Whale by Cheon Myeong Kwan

Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan

Korean Fiction

Original title – 《고래》

Translator -Chi-Young Kim

Source – Review copy

I had asked for a review copy of this before it appeared on the Booker longlist, as I had seen it doing the rounds, and it appealed as it sounded a little surreal. It It was selected as a youth-recommended book by the Korean Publishing Ethics Committee, the Korean Culture and Arts Committee as an excellent literature book. It was the debut novel by the writer and screenwriter Cheon Myeong-Kwan it was his debut novel when it came out in 2004 he has since written several books and also a few screenplays and has directed a film from his own writing. This book had been translated a few years ago as part of the DalkeyArchive Korean lit series, but we on the shadow jury were discussing if it did come out. There is a cover for it, but some have the same number in the series, and it is a different book and a new translation.

Every time the old crone’s eyes met her daughter’s, she was reminded of the halfwit, which tormented her. So she hit her. Not a day went by without a bruise forming on the little girl’s stick-thin body. Every time she was beaten, the girl would crouch in the corner, crying, and look up at her mother. Her wretched gaze reminded the old crone even more of the halfwit; it was as if she could hear his voice, his frightened look, and outstretched hands as he sank into the dark water.

I don’t want to take a bath.

The other main character is the old crone maybe harking back to the sotorytelling and surreal side of his book.

The whale is set ion a remote village and takes place over several years as the village, and the country itself see excellent changes. We are let into this village through a surreal collection of strange characters.the two main characters are a mother and daughter Geumbok, the mother wanders with a fishmonger in the aftermath of the Korean war. What we see is her journey to success from a moment glimpsing a whale’s tail which; later plays a part when she opens a whale shape cinema. As her life grows from those early days and her inventive ideas with the fishmonger, then moves on with the money she uses to build a life and see her empire grow. She has a way with men and manages to escape her violent father and eventually build a brickyard. This is where her mute daughter  Chunhui works her story forms another strand of this complex novel as does an old witch like a woman that has involvement with the family add some twins the ability to talk to elephants, and you have a unique book that mixes storytelling and surrealism.

By the time the fishmonger reached Geumbok’s village, the salted fish had long been spoiled and the musty smell made people pinch their noses, and the rancid flesh had become mush and disintegrated into fish sauce that flowed under the wooden chests. Not many whole fish were left, with many heads gone missing. Geumbok’s village was so small and so deep in the mountains that the fishmonger often turned back to the coast before he even got there, so the old folks–who craved anything fishy and smacked their lips when someone roasted a piece of mackerel that was so preserved as to be indistinguishable from a block of salt, even as they attempted to behave with dignity by saying “That stinks” or “That tastes like it’s turned”

-waited eagerly for the fishmonger despite his unimpressive wares.

She uses the fishmonger to futher her life

I am pleased I ask for this as I am maybe one of those readers that hasn’t 100% connected with Korean lit, and this isn’t [perfect, but it is known in Korea for being the bookshelf of one of the members of the group BTS (I’ve not listened to them but know they are huge in Korea and around the world. So this book is considered a cornerstone in the modern Korean canon. For me it has part of please look after mother, part Royanderson surrealism that grim odd world he conjures up, part Dickensian tale of a character’s world to goodness and part cinema Paradiso. Dickens as it is a story of someone escaping the worst and building a life ala Dickens, then it has a chunk of surrealism that is odd but believable. Then like PLease look after mother, another book that captures those whirlwind years in Korea that saw Korea shoot forward as a country. Have you read this how did you find it ? Have you a favourite book that uses Surrealism and Magic realism which this book does both?

Winstons score- A – the solid first book of this year’s Booker shadow Jury reading and the sixth book from the list I will have read and reviewed.

Women running in the mountains by Yūko Tsushima

Women running in the Mountains by Yūko Tsushima

Japanese fiction

Original title -山を走る女, Yama wo hashiru onna

Translator – Geraldine Harcourt

Source – personal copy

Another stop on this year’s  Japan in January is a modern classic from Japan Yūko Tsushima was the daughter of the famed Japanese writer Osamu Dazai although he took his own life when she was just one year old. She published her first book in the mid-twenties and this came in 1979. She went on to write more than 35 novels in her life. she was considered a feminist writer.But she said she liked to write about marginalized people like the mother in this story. she cited Tennessee Williams as an influence on her writing This book drew on her own experience of herself being a single mother. This book is also about a single mother and her first year after birth.

