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A review by j9tang
The Eighth Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta
4.0
“It’s not a matter of love or hate. She’s my mother, that’s all.”
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In the first scene of The Eight Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta (trans. by Margaret Mitsutani), we’re met with a scrambling character who is stealing away a baby from her former lover. It’s not premeditated and she struggles to find what to do with the baby without getting caught. As the rest of the story unfolds, questions regarding family, motherhood, and trauma unfurl. What makes up a family and what determines motherhood? The first 3/4 of the book is written from the perspective of the main character, Kiwako. They seem almost like journal entries of what happens each day after the abduction, where instead of chapters, each section is headed with what day it is. In the last quarter of the book, the narrative switches to Kaoru’s (the child), who has now grown up and faces the trauma from her past.
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There are cyclical elements to the story, recurring over and over again. The idea of cicadas who spend seven years in the ground, shed their skin, and die only seven days after they reemerge, parallels with how the characters see themselves. But instead of being the cicadas that have died on the seventh day, each of the characters are actually the cicadas who, in Kaoru’s imagination, survive until the eighth day.
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“Remember what you told me about the cicada that couldn’t die?” she said quietly. “Since they all die in seven days, you said it would be much sadder for the one that lived on for an extra day. I thought so too but now I’m not sure. Because on the eighth day, that cicada would get to see things the other hadn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t want to see them, but they probably wouldn’t all be so horrible that it’d close its eyes to shut them out.”
.
In the first scene of The Eight Day by Mitsuyo Kakuta (trans. by Margaret Mitsutani), we’re met with a scrambling character who is stealing away a baby from her former lover. It’s not premeditated and she struggles to find what to do with the baby without getting caught. As the rest of the story unfolds, questions regarding family, motherhood, and trauma unfurl. What makes up a family and what determines motherhood? The first 3/4 of the book is written from the perspective of the main character, Kiwako. They seem almost like journal entries of what happens each day after the abduction, where instead of chapters, each section is headed with what day it is. In the last quarter of the book, the narrative switches to Kaoru’s (the child), who has now grown up and faces the trauma from her past.
.
.
.
There are cyclical elements to the story, recurring over and over again. The idea of cicadas who spend seven years in the ground, shed their skin, and die only seven days after they reemerge, parallels with how the characters see themselves. But instead of being the cicadas that have died on the seventh day, each of the characters are actually the cicadas who, in Kaoru’s imagination, survive until the eighth day.
.
“Remember what you told me about the cicada that couldn’t die?” she said quietly. “Since they all die in seven days, you said it would be much sadder for the one that lived on for an extra day. I thought so too but now I’m not sure. Because on the eighth day, that cicada would get to see things the other hadn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t want to see them, but they probably wouldn’t all be so horrible that it’d close its eyes to shut them out.”