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A review by brice_mo
Scattered All Over the Earth by Yōko Tawada
5.0
How do you translate loss without the language that was lost?
“Scattered All Over the Earth” is Tawada at her finest. Her usual preoccupations with language and culture are even more central here, and for anybody who has a passing knowledge of linguistics, each page is densely populated with references that reward close reading. And even if you don’t know much about language, it’s still absurdly fun.
Nobody does simile and metaphor like Tawada, as she stretches words and images well beyond their semantic constraints. In Tawada’s world, language is not just a medium—it’s a substance, and pages upon pages of creative descriptions attest to that view. Major credit is also due to translator Margaret Mitsutani’s lyrical work. The collaboration exemplifies how translation is always an additive process, and this plays into the themes of the book as well.
Plot-wise, there isn’t a lot here, but the novel is thematically rich. Essentially, Japan seems to be missing, and the protagonist is trying to find someone else who speaks Japanese. She navigates her journey with her own invented language, and along the way, she picks up several other people in search of … something.
Tawada uses this premise to explore refugee identity, language politics, climate change, and the commodification of culture. The last point in particular was fascinating, as every European character is familiar with Japanese cultural exports but not the culture itself. There’s something to be said here about the way the West ravenously consumes and co-opts Eastern media and images, and Tawada doesn’t pull any punches. Even so, this is her gentlest book. The characters are all endearing, and there’s a sweetness to how they begin to articulate their relationship.
To outsiders, it’s dysfunctional; to them, it’s whatever exists beyond love.
In regard to the last point, I have seen several complaints about transphobia. Frankly, they seem reductionist—each of the characters is negotiating their own form of displacement, but they are content nevertheless. The notion of identity itself is in flux, and it seems like Tawada has made a conscious choice for the characters to sidestep familiar identity-driven questions in favor of a new one: how would the world open up to us if we accepted ambiguity?
It’s a book about reconstructing values when the objects of our values are lost, so it makes sense that Tawada’s approach would make people squeamish. I encourage readers who are on the fence to simply surrender to the story being told and reserve judgments until the end.
You can reject Tawada’s argument, but refusing to engage with it would simply embody the kind of perspective she critiques.
“Scattered All Over the Earth” is Tawada at her finest. Her usual preoccupations with language and culture are even more central here, and for anybody who has a passing knowledge of linguistics, each page is densely populated with references that reward close reading. And even if you don’t know much about language, it’s still absurdly fun.
Nobody does simile and metaphor like Tawada, as she stretches words and images well beyond their semantic constraints. In Tawada’s world, language is not just a medium—it’s a substance, and pages upon pages of creative descriptions attest to that view. Major credit is also due to translator Margaret Mitsutani’s lyrical work. The collaboration exemplifies how translation is always an additive process, and this plays into the themes of the book as well.
Plot-wise, there isn’t a lot here, but the novel is thematically rich. Essentially, Japan seems to be missing, and the protagonist is trying to find someone else who speaks Japanese. She navigates her journey with her own invented language, and along the way, she picks up several other people in search of … something.
Tawada uses this premise to explore refugee identity, language politics, climate change, and the commodification of culture. The last point in particular was fascinating, as every European character is familiar with Japanese cultural exports but not the culture itself. There’s something to be said here about the way the West ravenously consumes and co-opts Eastern media and images, and Tawada doesn’t pull any punches. Even so, this is her gentlest book. The characters are all endearing, and there’s a sweetness to how they begin to articulate their relationship.
To outsiders, it’s dysfunctional; to them, it’s whatever exists beyond love.
In regard to the last point, I have seen several complaints about transphobia. Frankly, they seem reductionist—each of the characters is negotiating their own form of displacement, but they are content nevertheless. The notion of identity itself is in flux, and it seems like Tawada has made a conscious choice for the characters to sidestep familiar identity-driven questions in favor of a new one: how would the world open up to us if we accepted ambiguity?
It’s a book about reconstructing values when the objects of our values are lost, so it makes sense that Tawada’s approach would make people squeamish. I encourage readers who are on the fence to simply surrender to the story being told and reserve judgments until the end.
You can reject Tawada’s argument, but refusing to engage with it would simply embody the kind of perspective she critiques.