Heaven

Mieko Kawakami’s budding cult classic “Heaven”, is an interesting one for sure. It treads the unusually tricky line between a novel aimed at adolescents, and adults - and at times I felt way too old to be reading it, and juxtaposingly that I can't imagine anyone younger than me doing so.
Kawakami doesn’t really do anything special with this novel. It isn’t unique to the genre, nor is it particularly stand-outish with its prose or tone. But it was fun nonetheless. I’d describe “Heaven” as a lunch break book, you don't want to dedicate too much brainpower to the novel, but the distraction is welcome with open arms, and very fun at times.

One quite distinctive thing I noticed while reading was that you can tell very, very obviously Kawakami wrote this novel with three specific segments in mind, and built the rest of the novel around those excerpts. It’s not that the writing around them is bad at all, because it absolutely isn’t - Kawakami does an exceptional job at romanticizing the mundane (very Wordsworth-esque) - but it’s starkly obvious when he’s hit a stride in his writing, or a segment he’s been excited to put to pen, as the novel rises quite far in quality, and then slowly ebbs back to the level it was at beforehand. Off the top of my head, our main character and Kojima’s excursion to “heaven” (the place, not the novel), our main characters' philosophical conversation with Momose on the nature of bullying, and our main characters first time viewing the world with both eyes.

Conceptually, the novel is relatively rich in its portrayal of the philosophical differences formed during puberty and how that manifests within conflict, and adolescent minds. And this is seeded within the novel pretty expertly, to the point it almost comes across as very realistic.

Comparatively, Steven Chobsky’s “Perks of Being a Wallflower” seemed a pretty natural match-pair, due to its coming of age nature, and its relatively morbid subject matter. Perks is both a film and a novel, but they’re relatively identical in nature, and I’m partial to the film considering its soundtrack and cast list - so match-pair wise I'll be comparing “Heaven” to the film.

Perks is (in my eyes) a perfect coming of age movie, and Charlie and Eyes (“Heaven"'s main character) both exist as the same archetype of lead - sensitive, withdrawn, introspective, and most importantly, vulnerable. They exist within their worlds as lenses through which to view the ways we regard innocence and vulnerability, and therefore the way the author regards both traits.

Steven Chobsky’s “Perks of Being a Wallflower” in my eyes, is a slightly more complex depiction of the juxtaposing themes. Whereas “Heaven” focuses on Eyes' perception of the world as an outside party, acting as the metaphorical “straight man” to its philosophical starkness - Charlie in Perks is interesting within his context, as he not only acts as a lens for the world, the world acts as a lens through him. He develops throughout the story as reflection of the society and people around him, up and through on to the story's ending - whereas both Charlie and Eyes develop their own paralleling philosophies through which they regard the world, therefore gaining independence (and “coming of age”).

Mieko Kawakami’s “Heaven” is an exceptional story - and perfectly executed mind you, I fear the flaws I’ve found within the story are more likely within habits as a reader. Simplicity isn't something I crave, at least not as much as complexity, and so my opinion is slightly biased in nature. Perks however, I read (and watched) at a time in my life where I was pretty happy with simpler stories. So potentially I’ve got some nostalgia bias? Either way, I had a good time!