The small bed by Takiko’s feet was occupied by the bundle of baby clothes and diaper covers. She remembered the baby’s first cry that she’d heard toward daybreak. Several minutes after the pain had suddenly faded away, the sound had echoed through the delivery room and she had asked herself if it was the cry of the living thing she’d given birth to. The nurses had seemed to be attending busily to the baby near her feet. Soon it was taken from the room. Takiko was shown its face for a brief moment. It was bright red, but at the same time familiar somehow. She hadn’t seen the baby since.

After she walked through the town to give birth to her son.

The book opens with the main character of the book Takiko she is on her way to give birth to her baby. she arrives and gives birth this is a young woman that had an affair with a married man and then felt the cold shoulder from her parents there relationship is brutal at times as they try to get her to give her son away or even have an abortion to avoid the shame this is a county where there is a small at this time of single mother and most of the single mother there where from divorces and much older than Taiko so they felt she would be shunned. The first weeks after the birth she finds a sort of sisterhood of all those in the hospital ward with their newborns as well. The book follows her journey from her taking her son to the Nursery we get a diary of the events with a nursery view and the way Takiko is at home. The home is hard her father is a hard drinker and abusive but she wants to break free. There is a juxtaposition you see a woman struggling but overtime you see the mother appear this is a novel of a woman blossoming as she finds jobs and gets out of the four walls of her parents house and facing her own mountain, not just the mountain she heads up later in the book as she meets a man with a child a single parent at marvels at him as his son is disabled. This is touching insight into the trouble of being a single mother and the abuse women faced at the time and still.

So this was the house she’d grown up knowing, thought Takiko. The bathroom addition. Redoing the kitchen. The neighbours putting up a two-story apartment wing in their garden so that it loomed over them. Atsushi falling off the veranda–would he have been two at the time? And the time Takiko, then about four, tried to tie a ribbon on the cat they used to have and was scratched from her eyelid to her cheek.

As if on the point of leaving, she couldn’t resist summoning up these memories of her old home.

“Well, anyway, why don’t you lie down? Your bed’s made up.” Her mother appeared from the storeroom-Atsushi’s room–at the back of the house. “Are you hungry? I could make some ramen.”

The family home memories and also was very dark at times

This is an example of I novel the realist movement novel from Japan that had roots back in the late 1800s. She has used her own life experience as a single mother and built a novel around it. This also has a nod to Autofiction as well that great French Genre where writers use their own life to mine for their fiction. She has maybe written a female Bildungsroman about motherhood what we see is that first year a woman determined to have the baby struggle and then it becomes easier over time. She captures how the body feels afterbirth and how the woman re-emerges from the pregnant woman. I did wonder if the Kawano was based in some part on her fellow writer Oe he had a disabled son and they must have crossed paths back in the day. This is an insight into a family a mother  that is determined but struggles, parents full of shame about what happened and then there is the baby a woman going up her own mountain. Have you read any more of her books.

Winston’s score – A – stunning insight into being a single mother and the outfacing from that. Ican’t wait to read more from this writer

Before the Coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

 

Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu kawaguchi

Japanese fiction

Orignal title – コーヒーが冷めないうちに, Kohi ga Samenai Uchi n

Translator -Geoffrey Trousselot

Source – personal copy

I decide to pick a less taxing book for my next January in Japan read and I choose this book that has had a couple of follow-up books written as I had seen it around since it came out a couple of years ago and when I saw a second-hand copy I pick it up with this month in mind it always nice to have something easy to read between those more taxing reads. The book was originally a play before it was rewritten into a novel and has since been made into a film. It won a prize when it was a play the writer has been a member of a theatrical group and a playwright.

The cafe has no air conditioning. It opened in 1874, more than a hundred and forty years ago. Back then, people still used oil lamps for light. Over the years, the cafe underwent a few small renovations, but its interior today is pretty much unchanged from its original look. When it opened, the decor must have been considered very avant-garde. The commonly accepted date for the appearance of the modern cafe in Japan is around

1888 – a whole fourteen years later.

Coffee was introduced to Japan in the Edo period, around the late seventeenth century. Initially it didn’t appeal to Japanese taste buds and it was certainly not thought of as something one drank for enjoyment – which was no wonder, considering it tasted like black, bitter water.

The opening of the second story in the collection. the cafe has been there for a long time!!

The novel is set in a cafe that has been on the back streets of Tokyo for years but this cafe is different as it has a secret you buy your coffee and then you are told by the server that when you drink the coffee before it gets cold and you will be able to travel back in time. The book has four stories of four visitors to the cafe. There first is a tale of a love lost and maybe a chance to stop that lover from going away to the US. Then a nurse Kothake comes in she is trying to find a letter her husband who now has Alzheimer’s had written one of the last things he had done before the worst of his condition had hit this one really hit me I am just a person that has my emotions closer to the surface and this story hit home.I leave the other two for you top find out.

