A compelling exploration of resilience and the pursuit of passion in the face of adversity. Shiori's determination to carve out her identity in the competitive music industry, despite her struggles and the challenges imposed by her sister, makes for a relatable and inspiring journey. The novel delves into the complexities of self-discovery, vulnerability, and the sometimes harsh realities of seeking connection in a bustling city like Tokyo. Readers who appreciate character-driven narratives with emotional depth will find themselves captivated by Shiori's story, as it highlights the universal quest for belonging and the courage it takes to follow one's dreams, no matter the odds.

I loved this story. It was well written, intriguing, and fun. You never know what is about to happen, as is often the case in the Japanese fiction I've read, and I love the mystery.

Published in Japan in 2006; published in translation by Pushkin Press on July 2, 2024

Kazushige Abe’s 2006 novel tells the story of a teenage girl who finds meaning in her brief life that she was denied when she realized she would never be a troubadour. Shiori had her heart set on being a troubadour ever since she looked up the word and decided that it described the life she wanted to live. It turned out to be a poor choice for a girl who is tone deaf and afraid to compose lyrics that don’t capture her true emotions as fully as the sounds that her audiences interpret as screeches. Maybe she's a young Yoko Ono.

The narrator learns Shiori’s story from an old man in a park. The narrator returns repeatedly until the old man brings the story to a resolution.

Shiori was tormented by her older sister’s brutal honesty. Her sister recognized that Shiori’s first boyfriend was only with her because she paid for his CDs when they went shopping.

Shiori shopped for cat food at a pet store. She became captivated by the parakeets. The birds seemed to be upset by her singing, although Shiori thought they were encouraging her. Shiori blames herself when things do not go well for Japanese birds.

Shiori makes no friends at music school (she refuses to sing or to compose lyrics) so she begins to correspond with random pen pals. One is a Peruvian drummer who invites her to hear his band. The other band members quickly realize that they can take advantage of Shiori’s generous and gullible nature. The Peruvian takes the story in a different direction when he entrusts Shiori with a suitcase nuke — or maybe it’s just a suitcase.

Shiori is a lonely teen who has no talent for making friends. Even her family abandons her. But Shiori is true to herself. While the inclinations to which she is true might be unwise, Shiori will win hearts for standing her ground.

Mysterious Setting is odd and unpredictable, qualities that make the story a pleasure to read. Shiori is initially incapable of recognizing her faults and then is unable to stop blaming herself for them. There’s some of that in most of us, although Shiori’s tendency to take those qualities to an extreme generates the story’s dark humor.

The end of the old man’s story tests the boundaries of plausibility, but this isn’t a story the reader is meant to believe. Absurd situations fuel its humor while the dark ending makes Shiori even more likable.

RECOMMENDED

Kazushige Abe's Mysterious Setting is a story within a story. The main narrative is a story that an old man tells a group of ten year olds in a park so many times that one of them remembers it enough to recount it here. It is unclear why this story - the story of Shiori a girl who is tone deaf but wants to sing despite the fact her singing is terrible.
Mysterious Setting continues a trend of recent Japanese books which feature put upon protagoinists. Shiori is manipulated by her boyfroend and systematically abused by her younger sister (whoi claims she is only doing it for her own good). In fact Shiori invites punishment and implements punishment from her sister.. Again as with many Japanese books it is not that the subtelties are lost in the translation (which was fine), they seem tio be lost in the cultural differences between writer and reader. All of which made for a tough read.

Thank you Pushkin Press for my free ARC of Mysterious Setting by Kazushige Abe — available now!

Read this if you:
😇 ever were taken advantage of by someone else
🧩 enjoy stories that don't follow a traditional plot arc
🧳 can handle characters that drive you absolutely nuts with their decisions

Translated from Japanese by Michael Emmerich 🇯🇵

Shiori moves to Tokyo to pursue her dream of working in the music industry, despite everyone around her giving negative feedback on her voice as well as her dreams. But she's bound to get into trouble if she keeps trusting everyone she meets at face value...

