More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop / Satoshi Yagisawa
trans. from the Japanese by Eric Ozawa
NY: HarperPerennial, 2024, c2011.
176 p.

I couldn't wait, after reading the first book in this set last week - I had to search out book two. Thankfully my library had it, so I brought it home and read it over a couple of days. I had to stretch this one out a little more than the first one, as it is quite melancholy and I needed a break before the conclusion. 

In this novel, Takako is reminiscing; the story is related from her future vantage point. I find this style a bit melancholic by nature, and this story has some sad parts in it for sure. It takes place 3 years after Takako left the bookshop for a design job, but she still comes back and hangs out at the bookshop and the coffee shops in the neighbourhood. She's now dating Wada, from the end of the first book, and along with her friend Tomo, has a life outside work -- something she had to create consciously for herself. As an aside, the description of Takako's romantic relationships seems unusual -- very formal, with not much communication on her part as to what's going on -- I'm wondering if this is a Japanese norm that I'm missing, or just a man writing a woman character. Anyhow!

Uncle Satoru and Aunt Momoko are still running the bookshop, but things are about to change, and Takako has to help Satoru come to terms with the way life is going. There is less talk about specific books and authors in this one than in the first, and more about the lives and relationships of the characters. Once again I was reminded of Banana Yoshimoto's style. 

I liked this one, although marginally less than the first one. It made me cry, and I found some lovely bits in it, though. This ties up the story of the Morisaki Bookshop, but the author has another series set in a cafe. Perhaps I will try that next. I find his style quite appealing and readable.  

 

If Cats Disappeared from the World

 

If Cats Disappeared from the World / Genki Kawamura
trans. from the Japanese by Eric Selland
London: Picador, 2018, c2012.
202 p.

I read this little book last week; I've owned for a long time but have just picked it up now. It's funny how many books like this I have on my shelves - ones that have been patiently waiting their turn, and once I open them I can't stop reading. 

This is a short novel, just 202 short pages. It is loosely in the form of a letter, written by a young man who is all alone in the world aside from his cat Cabbage. He's just found out that he has a brain tumour and only weeks to live. But his week turns surreal as the Devil appears to him and tells him that he can choose one thing to disappear from the world in exchange for another day of life. 

He gets a few extra days but the idea of exchanging things starts to pall. What is life worth living for and what parts make it all worthwhile? When the Devil suggests that cats disappear next, our narrator realizes he has a vital choice to make. 

Throughout this short narrative, told in a confessional, almost offhand style, deep questions are raised. We learn that the narrator's mother has died and that he is estranged from his father; he has a loose connection with an old girlfriend, which is important to the story. But his closest emotional relationship is with Cabbage. And through his reflections, we learn more about his past and his issues with his father. 

I found this a touching story, on the edge of being too sentimental but counterbalanced by the humour and irreverence of the Devil and the narrator's reactions. Even with the brevity and direct style, it causes the reader to think more deeply about what is worth cherishing in life, especially when you're about to leave it. I'm not sure why it hit me right now, but it did have an emotional impact. I thought the ending was perfect, resolving the interiority and isolation of this character's story with a resonant visual image of reconnection. Really interesting read, with some memorable moments. 

 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop / Satoshi Yagisawa
trans. from the Japanese by Eric Ozawa
NY: Harper Perennial, 2023, c2010. 
150 p.

I read this sweet book in a day -- it's short and easy to read, even with some emotional heft to it. It reminded me a lot more of Banana Yoshimoto's style than the more recent "healing fiction" titles I've been reading. There is nothing supernatural or outside of reality here; just people trying to survive bumps in the road and finding healing in books and coffee. 

It starts out with 25 yr old Takako finding out that her boyfriend is engaged to someone else. They work together so it doesn't take long before she quits -- essentially losing her boyfriend and job in the same few weeks. She's at loose ends and nursing her broken heart when she gets an offer from her uncle Satoru (who she hasn't heard from in a few years) to come and live and work with him in the family second-hand bookshop in the Jimbocho neighbourhood of Tokyo. Being awfully short of money she reluctantly accepts. 

This set up is quite lovely, as Takoko has a season of quiet and rest to find herself again. Her uncle says:

It's important to stand still sometimes. Think of it as a little rest in the long journey of your life. This is your harbor. And your boat is just dropping anchor here for a little while. And after you're well rested, you can set sail again. 

