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A review by wolfdan9
The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories by Jay Rubin
1. Bee Honey
"It occurred to me that the pigeons and the pickpockets, the immigrant beside me, the tourists, were all just here."
Bee Honey struck me as a surprise, despite really enjoying Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow, my other experiences with Yoshimoto have been fairly negative. Yet I loved this story. In a few short pages, Yoshimoto captures the healing process of a woman whose relationship has failed. She travels to Argentina to vacation, and discovers a ritual of women wearing white scarves, who are mourning the loss of their children after a violent incident in the country. I found this juxtaposition quite effective at generalizing the pain of loss. Loss, in various forms, is all part of the human experience, which transcends all ethnographic barriers. Yoshimoto's point is accentuated by her narrator being an outsider to Argentina and making her observations from "the outside looking in." She, and the reader, are confronted with this "spoilage" of her vacation. It becomes the centerpiece of her experience that day. And she (impassively, but nevertheless importantly) considers the pain they must be feeling.
But it's quite evident to the narrator that the loss of life experienced by the white scarved women is greater than her own loss. This provides her with some bittersweet solace, an important stepping stone in her healing process, as she reflects on the weight of sorrow through the lens of these women. Her pain is a pebble compared to their boulders, and while she doesn't acknowledge this directly, it's quite clear from what she does not say. She also ruminates on her mother (after seeing a woman who reminds her of her mother -- a rather clever way of driving home the point of humane interconnectivity). She comments on how while she was living with her mom as a child, being spoiled by her love and care while sick, other mothers' children were dying. This is something of which we are all aware, yet she writes about how her mother's special drink for her was called "bee honey," whereas the narrator feels "honey lemon" is a more appropriate name. I found this anecdote affecting. It shows how words and names can have such interchangeable meaning. Personal meaning. Or really no meaning. While this anecdote is such a small mirror, it reflects the grander theme of the story powerfully: that simultaneously, all around the word, significant things are happening. We are enclosed in our personal little worlds, and while we occasionally break out to see how others are living, we have our own cultures, languages, views of the world, etc., and these things inform how we act and more importantly, how our lives may be decided (to a great extent). The way our lives look may be clearly distinct (as is the difference between "honey lemon" and "bee honey"), but the essence of life (i.e., the ingredients of the drink) -- that we are all living a human experience with the same contents of loss, gain, happiness, and sorrow -- is largely the same.
2. Dreams of Love, Etc.
Like Yoshimoto's Bee Honey, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. My only other experience with Kawakami had been Ms. Ice Sandwich, which I found juvenile. Dreams of Love, Etc., for a rather modern story, follows a traditional story-telling formula. There is a distinct flow -- a beginning, middle, and end -- with a bit of foreshadowing, a climactic moment, and symbolism. I was impressed with, rather than put off by, the incorporation of story telling essentials. I felt that it demonstrated Kawakami's grasp over writing conventions, which I had been suspicious of prior to reading. Even the subject matter is nothing new: a dissatisfied housewife seeks an escape. However, Kawakami's twist to the narrative made it somewhat remarkable. To briefly summarize the story, the narrator is a bored and unhappy wife to a typical overworked Japanese man, with whom she has brief and insubstantial engagements. In her life at home, she is unfulfilled by the housekeeping tasks she is occupied with while alone and is lonely yet unmotivated to do much else. Her emptiness leads her to some light front porch gardening, which isn't much of an improvement.
She begins to take walks seeking out suggestions from others' gardens when she encounters a mysterious neighbor, a woman in her sixties who she has heard playing the piano from her home every day while stuck inside. The woman plays beautifully, but cannot play in front of others, so they strike up a friendship and spend 2 hours each day together while the woman practices. It is an odd relationship, but Kawakami suggests that this neighbor is probably an older avatar for the narrator herself: someone who is dissatisfied by their state of being unable to be with others in a moment of greatness. This mirrors the narrator's own wish to escape her humdrum life. Interestingly, she introduces herself as "Terry," an extremely unusual name for a Japanese woman, which leads the narrator to impulsively introduce herself as "Bianca." This was the first moment of brilliance in the story for me. The names that they chose were uncharacteristically western and reflected a "far-awayness" that both women clearly sought. It suggested a sort of play acting. Together, they could be Bianca and Terry, subtly acknowledging in their interactions that they both don't want to be themselves (notably, the narrator is otherwise unnamed -- her actual identity does not matter).