This is a pretty wild ride, and it was mostly an infuriating one. I personally didn't care for Shiori's character (good lord girl, get it together!) and this made it difficult for me to get into her story. The action takes a hard right turn in the last third or so of the book, and this was jarring for me and my experience. Overall, it's a relatively short read that explores some unique themes, so it's worth your time if it sounds like it might be up your alley! Just be advised that it's a weird one 😂

⭐️⭐️⭐️

A story within a story. A book that is wild and crazy but unexpectedly sad. I'm going into this book blindly without minding much about the plot, and now that I've finished it, it feels like a fever dream.

Mysterious Settings is a tale told by the old man in the park toward our unnamed main character. It's an imaginative, engaging story about a girl who dreams of being a troubadour and loves to sing, but she's deaf tone. Her life is tragic and filled with struggles, mostly because of the people around her. Her parents want her to act more like an older sister; her younger sister is obsessed with making her cry and keeps bullying Shiori. It's not an easy read at all. Bullying happens, and there's also bad discrimination just because Shiori's unable to socialize with her classmates. Taking advantage of the weak and being naive will make her an easy target for manipulators. Shiori is lonely, naïve, and easily taken advantage of, which happens several times throughout the book. It is sad to see how she clearly struggles with social isolation and gets her hopes up when she thinks she has made new friends only to be betrayed again.

I love Abe's writing style; it contains a dark humor in capturing Shiori's situation, and I love how he gives a unique voice to his main character. While it's frustrating to see Shiori's naivety in some parts of the book, I feel like it's far more amazing how she still manages to tolerate others's behavior and think good of them. 

I completely invested in the Shiori story for at least 50% of the book, but the second to final part contains a mystery element, and the bomb was quite detached from the 'original story'. Well, surely, it's interesting how fast the plot escalated, but I'm not sure I can say I like it. The ending is super emotional and heartbreaking.

Overall, its an entertaining and bizarre read! Thank you Netgalley for ebook ARC.

this was so deeply upsetting and silly at the same time ? I loved this little book .
Thank you for the eArc .

A really engaging, quick read telling the story of a naive Japanese girl who experiences endless setbacks & heartbreaks during her life. It's told from the perspective of a boy who was told the story by a man in a local park & it's all tied together nicely at the end. I found the story easy to follow & the characters were constructed well, however the protagonist was frustrating in how naive she was & for me it made the book less enjoyable.

Hmm. I'm sure I missed several points Abe made with this tale of Shiori, a tone deaf girl whose voice could kill and her sister Nozomi. Thanks to netgalley for the AR.C. While it wasn't for me fans of literary fiction and contemporary Japanese novels might enjoy it.

I've read a few Japanese books recently, each one really different, but enjoyable in their own way. This one was no exception, but I'm really struggling to describe it or why I liked it - maybe that's part of its attraction as its so genre defying and genuinely odd!
I can only recommend people read it for themselves!
Congratulations to the translator who made complex ideas easily readable in English
Thank you to netgalley and Pushkin Press for an advance copy of this book

One of those too-rare books that manages to be absolutely absurd and deeply moving at the same time. I loved it entirely and will be recommending it unequivocally to my reader-friends.

Abe continues in his fixation on birds and this time, too, he starts a book as if he were Sayaka Murata-with all the disturbing images possible and chilling-and finishes it as if he were Haruki Murakami, complete with atomic bombs and subway dungeons. A perfect mix of what, it would seem, dominates the contemporary Japanese imagination. I can't say I liked it, but I still had to finish reading it.

Abe continua nella sua fissazione sugli uccelli e anche stavolta inizia un libro come se fosse Sayaka Murata - con tutte le immagini disturbanti possibili e agghiaccianti - e lo finisce come se fosse Haruki Murakami, con tanto di bombe atomiche e sotterranei della metropolitana. Un mix perfetto di quanto, sembrerebbe, domina nell'immaginario giapponese contemporaneo. Non posso dire che mi sia piaciuto, ma ho dovuto comunque finire di leggerlo.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

I'm afraid I truly struggled with this book. I simply didn't understand what it was trying to say. The story starts with some kids going to a park and listening to an old storyteller. The storyteller tells the tale of Shiori, who is extremely gullible. She is bullied by almost everyone she comes into contact with including her younger sister, her first boyfriend and fellow students. Her life is one long joyless struggle and the one thing she loves to do - sing - is the thing that she truly fails at because she is tone deaf.

