Book Club Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for In the Miso Soup:
1. Talk about Frank. What is it — initially — that disturbs Kenji about him? Did you suspect him in the beginning — or consider him a red-herring (a false lead)?
2. As the story progresses, Kenji becomes increasingly troubled by Frank and complains about him to his girl friend. Why, then, does he continue to escort Frank around Tokyo? What is about Frank that draws Kenji to him?
3. Several vignettes build tension and dread...and portray Japan's dismal sex trade. Talk about those episodes and what they reveal about Japanese culture.
4. What about some the prostitutes: the one, for instance, who claims she won't fly economy...or the one who is disappointed to learn about Hilton hotels? Do you find their snobbery comical...or offensive...or...?
5. Kenji says he comes to see the victims as "filled with sawdust and scraps of vinyl, like stuffed animals, rather than flesh and blood." What does he mean here? Why is it hard for him to view the victims as flesh and blood human beings?
6. Why does Kenji decide not to report Frank to the police? What is the significance of Frank's parting gift to Kenji — a swan feather?
7. Ryu Murakami uses his narrator, Kenji, as a window through which readers observe Japanese society. What do you see that surprises you? Are there similarities between the Japanese and Western cultures?
8. Is this novel sleazy sensationalism? Or is it social commentary? If so, on what is Murakami commenting...and does he succeed in his attempts?
9. Murakami paints a sort of dystopia in which prostitutes are truthful, our so-called "sane" society has descended into a kind of madness, and Frank becomes heroic in his resistance to its pull. Do you agree with that interpretation?
10 Kenji and Frank discuss parallels between Japan and the U.S. — that neither country has had to adapt its culture to another, for example. Do you think their assessment are accurate?
11. What was your experience reading this book — were you filled with tension and anxiety? Were you offended by the violence? Were you interested in the characters? Did the ideas strike you as insightful?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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