Fusagi had early onset Alzheimer’s disease, and was losing his memory. The disease causes rapid depletion of the brain’s neural cells. The brain pathologically atrophies, causing loss of intelligence and changes to the personality. One of the striking symptoms of early onset Alzheimer’s is how the deterioration of brain function appears so sporadic. Sufferers forget some things but remember other things. In Fusagi’s case, his memories were gradually disappearing, starting with the most recent. Meanwhile, his previously hard-to-please personality had been slowing mellowing.

Kothake husband he had written a letter before he got to bad to remember who he was!

As you may know, I tend to avoid hype books and this is why it had taken me so long tk get to this one I had seen out when it came out and the idea of the book is one I knew I would like the idea of reliving the past the chance to reset maybe even alter what happened is something that has appealed to me a like Adam Duritz said in the song Mrs Potter If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts and this is about that ghost of ones past the echoes we can relieve or reexperience or change stop that lover going find that letter etc the is a small bit of magic realism to this at times. The one problem is the book could have expanded the universe of the book out at times there is a sense of it being A stage play still as all the action is in the cafe which for a play works but in a novel, you could have let fly with the drinking of the coffee and time travel element of the book. This has two follow-up books because the format can run and run it has the same feeling of something like Call the midwife where we glimpse life’s hardest parts and this issue is the same it stirs the emotions of the reader and the second story touched me having lost my stepmother to dementia a similar condition the lose of the person before the loss of a person is so hard to deal with and the chance to reconnect must be reassuring as the want to find the letter. Have you read this or the two follow-up books?

Winstons score – B A tear jerker of a book but if you want a read a little different it is worth trying and can be read in an evening

 

The Chronicles of Lord Asunaro by Kanji Hanawa

The Chronicles of Lord Asunaro by Kanji Hanawa

Japanese Novella

Original title – Asunaroko Huntoki/あすなろ公奮闘記

Translator – Meredith McKinny

Source – Review copy

I should have gotten round to this book earlier from Red Circle had kindly sent me a number of their books they have brought out a number ion short novellas from Japanese I have reviewed two of the other books including another book by the Writer the Late Kanji Hanawa published a number of books in his lifetime. But the two are the only ones that have been translated there is a very good pdf all about his books on the Red Circle website. He won a number of prizes in his lifetime. This book is very different from Backlight, which makes me want to read more books from this writer let’s hope we get a few more in English over time.

Every morning, the young son of a certain feudal lord woken at a fixed hour when the doors and paper screens of his bedroom were drawn open, in undeviating order and with the same predictable clatter. Impassively and regardless of the weather, his gaze fell first on the tasteful courtyard garden beyond the window.

Next, his eyes lifted to the lowest roof of the corner tower and began to count off the pine branches of the round eaves tiles, their gold leaf flaking in patches, before he gave up halfway as he always did.Thus the young lord of the West Castle commence his day

The opening lines of the book. is all as it seems with in the court ?

 

The book is the imagined story of a real-life figure Lord Asunaro was a real figure he was the son of a minor lord in the EDO period of Japanese history this is a strange tale to tell as he isn’t a heroic figure he is a boy that has been kept away at from the upper echelons of the court and he is maybe a little naive he reminded me a little of Prince George in Blackadder if he had a little more of Blackadder’s bile in him. This is a boy that gets to the top but isn’t as he thought it would be as he has been stripped of power he is just a figurehead as he takes over he loves the woman from his first meeting woman to his fathering a lot of children to a number of women in his lifetime and the kids that followed. This short novella sees a man in the shadow of his father, a boy that never grows on the cusp of power. A boy-man on the edge of it. But takes over it is an odd little Novella but a different look at the Japan of the time now samurai or shoguns are just young men not quite equipped for the job. It is hard to tell as this is a subtle tale with little action, but it draws you into Lord Asunaro’s world.

The boy’s instructions in swordsmanship had begun back when he was eleven and still living in the main castle. The Lord himself was not fond of swordsmanship, which perhaps was behind his choosing to assign the now-retired Satomi Eizan as Instructor. Apparently stirred by this, Satomi Eizan grew boastful about a youth spent practising his skills throughout the land, and was inclined to deal with the lad in a rather offhand manner.

‘Okay then, try this,” announced Lord Asunaro one day handing him a pickled white radish while himself took up the wooden sword (The protective gear and light bamboo swords of today’s swordsmanship practice were yet to be invented, and only appeared and gained wide acceptance at the end of Feudal period.

