Coin Locker Babies is about two boys, Kiku and Hashi. Boys who, by some tragic twist of fate, came to share very similar fates. They were both left, abandoned, in coin lockers by their respective mothers. They survived somehow, and were brought up in an orphanage, and later were adopted together by their foster parents. Friends as well as brothers, insanely protective of one another, these two boys grew up in a small island in Japan, seemingly normally, and yet forever haunted by their shared past of being abandoned in coin lockers. The book about these teenagers isn't really one of growing up... more like, growing up weird. While Kiku is a lone wolf, but well liked by his peers, Hashi is seemingly more socially adaptable, while hiding a bottomless well of darkness inside. They are both twisted in their own ways, lost in their own worlds, but also connected by their abandonment in coin lockers. Strong Kiku is vehemently protective of weak Hashi, to the point that he wouldn't even mind killing if necessary. But deep down this protectiveness is also a way to save himself from falling into a darkness that Kiku knows is buried deep within himself. Living for Hashi is what drives Kiku, keeps him sane. It is the same darkness that both boys share, but Kiku had found a way to keep the darkness within him dormant by sheer force, physical labor in the form of pole vaulting, and by becoming the protector of weak Hashi. Hashi on the other hand has no way to channel his rage, his fear. He is like a boiling pot of insanity ready to spill any moment without notice.
These two boys, in their search for some meaning in their lives, set out in different directions. Kiku, trying to find some form of solace in his girlfriend, and Hashi, in music, and his wife. But for these two coin locker babies, no other human being ever held true meaning except for, probably, each other. Two such feeble boys, eventually, are bound to screw up. The entire time I was reading the book, I was dreading what sort of ending we will come to. And Ryu Murakami lived up to my expectations. It was not a happy book. It was depressing from the very start to the very end, and yet, it was one of the most beautiful stories that has ever been told.
I mentioned in the beginning that it was realistic. Some people may argue that is not so. In a sense, yes, the plot and isolated incidences in Coin Locker Babies are, at times, pretty surreal. But the people themselves, the characters, are as real as they get. There were times when I was reading and I felt like someone was constricting my wind pipes. I felt like I was being choked. The reality of the conditions of people who have nothing to live for, who live simply because they are alive, and yet, the way they fight on to cling to the miserable lives that have been granted to them, was so vivid that I felt like someone doused me in ice cold water in the middle of winter. This book made me think of people I don't necessarily think of in my day to day life. The hungry, the homeless, the prostitutes, the abandoned, the rotting dead bodies in ditches that nobody cares about. This book will stay with me for a long time to come, I can feel that in my bones.
As I mentioned, it wasn't a cheerful story. Most of it was depressing, and yet there were some beautiful moments. One such moment was a moment shared between Kiku and his foster mother. There was also a vaguely similar moment between Hashi and his foster father. I won't spoil anything of course, but the foster parents were probably two of my favorite characters in this book. Unfortunately there were no happy people in this story. What can I say, it's a book that made me want to bawl but I was so choked up that I couldn't even do that. The way Ryu Murakami introduced the foster parents was also interesting. In the beginning, they were practically absent from the story. They were there, in the background, and had me wonder who these people really were. Were they nice people? Bad people? Did they treat their disturbed, adopted boys right? Or did they cause more harm? Did they even understand these two kids who were forever scarred by their abandonment? At first I wasn't sure what to make out of the sheer absence of the adoptive parents, but the way Ryu Murakami brought them into the story, albeit late, was worth it. It was short, but so utterly bitter-sweet that I wanted to throw a pillow and scream and then shriek and howl. But like I said, I was too choked up the entire time to do any of that.
Very few stories have left such profound impression one me. I strongly recommend it to anyone who's read this review so far. One caution though, it won't be an easy ride. So, consider yourself warned. This book is disturbing from line one. It will mess with your head, make you sad, will most likely leave you with lost appetite and a minute but constant ache in your chest for a few days after finishing the book. So, yeah, it may or may not be your cup of tea. But a great book, Coin Locker Babies definitely is!
I know I said I will try not to rate a book in a previous post, but I simply have to; at least for this one.
5 out of 5.
Title: Coin Locker Babies (Buy on Amazon)
Author: Ryu Murakami (Translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder)
Publisher: Kodansha International, June 1, 1995.
Format: Hardcover, 393 pages.
Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Psychological, Japanese
Source: University of Denver Library