Terry plays for her for about two weeks, until finally she succeeds at playing the piano piece in front of Bianca. This succeed promptly leads to their separation. It is a revelatory moment. Yet Kawakami demonstrates another brilliant writing flourish here. While it may seem that this success is a message to the narrator that through perseverance, it is possible to make a true escape from one's malaise, the successful playing was completed by Bianca (and Terry), not the women as they truly are. Kawakami seems to suggest at the end of the story that this moment led to no real change -- the narrator simply returns to her boring routines and plants -- because the narrator merely inhabited a character who was capable of facilitating change, not transforming herself. And yet, the story ends with a beautifully optimistic note, as her flowers from that summer died: "I put the petals in my palm, one by one. With no particular ceremony or celebration in mind, I placed the petals next to one another on the sunny windowsill."
3. The 1963/1982 Girl from Ipanema
This story ranks as one of the worst I've read from Murakami (alongside Dabchick) for its seemingly hollow non-sequiturs and shallow message. The story seems to want to convey a dream-like feel (all too heavy-handedly) while communicating a sense of otherwordliness through our blurry memories. The beauty of an imagined foreign woman, in this case, is meant to symbolize something, in typical Murakami fashion it is a bit ambiguous, but the issue with this story is that there is no clear connection between the symbol of this woman and -- what he is quite direct about -- the union of ourselves and our imagined selves (either through memory or imagination). Even if she is meant to represent a stand-in of this union, as a figure that defies time and space, there is a great lack of context in the story that would help to establish it. There are also a few tangential non-sequiturs. I guess the story works in a sense since it does feel so fragmentary, like a vague memory, but I also worry that it just seems unfinished, not fleshed out, and a bit throw-away.
4. Same As Always
Same As Always gave me a pretty big shock with its subject matter, especially as a new father. It's about a woman who wants to kill her 6-month-old infant, but doesn't want to emaciate it because it "creeps her out" and doesn't want to beat it, "not because I'd feel bad" but because it would be disgusting and a lot of trouble to clean up. I read online later that Yuya had been influenced by Oe, who also delves stoically into disturbing subject matter, so that made sense. It's one of the more disturbing stories I've read, but it was also quite effective at using this jarring subject matter to convey how man-made disaster has instilled a trauma-derived detachment from others. It does this because, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster which had irradiated fruits and vegetables, the mother plans to ignore television advice and feed them to her child. The interesting tidbit about her rationale is that, although she is doing it purposefully, every other mother is doing the same thing. Even if they go to great lengths to avoid irradiated food, the children inhabit a world where these dangers are unavoidable. This underlying nihilism seems to inform the narrator's world-view: not just her rationale toward killing her child, but toward the detachment she feels toward him and the world. The story ends abruptly after her mother-in-law and husband decide she and the baby need to move to a more rural part of Japan where the effects will be lesser. She acquiesces, saying finally "There was nothing I had to do. Keep nursing, changing nappies, and following orders. Same as always. Which is why I had felt so relieved to learn that hell was spreading all around us." The reader is forced to be disgusted with her, which leads them also to reflecting: I can't believe this situation would drive her to such an extreme minds state. Why is our world like this?
I found that Yuya was so effective at using this story's extremely dark plot to gather the reader's interest. And upon accomplishing this, it subtly sends a message (contrary to the narrator's feelings of defeat) that the issue at stake -- nuclear disaster -- is serious and requires immediate attention.
