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danielleganon's review against another edition
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
meghan111's review against another edition
3.0
Mysterious, dreamy novel about a young woman who moves to Tokyo and becomes an artist, and the young man she spots in the window across the street from her apartment. They move in together, and she realizes how damaged he is from something that happened in his childhood.
karenleagermain's review against another edition
4.0
Banana Yoshimoto has been a long time favorite author of mine and her latest novella, "The Lake" doesn't disappoint. The story is first person, told from the point of view of Chihiro, a young woman who has just lost her mother and is feeling rootless. She encounters a needy and usual man named Nakajima, who has also lost his parents and this commonality seals their bond. They carve out a life together that is stunted emotionally and is hovered by a dark secret.
Much of the story has a hint of something not quite right and potentially sinister. Yoshimoto does a great job creating a slow build to a shocking reveal in the end. The story is just plain creepy and left me feeling out of sorts.
The reason I love Yoshimoto so much, is she has a talent for writing simply. She is direct, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice the subtext. She creates complex characters with intense motivations. I also love how her books are always exactly the right length to tell the story. I never feel that her stories could have benefitted from ruthless editing. She knows what to add and what to cut, something that I think is difficult for even the most gifted writers and editors.
On a personal level, I connected to many of the emotions that the characters feel in the book, with particular regard to rootlessness and loss of parents. These characters are in an intense period of transition and feeling uncertainty and panic. Yoshimoto captures this perfectly.
Much of the story has a hint of something not quite right and potentially sinister. Yoshimoto does a great job creating a slow build to a shocking reveal in the end. The story is just plain creepy and left me feeling out of sorts.
The reason I love Yoshimoto so much, is she has a talent for writing simply. She is direct, but in a way that doesn't sacrifice the subtext. She creates complex characters with intense motivations. I also love how her books are always exactly the right length to tell the story. I never feel that her stories could have benefitted from ruthless editing. She knows what to add and what to cut, something that I think is difficult for even the most gifted writers and editors.
On a personal level, I connected to many of the emotions that the characters feel in the book, with particular regard to rootlessness and loss of parents. These characters are in an intense period of transition and feeling uncertainty and panic. Yoshimoto captures this perfectly.
joelkarpowitz's review against another edition
2.0
Thanks Goodreads for ruining a major plot twist with your description!
This book feels only semi-Japanese, not quite the way Americans talk or think, but also somewhat different from the Japan I know. There were some passages that were really moving, and some where I felt completely disconnected from the narrator. It's a quick read, but I think it's just ok.
This book feels only semi-Japanese, not quite the way Americans talk or think, but also somewhat different from the Japan I know. There were some passages that were really moving, and some where I felt completely disconnected from the narrator. It's a quick read, but I think it's just ok.
lgpiper's review against another edition
4.0
This book is somewhat mystical and very introspective. None-the-less, it's quite good. It's written from the perspective of Chihiro, a mural painter. She likes to spend time looking out her window. Eventually she notices that a young may across the way also spends rather a lot of time looking out of his window. They begin a friendship by nodding/giving little waves, which then leads to occasional meetings in the street. As time progresses, the young man, a student named Nakajima, begins visiting in the evenings and eventually moves in. Over time, the previous life experiences of each is revealed, including some rather dark traumas which have colored their lives. The traumas are revealed to some extent, when they visit a lake on which a mystical brother and sister live in a hovel. It seems that once upon a time, Nakajima also lived there with his mother.
Interesting to me, at least, one recurring theme in the lives of both Chihiro and Nakajima is their having recently lost their mothers. That was also a theme in the play my spouse and I saw, Mauritius, during the time I was reading this book. Having just lost my own mother, I thought these two coincidences rather weird. Perhaps someone was hoping these works might help me to begin confronting my own loss.
Interesting to me, at least, one recurring theme in the lives of both Chihiro and Nakajima is their having recently lost their mothers. That was also a theme in the play my spouse and I saw, Mauritius, during the time I was reading this book. Having just lost my own mother, I thought these two coincidences rather weird. Perhaps someone was hoping these works might help me to begin confronting my own loss.
kidclamp's review against another edition
3.0
I was disappointed in this book. The latest translation of Banana Yoshimoto, written originally in 2005, this is the first book where I felt the translation itself might be a large part of the problem.
An aspiring artist connects with her unusual neighbor after a long period of seeing each other only in their adjacent windows. As she works on a mural and deals with the loss of her mother she uncovers the truth about his past and the pain he carries inside of him.
It's got Yoshimoto's usual introspective reflections on love and life, but lacks the magical qualities of her earlier works, and the lines the characters speak seem so unnatural as to be distracting. Possibly it was poor word choice by the translator, but everything felt so stilted and forced that I could never picture the characters having these conversations.
An aspiring artist connects with her unusual neighbor after a long period of seeing each other only in their adjacent windows. As she works on a mural and deals with the loss of her mother she uncovers the truth about his past and the pain he carries inside of him.