The young man isn’t like other want him to be as shown here this is a time of strong men with swords!

 

I loved this I liked all of the red circle books they are perfect afternoon reads and this is what I did today I had planned to review another book from Japan but just wasn’t ready to so I picked this up as I had planned to read it this month. his is as much a character study as a historic work why should someone born into a position be right for the job as we know here in the UK at the moment we have an heir and his younger brother showing about royal families and their inner workings. As I said the main figure I though of was Prince George from Blackadder but with a darker edge to him but that same not fully grown into the world feel. Have you a favourite book about a royal family? or Have you read any other books by Red Circle?

Winston’s score – B A solid little novella about a historic prince not quite for the job.

 

Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

 

Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

Japanese crime fiction

Original title – 点と線, Ten to Sen

Translator – Jesse Kirkwood

Source – review copy

I start the new year with the first of a few books that I am planning to read from January in Japan. This is the debut novel of the renowned Japanese crime writer Seichō Matsumoto he had no real formal education and had studied ancient texts as his education according to the wiki. He was initially a journalist til his wiring took off he was known for writing multiple books on the go hence he waS OFTEN CALLED THE Simeon of Japan, as most of his works were published in parts in magazines. He was also a lifelong activist voicing anti-America and also at times Anti-Japanese sentiments in his writing.

His designated waitress was Toki, for the simple reason that she had been the one to serve him on his first visit. While they were on good enough terms, it seemed their relationship had never gone beyond the walls of the Koyuki.

Toki was twenty-six but with her beautiful pale skin could easily have passed for twenty. Her large black eyes made quite an impression on guests. When one of them addressed her, she would glance up and flash them a smile she knew they would find enchanting. Her oval face and delicate chin gave her a graceful profile.

The opening chapter and how the exec uses just Toki as his waitress.

The book opens with a restaurant and an exec that is due to go for a meal there. As it has been where he seal deals and fixes there over the years and he has always wanted the same waitress Toki. So when one morning her body and a young man called Sayama he works for the government does that have some barring on why he is there. The two are initially assumed to have taken their own lives on the beach of this small town a train ride or two from Tokyo the family are contacted and the death from poison seems straightforward but then there are two detectives and they start to pull apart what happens the local detective Torigai isn’t sure of the events of that night. So he talks to the Tokyo detective Mihara. Then as they start to work back over the train journey and what actually happened that led to these two bodies on the rocky beach. The trip is picked apart. Were they seen by a fruit seller what happened at the stop-over point who off the trains Saw the couple was there anything else that happened on that trip? Is anyone else around on that night.

Torigai was standing in front of the fruit shop at Kashi station.

“Can I ask you something?’

The shopkeeper, a man of about forty who was busy polishing an apple, turned to look at him. Shopkeepers weren’t always the most helpful people when questioned in this way, but when Torigai added that he was with the police, the man became more attentive.

‘How late do you stay open in the evening? asked Torigai.

‘I close around eleven.

In that case, would you be able to see the passengers when they come out of the station at around nine thirty?’

“Nine thirty? Definitely. There’s a train that gets in from Hakata at twenty-five past. The shop isn’t very busy at that time of night, so 1 keep a lookout for potential customers.’

The fruit seller at his shop what did he see that evening if anything?

I loved this it started as thou it was one thing and then we see how the crime and events were pulled apart over the days the trip was worked back. At the end of the book, it said seichō had used the real timetables to plan the events and to follow what happened and of course being Japan there is never a mention of the train running late or being cancelled and this is back in the fifties. The real reason for the deaths appears over time. He has a great pacing to the story as the events are slowly unpicked as we see the night in reverse almost the events worked back to Toki’s workplace at the restaurant which caused their deaths really. This is one of the best-selling books of all time in Japan you can see why it is maybe the perfect crime novel that can be read in a single sitting and I loved the way they just unpicked the train journey and who saw what. Have you read any of his books? I have another on my shelves that I have had for a number of years I hope to read that at some point. I love the cover of this penguin classic and the photo is just perfect. What are you planning to read for January in Japan?

Winston’s score – A Well paced and believable crime novel.

 

Some Prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki

Some Prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki

Japanese fiction

Original title – 蓼喰う蟲 – Tade kuu mushi

Translator – Edward G. Seidensticker

Source – personal copy

I’m back and the strange thing is I had covid last week so the break was a good idea as I wouldn’t have blogged last week it also means I’m probably only going review two books for this weeks 1929 Club but here I am with the first book for this week and it is a book from Japan. I always get the list of books published on the year for the club and try and find the ones in translation first that I may like to review. This title jumped out at me as I had featured a later book by Tanizaki in the 1956 edition of the club. Tanizaki is one of the best regarded and considered one of the founding figures of Modern Japanese fiction in the 20th century as his books follow both the working of the family and the changing times around him.

