I recently read a French translation of Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul. Equal parts autobiography, meditation and literary examination, the book reflects on the past and present of one of the world’s great cities.

The central theme of Istanbul is a sense of collective sorrow that Pamuk perceives in his hometown and which he likens to huzun, a word of Arabic origin found in Islamic scripture.

Huzun translates roughly as “sadness for things lost” and according to Pamuk its use in the Koran is ambiguous. It may refer to a rejection of sadness at wordly loss since such things are nothing compared to Allah. Instead it may express the feeling of sadness provoked by a worldly event, entailing the reminder that one cannot be closer to Allah.

Pamuk suggests that huzun is an undercurrent felt by all natives of Istanbul who witnessed the years following the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

When the capital was moved to Ankara in late 1923, the Anatolian stronghold of the Republican movement, the old Ottoman seat was left to its own devices. For Istanbul the transition from empire to nation entailed a sustained period of urban decay characterised by the impoverishment of the population and the mass destruction of buildings by fire or neglect.

It occurred to me that this sensibility, when expanded beyond mere notions of nostalgia or specific historical circumstances, is by no means unique to Istanbul.

I have heard something similar from Iranians strongly aware (and proud) of their past greatness.

A whole culture has grown up around the concept of saudade in Cabo Verde and Lisboa.

And then Germans, always surprising in the subtle complexity of certain of their abstract nouns, have their weltschmerz. Perhaps most famously of all, there is the gauzy, insubstantial mono no aware of the Japanese.

No single word in English may do justice to what is a very intricate cultural meme but perhaps among the best is ‘wistfulness’.

• Natsuo Kirino
• Harvill (2007)
• 

After I recently moaned about the commercial fetishization of Haruki Murakami‘s work, I can see this happening again with Natsuo Kirino. Kirino apparently has a back catalogue of well over twenty books at the time of writing and what Harvill pulled off with Murakami they must be feeling capable of repeating here.

Fortunately, Kirino’s brand of full-frontal brutality is neither palatable to lovelorn teenagers nor suitable prose for future A-Level lit papers. Whatever the risk, you have to hope that Rebecca Copeland is putting in the requisite overtime to deliver a succession of translations.

To call Natsuo Kirino a crime writer is like calling the Pope a priest. She is at the very least a master manipulator, but her manipulations go far beyond mere plotting. Where the darkly brilliant Out tested an honest protagonist’s willingness to hide an increasingly bloody secret from colleagues against a backdrop of banal factory work, Grotesque turns an uncomfortable stare on its readers, asking us to tease out the truth from bitter accounts of broken lives.

Two former schoolmates are found dead in Tokyo, having both been active prostitutes. We step back in time to follow the history of the strained relationship between one of the victims Yuriko and her unnamed sister, who narrates with the occasionally gleeful partiality of a strongly disaffected sibling. As the story develops, a cast of other characters joins them during the years spent within a privileged private school system.

And Kirino has much to say in criticism of an education system – and the society it feeds – that pressurizes its youth and places gross emphasis on status and academic success at all costs. Thus, where Out was remarkably and necessarily claustrophobic, Grotesque achieves with similar candour an impressively broad sweep. Such eloquent honesty has no need of merchandising.

• Haruki Murakami
• Vintage (2008)
• 

I’ve been a devoted Murakami fan for years, mainly because he has always echoed and expanded my own thoughts and feelings. I came to him after a number of “classic” Japanese writers. When I was at university and Harvill released one translation after another, I hardly read anything else, including my study texts. Murakami even introduced me to his namesake Ryu – bought accidentally as a gift – who, like Haruki-san, has very little to do with literary tradition.

Times change, of course, as do people. Lately, I’ve started to feel like Julio and Tenoch in the wonderful final scene of Y Tu Mamá También. Like two old friends who, having been through a lot together, meet up after a time and suddenly find they have nothing more to say to one another.

After Dark is one of Murakami’s in-between books, like Blind Willow Sleeping Woman or After the Quake, though here we’re presented with a single story. By turns cool, kooky and ethereally atmospheric, with the sort of stuff that David Mitchell used to imitate in his early work, the book is full of the usual Murakami charm. Yet against expectations of something more than ‘the usual’, it offers little in the way of substance, being on the whole rather slight and inconsequential.

Aside from any mixed feelings about After Dark, Murakami is now a commercially important author on the Vintage roster. Unfortunately, that means his oeuvre is prone to being fetishized and turned into marketable products, utilising the naff artwork of monochrome Japanese waifs, mock brush paintings and crap typography. Bring back the Jamie Keenan covers! And just what is the point of a Murakami Diary? Whatever next: the Murakami Back To School Kit?

• Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
• US/Mexico, 2006
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I always look forward to a new instalment of the González / Arriaga filmmaking partnership. Babel is undoubtedly their grandest effort to date and it’s probably their weakest, but a flawed González movie is still extraordinary.

Babel has been described as the first film about globalisation: four stories from around the world interconnect to form a parable about love and consequences.

Whilst the narrative is uneven and binds together only with some difficulty, the whole product is visually thrilling and there are some stand-out performances, particularly in the Mexican sequences.

• Director: Takashi Miike
• Japan, 1999
• 

I have to admit, just being aware of this film’s reputation is a good reason to skip it, because with even a milligram of prior knowledge this particular injection of the Takashi Miike shock treatment might not have the desired side effects.

You see, Audition is a movie of two very distinct halves. In the first, we enjoy a light-hearted dose of the romantics in which the protagonist widower Aoyama holds auditions for a fake movie in order to attract a new spouse. In the second, his spousal selection sticks needles in his eyes and chops his feet off.

Now I’ve been out with some nutters in my time, but dating Asami Yamazaki redefines scary. That’s because even though much of the carnage is suggested off-camera, Audition is by no means a prescription for the squeamish. Diagnosis? An equal parts stylish and ghoulish meditation on choosing your partner wisely.