And this is what happens: as Takoko finds healing through discovering a love of reading, and engaging with people outside of a driven office environment, she comes to the point where she can find another job and leave the bookshop.  

The relationship between Takoko and her uncle is interesting - she knew him when she was a child, so they are developing a different connection, one between adults. She finds out a lot about who her uncle really is, and about his wife who had left him five years previously (but reappears halfway through). There is a tiny coffeeshop down the street that Takoko frequents, and some of the characters are based there. Some bookshop regulars are found in both places. All of these side characters are an important part of the story, showing Takoko another way to live, and empathy for other people -- just as her reading does. 

I liked the references to Japanese classics, some more contemporary authors, and some Western titles too. It was a charming element and yet the story wasn't overdone. It was light but I found it satisfying and am planning on finding book two of this story as soon as I can -- I want to hear more about the Morisaki Bookshop! 

Dinner at the Night Library

 

Dinner at the Night Library / Hika Harada
trans. from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
NY: Hanover Square Press, 2025, c2023
320 p.

Another Japanese novel that has been on my list for a while! This one is set in a library, one that has a very particular mission. It houses the collections of writers who've passed away (generally), and one that researchers can visit to study what writers read - but it's only open after dark. 

It starts out with a young woman, Otoha Higuchi, who is looking for a job, and stumbles across this one. It doesn't have the cache of a corporate position, and is located out of the way on the outskirts of Tokyo, so her parents aren't overly thrilled, but she thinks it sounds fascinating. 

Having a new employee to follow through the story really makes it easy for the author to explain everything to the reader in a natural way -- Otoha, and by extension the reader, is being introduced to all her coworkers, the purpose of the library and how it works, regular library patrons, and so on. 

We find a two person cataloguing department, front deskégeneral staff, and a manager as well as an ever-present cleaning lady, oh and a chef -- and a mysterious absentee owner. Otoha makes her way through her first few months of employment learning about minor scandals with patrons, discovering that there is a chef on-site who makes meals based on food from books (one chapter is all about Anne of Green Gables and the food choices are...interesting), and finally being involved in going to pick up the collection of a popular female author who has died and whose sister is donating everything. The storyline feels unfinished, like part two is on its way. The exact way this library operates isn't entirely clear either, especially the random food sections. But it was fun. 

I liked this, as another weird fictional library (fan of those) and a look at how a writer's reading can shape their own works. A bit metafictional in that way. There were some engaging characters in this one, all originally involved in books in some fashion, whether as former booksellers, pickers, librarians, literature students or what have you The setting was unusual as well, and although the café sections seemed a bit sudden, I still enjoyed the descriptions of literary inspired feasts - and the books they were drawn from. I wouldn't consider this a plot driven novel, but the vibes were good ;) 

 

We'll Prescribe You a Cat

 

We'll Prescribe You a Cat / Syou Ishida
trans. from the Japanese by E. Madison Shimoda
NY: Berkley, 2024, c2023.
297 p.

Another light read for this week. This is a book that could easily have been too twee; but as it turns out, it balances the cat tweeness with some real life difficulties that the characters are facing. And it's leavened with some light humour. I really enjoyed it!

It's five connected stories set in Kyoto, featuring different individuals who hear about an odd mental health clinic that is found down a narrow alleyway, with a doctor and nurse who prescribe cats. The patients are often taken aback when they have a cat handed to them, but the 10 day course of "treatment" usually does work wonders. Some of the characters bond and don't want to give their cats back; others feel ready to move forward in life which will include finding their own cat later on. 

The issues that the characters face include a young girl in the midst of school drama (and her rigid mother), a middle aged businessman feeling edged out at his workplace by an energetic new female supervisor, a young salesman facing a career crisis, a work focused designer with no bandwidth to recognize her own needs, and a geiko (Kyoto geisha) who is trying to get over her lost cat. 

I loved the setting - so often these books are set in Tokyo but this one really uses its location of Kyoto beautifully. I felt like I learned about the city and culture as well as the characters. The clinic itself is unusual; it's only there for people who really need it. And the secret of the nurse and doctor's presence is hinted at, becoming clear to the reader (and only the reader) by the end. Definitely leaving you set up for the next one! 

I thought this was a delight. Meaningful, not too sentimental, but light and uplifting as well. I really liked the unusual characters and the way the author drew out their dilemmas, everyday ones but so important to the person going through it. I felt that there was a clear love of both animals and people shown by this author's writing, and that the balance in each story was finely drawn. I'd definitely recommend this one when you need some Uplit! 