5. Factory Town
Factory Town was a little slice of brilliance, to be honest. More of a parable than a short story, it highlights the absurdity of how people (group-)think in a capitalist society. A mysterious factory appears alongside a quaint and economically secure town, and the townsfolk walk by this factory with great intrigue at what's being created. They accept the great deal of pollution contaminating the town without a second thought -- in fact, their only concern is that jobs in their respective fields will be displaced by the factory. Finally, it is revealed comically that one of the machines is a cough drop machine was being made (for all of the smoke being made). The other machine? Simply a smoke machine. It is a funny and rather cutting critique of capitalism and how our minds are programmed to prioritize capital. The subject matter is quite Vonnegut-esque, but the storytelling had rhythms of Marquez. Overall, a nice pick.
6. Cambridge Circus
This is another weaker story from the anthology. I don't have much to say about it. It's an exploration of how memory is unreliable and how "the butterfly effect" could or could not have a huge impact upon us. But there's nothing insightful worth mentioning.
7. In the Box
This was another nice story, and quite effective considering its short length. It's about a man who enters an elevator in his apartment building and is shortly thereafter joined by a woman holding many boxes. She presumptively assumes the man will press "floor 9" for her, but he interprets her request as rude. So he hits all of the buttons to delay her. In recalling this story, I was amused by how elaborately the narrator explained how he hit all of the buttons but chose not to hit the "door close" button. The author seemed to want the reader to experience the feeling of being meaninglessly held up. But as the story progresses, the narrator explains that he encountered another woman (perhaps the same one, he can't recall what she looked like), who once again requests the ninth floor while holding boxes, but this time says "or if you like, press them all." This odd remark sets off the narrator, who does just that. This time though, it breaks the elevator and they are stuck. They briefly discuss hitting the emergency button, but neither does. They contentedly lean back, showing their face to one another. I love the ambiguity of the ending's meaning, despite its rather simple resolution. It seems that both characters are being petty to the end -- that they both must waste the others' time to get their revenge. But I suppose a separate interpretation could be that their both content with being even. Perhaps he shows his face to her as a matter of showing interest. It's an odd tale but very well done.
"It occurred to me that the pigeons and the pickpockets, the immigrant beside me, the tourists, were all just here."
Bee Honey struck me as a surprise, despite really enjoying Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow, my other experiences with Yoshimoto have been fairly negative. Yet I loved this story. In a few short pages, Yoshimoto captures the healing process of a woman whose relationship has failed. She travels to Argentina to vacation, and discovers a ritual of women wearing white scarves, who are mourning the loss of their children after a violent incident in the country. I found this juxtaposition quite effective at generalizing the pain of loss. Loss, in various forms, is all part of the human experience, which transcends all ethnographic barriers. Yoshimoto's point is accentuated by her narrator being an outsider to Argentina and making her observations from "the outside looking in." She, and the reader, are confronted with this "spoilage" of her vacation. It becomes the centerpiece of her experience that day. And she (impassively, but nevertheless importantly) considers the pain they must be feeling.
But it's quite evident to the narrator that the loss of life experienced by the white scarved women is greater than her own loss. This provides her with some bittersweet solace, an important stepping stone in her healing process, as she reflects on the weight of sorrow through the lens of these women. Her pain is a pebble compared to their boulders, and while she doesn't acknowledge this directly, it's quite clear from what she does not say. She also ruminates on her mother (after seeing a woman who reminds her of her mother -- a rather clever way of driving home the point of humane interconnectivity). She comments on how while she was living with her mom as a child, being spoiled by her love and care while sick, other mothers' children were dying. This is something of which we are all aware, yet she writes about how her mother's special drink for her was called "bee honey," whereas the narrator feels "honey lemon" is a more appropriate name. I found this anecdote affecting. It shows how words and names can have such interchangeable meaning. Personal meaning. Or really no meaning. While this anecdote is such a small mirror, it reflects the grander theme of the story powerfully: that simultaneously, all around the word, significant things are happening. We are enclosed in our personal little worlds, and while we occasionally break out to see how others are living, we have our own cultures, languages, views of the world, etc., and these things inform how we act and more importantly, how our lives may be decided (to a great extent). The way our lives look may be clearly distinct (as is the difference between "honey lemon" and "bee honey"), but the essence of life (i.e., the ingredients of the drink) -- that we are all living a human experience with the same contents of loss, gain, happiness, and sorrow -- is largely the same.
