother walked out on him, and it appears that Toma is starting to follow in his footsteps.  Early on, he spies on his father and Kotoko-san having some rather rough sex, and as the story progresses, the teenager struggles to control his own urges.  The twin menaces of sex and violence pop up in unlikely places, such as when a spot of eel fishing triggers some alone time in the bathroom:

Suddenly he was hard, and now his penis was the unagi, and the unagi was swimming into its own wounds and flailing, and the crushed head of the unagi and Chigusa and Kotoko-san all appeared in frighteningly rapid succession one after the other than all blurred together, and the blood rushing to fill him spread like a net trying to catch everything, including Toma himself, and Toma tried to break through his own net of blood, and when he thought he had broken it, he was again wrapped in blood, and when he pressed down on the rising rage with his fingers, he saw clearly Kotoko-san being strangled by his father, and it was all over.
 p.33 (Honford Star, 2024)

It’s when he starts thinking about sex with Chigusa that things turn a little bleaker, though.  He knows full well he’s at risk of ruining everything, but he’s desperate to find an outlet for his urges, unable to control his desires and curiosity.

From the start, the river itself is another prominent feature of the novel:

The river was about ten metres across.  It was low-tide and the yellow earth of the riverbed was visible through the shallow water.  Stones of all shapes and sizes; a broken bicycle that looked as though even if someone tried to ride it, it could do nothing but turn right for eternity; a black umbrella whose broken frame thrust out of the water like the mast of a ship; a tinplated bucket which, except for the bright crimson handle, was rusted into a shapeless heap; wooden fencing, plastic bags swollen with sand – these and other pieces of trash filled the river. (p.5)

It borders a virtual slum area, populated by those washed-up from elsewhere and stranded there.  A backwater passed over by developers, it has the stench of raw sewage in the air, and as a backdrop for Toma’s formative summer it works very well.

Tanaka excels in his evocation of the buildings and people down by the river.  On his walks, Toma comes across a cat strolling in and out of his mother’s fish shop, an old dog lying in the sun and a snail leisurely making its way up a door frame.  A recurring character is a woman, hanging around on the corner outside her apartment, waiting for… well, I’m sure you can make an educated guess.  Toma absorbs everything about the neighbourhood, making it a part of his own story.

The weather also plays a major role in Cannibals :

As Obon approached, there was still no sign of rain, not even in the weather forecast, and the roads, the houses, the bridge, the willows, the barking of the red dog, even time, unclear whether it was moving forward or not, seemed ready to collapse from heat and melt. (p.44)

The heat drives people crazy, with the men staying home to watch the High-School Baseball Tournament.  Meanwhile, the river dries up between the high-tides of the nearby sea, becoming dirtier than ever, reflecting the mood of the neighbourhood.  Tempers, naturally, are frayed, with some just waiting for the right moment to snap.

Tanaka’s story is a short but powerful work, at times brutal and stripped-back to the essentials.  There’s almost a Greek tragedy feel to it all as we examine the sins of the father, the struggles of the son and the determination of the mother to ensure history doesn’t repeat itself.  While it’s clear from the start that this won’t end well, it’s not quite as obvious how, but rest assured that the story will build to a stormy climax.

A well-constructed story of a young man and a turbulent, formative period in his life, Cannibals is certainly a deserving Akutagawa winner, and well worth your time.  It’s an age-old tale of nature versus nurture and the struggle to resist what’s in our blood, but also an intriguing look at a time gone by, a glimpse of life in a small urban pocket before it’s swept away by progress, for good…