Jaelyn reviewed Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb
"I suddenly wanted to tell her how delighted I was at being the instrument of her pleasure."
4.0 stars
Amélie was excited to move to Japan to take an entry level position at a large corporation. However despite starting at the bottom, Amélie's repeated well intentioned and often hilarious blunders send her spiralling ever further down the ladder. Between cultural missteps in the Japanese corporate culture and small but impactful blunders in the even more mundane work assigned to her, she earns the rigorous fury of her manager, one of only three women in the entire company, who sees Amélie's honest mistakes as a deliberate attempt to undermine her.
On the face of it, this book might be about Amélie or a broader contrast to Japanese culture. But at it's centre is the manager, Fubuki, and how her life as an isolated career woman in Japan has shaped her and her world view. The tragedy is how much Amélie worships Fubuki. Despite how much Fubuki starts to hate …
Amélie was excited to move to Japan to take an entry level position at a large corporation. However despite starting at the bottom, Amélie's repeated well intentioned and often hilarious blunders send her spiralling ever further down the ladder. Between cultural missteps in the Japanese corporate culture and small but impactful blunders in the even more mundane work assigned to her, she earns the rigorous fury of her manager, one of only three women in the entire company, who sees Amélie's honest mistakes as a deliberate attempt to undermine her.
On the face of it, this book might be about Amélie or a broader contrast to Japanese culture. But at it's centre is the manager, Fubuki, and how her life as an isolated career woman in Japan has shaped her and her world view. The tragedy is how much Amélie worships Fubuki. Despite how much Fubuki starts to hate Amélie, torturing her with tasks and verbally humiliating her, Amélie is enchanted with Fubuki. Amélie even relishes the fury at times, and is envious of the men Fubuki tries to earn the attentions of.
Basically, she has a definite "step on me, mommy" vibe which I hope Amélie eventually talked to someone about for her own safety! I'm not sure how much was read into it by others, but I definitely read their relationship through a queer lens. Amélie would hardly be the first sapphic girl to process her feelings by crushing on her older, elegant and authoritative boss without truly acknowledging where those feelings and adoration may be coming from.
I do have reservations, which I think partly relate to that period of late-90s early-00s it was written. Amélie's definitely puts Japanese culture through an exotic lens and leans on cliches. Granted, it is a short book focused exclusively inside the walls of a single office, so it doesn't set out to be broadly representative. However that's not enough to give it a pass; especially when Amélie's adoring descriptions of Fubuki veer too close to the line and one particular long section which was a very blunt and dated view of Japan.
It also engages in the trademark 90s/00s fatphobia and seems disjointed on the topic of sexism. While the ableism largely portrayed as part of the abusive dynamic, the of slurs there may be needlessly triggering to some. I'd hope if written today it would carry all that with more nuance, but taking that into account I did still enjoy the core of the story.