Even “near-perfect” societies like Japan are entrenched in sexism and deeply misogynistic behaviour towards women. Asako Yuzuki draws in the reader to Butter with the promise of a deep dive into the mind of a female serial killer and, instead, delivers a cold serving of the cultural and social conditions in Japan that enable and nurture violence against women.
Translated by Polly Barton, Butter uses (what is considered) feminine skills of cooking and family rearing to illustrate the problems of segregating chores as per gender and the larger implications of it in civil society. In this novel, the author sets out to puncture the perception of the Japanese as perfect – and almost virtuous – people whose lives are governed by a steadfast devotion to external rules and regulations and internal checks and balances. What comes forth is a picture of a society that has manipulated its cultural exports so efficiently that it has convinced the rest of the world that this is the best that humans can get.
Inspired by a true story of the Konkatsu Killer, Yuzuki’s protagonist is journalist Rika who wants to interview Manako Kajii – gourmet chef and serial killer – for what she believes will give the general public a brand-new view into the infamous woman who has stoked rumours, imaginations, and curiosity among them. However, Kajii refuses to speak to Rika. Her best friend Reiko advises her to talk to Kajii about the delicate French beef stew, boeuf bourguignon. The stomach indeed turns out to be the way to Kajii’s heart and she slowly allows herself to be questioned by Rika. What Rika did not expect was Kajii to be so utterly malicious and disdainful towards women.
A fat woman
As the two women start conversing with each other, Rika realises that Kajii’s hatred for women is a result of a difficult childhood. Often neglected by her mother and thrust into the role of a guardian for her younger sister, Kajii was a surrogate mother at a time when she was herself supposed to be a child. When the first male attention came her way, she mistook it for genuine affection and companionship. It did not feel odd to Kajii that as a school girl, she was being pursued by men old enough to be her father – she has hazy memories of the exact nature of these relationships but remembers feeling wanted for perhaps the first time in her life.
The attention that Kajii enjoyed from older (and wealthier) men baffles those who consider themselves well-adjusted to society. Most men wonder why someone as obese (she weighs 70 kg!) and ugly (fat women are automatically ugly!) as Kajii can be deserving of love. More than her tendencies to murder and her romantic partners’ perhaps sincere devotion to her, what the Japanese men simply cannot grasp is how a woman can be so neglectful of her appearance and size. When Rika discusses her assignment with the men she knows, including her boyfriend, they express a similar surprise. As far as the men are concerned, the bigger crime is not being feminine as per their standards.
Kajii and Rika’s relationship, unconventional as it is, also reveals homoerotic dimensions as the journalist eats, cooks, and shops for food that the murder suspect coaxes her into trying. Kajii leads Rika into this unfamiliar territory with the tenderness of a lover. Her brusqueness is lessened when Rika reports back that she has followed Kajii’s instructions to the letter. Though they are separated by prison walls, Kajii savours the flavours and dishes she had so loved while she was free through descriptions provided by Rika. Rika finds herself dining solo at an expensive restaurant, hunting down the perfect butter ramen that tastes best after a night of sex, and relishing Western cream cakes whose luxuriousness would put the best Japanese sponge cake to shame like Kajii had asked her to. She is only accompanied by Kajii’s memories and guidance on her otherwise solitary culinary quests. When Rika gains weight (from 49kg to 55!) because of the sudden spike in nutrition, her male colleagues do not hesitate to point it out to her. They often forget the important story she is working on and disregard the professionalism that is expected of them as they freely make comments about her changed appearance.
Women in Japan
Rika slowly leans into the “feminine” roles of hosting, cooking, and eating which she had thus far neglected to fit into her old boys’ workplace. To be taken seriously as a journalist, she had almost never cooked and had staunchly stayed away from marriage and other aspects of domestic life. Her relationship with her boyfriend is a design of convenience too – they both have their own places and she prefers to see him once every few months. Rika had also taken to accompanying male subjects for entertainment and drinks late at night just to get a story out of them. The shunning of her feminine traits proves how cut-throat the Japanese workplace can be for women. She sacrifices her “normal” life to be able to earn a living and be respected for her journalistic rigour. The unaccommodating nature of her male colleagues feels all too familiar and being ignored for her work turns out to be a routine occurrence.
On the other hand, there is Reiko, Rika’s best friend, who has given up her successful career to conceive a baby. When repeated trials do not yield results, a chasm develops between Reiko and her husband as she grows increasingly impatient and mercurial. She joins Rika on a field trip to Kajii’s hometown and the renewed closeness between the two friends convinces both women that their friendship is indispensable to their well-being. Rika reminds Reiko how good she is in her field of work and Reiko assures Rika that she is allowed to live life according to her choices without endangering her professional self. Yuzuki employs the subplot of Rika and Reiko’s friendship to point to the absolute necessity of women to have female friends who value them for who they are instead of what they bring to the table.
Along with Kajii, Yuzuki offers us insights into Rika’s childhood. A daughter of a single mother, an anomaly in many Asian societies including Japan, Rika harbours a perpetual guilt of abandoning her father. While her mother has been loving and yet abused by her father in their marriage, her divorce is a sore spot for her maternal grandfather who considers it a shame for a woman to give up on her marriage. Her mother’s struggle for independence is lonely and harsh. Rika also pulls to the surface her own unpleasant memories as a schoolgirl. She shyly recounts how adult men would ask her for her “rates” as she walked to school and how common it was for paedophiles to prey on young girls. As she conflates her experiences and those of Kajii’s she understands what might drive a woman to avenge herself, even if it meant killing those who claim to love you and risking yourself long years in prison and relentless public scrutiny.
Butter’s brilliance lies in the author’s intricately drawn cultural and social setups that point to how women are subjected to impossible beauty standards in her country – what starts as mocking comments often turns into mental and emotional harassment. The foundations of Japanese rape culture can also be traced to this. Like most societies around the world, Japan’s “progress” is also measured through how resolutely gender-based woes are ignored. Meanwhile, the mirage of the country’s development is sustained perfectly through the continual upliftment of its male population and further perfections of systems invented by the patriarchy.
Butter, Asako Yuzuki, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton, 4th Estate.