2. Dreams of Love, Etc.
Like Yoshimoto's Bee Honey, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. My only other experience with Kawakami had been Ms. Ice Sandwich, which I found juvenile. Dreams of Love, Etc., for a rather modern story, follows a traditional story-telling formula. There is a distinct flow -- a beginning, middle, and end -- with a bit of foreshadowing, a climactic moment, and symbolism. I was impressed with, rather than put off by, the incorporation of story telling essentials. I felt that it demonstrated Kawakami's grasp over writing conventions, which I had been suspicious of prior to reading. Even the subject matter is nothing new: a dissatisfied housewife seeks an escape. However, Kawakami's twist to the narrative made it somewhat remarkable. To briefly summarize the story, the narrator is a bored and unhappy wife to a typical overworked Japanese man, with whom she has brief and insubstantial engagements. In her life at home, she is unfulfilled by the housekeeping tasks she is occupied with while alone and is lonely yet unmotivated to do much else. Her emptiness leads her to some light front porch gardening, which isn't much of an improvement.
She begins to take walks seeking out suggestions from others' gardens when she encounters a mysterious neighbor, a woman in her sixties who she has heard playing the piano from her home every day while stuck inside. The woman plays beautifully, but cannot play in front of others, so they strike up a friendship and spend 2 hours each day together while the woman practices. It is an odd relationship, but Kawakami suggests that this neighbor is probably an older avatar for the narrator herself: someone who is dissatisfied by their state of being unable to be with others in a moment of greatness. This mirrors the narrator's own wish to escape her humdrum life. Interestingly, she introduces herself as "Terry," an extremely unusual name for a Japanese woman, which leads the narrator to impulsively introduce herself as "Bianca." This was the first moment of brilliance in the story for me. The names that they chose were uncharacteristically western and reflected a "far-awayness" that both women clearly sought. It suggested a sort of play acting. Together, they could be Bianca and Terry, subtly acknowledging in their interactions that they both don't want to be themselves (notably, the narrator is otherwise unnamed -- her actual identity does not matter).
Terry plays for her for about two weeks, until finally she succeeds at playing the piano piece in front of Bianca. This succeed promptly leads to their separation. It is a revelatory moment. Yet Kawakami demonstrates another brilliant writing flourish here. While it may seem that this success is a message to the narrator that through perseverance, it is possible to make a true escape from one's malaise, the successful playing was completed by Bianca (and Terry), not the women as they truly are. Kawakami seems to suggest at the end of the story that this moment led to no real change -- the narrator simply returns to her boring routines and plants -- because the narrator merely inhabited a character who was capable of facilitating change, not transforming herself. And yet, the story ends with a beautifully optimistic note, as her flowers from that summer died: "I put the petals in my palm, one by one. With no particular ceremony or celebration in mind, I placed the petals next to one another on the sunny windowsill."
3. The 1963/1982 Girl from Ipanema
This story ranks as one of the worst I've read from Murakami (alongside Dabchick) for its seemingly hollow non-sequiturs and shallow message. The story seems to want to convey a dream-like feel (all too heavy-handedly) while communicating a sense of otherwordliness through our blurry memories. The beauty of an imagined foreign woman, in this case, is meant to symbolize something, in typical Murakami fashion it is a bit ambiguous, but the issue with this story is that there is no clear connection between the symbol of this woman and -- what he is quite direct about -- the union of ourselves and our imagined selves (either through memory or imagination). Even if she is meant to represent a stand-in of this union, as a figure that defies time and space, there is a great lack of context in the story that would help to establish it. There are also a few tangential non-sequiturs. I guess the story works in a sense since it does feel so fragmentary, like a vague memory, but I also worry that it just seems unfinished, not fleshed out, and a bit throw-away.
