Heaven 

by Kawakami Mieko

Translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd

(2009, translated 2021)

Europa Editions 

(Novel)

Kawakami’s ironically titled Heaven is a harrowing, nightmarish account of two fourteen-year-olds who suffer bullying at the hands of sadistic students in a Japanese high school. The narrator is a boy who is targeted because he has a lazy eye. The other victim is an all but silent girl with bad hygiene, Kojima. Before picking up this book, it is essential that the reader rid themselves of any expectation that Heaven is the equivalent of an After School Special anti-bullying lesson that will feature awkwardly choreographed fights followed by adult intercession, which will lead to inevitable acceptance for the bullied, and for the bullies, a comeupance. In Kawakami’s world, the  “bullies” are young psychopath-citizens exercising their right to annihilate the weak. They are experts in the art of inflicting pain without leaving visible scars. To even hint at what they do to these children is nauseating. There are no adults to intercede, partly because the bullies intimidate both the student body and the teachers, but mostly because the narrator, known only by his mocking nickname, “Eyes,” chooses to keep silent, just like Kojima. They each have their own motives. More often than not, their internal thoughts and their conversations make them sound more like Eastern and Western philosophers working out a rationale for their role as their society’s punching bags than as actual teens. The narrator fantasizes that he can heal Kojima; she offers to be his ally, but the two are so clearly unable to stand up for whom they have become that their unified front is a noble idea that is useless in practice. And in the end, the only balm Kojima offers to Eyes is the perverse ecstasy of the martyr. The bullies continue to act with impunity. An emergency room doctor suggests an operation might correct the boy’s lazy eye. But the boy spirals into depression and Kojima’s body, hair, and clothing continue to decay. Starving herself, she feels she is winning in a philosophical battle with man-children who think of her as meat to be pummelled. It is difficult to recommend Heaven; it may have more value to a philosopher than to an adolescent, educator, or casual reader.

“Thus far I had been forced to swallow pond water, toilet water, a goldfish, and scraps of vegetables from the rabbit cage, but this was my first time eating chalk. It had no smell or taste. They yelled at me to chew faster. I closed my eyes and broke the chalk apart inside my mouth, focusing on chewing, not on what it was. I heard it crunch. The broken pieces scraped the insides of my cheeks. My job was to keep my jaw moving and to swallow, so I swallowed.”