The Thief (Audible Audio Edition) Fuminori Nakamura Charlie Thurston Satoko Izumo translator Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Thief (Audible Audio Edition) Fuminori Nakamura Charlie Thurston Satoko Izumo translator Inc Blackstone Audio Books
The Thief is a seasoned pickpocket. Anonymous in his tailored suit, he weaves in and out of Tokyo crowds, stealing wallets from strangers so smoothly that sometimes he doesn't even remember the snatch. Most people are just a blur to him; nameless faces from whom he chooses his victims. He has no family, no friends, no connections....
But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when Ishikawa, his first partner, reappears in his life and offers him a job he can't refuse. It's an easy job tie up an old rich man and steal the contents of a safe. No one gets hurt.
Only the day after the job does he learn that the old man was a prominent politician, and that he was brutally killed after the robbery. And now the Thief is caught in a tangle even he might not be able to escape.
The Thief (Audible Audio Edition) Fuminori Nakamura Charlie Thurston Satoko Izumo translator Inc Blackstone Audio Books
Brief but beautifully evocative, sparse yet hugely informative, THE THIEF is another example of Japanese noir sensibility. Told in first person, Nishimura is a pickpocket who targets the rich by preference. Working his highly skilled way through the crowds of Tokyo, he's an unrepentant thief, and a fragile man. Manipulated into a much bigger crime by the gangster Kizaki, Nishimura's life might be spiralling out of control, yet he is still able to reach out to a young boy. The relationship between the man and the boy is touching and poignant as he gives advice on the best way to steal, whilst trying to find a way out of a bad home life and into some sort of future.Whilst there is action built into the plot, the main focus of THE THIEF for this reader, was the characters. Drawn with deft strokes that give you a clear view of a vulnerable young boy, his driven and desperate mother, and the crime boss Kizaki - calm, determined, vicious and dangerous.
Into every reader's life a book like THE THIEF really should creep. Precise and compact, the style of storytelling feeds the reader's imagination with sufficient detail of the place, and the atmosphere of Nishimura's Tokyo. That brevity also draws a fascinating portrait of the man himself, the matter-of-factness of observation leaving the reader to interpret the causes and outcomes of each event. Even for such a slim volume, it really should have come with a warning about reading late into the night.
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The Thief (Audible Audio Edition) Fuminori Nakamura Charlie Thurston Satoko Izumo translator Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews
Great writing and interesting story that just abruptly ends without reason. There's no resolution and the reader is left wondering why she spent hours of her life reading this story. No payoff.
Before I ordered this I read some reviews that said it was good but ended abruptly do I was prepared. It did end suddenly but we'll. I enjoyed it. It was a fast read. Maybe had it been more involved I would have been more annoyed at the quick ending but it was a well written short story. I found it exciting. I Wii order the other books by this author.
People are born to do things. Some are natural athletes and others musical geniuses. And still others are great pickpockets. I liked the way the protagonist's fingers tingled when he was about to pick a pocket.I could feel his rush.
Sadly the book get's off track when he goes beyond pickpocketing. He gets involved with this crime boss who trivializes life and death and torture. The crime boss pontificates about life, death and torture. That part of the book, the last part was anti-climatic.
But the first part of the book is so great it's worth a read.
Writer Interruptus and Other Stories
I felt the author had an excellent grasp on the psychology of this small time criminal. The pickpocket is drawn into a darker, more dangerous series of mysterious crimes that ultimately affect his life in ways he could not have predicted. Nakamura ably displayed the protagonist's amorality while at the same time showing glimpses of humanity below the dark exterior. The reader must struggle with whether to care about this main character and what happens to him, though it probably helps to recognize he is perhaps the lesser of the evils that might impose upon the unsuspecting civilian. An entertaining, short read worth the effort.
Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. In 2002, he won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize for New Writers for his first novel, A Gun, and in 2005 he won the Akutagawa prize for The Boy in the Earth. The Thief, winner of the 2010 Oe Prize, Japan's most important literary award, is his first novel to be published in English.
