Sayonara, Gangsters

by Genichiro Takahashi

If you've ever despaired of expressing yourself, you'll read Sayonara, Gangsters and understand. Set in a facetious near-future that is both mind-bendingly bizarre and achingly familiar. Sayonara, Gangsters is an inventive novel about language, expression and the creative process that unfolds through hilarious sketches. The peaceful if bizarre life of a poetry teacher is forever transformed by a group of terrorists called "the gangsters" in what is,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932234055
• ISBN13: 9781932234053
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Vertical
• Length: 311 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.1"
• Age Range: 16 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 11 and higher

Customer Reviews

A Literary Super Virtuoso's Mind-Bending Postmodern Extravaganza

Yes, it is difficult to describe just 'what' this book actually is. I'm still not sure, having read it and re-read it gleefully, often accompanied with tons of caffeine, 8 times now (as of last week). I often describe the talent of Takahashi, one of the most brilliant writers in Japan today- when asked by friends what he's all about- with, "Imagine William S. Burroughs' style, but with 100 times more talent than Burroughs himself ever possessed." This book is not for the weak of imagination, nor for those who find there to be nothing new in Postmodernism, nor also is it for those who expect a work of art to be 'about' something or to 'mean' something (What is the meaning of meaning? Heidegger challenges us to answer). I must say strongly that if you greatly like the recent works of Haruki Murakami (which I more or less despise), than you will not like Takahashi's writing. Similarly, if you thought Joyce and Burroughs were meaningless, you likewise will probably think the same of Takahashi. Though I will say that his first novel, "Over the Rainbow" is even more over the top brilliant and manic than this one...I can only say that anything by Takahashi is like a trip into the wild blue yonder, you don't know what you're getting into until you're already too far gone into his bizarre dreamscape to realize that somethin' strange is goin' down...

Wild! A Japan you've never seen/never will see

College dropout, former student activist, veteran of the Japanese penal experience (one year in prison for aforementioned activism), one-time porn director, and poet, Genichiro Takahashi is the enfant terrible of Japanese letters. His Sayonara Gangsters is a wild, hysterical, and tender tale that almost defies description. The "action" takes place somewhere and sometime in the future in which people have no names. For lovers this presents a problem: what to call one another. The two main characters of Sayonara Gangsters decide upon Nakajima Miyuki Song Book for the woman, and Sayonara, Gangsters for the man and narrator, who is a teacher at a poetry school. Their milk-and-vodka loving cat is named Henry IV. The first part of the novel is about Sayonara, Gangsters's former lover and their daughter, who is called both Caraway and Green Pinky. At a point in which the novel appears to be settling into something a reader might vaguely recognize as "normal" - couple have child, are happy, begin to build a life - they receive a postcard from City Hall informing them of the impending death of their daughter. Sayonara, Gangster then describes his daughter's trip to the approved cemetery and burial therein - while Green Pinky talks to him throughout. In the second section, Sayonara, Gangster talks about his "job" at the poetry school, admitting that he has essentially no idea what he is doing. That, moreover, if there were some secret to writing poems - what the students expect to be taught - he wouldn't tell anyone but would rather write poems and become a Nobel laureate. The final part of the novel revolves around three yakuza who enroll in the poetry school - and then are shot and killed by the police. As weird as it sounds, the scene is simultaneously funny and stunning and vivid. As is the entire work. Michael Emmerich's translation is lively and captures the maniacal and protean talents of Sayonara, Gangsters author Genichiro Takahashi. This book cannot be recommended highly enough. Read it!

a definite must read

i read this book last weekend, in one sitting. once you start, you won't want to put it down. and once you do put it down, it will stay with you for a long time, different parts echoing in your head. it's an incredibly funny book, but funny with pathos, threaded with an immense sadness. it's also incredibly timely, and very politically oriented in a wacky, all-over-the-place kind of a way. as jonathan safran foer says in his blurb on the back, it's a book that can't really be described. you just have to read it. i promise you won't regret it.

WOW!

I have never read anything like this book, and I doubt I'll ever have a chance to read anything like it again---at least not until I go back and reread it. And I know I will. Many, many times.Certain sections and scenes, especially in the second part, and the quirky/sad/hilarious/devastating language in which this book is written keep echoing through my head, so that I actually feel like carrying this book around with me to take out for a moment on the subway or in the elevator on my way up to the office. I want to have it on hand when I need it.This is the kind of book I NEEDED right now. The whole thing with the "gangsters" and the speech by the President of the United States at the beginning and the feeling of despair at being unable to make things happen resonate with what we are going through right now in the US in a way that is absolutely eery and astonishing, considering that the book was first published in Japan in 1982.I heard Takahashi read in March. I went on a whim because I saw the event listed in The Village Voice. And even though I couldn't understand his Japanese and had no idea WHAT he was saying until the translator, Michael Emmerich, read his English version (which is incredible!), I still GOT something out of the Japanese-language part of the program. I got the sense that THIS GUY IS THE REAL THING. His voice was tingling with energy. I don't know why it took so long for this book to be translated (maybe the right translator just never came along until now? I certainly have never read any translation like this), but I know that I want to read more. Right now this book is the only one available; fortunately, it's the sort of "novel" that will be completely new next time. If you still haven't had the fantastic, heart-wrenching, hilarious experience of reading it, order it. Right now. I promise you, it's just what you need.If you were a friend of mine, I'd give you a copy of Sayonara, Gangsters. That's how good this book is.

amazing

a collection of absurdist sketches and/or short meditations with almost no plot, few characters save the narrator, and endless references to milestones in literary history shouldn't really amount to an amazing novel. and yet genichiro does it, and effortlessly (aided no doubt by the excellent translation by michael emmerich; i am familiar with some of the original and translating this book is no easy feat). a super fast and intensely thought provoking read, crystal clear in its reserved ambiguity.just read it.