Almost Transparent Blue - Ryu Murakami

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Almost Transparent Blue is Ryû Murakami's first novel,written when he was still a student,and published in 1976,it was immediately well received and won the prestigious Akutagawa price.
I am not sure it is very useful to precise it,but this book is of course a bestseller.,and it had been praised for starting a new style of literature.


The book is quite short,and,in a succession of short chapters, describes ...
...becomes very monotone.Each chapter is almost unconnected to the others,as if each day (or night) had not connection with the previous one, at least not for the characters. Relating the facts is 19 year-old Ryû,drug-taker (addict might be more true) and bisexual,which is why this book is sometimes being described as autobiographical (although it is not certain,in opposition with 69 by the same author).Through his eyes you discover -among a few others- ... more

I came to read this book for two reasons : first,I had started to study Japanese and was supposed to read more Japanese literature.
And secondly,because I had blue hair at the time, and loved the title. I know that you never should judge a book by its cover or title, but sometimes you can't help it.

Almost Transparent Blue is Ryû Murakami's first novel,written when he was still a student,and published in 1976,it was immediately well received and won the prestigious Akutagawa price.
I am not sure it is very useful to precise it,but this book is of course a bestseller.,and it had been praised for starting a new style of literature.

The book is quite short,and,in a succession of short chapters, describes a few days in a band of teenager's life. There is no real plot to talk about,and in the same time there is too much of a plot to be resumed.Let's just say it is a journey,a tale of a day-to day life,where eacj single day becomes so full of group sex,hallucinations,prostitution,violence,suicide that it all becomes very monotone.Each chapter is almost unconnected to the others,as if each day (or night) had not connection with the previous one, at least not for the characters. Relating the facts is 19 year-old Ryû,drug-taker (addict might be more true) and bisexual,which is why this book is sometimes being described as autobiographical (although it is not certain,in opposition with 69 by the same author).Through his eyes you discover -among a few others- his friends Okinawa and Yoshima,both junkies,their girlfriends Kei and Reiko (although,as you discover,they are far to be exclusive),and Lilly, one of Ryû's friends/sex partner,who is also a prostitute.
So what is,apart from this disturbing choice of characters,so revolutionary about this book?

First,the way things are written. Everything seems simple,there is no taboo,and nothing to hide or change the truth. Then the subject,the falling of the society into decadence,into drugs,sex, and violence,which no one can describe as well as Ryû Murakami. And in the same time,if there is this hopelessness, you can also feel the naivety,and the purity of the characters,lost in a terribly uncaring world,n a soulless Tôkyô.
You cannot help but to be sad for them,and to reflect on the way things are nowadays.
The author is writing an instinctive,flawless style,which makes it very easy to read. Things that are described can sometimes seem terrible,but nothing is worse than the unsaid,the consequences of each thing.

In a very polite society,where the way people look is the most important thing in the world (and not what they really are), Almost Transparent Blue is like a very needed electroshock.
If anything, this book open your eyes about a world you might not even think is real, and yet,it is.
Not only in Tôkyô and in the 70's ,but everywhere and every time you watch TV or open a newspaper.
And it is a book that makes you feel like you've really been there,taking drugs and having group sex with this bunch of depraved teenagers. 

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