Diary of a Void

 

Diary of a Void / Emi Yagi
trans. from the Japanese by David Boyd and Lucy North
NY: Viking, 2022, c2020.
213 p.

Another workplace novel, of sorts - this one is about women's roles in the workplace, maternity, and expectations of all kinds. 

At age 34,  Ms. Shibata leaves one workplace because of sexual harassment, and finds a new role at a cardboard tube manufacturer. She is the only woman in the office and discovers that all the little niceties fall to her, simply because she is a woman. Coffee, keeping the office tidy, distributing any vendor gifts, and so forth -- all just left for her, because she is female. And if these things aren't done, she is directly asked. She has had enough. 

So one day, asked to clear the coffee cups and cigarettes from a meeting, she refuses, saying that she is pregnant and the smell makes her sick. Bang! She no longer has to do so many things. But she is not, in fact, pregnant. 

But one said, this becomes a fact - she is treated differently because of the belief that she is pregnant. She doesn't have to do so many of the tedious chores at work. How is she going to maintain this fiction, though? She comes up with some ideas. Eventually she convinces even herself that she is pregnant, joining a maternity yoga class, finding a doctor, thinking about names...and going on maternity leave. 

It was  a compelling read, one that highlights so many nuances in women's experiences of the workplace, in particular. The way that single women in their thirties are treated differs from mothers, even single mothers like Ms. Shibata. This is key to the book, and while it started getting a little weird for a while, the ending draws everything together. It leaves you thinking. 

The Woman in the Purple Skirt

 

The Woman in the Purple Skirt / Natsuko Imamura
trans. from the Japanese by Lucy North 
NY: Penguin, 2021, c2019.
216 p.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is noticeable. She has a routine; sits on the same park bench at the same time of day, to eat the same cream bun. Except for when she is working, at one of the many temp jobs she gets. We know this because The Woman in the Yellow Cardigan is watching her, and telling us. 

The narrator is obsessed with this stranger; she watches her, notes down her movements and habits, and decides to find her a steady job at her own workplace, as a hotel cleaner. Through some oblique efforts (ie: leaving the jobs magazine open to the right page where she knows the Woman in the Purple Skirt will pick it up) she manages to do this. Now she can observe her closely and will obviously become her friend. 

But we know that this isn't going to work out as the narrator thinks it will. The Woman in the Purple Skirt has a mind of her own, and her own goals here. She behaves as she needs to to be accepted by the new work team, but begins to take advantages where she can, eating food from the rooms, taking the complimentary shampoos and so forth. But she really goes for it when she begins an affair with the owner. 

This doesn't end well, and the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan sees her opening. But even that careful plan goes awry. 

This is a strange little book, full of both personal obsession and the particular behaviours of a female workplace. It was fascinating to read, with a style that is surprisingly suspenseful considering it is mainly talking about the narrator's obsession with the other woman. Her goal, to bring herself into the orbit of this woman that people notice, is a lost cause; her own desire to be seen goes unfulfilled. 

Another note: I appreciated the book design for this one as well; the dust jacket incorporates yellow and purple, as well as a set of stairs dividing two women (appropriate to events in the book). Even the actual hard cover of the book is in yellow and purple. Great attention to detail by the designers! 

Mina's Matchbox

Mina's Matchbox / Yoko Ogawa
trans. from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
TO: McLelland & Stewart, 2024, c2006.
288 p.

I picked up this one recently when it came into my local library. Even though I haven't really enjoyed the other books I've read by this author, I thought this one was appealing enough to give it a try. It was fairly good -- I did like it better than her other work -- but in the end I thought it was pretty forgettable. 

It's 1972, and Tomoko is being sent to live with her aunt's family in coastal Ashiya when her single mother needs to go back to school full time. Tomoko is telling us this nostalgic story from a later viewpoint, and the experience is filtered through a haze of memory. She finds a house of women: her cousin Mina, her aunt, German grandmother, and housekeeper Yoneda, not to mention the pygmy hippo Pochiko who lives in the yard. Her charismatic uncle and older male cousin are only there intermittently. She tells the reader about the year in this magical house with her cousin who is strange but perfect, beautiful, a reader, creative, and imperious, all while also treated with kid gloves because of her illness. All of Tomoko's memories are glazed over with how wonderful everything about this year is for her; it's interesting while you're reading the setup, but then nothing really happens. Everyone is one thing and keeps on being that one thing. The title comes from Mina's collection of matchboxes; she is desperate for more, and Tomoko finds out that Mina keeps them all and creates tiny narratives to match the pictures on the boxes, inscribing the tiny stories inside each one. 

