Every so often I'll see Murakami's Audition mentioned online, and the parties involved are often talking about the movie adaptation, and others frequently mention the book. I'd heard enough about it that ended up on my TBR list. I knew I'd eventually read the book before sitting down to watch the movie. Well, I recently got around to reading the book, and I have to wonder if everything I'd heard was about another book, because this one? Snore.
Well, I can't really say that. The ending of the book was fantastic. My problem is that the journey to get there was long and uneventful.
The premise of the book is simple. A middle-aged widower, whose wife has been dead these past seven years, is encouraged by his teenage son to marry again. Having been out of circulation for so long, Aoyama feels like he's out of touch with the singles scene, and doesn't know where to start. When he confides in a friend, they decide to set up a faux movie project for which they will hold auditions. This way, Aoyama will be able to field a number of potential brides at one time to filter out the candidates that don't fit what he's looking for. During the course of the audition process, our widower becomes infatuated with one woman in particular, Yamasaki Asami, to the point that he's no longer interested in any of the other candidates. Despite the warnings of his friend, who constantly reminds Aoyama that they know NOTHING about this woman, begins his pursuit.
What follows is a series of dates interspersed with what I can only describe as teen angst, where he starts to question his motivations amidst rising insecurities in himself, all of which fade away the instant he hears Asami's voice. You might think this has all the trappings of a YA romance, with the exception of the ending, which will wipe that line of thinking from your head.
My problem with Auditon is that, which the exception of one scene early on in the story, there's really nothing that raises any alarm bells, nothing to prepare you for the extreme, unbalanced violence at the end. Even when Asami is caught in lies, of which there are many, none of them are so terrible as to make you wonder what the hell is wrong with this woman. Not even that fact that she seems too perfect; that's probably the only alarm bell that's triggered --- this woman is too perfect to be true.
Overall, the story isn't a bad one. My problem with it is, for what it is, it's too long. Had there been more going on to generate a sense of danger or imperilment, we would have an ideal length for the story, but so much of it is mundane day-to-day stuff that the reader often grows anxious and/bored and wishes the author would hurry up and move the story along. Tighten up the story, generate more suspense, and you'd have an excellent short novella. So, is it worth reading? Given that it appears on so many Must Read lists, I'd say give it a shot, but otherwise I'd say pass. Now to watch the movie and hope that this is one of those rare instances where the movie is better than the book.
