The Luscious and Buttery Read!

 

 

The 2024 Butter  written by a Japanese writer Asako Yuzuki, translated into English by Polly Barton, is a crime narrative revealing how the society determines “what women can desire for?”

    The Book, like the actual Butter, on consumption - slowly melts filling the whole of the self. It is unputdownable and offers an individually distinct experience to its readers.  

    Based on the real-life Japanese incident concerning “Konkatsu Killer,” the book delves into the psychological triggers and emotional rationale behind the convicted killer of three elderly men and the determined journalist aiming for an exclusive interview from the convict.

    The case has spurred lot of curiosity from the  people in Japan, because Kaji, the convict is not beautiful but obese, there is no evident attractive quality about her. This makes people wonder what did the men/victims actually see in her as they mysteriously disappeared after she abandons each of them.

    Rika Machida – the seemingly successful individual, suppressing herself to fit into the societal terms becomes obsessed with Manako Kaji, the convicted killer at the Tokyo Detention centre. Kaji - the overweight, sensuous, intelligent, unapologetic- employs cooking as the language of seduction and enthrals all her acquittances by manipulation through care. By resisting patriarchal narratives, the more Rika tries to rationalise Kaji as a person, the more unknowable she becomes. The tension between the convict and the journalist is greatly steered by the presence of a lively, complex friend of the journalist called Reiko who determines to free Rika from the clutches of Kaji.

     Kaji introduces her exquisite preference of butter, lusciously cooked meals, highly curated choices of ingredients and restaurants to Rika. That way the readers are all enabled with new appetite for profoundness and luxuriously cooked delicacies. With Kaji’s inputs, Rika’s identity is destabilized and her horizons are expanded. She realises the need to experience life and not to just manage or fix life with the limited options. Kaji exploits Rika with her complex shades of exploitative narcissistic mentality shuffling between the victim/manipulator, mother/predator extremes. Eventually Rika emancipates herself and  navigates her way forward in peace.

The book doesn’t directly offer answers or explanation to why Kaji did what she had to. But the book eggs the readers to have an insatiable appetite for life by reclaiming the forbidden desires.

The following aspects from the book has significantly been impressive:

1.    The Cruelty of Celebrating Minimized Appetite.

    The society starves women physically, emotionally and sexually.

2.    Treating Food as a Source of Intimacy.

   Food offers an incredible experience that shapes consciousness.

3.    The Impossible Beauty Standards.

   The need for women to be thin, domestically responsible and professionally successful always.

4.    The Fear that Self-Sufficient Women induce.

    Why female pleasure is threatening and belittled? -is it because the women who are self-sufficient in pleasure are harder to be controlled?

5.    Loneliness as a byproduct of the Fragmented Society.

    By hoping to be productive and putting on maximum efforts in all the tasks, people are craving warmth.

6.    Moral ambiguity.

   Can women or humans in general merely fit into the narratives constructed by the society. Is Kaji a rebel or a murderer?

 

This book fiercely points out the skewed and exhaustive expectations of the society from modern women, in today’s scenario. The men in the book are forward thinking and highly rationale.

 

    In a rich, excessive tone the book criticizes culture and confronts the patriarchal determiners for women.  The book firmly assures that repression of desire (physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual) results in alienation and violence. Butter sincerely urges each one of us to reclaim the hunger and experience pleasure that is necessary for authentic living.

 

A FEW EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK

“In principle, all women should give themselves permission to demand good treatment, but the world made doing so profoundly difficult”

 

“Why is it that with nobody to watch over them, men can’t stop themselves from falling into disrepair? And that disrepair is then looked upon kindly and excused by the world, seen not as a failure of personal responsibility but something poignant and tragic.”

 

“Men are inept creatures. They can't build a life for themselves without the support and kindness of a woman.”

 

“One day, out of the blue, they just became too much. The faces of people who thought nothing of making endless demands, of being constantly given things. The way they sat at the table simply waiting to be served, not lifting a finger. Their certainty that they would be taken care of, without even having to try. I began, in an instant, to hate them. I couldn't be bothered to buy seasonal ingredients, prepare them, cook, choose the plates, serve up the food, then clear away the dishes and wash up for people like that. When I stopped being in touch, when I stopped doing the housework and the cooking, they panicked. Some of them became hyper-suspicious and their behavior took on a stalkerish air. Some of them, after returning to life alone, began neglecting themselves, and suffered physically as a result. Like babies, all of them, whose mother had ceased looking after them. It's odd, isn't it? Once I had found their incompetence, their reliance on me adorable. I believed, up until that point, that I liked pleasing them. Yet I suddenly saw that it was always just me, working away frenziedly, all alone."