wolfdan9's reviews
268 reviews

“There are no individuals in a forest. No separable events.”

“This is what people do — solve their own problems in others' lives.”

The Overstory is a rarity in that it's a modern literary epic; even rarer that it addresses an entirely novel concept (unlike something like The Corrections, which may fulfill the modern epic criteria, but is rather derivative in its themes) and even utilizes a fairly novel organizational structure. Many people love Cloud Atlas, a book that I found to be pretty bad, but what I did appreciate about it was how a grand narrative was stitched together with discrete stories that were "nestled within" one another. The Overstory doesn't do that exactly, but it creates a similar effect by spending about 20% of its length diving exclusively into the backstories of its cast, jumping around in time and place as needed. And Powers does not hesitate to go way back, sometimes centuries, to explore the roots of his characters. Each of the 7 or so characters carries with them a unique perspective that is tied to their family history, trauma, experiences, etc. and Powers thoughtfully recounts them in each individual's chapter. Therefore, the impact of these characters meeting in the second part -- and even the sudden realization ~50 pages in that these powerfully illustrated characters will meet -- is great. 

Powers' prose is absent of poetic pretensions. He writes clear and true, with a stunning balance of empathy and emotional detachment. It's impressive how Powers, who clearly chose a diverse cast purposefully, can write any sort of character from anywhere in the world with seamless authenticity. Something I truly loved is how this novel featured non-traditional featured characters, those with disabilities and non-native English speakers for example, whose appearance didn't seem shoehorned, nor even just thoughtful, but necessary even. Powers is incredibly knowledgeable, probably the writer with the vastest range of knowledge whom I've read, and it's clear from his characterization that he does his research. These random topics that appear in the lives of different people, arboriculture, fishing, psychology, histories of various countries, you name it, are all written about with the confidence an expert teacher may have discussing his subject matter. I felt during this first portion of the novel that Powers can write practically any scene, about any topic, and make it interesting. He has a raw talent for getting to the heart of the matter, then moving on, sometimes to the next logical scene, or sometimes to decades ahead if that's what the plot calls for. His storytelling confidence is remarkable. It's also evident that Powers has done tremendous research going into this book, and that's not even touching on the main motif of the tree, about which Powers seemingly knows everything.

The second portion of the novel, its largest, was the weakest unfortunately. I think Powers' ambition of writing a "thriller-ish" storyline within the novel ultimately hurt him. His backstories were flawlessly carved out, and he did quite well having pairs of characters meet once the timelines converge too (with a few notable complaints which I'll outline). Each character's motivations were logical and it was interesting watching them change as they interacted with one another. But the "action" of the novel, particularly when a key character dies, definitely creates a dramatic tone that betrays the otherwise impassioned stoicism of the book. It's certainly not bad by any means. It's just a jarring transition from the slow, meditative build-up of the first 300 or so pages to be thrown into some action during the protests. The imagery and writing is still good, but the urgent tonal shift is a let down for me. 

And yet, the third portion of the novel, the aftermath of a protest gone wrong, is the strongest. It beautifully ties together the novel's themes, of which there are several strong ones, and provides a satisfying conclusion to its stories and characters. I can't realistically outline everything, but there are four that stood out to me. The first, which is quite clear from the onset, is the acknowledgement of American resourcefulness as told through the immutable story of nature’s cycles. The motif of "cycles," and things changing, or never changing (negatively, from the stubborn human perspective, and positively, from the resilience of the long-living trees), is a point of interest for Powers. Many of the characters' immigrant roots are also highlighted to accentuate it as one of America's great strengths. Powers' nuanced view on trees, while of course being celebratory, is that they can and should be used responsibly by humans. The key word is responsibly, and Powers' deep criticism of people living in our capitalist world is that they are wasteful, not that they are "tree killers" or something. The Overstory is as much of a tree novel as it is a human novel. And while we are infantile in the timeline of trees, we're now inextricably linked with them and our use of them is unavoidable.

Another interesting idea Powers has is the transition of people into tree, not literally, but as a subject of some other superior burgeoning force like AI. Powers uses a character's story, Neelay's, to progress this narrative thread: that science will advance beyond us and supplant us. He also interestingly never interacts with the other characters (although neither does the Brinkman couple).  

