Rouge

Rouge(1) (Japanese)
by Yu Miri

Reviewed by zlel

At first glance, Rouge looks like a love story,
but it's really more like a story of the human
heart taking the form of a love story. It tells of
how the heart can change, and how people can
change across the generations. Had you read the
first chapter, you would probably have predicted
what the ending would have been, but just as life
is full of intrigue, how one person ten years ago
can be a totally different person today, it is the
journey that counted in this book.

Okay number one, this is not a trashy romance
novel. Yu Miri is a zainichi (Japanese
born Korean) writer who probably has some
screwed up family history to tell, but some of her
award winning(2) works like Full House and Family
Cinema, revolve around the family theme. Living up
to her reputation as a family writer, she
intertwines Lisa's (the protagonist) love, work
and family life to give us a glimpse of how a girl
so full of her own ideals could have given in to
the world. Yes, this book, at least to me, is
about the journey in Lisa's inner-world.

This book opens with Lisa. A photograph shoot for
a cosmetic company's advertising campaign, a model
who didn't show up. A make-up artist who decided
to put make-up on Lisa and make her the model
in-lieu. A successful shoot, and an amazingly
professional performance on Lisa's part - add to
that, a face totally transformed when Lisa had
make-up on. Everything was staged for a model in
the making, except one thing - Lisa hated makeup.

Lisa, without all the make-up, was but little
more than a plain looking girl and a fresh
graduate from a design school. She had entered
Shiseido an aspiring designer, but the
company, after her successful photo-shoot, wanted
to make her a model. But this was all wrong for
her - what she had wanted was just an
ordinary life, being able to live just as
she wanted - not a celebrity that the whole world
knew. And there was the problem with her family -
all the public attention from being a model would
invite too many unneccessary gossip from her
folks. She hated her mum, she hated her dad. She
grew up with her grandmother, who alone could
perfectly respect her personal space.

Ah yes, her grandmother. I thought that Miri was
quite skilful describing Lisa's relationship with
her grandmother. Lisa had picked up a cat because
it looked too pitiful, but when she had brought it
home, her grandmonther insisted that it was Lisa's
cat and had her name it herself. And it was only when
Lisa decided to move out to live on her own, did
her grandmother say that one phrase that seemed to
sum it all up - "and when you go, take your cat
with you".

Forward to the last chapters of the book. I thought
this was the most amazing thing, that it is within
the space of these few chapters, that we see
Lisa's transformation - from one who had personal
issues with cosmetics into a professional model.
By this point, Lisa had met Kurogawa, a renowned
art director - who fell in love with her. She
began living with Kurogawa and his boyfriend, and
that started the chain of events that led to her
transformation. But even as one reads these
chapters, one inevitably appreciates the backdrop
that was Lisa's emotional predisposition, built up
by her family and her relationship with others
through all the events that took up the rest of
the volume - that made it look all so natural.

I would have wanted to close my review with the
book's conclusion, because I think it really
depicted how Lisa had totally accepted her role as
a professional model - but that would have been
too much of a spolier. So maybe instead, I'll
recommend that you also read the appended
explanatory note by Satoru, as it touched
on how within her book, Miri had depicted how
women have changed in their thinking - making us
call to mind how Lisa and her boss each had a
different take on what cosmetics meant to them.

All in all, this has been a surprising read. I was
looking for books that dealt with the subject of
love - I got plenty of it, and much more. Ah yes,
did I forget to mention, that although this book
was a book about a journey that took the form of a
love story, it actually did had much to say about
love? Oops, sorry for that.

---

(1) Rogue means red, or lipstick in
French.
(2) Several of Yu Miri's works have either won
or been nominated for the Akutagawa award, one of
Japan's more prestigious awards for outstading
authors.