Shiori believes herself to be a bad person who causes all kinds if catastrophes and that she needs to spend her life atoning for these imagined "sins" so when an opportunity comes to redeem herself she takes it.

It sounds simple enough but the plot is so incredibly bizarre that I'm still not clear on what I read. All the characters in it are extremely unlikeable and Shiori is difficult to like simply because she's so easy to fool over and over again - she never seems to learn despite being warned by her bullying sister.

I'm afraid I found it hard to like anything about this book and I do normally enjoy the strange qualities that seem unique to Japanese literary fiction.

Just not for me.

“Mysterious Setting” is a novel by Kazushige Abe, a pre-eminent contemporary writer from Japan1. The book is translated by Michael Emmerich1. Here’s a brief summary:

The novel is a madcap, darkly comic story about the strange fate of a tone-deaf girl named Shiori who just wants to sing12. Despite being completely tone-deaf, Shiori is determined to live a life dedicated to music12. When her dominant older sister, Nozomi, forces Shiori to accept that her wild singing provokes only revulsion, she decides to forge a career as a lyricist instead12. At eighteen, she moves to Tokyo to pursue her dream12. Isolated and struggling in this unfamiliar city, Shiori seeks connection online, where her trusting outlook leaves her vulnerable to exploitation – with potentially explosive results12.

This page-turning literary fiction from a Japanese star is perfect for fans of the wild worlds and unforgettable creations of Mieko Kawakami and Sayaka Murata

I haven't read Kazushige Abe before, and now I am definitely going to look forward to his books. This was a strange book, but I really liked it.
The way Abe builds the story and the ideas that he has executed with this book is amazing!!

In spite of initial misgivings, I ended up gripped by this absurdist and fantastical tale of a young woman who remains optimistic in spite of her miserable life. It is a tale of naivety, manipulation and bullying, of perseverance and sacrifice. Shiori, our heroine, is let down by her family and the people she puts her trust in. Her dreams are constantly dashed. If she sings she believes people and birds die. Every relationship is doomed.

Somehow her dreams never come true, partly because they are unrealistic. She fails to make friends wherever she goes. As her abusive sister Nozomi points out repeatedly, she is incapable of reading other people and is constantly being manipulated by others. This continues when she moves to Tokyo to study songwriting. She finally makes two friends online, then meets one of them in real life, where she finds herself once again being taken advantage of by his band members. After a final act of absurd and shocking betrayal two thirds through the book, both the story and Shiori grow wings. Forced to take her life into her own hands in the most extreme circumstances, she is supported once again by her other online friend Z. And as we return to the old man in the park, who we met in the first chapter, we finish as if we have listened to a Japanese fairytale.

But what did I think of it? I loved it, hated it, then it gripped me and I loved it again. It started almost as a fairytale, but turned into a nightmare. Shiori frustrated me, her tale of misery dragged on too long. I wanted her to find redemption, to make friends, to find a way to make herself fit in with others or to find her tribe. The author had something entirely different in mind and then I was scared it would turn into horror. It didn’t, thank goodness. What a rollercoaster ride of a book!

It would not surprise me in the least to find this on next year’s International Booker Prize longlist.

Disclaimer: This is my unbiased opinion after reading the book. Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for a chance to read a free digital ARC.

“…she hoped that one day, through her singing, she would dissolve completely into nature, and then she would watch over people of the world as they lived their lives in peace.”

Kazushige Abe’s novel is about Shiori’s passion for music. She wants to sing however she’s been told she is tone-deaf so she settles on becoming a lyricist instead. Her life story is told through the troubled relationships she’s had in her past that lead towards cruel treatment. Her fate was one no one would have predicted.

This was such an unusual novel. I loved how Shiori’s life story is told. She may not be in the history books however her role in history is important.