Also, the brilliance of the betrayals at the end of the novel highlights the “problem” of our species as Powers attempts to paint it -- our tribalism based on familial relationships and essentially individual feelings is impossible to override (and whether it should is another impossible question). We are programmed to prioritize the people closest to us over the whole species:  “The world is full of welfares that must come even before your own kind.” And for that, we as a species are destined for a short lifespan.

The last bit is that The Overstory is a quietly transgressive work - Dorothy’s suicide, Ray’s rationale for his defense of Adam, and Neelay’s "learners" are all rather contradictory to what's considered acceptable to think or say in our society. Despite containing some logical reasoning. The powerful suicide scene especially (labeled an "unsuicide") is really difficult to think of as anything else but an endorsement from Powers that only the perishing of people will result in the recovery of trees. I found it laudable that he would present such a controversial view in our age of self-censorship and fear of public consequence, even if I could not bring myself to agree with it. Dorothy, the character at the novel's heart, has a beautifully sad character arc and is perhaps the best representative of the trees that our world could ask for. It is her kind of story that expands a reader's consciousness.

Star was originally published as Suta in Japan with Patriotism included, so I'll be reviewing both novellas.

1. Star

This was a minor work by Mishima, who wrote a ton within his short life including some pulp fiction and "throwaway" works like these. It's interesting too that within this text Mishima seems to defend the artistic merit of "artless" works. During one reflective aside, his narrator considers how the tropes of certain pop fiction (yakuza storylines in this case) are intrinstically artistic, because of, rather despite their redundancy. The timelessness of certain tropes imbue them with a relatability not different than what a piece of art may evoke. That's not to say that the novella is entirely weightless; it certainly has some interesting reflections on fame and the blurring of reality and unreality that acting immerses an actor within. And this discussion is really just a tangent of the overall narrative. The work more closely concerns itself with an actor's ambivalence toward fame and his work.

As an avid Mishima reader, Star was a bit of a lukewarm read. For one, it felt rather short. Normally, I don't criticize works for their length, but I actually wish this could've been fleshed out a bit more. Rikio was a fascinating character and his relationship with his assistant in addition to the descriptions of his work held some interest for me. But mainly, I wasn't thrilled with the ambiguity with which Mishima attempted to convey the text's theme. I understood that Mishima wished to show the "star," Rikio, as an outsider precisely, and ironically, because of his popularity. His exhaustion from his work and dissatisfaction despite the many perks he attained from stardom causes him to seek an odd and inappropriate romantic relationship with his assistant, who is a frumpy woman who greatly contrasts Rikio's actorly handsomeness. Their relationship is explored a bit, and it is clear that it's the only bright spot in Rikio's life. They have fun in their private get-togethers mocking beautiful actresses, for example, or keeping evil secrets. Rikio feels like an actual person with this normal woman, who treats him nothing like a star and in fact playfully mocks him for it if anything. I gathered that this relationship reflected Rikio's wish for some normalcy. Mishima seems to comment favorably on the appreciation of normalcy, especially within an abnormal life, and perhaps suggests to readers that we should hang on to the established, the conventional, and the normal within our own lives. To summarize in a cliche sort of way: love whatever brings you joy, not what you should love.

2. Patriotism

“Green is made of yellow and blue, nothing else, but when you look at green, where’ve the yellow and the blue gone?”

David Mitchell is the most unevenly talented writer whom I’ve read. He’s occasionally a master storyteller, inventive in his story structure and sequencing of events, capable of writing beautiful sentences and using language in mind-bending ways, and yet writes some truly atrocious dialogue and scenes. He's frustrating to write about. I'd almost classify him as a guilty pleasure read because he's so heavily invested in themes of sci-fi and fantasy in many of his books that it muddies the water of his literary merit. Take Cloud Atlas for example, a novel with some very nice sentences and a unique structure that effectively establishes universality among the contained-within stories' themes, but whose stories themselves held very little weight for me -- overly long, badly written, and/or shallow. Ghostwritten had a similar impact. And yet, I was entranced by Number9dream (granted, I had read it a while ago) and Jacob DeZoet was quite good as well. Fortunately, Black Swan Green is the most traditional novel in Mitchell's bunch. While it does have a (very well executed) storytelling gimmick, in which each chapter is a discrete story from one month of the narrator's year, it is otherwise a fairly simple bildungsroman, leaning toward autofiction.

