Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

I, as I’m sure many of you have as well, have heard the constant comparisons of Battle Royale to the recent big hit The Hunger Games. This interested me I am very much a person who is interested in ‘originals’, as in I’m very determined to read a book before I watch the film adaption, I just like to see how the two measure up.  So when I hear people say that The Hunger Games is almost exactly the same as Battle Royale my interest in both heightened.

Battle Royale is translated from Japanese and focuses on a class of 15 year old Japanese students whose class is randomly selected for ‘The Program’. Japan, in this timeline, is ruled by the Republic of Greater East Asia. A lot of emphasis is put on the tyrant rule over Japan and the mistreatment of the people throughout the book.

The book starts with the class on a bus going on a school trip, with brief introductions to most of the members of the class with various cliques and friendship groups being established as well as individual student’s talents being described. The bus is the gasses making all the students unconscious.

The students reawaken in a classroom which is described as very similar to their own. They wake up to be introduced to ‘The Program’ by the organiser Sakamochi who informs them that their class has been selected to take part in the ‘The Program’ and that they must kill each other until one is left. Two students interrupt Sakamochi’s briefing and are mercilessly killed.

The students are systematically sent out with a day pack, containing a weapon, a map, list of students, a compass and food and water. There are various rules which are in place throughout ‘The Program’, someone must be killed within twenty four hours or the collars which were places around their necks will detonate and kill them all, every six hours Sakamochi will make an announcement informing the remaining students on which students have died. During these announcements Sakamochi will also declare certain areas of the island they’re on as forbidden zones which are not allowed to be entered or the student’s collar will detonate.

That’s pretty much the plot and the majority of the story shows the various killings of the forty two students. We mainly follow our main character, Shuya Nanahara throughout ‘The Program’, engaging with his thoughts and feelings on the situation he and his classmates have found themselves in.

Shuya is a very likeable character; he has been described as very talented at sports and is somewhat of a rebel by listening to rock music and playing the electric guitar. He believes that his classmates will refuse to play the game and stick together; it becomes obvious that he is wrong. Some of the students begin to play the game and kill their classmates. This makes it all the more upsetting when he does kill someone.

A lot of the students also stick together in their various friendship groups, however many of them end up on their own, paranoia and suspicions rising as time goes on. As the book continues, it becomes clear that there are a few students who are dominant in the game, emotionless Kazuo, deceptively beautiful Mitsuko, technology genius Shinji, mysterious Shogo and of course our protagonist Shuya. These characters are followed closely throughout the novel.

There is a heavy emphasis on talent within the characters. Along with the rest of Japanese culture, there is a greater respect for the children who are talented at sport or music. There is also a lot of talk amongst the students on relationships and that just fancying a person is a massive issue and consumes a lot of the student’s thoughts, very much true to a 15 year old’s thoughts. These two aspects bring in some background for the characters and make us feel more attached to them, making the situation they’re in painful and upsetting for the reader.

The style of writing in this novel is very interesting, as it doesn’t follow one character the entire way through. A majority of the chapters do follow Shuya however some other chapters do focus on lesser known characters who may just get killed off in that chapter alone. I think that this makes the reader realise how much danger Shuya and the others are in as sometimes the killings of these other characters take place very close to Shuya’s current location. Also, even though the thoughts and feelings of the characters are told, the majority of the story telling is told as though it’s fact which brings in a sense of realism to the story.

The book helpfully comes with a map and list of students and their respective numbers. I often used this to reference which zones were forbidden when they were announced or to see where the characters said they were heading, just as the characters themselves were doing.  Also at the end of each chapter, in bold, it states how many students are remaining. This makes it easier for the reader to see how many people have died and in what sort of time frame.

The map on the inside cover of the novel

Overall, this book was fantastic. It has been described as a cult classic and I must agree, it may not be to everyone’s taste, but then what is? I’d say definitely give it a go and see what you think, it may be a bit tricky to get into at first due to the style of writing and minor translation issues but once you’re a few chapters or so in, it really is an addictive story.  As for it's similarities with The Hunger Games I'm not too sure if it's the same as everyone keeps saying, I'll have to let you know once I've read it (which will be soon, hopefully).