‘YOU THINK YOU might go, then?’ Misako asked several times during the morning.

Kaname as usual was evasive, however, and Misako found it impossible to make up her own mind. The morning passed.

At about one o’clock she took a bath and dressed, and, ready for either eventuality, sat down inquiringly beside her husband. He said nothing. The morning newspaper was still spread open in front of him.

‘Anyway, your bath is ready?

Oh.’ Kaname lay sprawled on a couple of cushions, his chin in his hand. He pulled his head a little to the side as he caught a suggestion of Misako’s perfume. Careful not to meet her eyes, he glanced at her – more accurately he glanced at her clothes – in an effort to catch some hint of a purpose that might make his decision for him. Unfortunately, he had not been paying much attention to her clothes lately. He knew vaguely that she gave a great deal of attention to them and was always buying something new, but he was never consulted and never knew what she had bought. He could make out nothing more revealing than the figure of an attractive and stylish matron dressed to go out.

the opening of the book we see the problem at the heart of the marriage.

This is described as his most personal book it focuses on the collapse of a marriage as we see what has caused the breakup. The couple Kaname and Misako are trying to navigate splitting up even on the first page there is a sense of distance when Kaname says he hadn’t noticed what Mistake had been wearing lately. He also early on laments the potential loss of his father I law which he feels he may miss more than his wife. He let his wife take a lover. The father-in-law is a very traditional man even his wife is like a doll ( in a very traditional dress and style even down to blacken teeth) This is part of the pull of the book is how the traditional world of Japan is disappearing as the book shows these two views modern western ideas versus tradition. The father-in-law is in the traditional world he loves traditional puppet theatre. The juxtaposed problems and themes in the book are how women are viewed and how the modern Misako maybe just wants her lover and not marriage and her son, as unlike her father’s view of a woman. It follows what happens when neither person in the marriage is brave or strong enough to say not is over. which creates a sense of inertia and causes tension also the fact they have a young son the status quo isn’t ideal as you sense the simmering tension but lack of wanting to end this marriage.

The images of the dolls, Koharu and O-san, were still vivid in Kaname’s mind. He was on edge, however, lest the old man begins his discourse on the serpent, the demon in a wife’s breast, and he found it difficult to stay politely through the lunch.

The doll as the object is part of the values and image of a woman dealt with in the book

I have reviewed three other books by Junichirō Tanizaki over the years it is hard to describe I am a fan but not a fan his books are slow-moving art times and aren’t the quickest to read but then the themes he deals with the clash of cultures the traditional world and modern world is something that I have always loved in fiction.I was reminded of those great books from Africa that followed a similar theme or even Pyre I reviewed recently that had marriage and traditional values at their heart. He is very good at the inside views of marriages. the inner workings of families. The things pulling at this couple from every side but also why divorce is really needed to solve the problems we see in this couple. I like way he describes how cultures clashes. Have you read any books from Him, what books have you chosen for this week’s 1929 club?

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Indian fiction

Original title – Pūkkul̲i, Tamil –  பூக்குழி

Translator – Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Source – review copy

I draw to a close this month with one of the major Indian writers Perumal Murugan this is the first book I have read by him it is the third book to be translated by Pushkin press from him. He has written 11 novels and five collections of short stories, which means we have a lot more books to come from the book. Murugan has been writing from an early age he was featured on Indian radio as a kid he grew small holding and his father ran a soda shop which is also what Kumaresan is doing as he saves to escape with his new wife Saroja. so some of the settings has some of his own backgrounds.

As they neared the rock, she could see the faces of the women sitting there. Their voices rose in a cacophony. As soon as they saw the couple, they all got up. Everyone was silent for a minute. Saroja stood with her head bowed, while Kumaresan set the bag on the ground and looked at them.

No one said anything. There were five or six men in the crowd too.

Suddenly, from within one of the huts, there came a wail, and an aggrieved voice lashed out at them: ‘You have ruined me!’

The rock is like the island in a sea hatred.