The inclusion of a pygmy hippo and Mina's fixation on matchboxes give this story the odd features that are supposed to make it stand out. I thought the tiny stories that Mina created for each matchbox were unique, and would have liked more of them. I could have existed quite happily without the hippo. Or the strange chapters about Mina and Tomoko's obsession with volleyball, which seemed to come out of nowhere and go on forever, maybe as a way to include Ogawa's commentary on the Munich Olympics. I felt this element was shoehorned in, it didn't feel congruent with the rest of the story and also a bit tone deaf in light of current events. 

While the book started out with a lot of potential, I found it dragged a bit and like I've noted, included set pieces that seemed to be there just for an authorial comment, or to pad out the length perhaps. There were a number of elements that reminded me strongly of Banana Yoshimoto's 1989 novel Goodbye Tsugumi: Mina's sickly nature, Tomoko only having a mother and so having to stay with family in a house near the ocean (and in both the house itself is an important character), the relationship between cousins, and a few more vague feelings of similarity, although much of the plot differs. 

In any case, while I thought this had appeal, particularly around the older women in the book, it didn't quite do it for me. While I did like it more than previous titles by Ogawa, I'm not sure it has convinced me to keep reading her future work. 

The Full Moon Coffee Shop

 

The Full Moon Coffee Shop / Mai Mochizuki
trans. from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood
NY: Ballantyne, 2024, c2020.
228 p.

This was brand new to my library so I quickly read it as a lighter pick for the end of Women in Translation Month. It was quirky and amusing as a whole. The cover is lovely, and if you look closely you will see a major theme in his book: the moon is an astrological chart. 

I didn't know much about it except the quick summary in my library catalogue, so I went into it open to anything. It feels like it's trying very hard to be a Studio Ghibli film - so many recent Japanese books feel heavily influenced by that body of work. Maybe there is a flood of Japanese authors writing in this style, or maybe it's just the ones getting translated! I felt that this book reminded me of the recent translation of The Kamogawa Food Detectives (written by a man) that I've been hearing lots about - then I realized that it's the same translator. 

Anyhow, this book was entertaining. It's short and a quick read, especially if you skim the complicated astrology parts like I did ;) The concept is that a group of loosely connected Japanese people are all stuck in their lives somehow, and their lives are changed and set onto new paths when they encounter the mysterious Full Moon Coffee Shop, a food truck that sets up in random places and serves customers what they need (no orders allowed). 

As our first character finds the shop, in a park under the stars, she is surprised to be served by cats. And talking cats who walk on two feet and wear an apron, too. I could picture the animated feature! These cats are forms taken by greater beings, who then explain the stars and planets to the customer, showing them their astrological charts and pointing out why they are stuck and the attitudes to take to move on to the next phase of their lives. This was interesting to a point, and it made me wonder about my own natal chart -- but the details were a bit thorough. I think if you already know something about astrology or if you're very interested in it anyhow, you'll get a bit more out of these sections. 

The book follows five characters who are all changed by their individually crafted desserts at the Full Moon Coffee Shop. And as the book progresses, we are shown the links between the characters and why they might have been lucky enough to have received this guidance at the right moments of their lives. It goes back to childhood and kindness to cats. 

This wasn't as twee as it sounds; there were good characters facing trials in their lives, and the coffee shop (sometimes experienced in a dream) is a way to make sense of what's happening to them - I can see the appeal. Mixed in to the novel is some solid life advice, no matter what house your rising planet is in. Receiving life advice from unexpected sources reminds me of What You Are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama, which even has the same episodic structure and loose connections between characters. They might be good companion reads, if you can take that high a dose of quirkiness all at once! 

The Premonition

The Premonition / Banana Yoshimoto
trans. from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda
Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2023, c1988.
144 p.

I really love Banana Yoshimoto. So I was delighted when I saw that there was a new translation of one of her earlier books. I got it from the library as soon as I could, and started in.

It's a very Yoshimoto book - disaffected main character, odd family configurations, intense melancholy/nostalgia, slow moving with lots of quiet moments. I enjoyed much of that. 

