I got ‘Amrita‘ by Banana Yoshimoto last year. I’ve read nearly all of Yoshimoto’s books in English translation and this is the only book of hers that I haven’t read. I had kept it aside for a rainy day. Last week I decided that it was time to read it.
We hear the story through the voice of a woman called Sakumi. Sakumi lives with her interesting family in Tokyo. Her family members are her mom, her younger brother, her cousin, and her mom’s friend. It is a strange family, but they all love each other. Sakumi used to have a younger sister who was an actress, but she died in a car crash. Sakumi meets her sister’s former boyfriend after a long time and there are sparks between them. During this time, Sakumi has strange dreams. And one day her brother tells her that he had come in her dream. That is when Sakumi discovers that her brother has strange powers – he is able to enter other people’s dreams, he is able to sometimes see the future in advance, he is able to sense the presence of spirits of dead people and sometimes converse with them. What happens to Sakumi and her family forms the rest of the story.
‘Amrita’ started well. I enjoyed the story till around halfway through. I don’t know what happened after that. It was hard for me to read and I had to push myself through the second half to get through. At around 370 pages, it is the longest book by Banana Yoshimoto. Yoshimoto normally writes books which are between 100 and 200 pages long. So this was double (or more) the length of a typical Yoshimoto book. I don’t know whether that is the reason it was hard for me to read. Charles Dickens typically wrote chunksters. His books were around 1000 pages long. When he tried writing a 250 page novel, it didn’t work. I think maybe Banana Yoshimoto is the opposite of him. Maybe 100 page novellas are her thing. Maybe that is the length in which her stories shine. But I’ve seen other readers love this book. So maybe the problem is with me.
One of the phrases that I look forward to seeing in any book I read is ‘A dog barked in the distance’, or something similar. Many writers use some version of this and I’ve seen it written in multiple languages. Banana Yoshimoto doesn’t use that. But her favourite phrase seems to be ‘the sound of waves’. I saw it appearing multiple times that at some point I started highlighting every new occurrence of it and counting it I don’t know whether she just loved the phrase or whether she was paying homage to Yukio Mishima who wrote a famous book called ‘The Sound of Waves’.
I’m glad that I read ‘Amrita’. It was my final Yoshimoto. I’m not really a completist because it is hard to read all the books by one particular writer, but I’m glad that I’ve been able to read all the books by Yoshimoto. Looking back, I think my favourite books of hers are ‘Moshi Moshi‘ (the first book of hers that I read), ‘Goodbye Tsugumi‘, and ‘The Premonition‘. I also loved ‘Dead-End Memories‘, but I can’t remember much of it now, and so I think I need to read it again.
Sharing some of my favourite parts from the book.
“There’s something familiar about warm coffee on a late night. I wonder what it could be. It always makes me think of my childhood, even though I never drank coffee as a child. Like the morning of the first fallen snow, or a night of a strong typhoon, there is something reminiscent about late-night coffee, every time it makes a visit.”
“Only recently have I discovered that humanity, that large, solid body which seems so steadfast and strong, is actually nothing but a soft, flabby object, easily ruined under pressure like when it’s stabbed, or run into.
This thing we call humanity, soft and as fragile as an uncooked egg, manages to survive each day unscathed. Human beings function together and carry on separate lives, each and every one of us. All people – the people that I know, the people that I love – manage to go through life one day at a time, despite the fact that we do it holding weapons that could easily destroy us at any moment. Every day brings a new miracle.
Once I start thinking like this I find it hard to get distracted. Of course there will always be calamities in this world, and I wonder why they exist. I ask myself that every time someone I know passes away, or I see someone in pain. But then I can’t help thinking about the other side of the story as well the miracle life that each one of us witnesses every day. Compared to wonder of daily life, perhaps there isn’t a whole lot we can do about the sorrow…”
“A drop of water fell from the sky.
“Oh, look,” I said. “Rain. Even on a beautiful day like this.”
The drop of rain had fallen through the bright rays of the sun from a single white cloud floating against the blue sky. At first I took it for a small fragment of ice, then more raindrops came down, one right after another, landing in our hair – mine black and hers golden yellow. Like something delightful, the rain fell through the warm air, casting a cold shadow around us. The rain was quiet, throwing light across the beautiful scenery like tiny little globes, giving us quick glances of the brilliant sun. Everything looked sweet glittering in the light. Now the world was wet around us, and even though I thought the moisture on my cheeks had fallen from my eyes, when I wiped away the tears I discovered that it was only water from heaven.”
“Without question it was the most brilliant sight I’d ever seen. If I had to make a comparison, I’d say it was like a child seeing light at the end of her mother’s womb for the first time, a light so pure, full of genuine beauty, a brilliance that would never be repeated. I longed to see it again.”
“As people we narrowly get by with our lives each day, energy from our soft, delicate actions appearing like cherry blossoms, only once, and only for a short while. Eventually petals fall to the ground. The sun beats down, wind stirs about, and I stand petrified, unable to move, astonished by the sweet color of the blue sky that flows through the dancing petals of pink tumbling gently about me. The trees above sway softly in the breeze. It happens only once and then it’s over. But I eternally melt into that instant.”
Have you read ‘Amrita’? Have you read books by Banana Yoshimoto? Which book of hers is your favourite?
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