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novelbloglover's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Book Review
Title: Short Stories in Japanese by Various Authors
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4 Stars
So, I have been reading a lot of Japanese literature lately because of university and most are parallel text (they have an English translation next to the Japanese) and I thought I might review them since I recently read Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami and really enjoyed it. As these are short stories I am going to review and rate each story individually and then average out the rating for the collection as a whole.
Concerning the Sound of a Train Whistle in the Night or On the Efficacy of Fiction by Murakami Haruki - ***
Concerning the Sound of a Train Whistle in the Night or On the Efficacy of Fiction was a really short story at just over a page long. It is about a boy and girl having a discussion about how much he loves her, instead of just saying a lot or something similar he compares his love for her to a train whistle. In the brief story he tells he conveys feelings of suffocation and no longer being loved couple with oppressive thoughts that don’t lift until he hears the faintest train whistle in the middle of the night. To him this whistle is the most precious thing on Earth because it allows him to push those oppressive thoughts back and realise that he is loved and wanted which satisfies the girl. It was an interesting analogy on love and how we define it but it was too short to be amazing for me.
A Little Darkness by Yoshimoto Banana - ****
A Little Darkness was an interesting look at trauma, depression and how we carry these things with us for all of our lives. We are following a daughter and her father in Buenos Aires and while her father buys a guitar, the girl goes to the cemetery where Evita is buried. Here among the tombs and graves, she thinks about how her mother died and how both her mother and her father carried their own little darkness with them and how it must have called to the other. In her father the darkness presents itself as a fear of not being able to live up to the expectations of others especially his wife and daughter which often led him to drink or stay out late to avoid them. In her mother, it was a fear of being confined in a box because someone loved her too much to free her. The girl discussed this when her mother was alive but it didn’t come to truly understand it until much later, she has accepted that everyone has their own darkness but she doesn’t know what hers is yet and yet she doesn’t fear facing it even though she is aware that this will most likely change as she gets older. I really like how grief and depression were portrayed and how we carry them and they can call to similar darkness’s in others and yet we have to be strong enough to carry these weights around.
Genjitsu House by Koike Masayo - ****
Genjitsu House was another interesting story as we follow the protagonist after her friend Yoriko has a baby at 44. Yoriko isn’t married to the baby’s father who is already married and she reflects on how poor of a friend she feels like because she didn’t help Yoriko but she also feels sad that Yoriko never asked for help. By the time she visits Yoriko for the first time since the baby, Kunugi was born she is almost a year old and they talk about what it felt like being pregnant, not just physically but emotionally and mentally as well as how other people react to her being pregnant. Yoriko also reflects on how difficult it has been being a single mother but she has made the most of it working from home. The protagonist has mixed feelings about the baby as she doesn’t think she is interesting or cute in any way and yet when Kunugi refers to her as Aa because she doesn’t know any words yet something shifts inside her. The themes of motherhood from a direct standpoint of being a mother and from someone on the outside that isn’t a mother but might desire to be one was interesting especially since the story focuses on some of the minute details like people giving up there seats on the bus or being given some extra food at a restaurant was a really interesting perspective for the author to take.
The Silent Traders by Tsushima Yuko - ****
The Silent Traders is another story centring around parenthood and responsibility. The protagonist one day is in the local park with her children when they find some kittens. These kittens bring back memories of her childhood and she realises that local pets from kittens to turtles have been abandoned in the park and some have managed to survive. She thinks back on her lack of a father as he died when she was a baby and how her relationship with her mother was very poor and she has tried to provide more for her children but she can’t provide them with a father. In an ingenious move, she tells the children that if they leave food out for a tom cat he will be their father and watch over them while they sleep which the children accept and it is something they enjoy. She eventually gets the children’s real father to come and meet them but both they and the children are rather awkward and the father and the children interact very little over the day, as he believes the only children are the two borne from his wife not the protagonist and this is only a favour to her as he has no desire to claim the children as his own. After this encounter is over the protagonist believe that the children’s cat father is much better because they don’t expect anything of each other and even though they never see him, it provides the children with happy memories that their father never did and she knows she made the correct choices in her life and continues to move forward. The themes of responsibility and parenthood are central to this story as it debates on what it means to be a parent, the difference between claimed and unclaimed children and how their upbringings can be drastically different and that this shouldn’t be allowed but she continues trying to do her best to make her children’s lives happy and full of enrichment.
Mogera Wogura by Kawakami Hiromi - *****
I recently read Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami so I was very excited to see what this story had in store for me. This story might just be my favourite in the whole collection as it follows mole people, literally Mogera Wogura are Japanese moles. In this world the moles have evolved to the point where they are completely like humans except for their appearance and this is a recent change in only the last 10-20 years. It seems like more and more humans are being born as Mogera Wogura to adapt to living underground and the protagonist’s hobby is collect humans that have essentially turned into mindless zombies, going through the motions of life without any emotions, providing them with shelter and food until they can either go aboveground again or until they die. The mole and his wife due this everyday despite being shunned aboveground because humans think they are better than the moles but as the male mole discusses the fact that two human babies were born belowground and yet looked and grew exactly like mole children do which says to be that something is wrong with the world. It is briefly touched upon that the sun is moving further away from Earth making it colder meaning belowground is warmer as it closer to the Earth’s core. This was such as interesting story to read as the protagonist isn’t human and reflect on the human condition in ways I haven’t seen done before and I have a feeling that Hiromi Kawakami is going to become an author I greatly enjoy reading from and I hope that I can find a full-length novel similar to this story in the future. I really enjoyed this story and it is the first in this collection to get 5 stars.
