Out
Natsuo Kirino
Out is an honest to god thriller. I like thrillers a lot, but I have a problem with them in book form. When the actual suspense kicks in, when things seem to start spiraling I... I CAN'T TAKE IT. I HAVE TO TAKE A BREAK. So I did, I read about 60% of this book in lightning speed, I was glued to it every night. And then it seemed to reach a point where I couldn't handle one of the characters decisions, and I had to take a little break. I got too into it lmao. So after about a 2 week break, I finished the book in like 2 hours.
This was an amazing book, with an ending that didn't really pass the amazing mark but it was satisfying nonetheless. Since it's a crime thriller I'll add a whole spoiler section. Anyway, Out is about 4 women that work night shifts in a bento packing factory, ages ranging from early 30s to 50s. All 4 of them in pretty horrible situations. Abusive, cheating and gambling husband. Husband that died but now you have to take care of his mother that always hated you, while your daughter is also growing to resent you. Husband that is more of a roommate than partner, and son that doesn't want to speak to you. Something big happens and the 4 women, despite not really being best friends, decide to work through it together and rope each other into various big troubles. As they attempt to cover their crimes up, holes are poked through and they end up getting cornered. Throughout the whole story we get to see how women are treated in japanese society, how they're always seen as less than despite being just as good or even better than their male coworkers, how they're pushed into these night shift jobs to make a decent living because they don't have a different choice - yet men around them still judge them for doing this - despite not leaving them other choice. Women as objects, women as pets, women expire past 30, so on and so forth. This book would be really eye-opening for someone that hasn't met themselves with these topics before. It also touches upon the way Japan treats immigrants, or rather, their own citizens that had mixed parents. A lot of good social commentary is made in this book, but it's not even the highlight imo! My favorite part of this book was 100% women being ruthless lmao.
Spoiler: I talk about the ending in detail and the dynamic between Masako and Satake
The moment I finished the book, I knew the ending would be seen as controversial. As of writing this, I actually haven't checked out The General Consensus (tm) yet... So first of all, the main character, Masako, is a really well written character. In her 40s, she's sure her "time" has passed. She's always been cold, assertive, reliable and to the point. Despite being undermined at her previous workplace (a loan company) for almost 20 years, her ego had only truly been bruised once she got fired. It caused her to retreat into herself even more, and to "settle" for a night shift factory job. She resigned herself to the halfassed role of a wife and a mother in a household that has been drifting apart with no signs of anything getting better. However at work, very often the point is made that she's very dependable as a person by her coworkers, who in turn end up relying on her in what is clearly meant to show her as a gender nonconforming woman, almost inserting herself in a male role among her female peers. Yayoi turns to her to hide her husbands dead body once she had killed him, they rely on her to take care of the logistics of chopping a body and perform horrific tasks knowing they can trust her. Tl;dr Masako is presented as a deviant in the context of the society she's in. Something is very different about her, the fact that she chose to dispose of a body so easily, in secret and at first subconscious hopes of finally breaking free and leaving her old life behind. As a result of her chopping up a husband of her colleague she basically sets up a gambling/hostess club owner Satake up to be arrested.
So on the other hand we have Satake, a previous murderer who can only derive sexual (or any, really) pleasure from murdering women who oppose him and defy him. As the story develops it becomes clear Masako is his perfect target due to her personality. I wouldn't really call Satake Masako's foil despite him contrasting Masako at first, but hear me out. I think his function in the story changes wildly about 3 times, and that's why I really liked their dynamic. At first, Satake is seen as pretty cool temperament wise, but soon enough his impulsivity becomes known to us once we become aware of his previous murder. He's basically keeping his insanity at bay. It's clear he hates women immensely, and even thinks the only way they deserve to be alive and thriving is if they serve their function of a pet - but unknowingly. A woman realizing her worth in any way is seen as a negative to him. Ironically though, the only type of woman that attracts him sexually is a woman that isn't afraid to stand up to men, a woman that is assertive and uninterested in being a woman, traditionally. His main impulse when being faced with such a woman though is to kill her, mutilate her and rape her, all the while experiencing love and pleasure of the highest degree. Well CLEARLY, Satake is also a "bit" of a deviant in the society he lives in. While his mindset is perfectly common, it's too extreme, too conflicted, too exaggerated. Once Satake becomes aware of Masako as a person, his calm demeanor up until that point starts to shed, and he begins to impulsively hunt her and corner her, with the end goal of repeating his previous rape/murder.