Carrie by Stephen King

This was Stephen King’s first published novel, which was only written because his wife convinced him to. I have always been curious about Stephen King as he is a well known author but I had never read any of his books as I assumed that they wouldn’t be to my taste. However I read the blurb to Carrie I was intrigued. Well it wasn’t so much the blurb, more the small line at the top which reads: “Carrie White has a gift – the gift of telekinesis”. Now, as a psychology student, the idea of the super natural and aspects such as telepathy and telekinesis (two totally different things by the way) have always interested me, so I couldn’t really not read this could I?

As mentioned before, Carrie is about a teenage girl, called Carrie, who has the power of telekinesis (the ability to move objects with the power of the mind). The story starts with Carrie finishing a sports lesson and showering shyly with the other girls. It is quickly established that Carrie is a misfit of the school and doesn’t have many friends. During this after gym showering scene, Carrie starts her first period which at the age of sixteen is almost extraordinarily late, what’s even more extraordinary is that Carrie had no notion of what a period was or why she was bleeding, convincing herself that she was “bleeding to death”. The other girls start shouting at her, calling her names and throwing sanitary towels and tampons at her. She is later rescued by a teacher and is sent home for the rest of the day.

We then are introduced to Carrie’s mother Margaret White, who is a religious nut that seems to be out-casted by the rest of society and has held her daughter prisoner to her own extremist views. Upon learning that her daughter has had her first period she is a bit more than displeased, beats Carrie to the floor and forces her to pray to rid her of her sin. As the story goes on we see how cruel Margaret is and what a poor standard of life Carrie seems to have.

Until fellow classmate Sue Snell intervenes through her guilt of taking part in the bullying of Carrie in the shower. Sue is dating Tommy Ross, a stereotypical high school jock during the period of the novel. Sue expresses her guilt to Tommy who attempts to sympathise. After much thought, Sue persuades Tommy to ask Carrie to the high school prom instead of her.

The novel is what is called and epistolary (a story comprised of newspaper clippings, book extracts and the like) which is one of my favourite writing methods. The various excerpts add a lot to the story as they build up tension and suspense encouraging the reader to become curious as to what happens. The extracts start off by talking about Carrie’s life in a case study manner, talking about what research has been done and questions they still have left to answer. They gradually hint towards some catastrophic disaster that occurred which results in them unable to get answers from Carrie and suggests that many characters have died.

Carrie’s knowledge of her power comes rather slowly to begin with, then once she realises it, she starts training herself by making small objects hover in the air. She sees this as her form of rebellion against her mother’s ways, something which most teenagers may have gone through at some point.  

We sympathise with Carrie a lot, we can understand why she is the way she is due to her mother’s strict rulings and feel almost no sympathy for Margaret when Carrie turns against her in rage. However despite Carrie’s harsh and sheltered upbringing we can tell that she still loves her mother and feels apologetic for turning on her. This aspect of the novel reminds me of another novel which I read during my A Levels called Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson which, again, focuses on a young girl bought up by an extremely religous mother.

During the climax and aftermath of the terrible events which happen to the town, Carrie is blamed for the incidents, when in fact the readers know that the initiation of the events aren’t really her fault, more just coincidence which she takes advantage in a rage from being bullied and made fun of all of her school career.  In this rage Carrie uses her powers to create destruction and disaster in the town, resulting in many deaths.

The ending of the novel, shows a series of court cases with the authorities attempting to get to the bottom of what had caused the devastation of the town, with no real result. Extracts from various books and investigations throughout the novel reveal that Carrie’s power may be the results of a gene in her, stemming from a long line of recessive and carrier genes in Carrie’s ancestry. The addition of this and the other extracts in the novel, add a sense of realism to the story making the scenes in the climax of the story even more hard hitting.

From the 1976 movie adaption

Needless to say, Carrie is an excellent novel and I would recommend it to anyone. It’s so immersive I read the entire thing (242 pages) in one night, without many breaks. It really is a classic of modern literature and almost a necessity for everyone to read. There has been a movie adaption of the novel which also has high acclaim but I am yet to watch but I look forward to doing so. If you do get a chance to read Carrie go for it, it won’t take you very long to get through as it’s so compelling with Stephen King's fabulous writing narrative. I look forward to reading many more of his books in the future.