Jason Taylor is as realistic as any thirteen-year-old boy character I've read, and Mitchell (writing about his home town in Worcestershire) nails the slangy dialogue of his youth. More impressively, he quite accurately and impassively (for all of his other emotive faults) captures the precocious, harsh social dynamics of male adolescence. The bullying in the novel especially feels quite severe. And yet, it is frustrating that there is this sense of "bad writing" as I read Mitchell. It's quite confounding. Maybe I am simply less open to some of his writing choices. For example, his moderately heavy usage of italics and "all caps" dialogue creates a sense that I'm reading a book, in which characters are talking like characters and not real people. Yet conversely, I will read some of Mitchell's interactions between Jason and his speech pathologist and identify the authenticity in their interactions. If I had to summarize the book's writing strengths and weaknesses, I would point to Mitchell's world building as particularly strong -- his depiction of the people, their interactions and beliefs, and the historical context of Black Swan Green clearly comes from some personal place -- and his creation of Jason Taylor and his coming-of-age moments fleshed out in each chapter and how they connect and culminate in a kiss (corny, I know, but definitely realistic for an adolescent) and the divorce of his parents as rather strong too. But some of his writing needs work and takes the reader out of the story at moments. Otherwise, if you can tolerate that, Black Swan Green is a very nice novel.

Among the chapters themselves, none of them were weak (with Solarium probably being the weakest due to the poorly written Crommelnyck), but I was gripped mostly by Rocks. All of the stories could exist as short stories, and in fact for a good portion of the novel I was second guessing whether I was reading a short story collection. Yet they all connected quite beautifully as they slowly develop a character arc for Jason, underpinned by his popularity with peers and shifting family dynamics. Rocks took the cake for me though because it very smartly revealed the irreconcilable and fatal philosophical/moral difference between Jason's mother and father through a seemingly small financial disagreement. As the chapter progresses, the background noise of Cold War conflict seems to mirror the long-going fight between mom and dad, and ends with a clear result (as does the fight between parents that leads to a devastating embarrassment for Jason's mother). But Mitchell beautifully ends the chapter with Jason representing an (otherwise absent in the presence of conflict) empathetic perspective of youth: "...not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right."

And lastly, the book ends with this beautiful interaction between Jason and his older sister, which puts a bow on the novel with a sensitive understanding that Jason is merely in the throes of adolescence:

"It'll be all right." Julia's gentleness makes it worse. "In the end, Jace."
"It doesn't feel very alright."
"That's because it's not the end."

The Hunting Gun is a powerful epistolary novella, which skillfully sets up a frame story that highlights the power of fiction and explores the desolation of love. The narrator, a relatively low-celebrity poet, hesitantly and regretfully submits a poem to a hunting magazine. He forgets about it for several months, but then receives a mysterious letter from a man who believes he was the subject of the narrator's poem. He is deeply touched, and shares some intensely personal letters that he received that reveal he had an affair with a dying woman that ruined his marriage and the woman's family. As the letters that the narrator receives are one-sided, so too are the perspectives on Misugi.

The nature of the letters contain some interesting and rather poignant reflections on the pain that an affair can cause. But beyond that, the story shows the subject of a fiction “coming to life” in an extraordinary way, but amazingly still grounded in reality. While the narrator writes a poem, ostensibly about the silhouette of a man he once saw by happenstance, that is meant to represent a possibility, a symbol, or a device to tell a story, the actual man exists. And the reality of who he is may be more interesting and significant than what the narrator imagined. Despite having the limitless tools of imagination at his disposal, the narrator receives real-life letters from this same ostensibly hypothetical man that are greatly more impactful in their meaning and message than the poem. The transformation of idealized subject into real person is fascinating as we see how a portrait of a man, and by extension the meaning we attribute to it, is such a meager glimpse at who is actually within. 

And yet, paradoxically, the power of the word is what inspired Misugi to write the author and send these intensely personal letters. Therefore, there is an inextricable story being told through our fictions and our realities. The two dimensions are intertwined and feeding off each other in such a way that, at a certain point, they can blend seamlessly. This metafictional springboard is what allows Inoue to write this story as a piece of fiction. 

