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    Life for Sale
    Life for Sale
    Life for Sale
    Audiobook7 hours

    Life for Sale

    Written by Yukio Mishima

    Narrated by Kotaro Watanabe

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “A propulsive, madcap story” (The New York Times) about a salaryman who decides to put his life up for sale in the classifieds section of a Tokyo newspaper after a botched suicide attempt. • "An outstanding writer not only of Japan, but of the world." —The Atlantic

    After salaryman Hanio Yamada puts his life up for sale, interested parties quickly come calling with increasingly bizarre requests. What follows is a madcap comedy of errors, involving a jealous husband, a drug-addled heiress, poisoned carrots—even a vampire. For someone who just wants to die, Hanio can't seem to catch a break, as he finds himself enmeshed in a continent-wide conspiracy that puts him in the cross hairs of both his own government and a powerful organized-crime syndicate. By turns wildly inventive, darkly comedic, and deeply surreal, in Life for Sale Yukio Mishima stunningly uses satire to explore the same dark themes that preoccupied him throughout his lifetime.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateApr 21, 2020
    ISBN9780593170717

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    Reviews for Life for Sale

    3.5/5

    51 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5

      Jun 25, 2024

      IMPORTANT: Suicide is a very serious issue; however, literature provides options to explore these types of ideas without harm.

      This book is probably best described as a comedy of errors. Hanio tries to commit suicide and fails. What follows is a serious of attempts to end his life but with crazy circumstances that include: guns in freezers, carrot sticks, cats drinking milk, vampires, and gangsters. For that reason, I found this book an enjoyable read with many humorous moments. To be fair, the translation I read was done a few years after the original publication but I will have faith that it is relatively true to the original.
    • 4/5

      Apr 12, 2023

      Hanio wakes to find that he's still alive after attempting suicide. Too bored to try again, he quits his job and advertises a life for sale. What follows is his being hired for increasingly odd tasks, beginning with being asked to sleep with the paramour of a jealous mob boss and culminating with him being targeted by a secretive international cabal. But no matter how dangerous the job, he can't seem to find a way to die.

      This is old school noir. First published in Japan in 1968, Yukio Mishima has his too-cool-to-care protagonist sleep with the ladies and impress mobsters and spies with his sang-froid. Even vampire like him. This is a weird story, but also a lot of fun, despite the dark premise.
    • 4/5

      May 3, 2020

      An absurdist take on an obsession with suicide/death, this is a tale of man hellbent on dying. If you have read any of Haruki Murakami's novels, this book resembles them in pacing, themes and surreal aspects. We also get a glimpse of Mishima's fascination with his own demise and his debt to Kafka. Not exactly sure where it all leaves the reader, but perhaps in the same country as _The Trial_.