By Kyoicho Katayama
Publisher: VIZ Media, 208 pages
This Young Adult love story tells of the innocent love affair between two classmates: Saku and Aki.
The latter is a pretty girl, romantic and just a little shallow - predictably so for someone of her tender years. She has a good heart though and she is sensitive and thoughtful.
Saku is a friendly, wise-cracking, laid-back kendo and rock fan. When he and Aki become friends, he is blissfully unaware of his schoolmates resentment and jealousy.
It takes him awhile to realise how much he likes Aki. In fact, Saku is so clueless that he ignores every single one of Aki's hints, even the most blatant.
To her credit, Aki behaves in a dignified and graceful manner throughout. And once Saku gets his act together and starts seeing his buddy as the lovable girl she is, he too reveals himself to be a warm, generous, loyal and considerate person.
Unfortunately, Aki is diagnosed with a terminal illness and Saku has to learn to carry on by himself.
It's always good to read a Japanese novel that isn't brimming with sex and violence. That's why I enjoy Botchan and Totto-Chan so much. However, this story reminded me too much of those awful Japanese soap operas where one of the leads almost always dies.
Still, at least the writing isn't overly sentimental, and the writer's portrayal of teenagers and their feelings, behaviour and actions is accurate (yes, I remember what it was like!).
This book is a bestseller in Japan so I'm thinking it's lost something in translation.
Honestly, I can't see why it made such an impression. It's an easy and pleasant read, but it didn't really touch me or grab my attention.
Saku and Aki are two nice kids, but I don't think that they are terribly interesting or special.
I think I'd have liked it much more as a teenager though. I remember being very taken with a Japanese soap opera in which the girl, dying of leukemia (or was it congenital heart disease?), falls in love with a bloke who mistakes her for a half-sister and so, nobly, rejects her although he stupidly doesn't tell her why. All very complicated and melodramatic and tragic and sentimental, but I loved it.
Socrates in Love should be a hit with emotional teens age 13 to 16.
P.S. Full marks for the pretty cover!
wow thanks to you, i found out that this is the english translation of sekai no chuushin de ai wo sakebu[crying out love in the centre of the world]. actually didn't know that the japanese movie and drama siries were based on this book!
Posted by: yen | Thursday, January 19, 2006 at 05:52