Hombres Salmonela En El Planeta Porno (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this book is a bit weird.It's a collection of short stories, and I liked some of them. But others went beyond the realm of weird and vaulted into stupid. I also got the impression that Tsutsui has some issues with women. 'Salmonella Men..' was first published in 1979, so maybe that explains it. Or maybe there is some sort of Japanese cultural thing I don't understand. I don't know what the reason is, it just seemed like there were a lot of "She's stupid because she's a woman" moments. Pretty much all the female characters in the book were either tormentors of the men in their lives, or objects of sexual desire. There was even a story about a feminist who starts her own city, which of course goes to hell and she is basically stupid and bitchy.I liked the story about the time machine, purely because it was so ridiculous it actually made me laugh. This book is weird. There's really no other word for it. I was drawn to it because of its title, and it proved even more outlandish than I anticipated.It's a collection of short stories, all of which contain some bizarre or fantastical elements. It's very much a mixed bag. Some of the stories are great. Some are dire. Most are somewhere in between. I particularly enjoyed 'Bad for the Heart', which features a neurotic narrator whose obsession with medicine for his psychosomatic heart condition takes over his life, and 'The Last Smoker', which takes concern for health to a crazy and amusing conclusion. 'Rumours About Me', in which an ordinary office worker suddenly finds himself being reported on in the press, is also excellent.The title story falls flat, and is far too long. Sadly it's the last one in the collection, so it ended on a pretty damp note. But it's not as bad as 'The World is Tilting', which is a truly shocking slice of misogynistic trash. In fact, most of the stories I disliked - including the weak opener, 'The Dabba Dabba Tree' - contained an element of crappy gender or sex commentary. Then there were a lot of stories that were mediocre. I imagine I'll be hard-pressed to remember much of the content of this collection in a couple of months' time.The translation work here is generally pretty good. However - and this is a problem I come across a lot in translations from Japanese - the dialogue is often rather stilted. Characters use jarringly old-fashioned phrases, and talk in a noticeably strange fashion. I see this often enough in Japanese works that I don't know if it's a translation issue or a cultural one, but it can make for an awkward read. The arguments in this collection are particularly poor. But then again, Japan is a pretty crazy place, and maybe it all makes sense in the original language!
What do You think about Hombres Salmonela En El Planeta Porno (2005)?
Hay naciones tristes y alegres. Yo preferiría que mi obra se tradujera a naciones alegres.
—lacey
Gustáronme "Rumores Sobre Mí" e "El Último Fumador".
—lauuurlove234
Con altibajos, pero los relatos buenos son muy buenos.
—Shilo
