Evocative, original exploration of grief—more of a journey than a destination, with plot almost beside the point.
In this debut novel from Japanese writer Kawakami, a Tokyo woman coping with the mysterious loss of her husband finds herself suddenly drawn to a small fishing village.
Kei, the 40-something narrator of this dreamlike novel, has made a life for herself that appears solid, even as her thoughts show it is anything but. A writer, she shares an apartment with her mother and an increasingly distant teenage daughter named Momo. She is also in a long-term relationship with a married man, Seiji, who actually seems more into Kei than she into him. That could be because 12 years earlier Rei, the man she loved, vanished, leaving her and Momo alone. What role, if any, Kei had in his disappearance remains vague, as if Kei herself is unsure of it. Was it another woman? Foul play? Either way, she has on some level shut herself off emotionally. Feeling restless one day, however, she spontaneously gets on a train and ends up in Manazuru, a sleepy seaside burg. There she feels herself “followed” by spiritlike presences and not for the first time. One of these apparitions, a chatty woman, seems especially interested in Kei. Kei in turn wonders if this spirit can help her uncover whatever happened to Rei and maybe even contact him on the other side. Whether or not the spirit woman is real, or a part of Kei’s subconscious, remains a central question. Kei keeps going back, and her buried memories of Rei blend with disturbing and beautiful visions. And it soon becomes clear, as Kei is drawn deeper and deeper into this quest for closure, that she runs the risk of losing herself—as well as the people who care most for her. Subtly compelling, Kawakami’s novel interestingly blends whodunit, travelogue and a dash of tasteful eroticism.
Evocative, original exploration of grief—more of a journey than a destination, with plot almost beside the point.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-58243-600-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.
A lonely postman learns that he’s about to die—and reflects on life as he bargains with a Hawaiian-shirt–wearing devil.
The 30-year-old first-person narrator in filmmaker/novelist Kawamura’s slim novel is, by his own admission, “boring…a monotone guy,” so unimaginative that, when he learns he has a brain tumor, the bucket list he writes down is dull enough that “even the cat looked disgusted with me.” Luckily—or maybe not—a friendly devil, dubbed Aloha, pops onto the scene, and he’s willing to make a deal: an extra day of life in exchange for being allowed to remove something pleasant from the world. The first thing excised is phones, which goes well enough. (The narrator is pleasantly surprised to find that “people seemed to have no problem finding something to fill up their free time.”) But deals with the devil do have a way of getting complicated. This leads to shallow musings (“Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after not having seen it for a long time, it makes a totally different impression on you than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed; it’s you who’s changed") written in prose so awkward, it’s possibly satire (“Tears dripped down onto the letter like warm, salty drops of rain”). Even the postman’s beloved cat, who gains the power of speech, ends up being prim and annoying. The narrator ponders feelings about a lost love, his late mother, and his estranged father in a way that some readers might find moving at times. But for many, whatever made this book a bestseller in Japan is going to be lost in translation.
Jonathan Livingston Kitty, it’s not.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29405-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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