4. Same As Always
Same As Always gave me a pretty big shock with its subject matter, especially as a new father. It's about a woman who wants to kill her 6-month-old infant, but doesn't want to emaciate it because it "creeps her out" and doesn't want to beat it, "not because I'd feel bad" but because it would be disgusting and a lot of trouble to clean up. I read online later that Yuya had been influenced by Oe, who also delves stoically into disturbing subject matter, so that made sense. It's one of the more disturbing stories I've read, but it was also quite effective at using this jarring subject matter to convey how man-made disaster has instilled a trauma-derived detachment from others. It does this because, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster which had irradiated fruits and vegetables, the mother plans to ignore television advice and feed them to her child. The interesting tidbit about her rationale is that, although she is doing it purposefully, every other mother is doing the same thing. Even if they go to great lengths to avoid irradiated food, the children inhabit a world where these dangers are unavoidable. This underlying nihilism seems to inform the narrator's world-view: not just her rationale toward killing her child, but toward the detachment she feels toward him and the world. The story ends abruptly after her mother-in-law and husband decide she and the baby need to move to a more rural part of Japan where the effects will be lesser. She acquiesces, saying finally "There was nothing I had to do. Keep nursing, changing nappies, and following orders. Same as always. Which is why I had felt so relieved to learn that hell was spreading all around us." The reader is forced to be disgusted with her, which leads them also to reflecting: I can't believe this situation would drive her to such an extreme minds state. Why is our world like this?
I found that Yuya was so effective at using this story's extremely dark plot to gather the reader's interest. And upon accomplishing this, it subtly sends a message (contrary to the narrator's feelings of defeat) that the issue at stake -- nuclear disaster -- is serious and requires immediate attention.
5. Factory Town
Factory Town was a little slice of brilliance, to be honest. More of a parable than a short story, it highlights the absurdity of how people (group-)think in a capitalist society. A mysterious factory appears alongside a quaint and economically secure town, and the townsfolk walk by this factory with great intrigue at what's being created. They accept the great deal of pollution contaminating the town without a second thought -- in fact, their only concern is that jobs in their respective fields will be displaced by the factory. Finally, it is revealed comically that one of the machines is a cough drop machine was being made (for all of the smoke being made). The other machine? Simply a smoke machine. It is a funny and rather cutting critique of capitalism and how our minds are programmed to prioritize capital. The subject matter is quite Vonnegut-esque, but the storytelling had rhythms of Marquez. Overall, a nice pick.
6. Cambridge Circus
This is another weaker story from the anthology. I don't have much to say about it. It's an exploration of how memory is unreliable and how "the butterfly effect" could or could not have a huge impact upon us. But there's nothing insightful worth mentioning.
7. In the Box
This was another nice story, and quite effective considering its short length. It's about a man who enters an elevator in his apartment building and is shortly thereafter joined by a woman holding many boxes. She presumptively assumes the man will press "floor 9" for her, but he interprets her request as rude. So he hits all of the buttons to delay her. In recalling this story, I was amused by how elaborately the narrator explained how he hit all of the buttons but chose not to hit the "door close" button. The author seemed to want the reader to experience the feeling of being meaninglessly held up. But as the story progresses, the narrator explains that he encountered another woman (perhaps the same one, he can't recall what she looked like), who once again requests the ninth floor while holding boxes, but this time says "or if you like, press them all." This odd remark sets off the narrator, who does just that. This time though, it breaks the elevator and they are stuck. They briefly discuss hitting the emergency button, but neither does. They contentedly lean back, showing their face to one another. I love the ambiguity of the ending's meaning, despite its rather simple resolution. It seems that both characters are being petty to the end -- that they both must waste the others' time to get their revenge. But I suppose a separate interpretation could be that their both content with being even. Perhaps he shows his face to her as a matter of showing interest. It's an odd tale but very well done.