The main character, Yayoi, is 19, from a stable nuclear family, but starting to feel like she's missing something. She feels more connected to Yukino, her odd recluse aunt, recently, and decides to go stay with her. Maybe in her aunt's odd way of living, Yayoi will find the peace she's looking for. 

Things start to shift, and Yayoi discovers that her family isn't quite what she thought it was. Then Yukino disappears, and Yayoi and her ever-cheery brother head off to look for her, encountering Yukino's love interest along the way. 

And this is where it got weird and lost me. There are two taboo relationships that appear here, the student-teacher one with Yukino and the "not really" incest relationship between Yayoi and her so-called brother. Not sure how this went over in 1988 in Japan, but it made the story too much for me now. There have been relationships on the edge in some of Yoshimoto's other books, but with this one there isn't much else to the story, so there's nothing to balance it out. I found the book a bit vague and forgettable in many ways. Definitely not my favourite Yoshimoto. Waiting for the next translation, to see if another story might live up to Kitchen or Moshi Moshi for me! 

The Goodbye Cat

 

The Goodbye Cat / Hiro Arikawa
translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
Toronto, ON : Viking, 2023, c2021.
278 p.

Starting off the year with a review for the January Japanese Literature Challenge, with the second book I've read by Hiro Arikawa, the author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles. In this charming collection of seven stories, we encounter seven distinct cats and their varied owners. If you’re in the mood for domesticity with a touch of the fantastic, you’ll enjoy these tales, full of both wry talking cats and touching family stories.

There have been a number of Japanese translations in the recent past which feature cats. This one has ties to the author’s very popular first book – the final story in this collection features the original characters from The Travelling Cat Chronicles, which I really enjoyed. 

In these varied stories, there are many different kinds of families represented, with the cats often strays that are taken in. There are young children who bond with their cats, grumpy dads who soften up a little thanks to the feline influence, and moms who seem to be doing a lot of the caretaking. Having a cat commenting on family dynamics gives a bit of an outsider’s view, pointing out all the unusual things that people do – which can be amusing!

Reading this is also like a quick trip to Japan. Details about food, neighbourhoods, and social relationships make these stories richly evocative of place. But these stories are also sweet and sad, uplifting and moving. If you’re ready for some suspension of disbelief and want to hear stories from a cat’s perspective, this book might be just right for you. It's not a challenging read, with a gentle tone to most of it, just on the right side of twee. Definitely a hit for cat lovers!

Japanese Literature Challenge

The Japanese Literature Challenge is running for the 17th year, created and hosted by Dolce Bellezza. The goal is to read and review Japanese books in translation throughout January and February. 

I've participated in the past -- only one review is 'required' to participate. I have a few that I will be sharing! I do enjoy Japanese literature; in fact, it was the most frequent language in the translated books I read over 2023.  I wasn't planning on taking on any more challenges but this one is such a fun one, and I know I have books to share that fit right in :) 

If you want to join as well, go on over to her blog and grab the button. The review linkup page is a sticky post at the top of her blog so you can add your contribution whenever it's up. Have fun! 

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library

 

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library / Michiko Aoyama
trans. from the Japanese by Alison Watts
Toronto, ON : Hanover Square Press, 2023, c2020
300 p.

This is a lovely small book following the lives of 5 different characters, who all have in common Sayuri Komachi, a librarian in the small community-centre-based neighbourhood library. 

Each character appears in the next one's story, even if incidentally, and that's a nice connection too -- this really does feel like a neighbourhood. And throughout each story, Sayuri Komachi seems to magically know just what book to give her readers. They each ask for something, and Mrs. Komachi gives them a list of topical books on the subject they are requesting, but there is something extra too; an odd book that is a total outlier at first glance, but turns out to be exactly what they didn't even know they needed.  

From a young woman stuck in a nowhere retail job, to a stay at home mother wanting to re-enter her publishing career, to a new retiree and a young man looking to get out into the world and find a role for himself -- there are many different life moments represented here, and many different kinds of books that will help them. Mrs. Komachi has a mystical sense of what her readers need, even when they don't know themselves, and so the stories are unexpected and engaging as we follow their journeys of discovery. 

The tone is light, although there are some uplifting passages meant to encourage the readers of this meta-tale. It's like self-help but not so obvious or strident. The use of books to help during life transitions is what bibliotherapy is all about, and that's something I'm always interested in. While Mrs. Komachi is almost divine in her ability to see what someone needs, in real life, with some conversation and research, many librarians can also provide potential titles to help a reader through a life transition. So I found this book charming and fascinating for many reasons! 