Shiori has been an outcast her entire life that lead to the unfortunate fate of being taken advantage. Part of this is why it was a heartbreaking read. She is so focused on her passions she can’t see the fact that she is being wronged.

This was at times a funny but moving story that had me hooked from the beginning.

This was a strange read, to put it mildly. You have a protagonist who was awfully determined pursue her dreams despite strong evidence that she was not suited for that career (is being a troubadour even a valid career choice in this day and age?). At the same time, she was constantly being taken advantage of by her friends and sister, and I don't know if she was written to be neurodivergent, but at some point I wondered, why didn't she fight back? Why didn't she see that Nozomi's actions were too much? Or that maybe you shouldn't keep lending people money?

Anyway, I did not really enjoy this book. My issue was that it was too repetitive, at least for the first 30% of the book. Like, yes, I understood that Shiori wanted really badly to be a troubadour. Yes, I know she was terrible at singing. Also, yes, I can see that Nozomi was horrible, annoying, and sadistic. Having to read the verbal abuse Nozomi heaped on Shiori was not pleasant to begin with, and it got tiring when it went on and on and on. The dialoges (monologues? Shiori rarely had any rebuttals or replies) were also irksome, often coming in long paragraphs from Nozomi. I was like, shut up, woman!

As I've mentioned the issue was also that Shiori rarely fought back. At most you'll get a soft protest from her. Then you'll see this cycle of abuse and exploitation continue in Tokyo, and I was just really bored by then.

It's not explicitly stated that Shiori is neurodivergent, but that's not even the point; it was just uninteresting to see her being used again and again and again. Shiori herself demonstrated no growth or any significant change. This went on for 50% the book and I just wanted the story to move on, like, is there more to this story than just watching Shiori get bullied?

Thankfully the second half of the book picked up. There was a bit about espionage and top secret government projects, and it got me wondering who was telling the truth. Can Manuel, her online friend who showed her kindness, be trusted? Or should we take the word of the bully Tsugumi?

It was interesting how all of a sudden, Shiori found herself responsible for the lives of millions of people. I personally enjoyed the way she went about deciding what to do, what her priorities were, and how she could save everyone and everything (including animals and plants!). This is where her kind and considerate personality shone, and it got me rooting for her.

There was also a funny, rather Kafka-esque sequence when Shiori tried to go to the police. I find that segment quite amusing, and it was also ostensibly the only part in the book that made me smile. The ending left me rather sad, though, although it linked up rather nicely to the beginning.

Overall, this book was an 'okay' read even though I struggled with the first half of it. If you decide to pick this up, may you have more patience than I did.

Mysterious Setting (March 2024) by Kazushige Abe and translated by Michael Emmerich is a weird one. An unnamed narrator at a park tells the story of Shiori, a tone-deaf self-declared troubadour who loves to sing but is actually terrible at it.

Despite countless discouragement and criticism, most especially from her sister Nozomi, Shiori is determined to make her musical dream come true. She moves to Tokyo to pursue songwriting instead.

She soon becomes socially alienated as she tries to navigate life in the big city. People take advantage of her naivety and social awkwardness. It's no fun, actually, I find some scenes abusive, but Shiori continues with her (overly?) optimistic outlook in life. As a reader, I'm left questioning her mental health. She annoys me but at the same time, I sympathise with her.

The story has an unexpected and dark turn of events, and the ending is full of emotions. Don't want to reveal too much because this is a considerably short book. I didn't think I would enjoy this book much, but enjoyed it, I did. Mysterious Setting is listed as 'absurdist fiction', and I totally get why. It definitely fits in the genre.

This book is just a weird read. It’s an odd story within a story,( I’m not sure the framework really worked for me, but I suppose that’s the ‘mysterious setting’). The main character Shiori is a sensitive type who likes to sing when she’s emotional except she’s tone deaf so nobody wants to listen to her sing. Her sister is beyond cruel to her and her parents indifferent. It becomes more of a wild ride once she leaves school and moves to Tokyo. Strangely readable but the point of it all? I really don’t know.