![]() This is where, clearly, the author starts to run out of ideas and inserts some episodes which shock to the point of being completely preposterous. The second half of Fear and Trembling feels amateurish and unfocused. The relationship between the two women reminds of the relationship between Pannonique and Zdena in Sulphuric Acid. This is a writer who is more interested in psychological situations that she creates, rather than in descriptions, and we soon learn of the full extent of the exploitation that the main character is subjected to…Only, at first, the heroine does not care – she is more interested in Fubuki, her new enigmatic female supervisor: “ I still didn’t quite know what my job was I didn’t care”. We are soon transported to Nothomb’s universe of the absurd and disbelief. Nothomb wastes no time in exaggerating the experience that every intern knows, ridiculing the company’s rigid hierarchy and the impersonal structure based on respect, hard-work, duty and self-sacrifice: “ Yumimoto’s employees…were of value only in relation to the other employees” “ Mister Haneda was senior to Mister Omochi, who was senior to Mister Saito, who was senior to Miss Mori, who was senior to me. The main character begins her trainee experience at “ one of the largest corporations in the Japanese business universe” and that means serving coffee, endless photocopying tasks, sleepless nights and complete subordination. ![]() Thus, with Fear and Trembling, what starts as an intriguing and delicate satire soon turns into something bewildering, unfocused and ignorant, a strange, barely-hidden polemic on traditional female roles and Japan with some very needless and overly-shocking episodes.įear and Trembling starts as a low-key, perceptive satire on corporate culture. While Nothomb’s deadpan satire on corporate culture works at the start of the book, her attempt to shockingly satirise the Japanese culture and the difficulty of the westerner to integrate into it is completely misguided. In this story, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter, a young Belgian woman starts working for a prestigious Japanese company Yumimoto and soon finds herself overwhelmed: she is delegated meaningless, absurd and increasingly demeaning tasks, while her relationship with her immediate supervisor Fubuki Mori undergoes drastic changes – from deep admiration to extreme hate. Belgian author Amélie Nothomb ( Sulphuric Acid) is known for her short, thought-provoking books that often shock, but Fear and Trembling misses the mark.
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