Customer Reviews
There is not much to this book, but what there is is excellent! A gem! - By: stevieby, 07 Sep 2008 
A mere 132 pages; a simple story without embellishment - of a Westerner trappedin a Japanese corporation - but the impact is huge. Like a modern horror story, the protagonist slips unwittingly & unstoppably into a hell-like existence.
The force of the book liesin the story being so lifelike that is could almost be true, perhaps is true! Born from the authors own experiencesin Japan, it is realistic & never exaggerated.
Before the bubble burst, Japan really did rule the economic world, with an arrogance to match. But behind that success are methods & structures & expectations steepedin a culture & mindset which is totally alien & incomprehensible to outsiders. Codes of conduct which are unspoken, rigid hierarchies which are not made explicit. A mine-field of 'Dos' & Don'ts.'
There are few more accurate, more illuminating or more succinct introductions to lifein Japanese business.
And none which are as entertaining!
A little gem of a book - By: A. Crane, 15 May 2006 Once started (for me at 11.00pm!) this book is unputdownable! It was well after midnight before I was able to tear myself away from this interesting, quirky & unusual story. Often funny, it is the first book to make me laugh out loud for a long time. The cynical & drole sense of humour of the authress is not to be taken seriously, but she imbues her book with a humanity & attention to detail which is impressive & certainly makes up for the rather bleak outlook.
As a fan of Japan & its culture I found this insight into it's corporate life amusingly toungue-in-cheek & yet was not completely swayed by it's one sidededness.
A relatively short novella, Fear & Trembling could be finished easilyin a few hours, but hours well spent grippedin a highly entertaining attack on the constricted nature of Japanese heirarchy.
Disturbing - By: Ralph Blumenau, 19 Mar 2006 
I have never been to Japan & have no idea whether Amélie Nothomb’s picture of Japanese corporate society is correct - but if it is, it is a horrifying one: sadistically hierarchical, where no one can expect any pleasure, can hope only to avoid shame, & where the expectation for womenin particular is a life of such artificiality & submission that their only escape could be into a pleasure-less & loveless marriage with some man who is nearly as stunted as she is. A western woman, hoping to workin such an environment for which nothing has prepared her, is likely to be driven mad, to lose all confidencein herself & eventually even to seein her own degradation some kind of liberation: she can hardly fall any lower. She should have been sacked for incompetence, but it is almost impossible for a corporation to sack an employee. As for her, however humiliated she is, she won’t quit herself before her contract was up because she, too, has assumed that quitting is a matter of shame rather than of an assertion of her dignity. (True, she also admits that she already had a martyr-complex.) That, at any rate, is what happens to the Belgian-educated Améliein this story. The blurbs on the back describe the book as ‘funny’ & ‘hilarious’: I find it hard to enjoy the humour. It is one thing to find Japanese culture alien to that of the west, another to subject it to an attack so savage & unremitting that I think it comes close to racism. Lest we think that Nothomb is merely describing the situationin one particular company from which we should not draw general conclusions about the country as a whole, she drives her point home by saying that Japan was simply ‘an extension of The Company’. That the book has achieved international best-seller status must dismay even those Japanese (and I know some) who are critical of their conformist society.
I have given this book a four star rating for its literary quality. Were the rating to reflect how it made me feel - that is, uneasy & indeed repelled - it would be considerably lower.
Cynicly funny - By: , 19 Dec 2005 Amélie Nothomb's father being a diplomat, she is bornin Japan, & moved very young to China & other contries. This gives her a wise but cynic perception of the worldin which I agree.
'Fear & Trembling' ( the book is much better than the movie) is a story of a young woman emplyedin a Japanese firm underlining the cultural contrastin a humoristic way.
This maybe the most 'healthy' minded story she has written.
Chrysanthemum and sword - By: , 20 Feb 2005 
Events describedin this book should be partly true & partly exaggerated. I will not talk about this point as it will be endless argument.
What I'm really concerned is that the author tries to conceptualise Japanese corporate culture as a whole, ONLY through the experience she'd hadin one yearin one company. It then adds to "chrysanthemum & sword" type explation of Japanese culture (e.g. frequent reference to WW2 & suicidal tendencies), through emphasising the difference from Western practice, & thus further contributing to alienism.
As a result readers may assume that such extraordinary relationships are found elsewherein Japanese corporations. But I do believe such working environment, especially people like Fubuki, were, if any, really really exceptional. Funny, extraordinary thus interesting-to-read aspects are always highlited & then published as if it is the collective voice.
Of course, "Japanese-specific" practices will do exist. But at least I think there are remarkable changes as well. I'm afraid that this book, as a bestseller, contributes to the simplistic understanding of how Japanese corporate culture is mad.