There is also the inclusion of cats, little felted figurines, sweet cookies, and many other charming and comforting elements. This is a book that will leave you with a positive feeling, a great one to read if you're feeling a bit down and need some uplift. It's written in short connected chapters so also easy to dip into bit by bit. A great discovery! 

People From My Neighbourhood

 

People From My Neighbourhood / Hiromi Kawakami
translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen
NY: Granta, c2020
121 p.

This is a short book, told in short vignettes, and it is what it says -- stories of all the people from the neighbourhood of the narrator. 

It starts out pretty normal, just quick sketches of people doing fairly normal if quirky things. But then it starts getting weirder and you're wondering what the narrator is doing. Is she delusional? The tone is matter-of-fact but the people and the occurrences that are shared are stranger and more unlikely with each story.

When we get to the town being cut out of time for a while, or an apartment block seceding from the town and setting up their own fiefdom, or the visitation of a god of some sort -- we can see we are in weird territory. The stories can feel mythical, or macabre. There are 26 stories, and some feel dark, while others are just a bit more magical. There are recurring characters who tie things together, primarily the narrator and her friend's sister. 

I found this book a bit odd; I didn't really know what I was getting into! I liked the idea of it, and there were some of the short pieces that I enjoyed but others that were mystifying. I'm not sure it's one I'd go back to, even though the structure and concept is really clever. But if you're wanting something unusual that will shake up your perceptions a little, this might be it. 

This was a nominee for the Shirley Jackson award, and I think that if you're familiar with Shirley Jackson, you'll get a good sense of where this book is trying to go. Intriguing even if I didn't love it. 

Honeybees and Distant Thunder

Honeybees & Distant Thunder / Riku Onda
trans. from the Japanese by Phillip Gabriel
London: Doubleday, 2023, c2016.
423 p.

This was an unusual read, quite different from some of the darker or stranger Japanese books that I've read recently. It's set during a high-level international piano competition in Japan, and focuses on four of the competitors over the course of the two week competition.

Aya was a child prodigy who left performance when her mother died but is now tentatively re-entering the professional milieu once again. Masaru is an American based Japanese pianist who is the upcoming star of the piano world - and unknown to both Masaru and Aya, he's also Mak-un, a childhood friend who will be reunited with Aya at the competition. 

And then there's Jin, a wildly original teenaged pianist who doesn't even own a piano. He travels around France with his beekeeping father, but was spotted by the late Maestro Von Hoffman and became a protegé. 

Added to these three young people struggling to make their mark in an intense competition, we meet Akashi: he's older and married, working in a music store, but driven to try one more time to compete in the piano world. There's an "underdog" documentary being filmed about his journey, by an old friend who's now a filmmaker. 

As each of them throws themselves entirely into the competition we follow their development, both musically and internally. 

This book delves into the personal lives of each of these characters, but it's not about romance or quirky people interacting, it's really about Art and ambition and being true to a gift. There is a great deal of talk about the experience of playing in performance - how each one approaches their recitals, the visuals they imagine for their pieces, the universality of music and so on. There's discussion of particular classical composers and their pieces so if you know those pieces you can form your own opinions! Other characters like the judges also play a role in reflecting on the professional classical music world, its expectations and limitations, and the differences in how music is seen by various people in that world. This is a cerebral book as much as an emotionally driven one. 

Anyone who loves classical music should find this book absorbing. But there's also a lot of great content just about personal fulfillment, the meaning of a life, and art in general to appeal to a wider readership as well. I really liked it and enjoyed following the characters through their hothouse world of a prestige competition. 

The Lake

 

The Lake / Banana Yoshimoto
translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich
Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2011, c2005.
188 p.

Even though Women in Translation Month is now over, I was still reading some great books at the end of the month. I have taken a few days off of reviewing but I now have to catch up and share some of these fabulous reads. 

This one is another novel by an old favourite, Banana Yoshimoto. It's also a bit more strange than we usually get from her. It features two young, disaffected people; a female artist and a man about her age who she meets after they watch each other from their apartment windows for a while. 

They become friends of a sort, in a kind of relationship, despite the issues that he seems to suffer from. She slowly discovers more about his past, and realizes that he's had a traumatic event in his childhood. It's connected to a cult that kidnapped him and other children, which he eventually managed to escape from (this is loosely inspired by the real-life Aum Shinrikyo cult). 