The book was longlist for the south Asian prize and is set in the village of Kattuppati a remote village. A young man has brought home a bride after spending some time in the city. when he returns to his village and to his house on the rock ( I always feel this maybe add to the story the rock is like an island in the sea of hatred they face) with his new bride Saroja is from a different caste to her husband they return n to sure what will happen the minute they get back you get a sense that they maybe hadn’t gathered how bad the reaction Kumaresan marrying this girl from a lower caste. His mother curse her and from the get-go there is a real sense that Saroja doesn’t want and the locals will do their best to get rid of her. Meanwhile Kumaresan  is trying to build a soda business as the plan was to get the money to move this becomes more of the plan when Saroja falls pregnant but this comes as Kumaresan has to go away maybe for a few days Saroja worries about what will happen.

Then appucchi spoke again. ‘Run away from here before your uncles return. They want to hack you to pieces.

They are very upset that the boy whom they raised has done something like this. Your uncles had plans to build you a tiled house on the rock and get you married to a nice girl Couldn’t you find a girl in our village, from within our caste? We can’t even face our people. You have shamed us all. If your uncles see you now, they will hack you to death.

Hey, you! Give them something to eat if you want and send them on their way. If our boys ask, we will tell them that we were feeding some workers’

Later on the tension and what may happen becomes clearer.

This for me has so many things I love in literature the clash of cultures here is almost like a car crash as the new couple from different castes The village is a typical insular village I was reminded of the book  Stones in the landslide (as you may know one of my favourite books) where some one from the next village down moves to the village and seems like an alien to the locals this is the same feeling but tenfold. Another feeling I had was a Dickensian feel with the bottle shop reminding me of David Copperfield but dickens also tackled marriage and relationships across the class divide. It also has that feeling of cranking up the tension as the full extent of the relationship and the outfall of this marriage on the village and his family and the locals as you feel the dark and tension grow. It if Satyajit Ray had ever done an Indian version of Emmerdale this would have been it has the feeling of tension that soap operas do well at building slow tension over time you as a reader can see it coming Ray also captures the Indian village so well in his films. this is one of those books that shows us why we need more Indian books in translation the only thing we miss is as the translator says is the subtle sense of language between the village and city folks those subtle dialects that is always hard to convey in translation but it doesn’t lose anything for not having it.

Winstons score – +A I am always a fan of books set in villages and clashes of classes (Well caste her as well)

 

The woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

Japanese fiction

Original title – Murasaki no sukaato no onna むらさきのスカートの女

Translator – Lucy North

Source – Library

I always love when you pop to the library and find a book you’ve seen online or somewhere that you think oh that sounds interesting and I know a title shouldn’t be a reason for reading a book but the title of this grabbed me and remind me of a silly evening with a friend when I was still at school with a top that may have been blue may have been purple anyway back to the book Natsuko Imamura has won the Dazai Osamu Prize and has been nominated for one of the biggest prizes in Japanese fiction The Akutagawa Prize on three occasions. So she is a respected writer this seems to be her first book to be translated into English but is actually her fourth novel. She is from Hiroshima and studying in Osaka. where she still lives.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt carried a single paper bag from the bakery. After seating herself on
her Exclusively Reserved Seat, which had just this minute been vacated, she opened up the bag and
drew out her purchase. The usual cream bun. It’s the kind of thing that is typically the subject of TV
street interviews. “What did you buy today?” the interviewer asks, stopping shoppers who are carrying bags with the bakery logo and thrusting the microphone in their faces. The soft white loaf and the cream bun are the most common answers. And my answer too would be “A cream bun!” if anyone were to ask me. The distinctive features? Well, I’d say the custard filling, which has to have just the right degree of stiffness, and the delicately thin surrounding dough. Then there’s the sprinkling of sliced almonds on top. That’s what makes that satisfyingly crisp sound when you take a bite.

She does this every day there is a sense of simmering anger or something in this I felt

This is a book about Obsession and also in a way stalking at the heart of the book is two women one watches the other the woman in the Yellow cardigan is watching the other woman as she watches the woman in the purple skirt we see a woman that seems to squeeze through the crowd streets. A woman of habit forms doing the same thing every day in her purple skirt. Observing her and noting her day as she seems to want to be in her world we are not told how in a way is it romantic or just the other woman seems more visible than her in the workplace.  but is only there for now as an observer of her stalker. There is an air around this habit of the woman in the yellow cardigan watching her isn’t at first explained leading you as a reader to put your own spin on it. it is an insight into a mundane world but why? why is this other woman watching her?

IT WAS THE WOMAN IN THE PURPLE SKIRT’S second day at work. Today she took the 8:02 bus, the one after the bus she took the day before. During the week, the bus comes every twenty minutes. The earlier bus gets you in with too much time to spare before the morning meeting. But the later one means you end up arriving late for work. The Woman in the Purple Skirt took the middle one, and punched in at 8:52.
This morning the Woman in the Purple Skirt delivered her greetings in a ringing voice. “Ohayo
gozaimasu!” she called out when she entered the office. And again, when she opened the door to the locker room: “Ohayo gozaimasul”

They seem to work together or in the same building as she watches her at work.