The Novel's story is told in the first person by the main character. Additional character dialog is attributable to the person speaking. The work is a translation to English and the writing style is somewhat sparse with limited complexity although plainly readable by a wide audience. Like a play, the scenes take place in limited fashion with only a few specific descriptive images; though memorable ones skillfully done. The Novel would fall into the literary fiction/drama category.
The story in main is about a well to do pickpocket named Nishimura who plies his trade amongst the rich, deftly expropriating their wallets and cash. In the course of the tale, Nishimura is recruited by an old friend to participate in a home invasion and theft orchestrated by a mobster boss. It soon becomes apparent to Nishimura that his participation was a trap, both for him, his friend and the home owner. During the course of events, Nishimura befriends a young boy and his prostitute mother. He finds many likenesses in the young boy that remind Nishimura of himself at the same age. Somewhat remorseful about his own plight, Nishimura attempts to arrange for a better life for the boy hoping that he will not taint his life in sorrows as Nishimura has. What Nishimura has yet to discover, however, is that the mob boss is the true thief, intent on stealing from Nishimura all that he is or will ever be.
I liked this novel a great deal. As I began reading I was initially taken by the seeming austerity of the composition and the peculiarity of Nishimura. Persevering, however, I was soon captivated by the man. Nishimura was intelligent, winsome to a degree and caught in a fate that the reader was left to imagine was designed for him though clearly not his only fate; something that was metaphorically represented by the "tower".
All in all I would highly recommend this novel and rate it "Memorable".
Aside
It has been said that this novel is in the realm of the classic Noir mystery.... I don't agree. The composition has the look and feel of a screen play and leans towards the unexplainable, a staple of the legendary Rod Serling and the "Twilight Zone"; not quite science fiction, but close. Just imagine if you can, Rod Serling, appearing before you on the screen, handsome, somber with the ever present cigarette smoke wafting in the air and delivering his prolog of things to come
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Tonight you are going to meet a pickpocket named Nishimura, who plies his trade among the wealthy of Tokyo. Nishimura thinks he is one of the best in his trade; however, he is destined to meet another whose trade as a thief is to steal Nishimura's fate. Nishimura sees his fate as a tower looming in the night mist, an image that escapes examination but ever present in the distance. Can one's fate be predetermined? As Nishimura negotiates to alter the fate of a young boy he finds himself captive to a fate that he never imagined - can fate be so determined, or is it ever elusive - In the Twilight Zone"
I found the subject matter of the cognitive processes of a pickpocket in Tokyo intriguing and was compelled to keep reading to find out what would happen. However many times I found the dialogue confusing, never quite sure who was making the comments. Perhaps this is due to the translation from Japanese to English and I should make allowances for this. The ending was probably inevitable befitting the plot but I still found it disappointing.
Brief but beautifully evocative, sparse yet hugely informative, THE THIEF is another example of Japanese noir sensibility. Told in first person, Nishimura is a pickpocket who targets the rich by preference. Working his highly skilled way through the crowds of Tokyo, he's an unrepentant thief, and a fragile man. Manipulated into a much bigger crime by the gangster Kizaki, Nishimura's life might be spiralling out of control, yet he is still able to reach out to a young boy. The relationship between the man and the boy is touching and poignant as he gives advice on the best way to steal, whilst trying to find a way out of a bad home life and into some sort of future.
Whilst there is action built into the plot, the main focus of THE THIEF for this reader, was the characters. Drawn with deft strokes that give you a clear view of a vulnerable young boy, his driven and desperate mother, and the crime boss Kizaki - calm, determined, vicious and dangerous.
Into every reader's life a book like THE THIEF really should creep. Precise and compact, the style of storytelling feeds the reader's imagination with sufficient detail of the place, and the atmosphere of Nishimura's Tokyo. That brevity also draws a fascinating portrait of the man himself, the matter-of-factness of observation leaving the reader to interpret the causes and outcomes of each event. Even for such a slim volume, it really should have come with a warning about reading late into the night.
[...]
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