Auto Fiction

By Hitomi Kanehara



Fuck me, this was just fucken shithouse.

The writer Kanehara is in her in early 20's and this is her second novel. Apparently the first was marvellous and she's 'an exciting new voice' TM. Lord help us.

The book is about a young writer called Rin, in her early 20's, who has written one novel and is considered 'an exciting new voice'. You see where this is going. Anyway, in the book, her publisher asks her to write a book of Autofiction, which is a kind of 'disguised autobiography' - you know, autobiography posing as fiction. Presumably, this book is the result.

The character Rin is a repugnant harpy. Now, there are two options for us to consider:

1 - Hitomi Kanehara is clever, and the character 'Rin' is nothing like her at all.
2 - The character of Rin is exactly like Hitomi Kanehara.

If it's option 2, then Kanehara is the last artist on Earth I'd like to meet, and that includes that knob who cuts himself and spits black ink... Mike Parr. Knob.

If it's option 1, then Kanahara has still failed, because she hasn't written a delightful book about a self-absorbed twat, she has written a horrible book about a self-absorbed twat.

Shakespeare creates bad people, but they are interesting to read about.

Kanehara has created a bad person, and all I could think whilst reading the book was, "Why the hell would anyone write a book about someone so shithouse?" You know, I know people like this and I don't want anything to do with them in real life, and then I got stuck with this bint for 200 pages.

The character has no redeeming features. None. Well, she's allegedly good looking, but that doesn't help. She does admit she's self-absorbed, but that doesn't excuse her behaviour. We also find out about her past, and yeah, some bad things happened, her ex beat her up, her parents were controlling, she had a drinking problem, but you know, other people suffer these things and don't turn into vacuous and arrogant morons like this Rin character.

At least Richard III was clever and interesting. Rin is neither. She's a horrid little brat and I didn't care two hoots whether she existed or not.

But her worst crime is not her stupid and childish paranoia or her penchant for emotional-blackmail, it is her irrelevance.

For example:

"There I go again! I lied again. I'm the same as Shah. I'm a liar. I'm a fool. It's not like the elements required for telling the truth about Shah's lie aren't here. There's still the thumping bass sound coming through to the room, but it isnt so loud that it hinders the conversation. I could have explained what kind of lie Shah told me, but instead I lied about Shah's lying!"

What is she? 9 years old?

"I sigh to myself and imagine what would happen if a clown were to mow us down in his van while rushing to a morning circus performance. Would he step out of the van to see our two bodies entwined? Would he climb on to our fatal embrace and start to ride us like a ball?"

Who cares?

These are just two selections, picked out by me flipping the pages, closing my eyes, then dropping a finger.

The entire book is like this. Start to finish. Childish thoughts piled on top of each other to build a Babel-esque tower of garbage that is so tall it irritates the underbelly of heaven.

In the end, here's what it's about: A writer who is paranoid, self-absorbed and really fucking boring, goes to lots of nightclubs and obsesses about bad boys. The end.

A good writer could have made something of it but Kanehara has made a fist of it. Her central character is a zero, and so is her book.

Give it a miss.

F.