This book is unsettling at times it you are drawn into a voyeuristic enter the life of a voyeur watching the character. I was reminded of an episode of Lewis where the was a woman that had been watched her entire life. The woman in the purple skirt is on the surface an ordinary character in fact if anything very boring with the same habits day in and day out cream bun bench in the park. But this is what she enters us into so well in that mundane world of her life. The book has little to let you into what is happening you follow the woman and it isn’t too much later that events may be clear but this is one that will stick after you have read it dark in a way but also captures the creepiness of being stalked being watched every habit. But there is a sort of juxtaposing in between the two characters the child-like woman in the yellow cardigan seems to think she is invisible in the world she is in. this is why she has the connection to the woman in the purple skirts whom she sees as highly visible in her world everyone seems to see her and she sees how she moves through her life. Unsettling at times. This is part thriller, part obsessive fan and part just someone seeing into some else life and adding a narrative to it. Have you read this book? Lucy north has kept watch must have been the rhythm in the original book as you as a reader are drawn in bit by bit. A great choice for women in Translation month.

Winstons score – B would make a very creepy film at some point one would imagine.

Scattered all over the world by Yoko Tawada

 

Scattered all over the world by Yoko Tawada

Japanese fiction

original title – Kentoshi, Kodansha

Translator – Margaret Mitsutani

Source – personal copy

I  have been away it was a couple of days then we had a spell of hot weather which seems to zap my energy I am a real spring autumn fan mild weather is my favourite. Anyway, I return with a writer I have featured before on the blog. I reviewed the last children of Tokyo which like this was written in Japanese by Yoko Tawada lives in Germany and also writes in German she has a connection with how languages are seen and used and also about words and reality. This is a book that deals with language identity and place like the last children of Tokyo it uses the dying out of Japan her `Japan as gone completely.

While I was thinking about how I could tell stories to children in Panska at the Marchen centre, I hit on the Idea of showing them Kamishibai, or picture dramas. Showing them a picture for each scene in the drama would be much better than just telling them a story in words. I wrote something to this effect in my note with the CV I sent to the centre, and immediately got a letter back telling me to come to Odense for an interview, Of course, I spoke Panska, and it didn’t take even five minutes for the words ” You’re hired” to start blinking on and off in the interviewers eyes

Panska a mix of languages she uses and others and love that we see the power of pictures to tell a story.

The book follows a group of characters that we meet via our main Character Hiruko she is living in Denmark working and telling stories in a community centre she has been around a number of countries and has made her own language pop this was strange as it reminds me of a couple of Turkish guys I worked with in Germany at the Jugendwerkstatt(youth workshop it was a while ago) and they were caught between German and Turkish so had used there own speak in a way. Her homeland is distant in the book and is now mainly remembered as the land of Sushi. She meets a linguist Knut as she wants to learn about her and has heard of a note Japanese speaker. This revelation leads to a road trip. With an Inuit (who says he is from Japan to people) Nanook is from Greenland this brings another angle to the story with his lover add too that an Indian Akash she is a trans woman ( strange I had read two books with Trans characters from India in this year this is a refreshing and great direction to see books going in) They all set on a quest to connect with this other Japanese s[peaker the book follows the group as they cross into Germany it has a lot about place and identity also perceptions people have.  Will she get to meet a fellow speaker as people from Japan were scattered all over the world?

Ever since I decided to live as a woman I’ve been wearing Saris of varying shades of red when I go out. Not that I’m intentionally dressing Indian, but as German woman of my generation hardly ever wears skirts I didn’t want to wear one myself. And if I wore trousers as they do, I’d simply look like a man. Furthermore have always felt somehow that my heart must be made of red silk embroiled in gold. If I could only read the story woven in that it, of course, but just gazing at the sheen of red silk is enough to satisfy me

I love the line about a red silk heart with gold embroidery.

this is meant to be the first of a projected trilogy it seems. It had connections to the other book I had read by her about what makes indemnity and language which seem to loom large given she lives in Germany I get the feeling of being out of one world but then not in another my year and a half in German had the same effect on me I never felt in place in one country or the other for a time. I could imagine this would make a great Wim Wenders film ( I am a huge fan of his ) as it is a road trip and he also had a lot about feeling displaced at times in Until the end of the world which saw an event displace people. There is also a nod to the environment which is shared with Wenders film the loss of Japan was to rising sea levels. But we also see how we can mould ourselves and adapt who we are to place and nationality at times. This is a book with Language at its heart our own, those we make up, those we may lose and what happens when your language is lost?  So for me it has a little of Wim weeders passion for road trips, Burgess love of language and made-up languages and a pinch of Greta Thunberg just for good measure. Have you read this book?

