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Monday, January 6, 2025

Review of BUTTER: A NOVEL OF FOOD AND MURDER by Asako Yuzuki

 3.5 Stars

This almost-500-page book, a bestseller in Japan, is based on the real-life case of the Konkatsu Killer, a con woman and talented cook convicted of killing three of her lovers.

Rika Machida is a 33-year-old journalist in Tokyo who wants to write about Manako Kajii and meets with her several times in the detention centre where she is awaiting a re-trial. Rika becomes fascinated with Kajii’s gourmet tastes and starts to learn how to cook. As a result she gains weight and begins to receive negative comments just as Kajii was the target of relentless fat-shaming.

The novel examines the impossible beauty standards and gender expectations to which Japanese women are held: “Japanese women are required to be self-denying, hard-working and ascetic, and in the same breath, to be feminine, soft and caring towards men.” Men are domestically dependent on women, but “At the end of the day, men were not looking for a real-life woman, but a professional entertainer.”

Rika is a dynamic character. She learns to cook, wrestles to be comfortable in her new body, navigates society’s patriarchal views of women’s roles and bodies, and in the end discovers how she wants to live. It’s patently obvious that one central theme is that one should accept oneself as one is, not as society dictates. Another theme is that there are different ways of living and one must find the way that best fits: “what’s so wrong about choosing whichever path seems more appealing to you? What’s so wrong about coating barren, flavourless reality in oodles of melted butter and seasoning it with condiments and spices?’’

These themes are not developed subtly. Topics like gender expectations and beauty standards are discussed by the characters in a very straightforward manner. Actually some of the dialogue feels didactic rather than realistic as if the author was worried her theme was not developed with sufficient clarity. In fact, much of the novel feels inauthentic. Behaviour feels contrived to develop theme. Rika’s weight gain is meant to challenge societal pressures regarding feminine appearance and her friend Reiko’s behaviour is meant to challenge societal expectations regarding relationships.

I found characters behave inconsistently. Rika is supposedly intelligent as evidenced by her success at her job, but her behaviour suggests the opposite. It is obvious from the beginning that Kajii is narcissistic, cruel, and conniving, yet Rika doesn’t see how she is being manipulated. Her friend Reiko’s behaviour also seems idiotic for someone who is supposed to be intelligent. Her decision to play detective to help her friend seems extreme to say the least.

There are extensive luscious descriptions of food: “the pale-yellow solid gently began to change colour, spreading out to the sides and turning golden, mingling with the fish eggs. The full, milky aroma of the butter married with the salty marine tang of the roe . . . She garnished the pasta with a scattering of shiso leaves . . . There was a rosy-cheeked frankness about the pink of the roe, and in combination with the oozing butter, it looked positively carefree. . . .Cloaked in a coating of minuscule fish eggs and butter, the spaghetti strands sprang around Rika’s tongue as if in excitement. The dish was adequately salted, but there was a relaxed, mellow quality to its taste. What a wonderful combination pollock roe and butter made.” Some of these descriptions go on and on and so overshadow the narrative.

I must admit to feeling out of my league at times. I certainly don’t know anything about the many different kinds of butter: Snow Brand, Calpis, Sado, Échiré, and Koiwai. There are many references to Japanese food like nanakusagayu and noppe and hizunumasu and toshikoshi soba and osechi and kuromame and datemaki which meant nothing to me. There are also many cultural references unfamiliar to me: otaku and hanami parties.

This is not a bad book, but I found it overly long with everything artificially contrived to serve a thematic agenda.

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