Butter – Starved by the patriarchy

#fiction #books #feminism

Warning: Contains some spoilers

There are two things Manako Kajii hates above all else: margarine and feminism. For Kajii, rich food and femininity are inextricably intertwined. But then, Manako Kajii is also a suspected serial killer, so her judgment is probably somewhat suspect. Kajii’s perspectives, motives, and possible guilt are at the heart of Butter, written by Asako Yuzuki and translated into English by Polly Barton. It is a novel about death, food and feminism, and what these can tell us about contemporary Japan.

Butter is the story of an investigation into who Manako Kajii is. Rika Machida is not a detective, but an up-and-coming reporter at a weekly men’s magazine, struggling under the typically excessive pressures traditional Japanese working life. Rika’s interest has been piqued by the trial and pending retrial of Manako Kajii for the murder of her three lovers. Kajii has become a public interest sensation, and not just because she is a murderer. To half of Japan her greater offence is a steadfast refusal to conform to prevailing beauty standards. Rika is intrigued by this woman who seemingly abjures Japan’s impossible norms for feminine appearance, and has instead embarked on a life of hedonistic pleasure. So far, Kajii has rejected all journalistic overtures for an interview, but following the advice from her best friend Reiko, Rika gets Kajii to open up to her by professing an interest in her recipes. Exposure to the transgressive Kajii is the start of a transformative journey for Rika, who has to re-examine her own relationship to food, beauty, patriarchy, and her past.

Yuzuki’s Manoko Kajii is a work of art. She is a walking tangle of defiant contradictions held together by narcissism and spite. Rika is drawn to Kajii like a moth to a flame, mesmerised by Kajii’s apparent independent spirit and her unrestrained enjoyment of good food. Kajii’s price for granting Rika continued access to her is an escalating set of demands for Rika to try various foods, starting with a simple meal of rice with soy sauce and butter. It is this simple yet indulgent dish that sets Rika on her voyage of culinary and personal discovery, sparking a process of transformation that takes the entire novel to run its course, and which gives Yuzuki the opportunity to describe various meals in bountiful and sensual detail.

Transformation is unsettling, for Rika literally so, as she is forced to place even her own apartment, relationships and way of living come under scrutiny. Her newfound appreciation for food causes a forceful collision with societal expectations, attracting overt and veiled opprobrium and uninvited comment or ‘advice’ from colleagues, friends and family on Rika’s evolving eating habits and consequent discarding of an unhealthily thin physique. Throughout her investigation into Kajii, Rika’s sense of self is profoundly destabilised, with her outlook and opinions on herself, Kajii, patriarchy and society as a whole in a constant state of flux, before settling in a new equilibrium towards the novel’s conclusion.

This sense of instability is augmented by Butter’s staccato prose and matter-of-fact style. Butter isn’t so much ‘show, don’t tell’, as ‘state, don’t tell’, giving us direct and unembellished insight into Rika’s thoughts and decisions. Yet this straightforwardness cleverly obscures the evolution of Rika’s thinking over the course of the novel. While she slowly reckons with her more distant past, with respect to current affairs Rika acts and reflects very much in the present tense, her thoughts and opinions shaped almost exclusively by the right here, right now. This does not so much indicate an absence of introspection, as an inner monologue that strongly favours the present as opposed to lengthy ruminations on the past. It contributes to the reader’s persistent feeling of being unbalanced by creating a permanent state of flux, where characters take seemingly impulsive decisions or actions. Rika’s relationship to Kajii alone veers between entrancement, repulsion, pity, defiance and submission, sometimes within the space of a few minutes. Yet at any one time, her present experience is her truth. It is left as an exercise for the reader to connect Rika’s various perspectives into a coherent trajectory.

Yuzuki’s writing style harmonises beautifully with the nature of her characters, and credit must be due to Barton for the translation. I have not read enough Japanese or East Asian literature to know whether this style is unique to Yuzuki or more traditional, but it did remind me of my experience reading Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, which employs a similarly direct and matter-of-fact prose that sharpens the contradiction between what is said, and how it is said.

Butter does not just share a style but also a feminist critique of patriarchy with The Vegetarian, though it is ultimately a more optimistic and sympathetic novel. The Vegetarian offers little in terms of redemption, either for its misogynistic men or its suffering women, with isolation and an inability to communicate key themes in the book. In Butter, the interlacing of personal growth and communal bonds are, if not a way to break down patriarchy, at least an effective shelter from its most pernicious and violent effects. In a further contrast, Butter sees the patriarchy as inflicting harm on both women and men, although these harms are experienced and expressed differently. It is not that Butter absolves men of their responsibility for perpetuating misogyny, but it is very sensitive to its complexities and contradictions. For example, while it highlights the exploitative dependence of men on women for reproductive labour, it simultaneously points out that men who cannot care for themselves out of ignorance or pride are themselves also harmed by patriarchy. Conversely, Rika observes repeatedly that it is women themselves who play an instrumental part in policing and maintaining oppressive gender norms.

If The Vegetarian was an expression of cold rage at the injustice of the patriarchy, then Butter conveys the melancholic sadness at the monstrous loss of potential for love, connection and mutual respect that it inflicts. But it is also through love, connection and respect that Butter’s characters help each other confront and overcome the different ways in which each of them has internalised patriarchal and misogynist gender norms. Each of the characters in Rika’s close circle represent both different aspects of patriarchy, different opportunities for insight and different potential relationships to her. One of the strengths of Butter is that it avoids facile romantic subplots. Instead, just as in life, there is far more potential in relationships between Rika and close kith and kin than can be realised, from the understated respect for one of her older male sources, to her at times verging on queer investment in Reiko. The novel’s ending is a celebration of this community and of compassion, of sharing not only food, but also the kindness and forgiveness that are essential for respect and growth.

By the end of Butter, we still don’t know if Manako Kajii killed her three lovers. We don’t even know who she really is. Despite contemplating the mystery of Manako Kajii for the whole novel, Rika is still not sure what to think of her. In that sense, Butter will be a disappointment to readers who were hoping for the traditional denouement of a whodunnit. Except that Butter does show us the culprit. Not a single man or woman, but a system which kills through violence, exploitation and deprivation. A killer who wants to turn all of us into its accomplices. Rika learns that to put a name to it is the first step to defeating it. So that maybe one day, we will all be free.

Notes & Suggestions

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