Battle Royale (Battle Royale)
Author:
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
Helpful Score: 3
The book that the hyper-violent Japanese cult movie was based on. I was surprised that the story was actually not gratuitously violent. The violence is an integral part of the story: In an alternate-reality Japan, the country has been under fascism since after WWII. The government has reverted to an extremely isolationist policy, and citizens unquestioningly accept abuses, and practices like the Battle Experiments in which random highschool classes are selected, taken to a small island in the Seto Inland Sea, and told that they must kill each other or be killed. The book follows one such class and deftly explores the psychological reactions of the very different people in the class, as they react to this extreme situation.
The reasons behind these experiments do not actually have to do with studying battles, as the public is told, but are for control of the citizens at large. When the population sees that consistently, friends, colleagues and lovers WILL turn against each other and kill each other, this undercuts any possibility of a large-scale revolution against the government. The book is also extremely critical of aspects of (actual) Japanese culture that are against individuality, and that the author seems to believe encourage groupthink. I think one of his main points in the book is that, although the reader might initially see a group of classmates, all the same age, wearing the same uniform, seemingly homogeneous, as the book progresses, we get to know each person, and find out their secrets, seeing how each person is different possibly bad, possibly good, to varying degrees, but always unique.
A very interesting work the one criticism I have of it was the translation. Too often, phrases, metaphors and slang terms seemed to be too literally rendered. The narrative never really flowed at no point could I forget that I was reading a translation from the Japanese.
The reasons behind these experiments do not actually have to do with studying battles, as the public is told, but are for control of the citizens at large. When the population sees that consistently, friends, colleagues and lovers WILL turn against each other and kill each other, this undercuts any possibility of a large-scale revolution against the government. The book is also extremely critical of aspects of (actual) Japanese culture that are against individuality, and that the author seems to believe encourage groupthink. I think one of his main points in the book is that, although the reader might initially see a group of classmates, all the same age, wearing the same uniform, seemingly homogeneous, as the book progresses, we get to know each person, and find out their secrets, seeing how each person is different possibly bad, possibly good, to varying degrees, but always unique.
A very interesting work the one criticism I have of it was the translation. Too often, phrases, metaphors and slang terms seemed to be too literally rendered. The narrative never really flowed at no point could I forget that I was reading a translation from the Japanese.
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