So this brings us to the ending... Satake ends up raping Masako, but she ends up killing him in the end. In an awfully hard to read scene Masako begins to experience some kind of empathy towards Satake, kind of similar to what Satake felt during his first murder. I was hoping the book wouldn't end up on that note, and I'm glad to say IT DIDN'T, but wait a moment. At this point we're kind of led to accept that woah Masako and Satake are actually two sides of the same coin! But I'd never buy that personally, even if it did end that way. Masako ends up escaping but still feeling extremely fond of Satake, she decides to visit the place he worked at before, to get a feel for how he lived his life. As she walked up to the club he used to own though, she decides not to do it after all. I firmly believe Masako realized that her and Satake are not similar after all. This is a multi layered situation though and it's hard for me to get my point across. Let me try and get to the bottom of this...
Did Masako forgive the rapist????
Let's not forget for a moment, in the first layer of this onion, Satake is the victim. He's been effectively set up to be the murderer of Yayoi's husband. He decides to get revenge, but instead of targeting Yayoi who was the actual catalyst, he decides to target Masako - the brain behind the whole act of disposing the body. Everyone else bores him. In the most simplistic and basic reading, the victim has lost. Masako is obviously a woman, living in Japan. She isn't a progressive feminist, she's a normal woman not conforming to every stereotype that's pushed onto her. Every once in a while I'll get some cringe meme about women in mid 40s being "secret butches" because they cut their hair short and don't wear make up. How dare they mention their husbands and not wuh luh wuh!! SHOCKER, a surprising amount of normie women are like this. It is not a stretch to say she feels guilt over what's happening to her, over what she did, and that she's conflicted. She feels like she deserves to be raped (as seen by her dream) and she even lets herself go into it before her survival instincts actually kicking in. But why is this surprising at all? Women forgive men for insane misdeeds all the time. For a moment, yes, she forgave him. She let her conditioning do her in. She is obviously, as clearly evident, at odds with herself and her position in society. How was she able to be an extremely capable worker that rivaled her male peers despite her never getting promoted, while also being a diligent wife and a mother to a family that doesn't even speak to her? How did she, despite being assertive and cutthroat, keep making them dinner every night without even stopping to consider what they've been doing for her? But she ended up putting an end to it after all. And in the last few pages, after her "realization" that Satake was like her, she dropped it. She turned around and she refused to go to his club, to breathe the air that he breathed. In the end she didn't let a man take control of her life once more.Women are conditioned to forgive, and to put themselves in their place. We're socialized into it. This book is exactly about that process of baring your fangs and claws and violently ripping your way out, but obviously you're bound to take steps back. Which is why I enjoyed the fact that Masako experienced "wrong" feelings. She didn't girlboss her way out of it, duh, that's not how it works!!! She is self aware of being deviant and different, and often times such women will relate to men, even evil men, because they see themselves as evil, for being expired, for failing at being women. Why are so many girls that hate themselves drawn to men that hate them? Hellooooooo.
I'd also like to note this same thought process was mirrored with her interactions with Kazuo. He sexually assaults her, and it gets to a point where she unironically forgives him and even considers visiting him in Brazil after running away. But in a moment of clarity, she takes the paper in which he gave her his address and she rips it apart. This constant ping pong between wanting to rely on a man, wanting to forgive a man, wanting to not depend on a man is pretty well done. It's seen in multiple situations in the book and it sets up Masako as an obviously imperfect human. Therefore I don't think the ending is really that unexpected or disappointing at all. I still think Masako is an amazing character, she's incredibly self aware and methodical, to the point of it feeling refreshing. It's rare to get a main character, man or woman in fact, that isn't a dumbass when it comes to making decisions, and that accepts things as they come. Truly I really loved everything about her.
Now that I checked out what the general opinion is, it's kind of what I expected. A kind of a love it or hate it situation. I understand not being a total fan of the ending (I think some things could've been done better) but I think that people that were extremely disappointed in the ending just totally misunderstood not just the ending, but how the world works in general lmao.