They go together to visit two very strange siblings who live by The Lake, a pair that were in the same cult as he was - a difficult step for him to take. These siblings are tiny, mystical, and odd, and their influence permeates the lives of our two Tokyo based characters. The girl gets a commission for a large mural on a school wall, and uses her experience at The Lake to inspire her images. And slowly the relationship between the two grows and solidifies. 

It's a bit of an eerie, darker read in some ways, but it takes trauma seriously and lets the characters develop slowly. There are uncanny elements but you see how the story ties everything together, and gives a sense of growth and uplift in the end. I found it interesting, different, and memorable, even if not quite my favourite of her works so far. 

The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart

 

The color of the sky is the shape of the heart / Chesil
trans. from the Japanese by Takami Nieda.
NY: Soho Teen, 2022, c2016.
158 p.

Seventeen year old Ginny Park is Zainichi – an ethnic Korean born in Japan. As the book opens, she’s living in the US, attending a high school in misty Oregon. The reader follows along as Ginny outlines her past, and what event at her Korean high school in Japan led to her ending up in the US.  

This is a short book, and is a translation from Japanese; it's apparently semi-autobiographical, which adds to the emotional effect of the storyline. The style is a bit choppy at the beginning but readers who stick with it will be rewarded with a deeply affecting story of a young girl who is fighting against racism, prejudice and injustice. The choppy style may also reflect Ginny's unsettled experience of the events she's relating in these opening pages. 

 Ginny’s story illuminates the little known lives of Korean families who have been in Japan for generations but are still treated as interlopers. From her school uniform of traditional Korean garb (setting her apart visually) to the adoration of North Korea’s leaders by her school administration, Ginny’s narrative explains how these elements affect daily life for Zainichi teenagers.

The writing is confessional, with some letters from family members mixed in. Ginny has a raw and honest voice, not making excuses for herself, but placing her story within the wider context of society’s treatment of her community. But she’s also a teen, and so this is also an emotional story of how she overcomes racism and violence, which included a sexual assault.  But the conclusion is hopeful, even uplifting.

It’s a character-driven, thoughtful book, which strongly evokes Tokyo in the late 90s. It was immensely popular in Japan, and is now available in English translation thanks to Takami Nieda & Soho Teen. 

Goodbye Tsugumi

 

Goodbye Tsugumi / Banana Yoshimoto
trans. from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich
NY: Grove, 2002, c1989.
186 p.

This is another classic example of the nostalgic prose that Banana Yoshimoto is known for. In this book, the main character Maria lives with her mother at a seaside inn; her mother is waiting for her father to get a divorce so that they can marry. In the meantime, she works at her sister's inn. This means that Maria grows up in a small town, close to her two cousins, Yoko and Tsugumi. 

Tsugumi is the pivot of the story. She was born with an unspecified condition, making her sickly and invalid a lot of the time, physically at least. She makes up for it with an extremely strong personality -- she's egocentric, obnoxious, rude, sometimes vulgar, mean -- all of it. Especially to those closest to her, like Maria, Yoko, and her own mother. Tsugumi's family seems to indulge her in this behaviour, as a kind of right because of her illness. I found her truly awful, the things she said and got away with were pretty outrageous but everyone seems to just go along with it. 

Maria's father finally gets his divorce, she and her mother move to Tokyo to live with him, and so Maria can go to college. But then she's invited to spend one last summer at the inn, since her aunt & uncle are selling it. This is the last third of the book and it is steeped in nostalgia. Everything Maria looks at, she realizes it will be the last time -- their routines, friendships, and so on -- everything ending. But Tsugumi creates drama and event throughout what could have been a dreamy and quiet summer, as usual. She falls in love for the first time, and takes revenge on some local boys who have wronged her new boyfriend, ending in hospital and just about dying. The book ends with her letter to Maria that she wrote in hospital when she thought she was dying, and basically explains her feelings and reasons for behaving like she does. 

But before the letter, Maria has left the inn for the last time, returning to Tokyo where her mother meets her at the train, and in Maria's head there's a shift, feeling like she has finally left her childhood behind her. As she settles in to her family home in Tokyo, she thinks "this is where I live now." The book is really a long, drawn-out emotional arc that reveals the state of Maria's childhood years, and her transition into independent adulthood, no longer so enmeshed with Tsugumi. 

