A review by shrimpseas
Dragon Palace by Hiromi Kawakami

3.75


this collection is overall very very strange and that definitely grew on me by the end of the book. i think there is a lot of love in the book, in all forms, and despite all the magic realism and mythological settings, the way the author writes that love and the characters and all gives a very "this is the human condition" feeling, which i appreciate. the other thing is that all the sexual content, the rape, the incest, etc. is all portrayed in such a matter of fact way; if you're looking for explorations of how that affects people, you're definitely not gonna get it here; i feel like the writing of these stories as a whole gives off a very nihilistic sort of perspective. there are no consequences, things just happen, the world goes on. at the same time i didn't feel like any of this was meant to be particularly titillating, which is interesting considering the frequency in which some of these topics occur in these stories lol. another thing that i'm not sure was really the point of these stories at all, but an interesting theme i think was the role of sex in interpersonal relationships; some characters feel entitled (the guy in the kitchen god, the guy in the roar, some of the men in sea horse), but in shimazaki and fox's den perhaps it serves as the backdrop to their relationships, they still quote-unquote love without any of that. i also appreciated the sort of outside perspective on humans and humanity in some of the stories, and how i dont think any of the non-humans characters ever wanted to become human nor stayed that way. 

hokusai: kinda mid, i didn't really get it or the humour tbh. interesting premise. surprisingly i think this was the only short story that made me uncomfortable.
dragon palace: i liked it a little bit more than hokusai, i didn't really get the ending. not the most memorable tbh. 
fox's den: i liked the way the yokai merged into the people, and the weird relationships
the kitchen god: this one was real fun, the way the other people viewed the kitchen god as a weasel, was it actually a weasel or not? the eating drywall, very fun.
mole: this one was a banger, i didn't catch the title at the start so it took me a while to realize they were moles. i loved how they viewed humanity and how they took care of the depressed ones, the way moles also had to go to work etc, did that come before or after humans? i didn't 100% get the ending about the glowing, but it was a fun (if partially confusing) read
the roar: very strange. my theory is that it's some kind of origin story, given that the narrator doesn't know his mother & all his sisters simply announce that without any particular connection etc. 
shimazaki: i think what i liked most about this story was the way the narrator described what she liked about her ancestor, despite his old age; sort of a love between two old people type thing which i find nice (aside from the possible incest?) also an interesting imagination on society with even longer lifespans lol. 
sea horse: honestly probably one of my favourites in this collection. i loved the overview of the woman's life, you could sort of get a sense of time and passing through the ages with her husbands. her interactions with her daughter and the dead one was interesting. i was curious about her relationship with the current husband. i felt that the way she decided she wanted to go back to the sea was abrupt--why now? but also maybe it doesn't matter. 

edit: just so i dont forget to bring it up in book club...
i think the reason why i found hokusai creepy was cause it's sort of an "outside" perspective to the whole sexual assault thing, being that mr octpus guy & narrator guy were running after the women in the street blahblah the humour i didnt find particularly funny... as unrealistic or realistic as it may be... this kind of thing you see in the news or sensationalized (not sure if that's the right word) you can sort of visualize and feel horror from what's not being said by the book... however aside from the explicit mentions of rape which startled me, everything else in the book i think had this interesting balance of otherwordliness in the setting and narrative style, autonomy and sense of "power" between the characters involved, and i think the gender of the narrator also probably subconsciously changed how i viewed things. also i primarily meant the rape in the kitchen god, but now that i think of it -- there was also something like that in the roar, but what i think is interesting about that is that it left less of an impression on me possibly due to it being later in the collection (so i was more accustomed to the author's writing & content) but also the setting went all-in with creepy magical realism so it fits more with the universe...


post book club edit: one theory that we settled on (that i remember) was that family (wrt all the incest) in these books wasn't necessarily blood-relation but more so a stand-in for people who generally share the same ideology or perspective, etc., due to the very small casts in these stories (although short stories typically have smaller casts than novels...) and the way the author seems to decouple the act of sex from the idea of procreation & stereotypical/traditional familial roles... there also seems to be a heavy theme of nostalgia or hanging on to/returning to the past, which i think familial relationships also sort of helps serve that purpose... but who knows maybe the author is just really into this shit. there is also the (quite likely) possibility that we are missing some important cultural context through this translation as a lot of the stories seem to refer heavily to japanese myth/tradition/culture. idk this book is something else, i don't think i've ever read something quite like it
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