It's got Yoshimoto's usual introspective reflections on love and life, but lacks the magical qualities of her earlier works, and the lines the characters speak seem so unnatural as to be distracting. Possibly it was poor word choice by the translator, but everything felt so stilted and forced that I could never picture the characters having these conversations.
beth_diiorio's review against another edition
4.0
Banana Yoshimoto's ability to hone in on the depth of her main characters is quite a gift. The protagonist, Chihiro, having grown up in the countryside in Japan is an interesting result of her upbringing and her temperament. She, like her mother, consisted of "two selves that came and went inside her. One was sociable and upbeat, a woman of the world who lived in the moment and seemed like a really cool person to be around; the other was extremely delicate, like a big, soft flower nodding gently on its stem, looking as if the slightest breeze would scatter its petals. The flowerlike side wasn't easy to recognize, and my mom, always eager to please, tried hard to cultivate the feisty, easygoing side of her personality. Watering IT, rather than the flower, with lots of love, fertilizing it with people's approval." I loved how Chihiro struggled to find the balance between her desire for independence and her need to be in the company of one she loved. Another favorite trait of hers was that of a humble mural painter/artist in which she stalwartly sticks to her vision versus commercialism.
Chihiro shares her young adult life with Nakajima, initially a new aquaintance from an apartment nearby. Nakajima is a young man, emotionally withdrawn and very intelligent, with baggage from his past. "...as beautiful as the world was, none of it was powerful enough to take the weight off his heart, that heaviness that dragged him down, into the beyond, making him yearn to be at peace." Both Chihiro and Nakajima are slow and cautious toward the relationship, precariously appreciating having found each other. "We'd taken our time turning toward each other, from our two windows, piling each little moment on the next until, deep in our hearts, something clicked. And so the surface remained unruffled." As a reader, I could feel the strong unspoken waves of emotional support on behalf of each character. Together, although not always confident in the outcome, they worked at supporting each other. I have to point out one small, awkward reference that just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story; In reference to Nakajima sleeping with his deceased mother's old wire rice cake rack under his arm, Chihiro states, "You've got the hard version of Linus' blanket." (I didn't realize that Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters were that internationally renowned). I'm so glad that I read this book, and would love to hear your recommendations for other great books by Banana Yoshimoto.
Favorite Quotes:
"This is what it means to be loved...when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...My body knows not to respond to fake love. I guess maybe that's what it means to have been brought up well."
"People look so beautiful when their expressions show that they know they have a future."
"Here we are, two ridiculously fragile people, sliding along on a very thin layer of ice all the time, each of us ready to slip and take the other down at any moment, the most unsteady of couples--and yet I believed what I had said. It would be all right."
"And when it occurred to me that being that way really wasn't going to help me get through the rest of my life, I realized that from now on, my mom's life and mine would have to be completely, unmistakably different...something flashed in my mind when I discovered that feeling inside me: So this is what it means to grow up."
"At last, a faint sense of confidence dropped anchor inside me."
[Chihiro describing her mural to Nakajima] "No one else knows what it means, but that doesn't matter--it's a happy world. No one can destroy that heppiness. People will see this wall without having any idea what it means, and then eventually it will be knocked down, and it won't exist anymore. But deep down in people's subconscious, this happy group of monkeys, all of you, will still be there, just a little."
Chihiro shares her young adult life with Nakajima, initially a new aquaintance from an apartment nearby. Nakajima is a young man, emotionally withdrawn and very intelligent, with baggage from his past. "...as beautiful as the world was, none of it was powerful enough to take the weight off his heart, that heaviness that dragged him down, into the beyond, making him yearn to be at peace." Both Chihiro and Nakajima are slow and cautious toward the relationship, precariously appreciating having found each other. "We'd taken our time turning toward each other, from our two windows, piling each little moment on the next until, deep in our hearts, something clicked. And so the surface remained unruffled." As a reader, I could feel the strong unspoken waves of emotional support on behalf of each character. Together, although not always confident in the outcome, they worked at supporting each other. I have to point out one small, awkward reference that just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story; In reference to Nakajima sleeping with his deceased mother's old wire rice cake rack under his arm, Chihiro states, "You've got the hard version of Linus' blanket." (I didn't realize that Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters were that internationally renowned). I'm so glad that I read this book, and would love to hear your recommendations for other great books by Banana Yoshimoto.
Favorite Quotes:
"This is what it means to be loved...when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...My body knows not to respond to fake love. I guess maybe that's what it means to have been brought up well."
"People look so beautiful when their expressions show that they know they have a future."
"Here we are, two ridiculously fragile people, sliding along on a very thin layer of ice all the time, each of us ready to slip and take the other down at any moment, the most unsteady of couples--and yet I believed what I had said. It would be all right."
"And when it occurred to me that being that way really wasn't going to help me get through the rest of my life, I realized that from now on, my mom's life and mine would have to be completely, unmistakably different...something flashed in my mind when I discovered that feeling inside me: So this is what it means to grow up."
"At last, a faint sense of confidence dropped anchor inside me."
[Chihiro describing her mural to Nakajima] "No one else knows what it means, but that doesn't matter--it's a happy world. No one can destroy that heppiness. People will see this wall without having any idea what it means, and then eventually it will be knocked down, and it won't exist anymore. But deep down in people's subconscious, this happy group of monkeys, all of you, will still be there, just a little."
pammoore's review against another edition
3.0
The writing was sharp and the tone was sad, but I found the plot lacking. I kept struggling to figure out what this book was really about... here's what I came up with: love, family, growing up, how we handle adversity, and acceptance.