The Pornographers
Akiyuki Nosaka
pp305
A random man asked the Osaka FB page about books set in Osaka after the war. It was in this discussion that this 50 year old book was brought up; Akiyuki Nosaka's The Pornographers.
I immediately put it on my Library reserve list and a few days later I picked it up and dove right in.
There is something lovely about reading about Osaka in Osaka. There is something intriguing about following a group of characters as they scramble and avoid the police out in front of the train station that is just over there. It can make good book just a bit better.
However, this isn't the case here. In my humble opinion this is a terrible book, one that appears to take a stab at some really difficult issues but never accomplishes anything.
The story is of a group of seedy men working in North-east Osaka, not just as pornographers, but as pimps as well. They sell pictures and videos, move onto making pictures and videos, then sell "virginity" and work all the way up to orgy.
Much of the work focuses on juxtaposing sex and grusome violence. This Osaka is one born of war and these men are all wounded and perverted by there experiences. These parts of the book work at times and even hint that Nosaka might very well accomplish something of importance and significance... but it never pans out.
Maybe 50 years ago in Japan (or everywhere) this information was so new and fresh and shocking that it gave this work much more importance. Maybe the description itself was so amazing that Nosaka didn't think any revelation necessary put any kind of bow on the top of his work. Nowadays, it felt very much needed.
Yet, if merely an satisfying ending was missing I might have a bit more give in my opinion. However, there is something worse about this book.
The amount of incest (or near incest of the step-child kind) is troublesome, especially as unlike Lolita (which feels like a slight inspiration here) there is no meaning to counterbalance the uncomfortable ideas. Where Nabokov tried to teach us that the power of words can explain anything, and that we have to be wary of our narrators, Nosaka teaches us that sometimes old men want to fuck 16 year olds and sometimes those 16 year olds take money to do so. There is no beauty to be found in this book. Pardon my langauge there, but that is about how I feel about this book put bluntly.
So, I do not, not, not, recommend this. Even if you live in Osaka.
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