I liked this one, as it was a bit longer and had a more definitive story than some of Yoshimoto's other work. Also, if you enjoy Yoshimoto's writing style and her distinct ability to evoke nostalgia (which I do) then this is a great example. The soft focus image on the cover reflects the storyline very well. 

I did find Tsugumi an awful person and couldn't quite get why people around her still engaged with her and seemed to like her, but that's the whole story so I guess it was necessary! The translator has done a lot of Yoshimoto's novels so knows the style well, and the story is very smooth to read in English, as always. If you're a fan, definitely read this one as well. 

All the Lovers in the Night

 

All the Lovers in the Night / Mieko Kawakami
trans. from the Japanese by Sam Bett & David Boyd
NY: Europa, 2022, c2014.
224 p.

And another Japanese novel with a bookish main character! Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties - she is very isolated and has contact mainly with her assigning editor Hijiri, a woman about the same age but who is very different than Fuyuko. They start meeting for lunches and Fuyuko tells Hijiri she doesn't drink, unlike Hijiri, who likes to get drunk, likes to get together with various men, and who dresses stylishly and has perfect hair and makeup. 

One day Fuyuko catches a glimpse of herself in a window and sees dull and drab. She decides she needs to shake things up. But the way she decides to do this is to start drinking on her own, heavily and regularly. She spends much of the rest of the book drunk, tipsy or in a similar state, even when she decides that she wants to register for a class at the continuing education centre. She goes there but is so drunk she ends up throwing up on an older man's feet as she runs to the bathroom. But the next time she goes back, he's there again and doesn't seem to hold it against her. In fact he helps her out, as she's drunk again, and they start meeting regularly at a café just to talk. 

Fuyuko falls in love with him, and questions everything about her own life. She's ready to settle in with this man (although he doesn't know it yet) and give up her friendship with Hijiri. But that's not the way things actually turn out. So much in her life is illusion, and what she thinks is reality, is in fact the opposite. After she goes through this strange self-examination of drunkenness she finds herself in much the same position, on the outside, as she was at the beginning, but has finally opened up to life, on the inside.

This was a strange book for me. I kept waiting for something to actually happen, and for Fuyuko to have some kind of epiphany. But the big moment only comes near the end when she writes down the words that are the title of this book, realizing that they are the first words of her own she has written in years. I'm not sure what that indicates exactly; I feel the influence of earlier writers like Banana Yoshimoto here but there's not as much emotional warmth in the story. I wasn't a fan of Fuyuko; her character wanted to find something for herself but didn't do anything about it, getting stalled and self-sabotaging at every turn. In the end it seems like she just went with the flow again, albeit with a better state of mind. The constant drinking as a solution mystified me. Why did she suddenly go from tee-totaller to drunk? And what was this supposed to say? 

As you see, I wasn't fully caught up in this one. I wanted to finish it and see where it was going, but there was not enough action (whether interior or in plot) and no real resolution, for me anyhow. 

The Memory Police

 

The Memory Police / Yoko Ogawa
trans. from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
New York : Vintage, 2020.
274 p.

This is one I have been meaning to read for a long time, and it's one that I wanted to like more than I did. On an unnamed island, with an unnamed protagonist, we find a dystopian society in which things are "disappeared" -- they are wiped from people's memories so that there is no connection to them anymore. Only a few people are immune to this, and they must pretend that they've forgotten, or the Memory Police will show up and drag them away. 

Our heroine is a novelist, and this loss of memories is obviously a problem for her, especially once novels are disappeared late in the narrative. But she discovers that her editor is one of those who can remember, and offers to hide him in a secret room in her house -- she lives in her old and rather large family house alone after both of her parents were taken away by the Memory Police years prior. 

But she's not quite on her own in this venture; the old man living on the beached ferry (after ferries were disappeared) -- also an old family friend -- helps her with this plan, in this strange society they find themselves in. There are philosophical themes of identity and belonging, and how people react to having their civil liberties slowly stripped away. Some people go along with it fully, some quietly resist but continue going along in general, some remember and try to escape, and of course some happily join the Memory Police.

I thought it was an interesting setup for the story, and some parts are beautiful and evocative. But I found that it just got stranger and more esoteric as it progressed, until near the end I wasn't really convinced by it, I wasn't buying in to the characters or their dilemma anymore. Maybe that was a flaw in my concentration but I just lost interest in the situation as it became more metaphorical than potentially possible. Anyhow, it was thought provoking in many ways, and as mentioned, had some memorable passages. But in the end, not fully satisfying for me.