The Maiden in the Manger by Abe Kazushige - **
The Maiden in the Manger was just plain weird and I don’t really have any clue what just happened. We are following Thomas who turns out to be an adult toy collector and he is heading to small store where an antique one is beginning held for him and it is clear from his thoughts that he might intend to use it which was a bit gross to be honest. However, he notices something strange about the people and it seems that these four people in the shop besides him are trying to initiate him into their world and invite him into the bedroom later on. I’ve tried to explain this the best that I can and make of it what you will because honestly I have no clue what I just read but it gave me Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibes and I am not sure how I feel about it.
Where the Bowling Pins Stand by Ishii Shinji - *****
Where the Bowling Pins Stand is a story about life and death and realising the things that are important to us. It mainly follows a group of taxi drivers working in a small tourist community and one day a driver takes a fare for an old lady, she doesn’t tell him where she wants to go only vaguely gestures so he takes her to a place close to where she pointed before she pays and he leaves. He learns the next day that the old woman threw herself from the cliff and died so he is needed to give a statement to the police. At the station, the police don’t understand why the old woman killed herself but many quickly move on from it but for some reason it sticks with the driver. Despite others telling him he is the best driver and she probably enjoyed her final journey something doesn’t sit right with him. During the downtime between shifts and going home most of the drivers go bowling and during the nightly game the driver realises that he has a wife and son waiting for him at home and that right now he’d rather be with them since he knows how precious and fragile life truly is. Where the Bowling Pins Stand was a simple yet elegant story about discovering what is truly important to us when faced with death and your own mortality and it will most likely be one of my favourites from this collection.
Love Suicide at Kamaara by Yoshida Sueko - *****
Love Suicide at Kamaara was an amazing story about love, duty, honour and survival. We follow Sammy, a deserter from the American army meaning this story is most likely set during the American occupation of Japan and Kiyo a prostitute on the wrong side of fifty. She and Sammy end up sleeping together as a business transaction first when he is only 18 and still a virgin but she begins to fall for Sammy here. After learning he fled after stabbing his commanding officer she puts him up for a while under the guise of helping him but she really just wants to use Sammy to make herself feel young again. After six months have passed no one really seems to be looking for Sammy now and Kiyo can feel he is getting ready to leave which she can’t stop. When the night comes that he tells her that he is handing himself in to the military to be brought to justice she decides that without him life isn’t worth living but she can’t convince him to stay either, so she turns on the gas stove and when she can feel the effects of the gas she sparks Sammy lighter presumably blowing them both up and killing them instantly. Having this story set during the American occupation after the Second World War made this story even more tragic when you consider the fates both Sammy and Kiyo would have faced if she had let Sammy go. She couldn’t earn any more money as a prostitute because of her age and most likely would have ended up starving sooner or later which Sammy would have been sent to a military prison back in the US for his crime. I think this story is one of my favourites from the collection.
Overall, this collection was really interesting with a variety of themes and genres but three really stood out to me but I’d have to say that either Love Suicide at Kamaara or Mogera Wogura would be the stand out ones for me for very different reasons. Mogera Wogura was just something completely out there that I hadn’t seen before while Love Suicide at Kamaara was utterly heart-breaking and I will definitely read more by both of these author as well as the author of Where the Bowling Pins Stand in the future.
mikifoo's review
4.0
I've read many Japanese novels and short stories (translated to English), and I'm a big fan of Yoshimoto Banana. In this collection, there are moments of serenity, profound sadness due to loss, introspection, and interesting bits about fetishes (sex toys). You know, just the usual themes in Japanese literature ;) There were times when I felt like I was reading "The Housekeeper and the Professor" (Ogawa Yoko) and "A Midsummer's Equation" (Higashino Keigo).
My favourites from this compilation are "A Little Darkness" by Yoshimoto Banana, "The Maiden in the Manger" by Kazushige Abe, "Where the Bowling Pins Stand" by Shinji Ishii (all translated by Michael Emmerich), and "Love Suicide at Kamaara" by Sueko Yoshida, translated by Yukie Ōta.
My Japanese isn't what it used to be, so I can't speak much to the translation. However, there were times when I could tell that the translation in English was lacking, but that was partially due to the fact that there are words and concepts in Japanese that can't be translated to English.
Overall, this was a great selection of short stories! I would especially recommend this to people who haven't read Japanese short stories before or to those who are looking to improve and/or practice their Japanese (like me, hahaha!).
(physical copy purchased at the Foreign Language Bookstore, Shanghai, China, 2016)
My favourites from this compilation are "A Little Darkness" by Yoshimoto Banana, "The Maiden in the Manger" by Kazushige Abe, "Where the Bowling Pins Stand" by Shinji Ishii (all translated by Michael Emmerich), and "Love Suicide at Kamaara" by Sueko Yoshida, translated by Yukie Ōta.
My Japanese isn't what it used to be, so I can't speak much to the translation. However, there were times when I could tell that the translation in English was lacking, but that was partially due to the fact that there are words and concepts in Japanese that can't be translated to English.
Overall, this was a great selection of short stories! I would especially recommend this to people who haven't read Japanese short stories before or to those who are looking to improve and/or practice their Japanese (like me, hahaha!).
(physical copy purchased at the Foreign Language Bookstore, Shanghai, China, 2016)
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