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Scandal
Shusaku Endo Book Review

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Plot Summary of Scandal
"Suguro, a Japanese Catholic writer on the last years of his career, respected and idolized by people who find his themes enlightening, suddenly cannot help but look for the real source of evil in people's lives. He goes to places unheard of befitting a Catholic authority - bars, massage parlors, love hotels. He hires a young, pretty middle-school student, Mitsu Morita (not the one in The Girl I Left Behind) as his personal maid. He befriends a volunteer at the local charity hospital, a professor's widow who has embarked on a lesbian relationship with one of the street artists who once painted a portrait of him...
This is played on by Yoshio Kobari, an ambitious young journalist who's looking for a big-break story, and who believes Suguro is just another professional hypocrite. As Kobari pursues Suguro, and as Suguro denies him, the reader is left with questions. Is Suguro evil at heart? Is his dark side acting up? Or is it a doppelganger who's doing those "dreadful" things?
Whereas many people took it as an autobiographical "confession" by Endo when it was published, this book is really a story of a man's soul-searching adventure in discovering that, at heart, he is weak, and only by confronting the weakness he will become stronger."

Sergio Mendoza, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Scandal
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - thoughtful
Time/era of story - 1980's-1999
Romance/Romance Problems Yes
Life of a profession: - writer
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Struggle over - religious issues - nature of existence (heavy philosophy)
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Job/Profession/Status story Yes
Taboo sex story? Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - writer
Age: - 60's-90's
Ethnicity/Nationality - Japanese
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - quite fatty

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status: - journalist
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a substantial amount
How sensitive is this character? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 4 ()
Asia/Pacific Yes
Asian country: - Japan
City? Yes
City: - dirty, grimy (like New York)
Misc setting - resort/hotel

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - vague references - touching of anatomy - lesbians!
Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog
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