 |
version seven. http://demongin.org |
Tokyo Underworld (2000)
Robert Whiting
Impression published on Wednesday, 2009-08-26 | Novel | 3 stars
While Whiting isn't the best True Crime writer who ever chronicled the life and times of a criminal (that dubious honor being reserved for the haunting and monomaniacal Truman Capote), he manages to get the point and the details across, even if he is often less than insightful in the case of the former and frequently lacking in the case of the latter).
It doesn't help that real details of the life and times Nicola "Nick" Zappetti, the American GI who stuck around in Tokyo's Roppongi district during the Occupation and made a name for himself as a black marketeer and restauranteur, aren't exactly as well documented or salacious as the lives and times of his New York peers. What does help is the fascinating (and frequently terrifying) history of life in post-war Japan, a country literally burnt to cinders by good, old fashioned American know-how and can-do spirit, which managed to not only transform itself from a third world country to the second largest economy in the world in a generation or two, but which also managed to create a unique syncretism of Eastern and Western culture during a century when lock-step monoculture (political, so far as Cold Warriors obsessed with a world-wide democracy or world-wide communism were concerned, and social as far as Madison Avenue and Hollywood were concerned) was not only the norm, but the goal of nearly all
artistic and technological innovation.
And so, in depicting a decently entertaining character against a political, cultural and technological maelstrom of a background, Whiting manages to spin a fairly engaging yarn. And keeps it nice and short too. Definitely worth a read.