Winstons score – A an interesting look at what could happen and how it affects language place and one person

Chinatown by Thuan

Chinatown by Thuan

Vietnamese fiction

Original title – Chinatown

Translator – Nguyễn An Lý

Source – subscription edition

I now move to a book from Vietnam that in some ways seems to mirror part of the own writer’s life. She grew up in North Vietnam where she grew up with a love of Vietnamese literature and the greats of French literature like Balzac, Hugo and Flaubert. Then she got the chance to study in Russia which expand her reading more. Then lead to her moving to France to live Paris. This is the latest from my Tilted axis subscription and as they did so well last year in the booker international prize I decided this year `I would get to the books when they arrived and this was a perch choice for this month as it is from a female writer from Vietnam and also it is the first book from Vietnam I will have reviewed on the blog.

During my ten years at school, I came to understand that the pig brains for which my father queued from morning till afternoon were not a reward for my ten in literature, but to guarantee that I
would bring home another ten, in history or military exercises. That was why his pig brains needed no dill, pepper, or MSG, and no attempt to enliven their presentation. Even now I can still see
them, aluminum bowls in the steaming rice pot, and taste the metallic tang of blood which no amount of salt could mask, and which I always had to down in one gulp. I didn’t care for steamed
pig brains, I had no disease to be cured by them, but every other day I closed my eyes and my nostrils and downed them in one, because they were most nutritious, especially for the brain, and
most of all for a child’s. It was my duty to turn catjang soup and steamed pig brains into tens and praise

This is an evocative passage that caught me when I was reading.

The book has a framing device and that is the narrator is waiting on a platform on the metro for a train when a package is discovered and the police are coming to have a look at what it is. Our narrator is caught in her thoughts and this takes us through her life from her early years in Vietnam but then we see how she met the man she would marry Thuy a Chinese man from Vietnam this is set as there is a war between the two countries and she meets him in class this leads to trouble;e with her family the book isn’t linear more it is wonderfully evocative as it seems like how we would remember love or the way you look back on a past love that one Thuy reminds me of an earlier girlfriend I had for a number of years and lived with that first big love and that when I look back event aren’t in a linear narrative more it jumps at times and her it is similar we see how they meet then spend time apart. but then meet and married and it showed how hard this was at the time in Vietnam which it is the 80s there is a huge Chinese feeling in the country and this is one of the things that highlights the deep divide in the two cultures at the time as the two falls in love and the knock out effect on the tow na their families then we find her later in France and how she andThuy drifted apart and eventually she hadn’t seen him in years. Add to this is her studying in the Soviet Union at this time and then moving to France this is a globetrotting book.

 

my Sino-Vietnamese wedding that actually took place, they opted not to attend. Neither did Thuy’s parents. The day went by in a flurry. The only guests were my few friends from
Leningrad. They came with their children. Their children born in the USSR, who’d had just a taste of butter and milk before boarding the plane to the homeland. The wedding was their first time
meeting Thuy. They asked me in Russian, so this is your architect beau. He didn’t understand. He just smiled awkwardly. He stood there embarrassed. Then they asked him, in Vietnamese, where are
you working, which office, which department. This time he was even more embarrassed. His smile grew fixed.

Another about getting married.

Thuran is a translator and a huge fan of French literature and I can see part of some of my favourite writers for me it has a pick off Modiano (maybe cause been talking about him a bit recently ) there is a flip in the sex of the character usually it is a male character in his book looking back on memories here Madame Au is looking back on her love the bare bones of the story is similar to the writer’s life but she then said in an interview she hadn’t wanted to duo memoir this is deeper more mediative around love across a divide exile and looking back at times that love affair. I was reminded in a small way of the English patient the love affair in that novel se t against war and Ondaatje is another writer heavy on memory, love, war and division. The book is dense in it style but worth the effort and is a great book from a new writer. It has part of the new novel movement, Proust and a love story all in one. Have you a favourite book from Vietnam ?(I had a nam le on my shelves but want something translated as my first book from Vietnam ) . My third book of this month and the first new country for a while on the blog.

Winstons score – B is a solid book from a new voice her first book to be translated into English she has more so hopefully we will get more from her.