Safe Return Doubtful

Whether or not the Japanese ever did practise <i>ubasute</i> Satō’s macabre novel makes for a diverting read. Ubasute, stuff of legends more likely, was a type of senicide, where an aged relative was carried by family to a remote mountain and left to die.
But Satō gives the legend a twist as he allows a group of these elderly ladies (all 70+), not to lie still and expire, but to gang together and fight back; it becomes a <i>Lord Of The Flies</i> style survival story – only it gets worse, as the old women manage to antagonise a huge, Dan-Simmons-esque bear. Its not long before the gore spills and the body count builds.
Similar to LOTF its a bleak fable on human nature, modernised though in its message that people go on the attack when they are oppressed or otherwise marginalized by society – like the residents of the Village (who sent the women to the mountain) its common that violence is used as a way to convey their ideas.
It may sound allegorical for the treatment of aging populations, but it falls short of this, and lacks the profundity.
Its extremely bizarre, and often humorous amidst the carnage, but it could have been so much better.
Translated by <i>Nathan Collins</i> and <i>Edwin Hawkes</i>.