Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki
Review by Jess Moody
(Translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton, Sam Bett, David Boyd, Daniel Joseph, Aiko Masubuchi, and Helen O’Horan)
‘Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things...No firm beliefs, no hang-ups...Nothing’s important. Because I won’t let it be. I operate on mood alone. No regrets, no looking back.’
The words of Japan’s ‘countercultural icon’ Izumi Suzuki are finally available in English, with this collection of seven stories for those who like their speculative fiction full of punk, punch, and feminist shruggings.
First, the confession. I was completely unaware of Suzuki – actor and writer – or her influence from the 1960s to her untimely death in the mid-80s. Such is the loss of women and non-binary folks’ writing in translation, and the continued dominance of men in the historical SF cannon. But then, I also never got off my proverbial arse to learn Japanese.
Suzuki’s women really struggle with motivation too. The opening story, ‘Women and Women’, introduces a world where men have all but died out – secured in special zoo-like units. Yet here, teen girls dream of being ‘kept women’, taken care of by their celebrity girl-crushes, and rebellion seems so much effort and afterthought. In ‘Forgotten’, faced with complications in her inter-species relationship, a woman turns to drugs and eavesdropping rather than have an honest conversation with her partner. The title story explores a world of TV obsession, where young people have pretty much given up bothering with something as strenuous as sex.
Suzuki curates a deeply embedded, deeply embodied, culture of ennui. Her mostly first-person narrators are preoccupied with sleeping in, avoiding reality, taking long cigarette-drags, and seeking technological or narcotic escapes. Traditional gender roles plod on as job hunts stall. Friendships between women are often superficial, half-listening. Families play-act reality, and murder is but a mild distraction. Meaning is for chumps.
Or is it?
Colonisation and capitalism; sexism and reproductive autonomy; addiction, population control and ecological disaster; violence and censorship: these core concerns and radical rebellions of the twentieth century are all here. And explored in the way only SF can: at once face on, mirror-imaged, and sidled up to, but always with a new lens for revelation. It’s just that Suzuki has no time for earnestness. Or rather, her women protaganists aren’t sure that earnestness – that feeling feelings – is for them:
‘That kind of sentimental bullshit always kills my buzz.’
Izuki prompts us to ask: is being aloof its own kind of resistance? Is failure to engage a route to salvation, or, in fact, a dangerous, damaging ignorance? What power have women been permitted to engage in shaping their global (intergalactic even) destinies, anyway? Most of these characters can’t even stock enough orange for their vodka, and get bored of having their best friends’ consciousness living in their dreams – they lack firm ground to make any kind of stand.
‘My mind’s a total blank. I leave countless shells – sloughed-off selves – in my wake.’
There are few answers here, and a dearth of happy endings. Death, disappearance, and disappointment abound. But there are green men, queer longings, gendered ambivalence, and plenty of strained mother-daughter relationships (one involving a talking Chair) to distract and disarm. There’s also a rich sprinkling of pop culture references – Rolling Stones and Blade Runner, Bellini and American Graffiti, Manga and mini-skirts – to anchor these future visions in a mid 20th century mind.
Yet the only certainty Izumi really allows here, is the uncertainty of women’s place in Time itself. Time – its passing, its tricks, its repetitions, the fierce frustration of just filling it, let alone controlling it – flows through every story, binding them together in a curious past-vision of a near-future.
One vision, many interpretations, of course. A team of translators for a single writer’s collection could be a gamble: yet the slight variations in dialect, slang and style (hat tip to Aiko Masubuchi for the phrasing ‘emotionally stingy’) only add to the surreal and eclectic worlds unfolding on the page. Suzuki’s quick wit, dry humour, and knowing reams of sharp pacy dialogue are all served well.
‘ “But haven’t you ever thought about…our dignity as human beings?”
“Nope, not once…” ’
This is a spiky, timeless, and timely collection of psychologically astute speculative fiction. Like an intoxicated night out (remember those?) you’ll be swayed by the carefree amusements, surprised with the twists and turns, and left with a hangover of gnawing disquiet. And you won’t – ever – be bored.
Terminal Boredom is published by Verso, 20th April 2021