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sebseb's review
4.0
suffers from uneven plotting and clumsy sentences (no doubt the translation being the culprit here),
but the already compelling story of Seitō/Itō is made fiery and thrilling with a Tolstoyan rendering of characters whose strengths and weaknesses blur realistically together as sides of the same personality traits. Setouchi is brilliant at presenting people to us through the biassed perspectives of the characters around them, and this novel might be all the more wonderful if those character zones had been less haphazard and more carefully chosen. for example, that so much of the story is told from the point of view of Itō's first husband Tsuji Jun (a man who, in Ōsugi's words, i found to be "mild and mediocre") and so little is told from the point of view of Itō's love-tortured rival Kamichika Ichiko (an intellectual and feminist whose perspective abruptly comes to dominate the last part of the novel) seems almost criminal. at the risk of making things more formal and undermining the "disarray" of the title, i think this could have benefitted from being done in three main sections: Tsuji Jun, Hiratsuka Raicho, and Kamichika Ichiko. also, while on that "disarray", i personally would have liked much more quotations from Seitō to hear the women's actual voices and arguments, whereas i felt the novel was more weighted towards scandal and drama, which all was very fun to read but also kind of gave the impression that at the end of the day maybe these pioneering feminists were in fact as the negative press portrayed them: just a bunch of privileged, brash, and overly passionate women whose dependence on male love and economic support contradicted their outspoken cries for emancipation and a new role for women in society. there is plenty in the novel that counters that reading, but not enough for this reader. still, i am so happy to have read this and to have felt a connection to these real-life heroes and the world they moved in.
but the already compelling story of Seitō/Itō is made fiery and thrilling with a Tolstoyan rendering of characters whose strengths and weaknesses blur realistically together as sides of the same personality traits. Setouchi is brilliant at presenting people to us through the biassed perspectives of the characters around them, and this novel might be all the more wonderful if those character zones had been less haphazard and more carefully chosen. for example, that so much of the story is told from the point of view of Itō's first husband Tsuji Jun (a man who, in Ōsugi's words, i found to be "mild and mediocre") and so little is told from the point of view of Itō's love-tortured rival Kamichika Ichiko (an intellectual and feminist whose perspective abruptly comes to dominate the last part of the novel) seems almost criminal. at the risk of making things more formal and undermining the "disarray" of the title, i think this could have benefitted from being done in three main sections: Tsuji Jun, Hiratsuka Raicho, and Kamichika Ichiko. also, while on that "disarray", i personally would have liked much more quotations from Seitō to hear the women's actual voices and arguments, whereas i felt the novel was more weighted towards scandal and drama, which all was very fun to read but also kind of gave the impression that at the end of the day maybe these pioneering feminists were in fact as the negative press portrayed them: just a bunch of privileged, brash, and overly passionate women whose dependence on male love and economic support contradicted their outspoken cries for emancipation and a new role for women in society. there is plenty in the novel that counters that reading, but not enough for this reader. still, i am so happy to have read this and to have felt a connection to these real-life heroes and the world they moved in.
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