A Voyeuristic Ride Of Conflicts And Abuse

Award-winning author Shinya Tanaka’s Cannibals takes us back to 1989 to an unnamed riverside neighborhood at the margins of an unnamed city. A space left behind by Japan’s post-war redevelopment efforts. The central river is strewn with garbage due to its incomplete sewage system: crammed with bloated plastic bags, trashed umbrellas and a broken bicycle.

The vividly described setting mirrors the lives of the town’s inhabitants. Toma Shinogaki’s father, Madoka, is a sadistic serial domestic abuser. His live-in-lover Kotoko-san is trapped in a toxic relationship with him. Toma’s birth mother Jinko-san, having left Madoka, refuses to take Toma with her because he is his father’s kin. Toma vows to his girlfriend Chigusa that he will never become like his father. Accidentally witnessing his father choking Kotoko-san during sex, however, sets Toma’s understanding of violence and desire spiraling out of control.

Inhabiting the ugly internal life of Toma makes this novella a struggle at times. Still, Tanaka’s frank exploration of a teenage boy’s perverse and violent passions is fascinating. Reminiscent of French surrealist authors like André Breton and Georges Bataille, Tanaka blurs the boundaries between Toma’s mind and the environment around

him. Kalau Almony’s English translation fluidly captures the bleak environment and its impact on Toma’s psyche in lush detail.

Can the next generation escape the violence of its past? Can time heal past wounds? The novel’s answer to these questions is ambiguous. While ending on a hopeful note, it may still leave readers disconcerted.

Engaging with domestic violence in such graphic detail, especially from the point of view of a teenage boy, necessitates sensitivity to the victims of that violence. Jinko-san is portrayed sensitively. Her cold and anxious, yet affectionate relationship with her son is depicted with nuance. Chigusa, however, while initially introduced as a strong character, becomes an empty vessel for violence. Similarly, a sex-worker who both Toma and his father visit lacks any internality. While Tanaka wants to keep the readers uncomfortably close to Toma’s own perspective, the novella alienates its victims of violence.

If you can stomach graphic descriptions of domestic and sexual violence and an often-lacking sensitivity to the victims of that violence, Cannibals makes for an intriguing read.