And as far as the novella as a whole, the hunting gun appears ultimately a symbol of protection (against feeling utterly alone), which we learn in the brief coda at the end as we revisit Misugi's words to the narrator. That there is ultimately a meaning to the titular hunting gun establishes Inoue's purpose of demonstrating this relationship between reality and fiction.

“…from the moment of his birth, it was his fate to remain standing indefinitely outside the gate.”

The Gate is a novel about dissatisfaction with normality and mortality. Its main character, Sosuke, committed a horrible crime in his past that also led to him being with the woman whom he married. Years later, he is completely changed -- from a promising youth, he has rapidly become a childless, stifled, stagnant, and boring man. His wife, though traumatized by a series of miscarriages, is wholly devoted to him and vice versa. Their bond is unbreakably strong, yet they reinforce each other's indecisiveness and deferment by enabling each other to put things off or ignore problems. Sosuke is vaguely aware of this flaw (yet much more aware of how unexciting his life has become) and the years trickle by. Another element of the novel is that Sosuke's younger brother is relying on Sosuke to make good on a promise to help him pay for his room and board -- a tale too complicated for me to summarize -- but one in which Sosuke bungles over and over as he looks for ways to rationalize his indecision and poor communication that leads to his brother being in such dire straits.

I loved the comic elements of this novel and how frustratingly indolent Sosuke is. It makes the reader truly annoyed by him. Especially as it seems that all of the progress Sosuke makes is due to sheer luck. Yet, the tragedy within his backstory and the love he and his wife share are quite powerful and buoy the reader's opinion of him. I found myself questioning my own feelings: "are their flaws so bad? Is this kind of life so pitiable? They do share a powerful love and connection." Yet it is quite clear that the life they're living is so mundane and that time is meaninglessly slipping by for both of them. It is a cautionary tale for young married people in this sense, the reader may find himself saying "I hope my marriage never gets like this." The story is phenomenally well-executed by Soseki and perhaps could only be told this well by him or a writer of his caliber. It contains a pure, minimalistic, lyrical realist Japanese style.

The Gate ends with very little changed. Sosuke receives a raise at work -- pure luck once again -- and despite dabbling in religion for a paltry 10 days, he decides it's not for him and goes back home unchanged. He goes on this "religious retreat" to avoid an uncomfortable meeting with someone from his past, which works, and upon realizing this he goes back to his usual self. I interpreted the ending quite cyncially; people rarely change themselves for the better, and oftentimes people are rewarded and punished by chance (even in this case of Sosuke's brother, his conflict is resolved by a chance encounter).

As in all of my reviews: spoilers ahead.

“When there is no love, not only the life of people becomes sterile but the life of cities.”

My Brilliant Friend truly surprised me. Despite its acclaim and reputation, for a novel that's only about a decade old, I wasn't expecting such a perfectly written bildungsroman, that at once fulfills every criteria of a rich coming-of-age story and simultaneously explores, through the maturation of Elena, the crisis of a city and its people on the verge of a vile transformation, one that is in constant motion, that threatens the very character of the people it impacts, yet invisible to the eyes of its people, inexplicable, as it is to all civilizations on the verge of total change. But somehow, Ferrante convincingly captures the small moments of such a change and lets the reader put together the many pieces that she presents into a clear picture. 

The inseparability of Elena's story and perspective from the destitution of the world around her is so solidly evident -- and so a purpose for Elena is so clearly illustrated -- that there is a mutual reinforcement of Elena's individual challenges by the challenges of her family, peers, and fellow citizen and vice versa. The lens from which Elena views her world is unimpeachably authentic. And, like Turgenev, Ferrante merely reports, rarely drawing conclusions on a scale grander than a personal one, about her perceptions of the way impoverished people live and are tempted, deceived, and ruined by money. 

Not only does Ferrante demonstrate an unpretentious and sincere prose style, one that is steeped in the monumental influences of world literature (and referential and reverential toward it -- a touch of Turgenev here, a dash of Marquez there, etc.), she displays a psychological depth and profound understanding of the perceptions of youth. She paints scenes that are so realistic that they almost certainly must contain an element of autobiography. Yet what is so impressive about them is the universality of their imagery and themes; any reader can relate to elements of Elena's story, her jealousy, her insecurity and self-awareness, her sexual awakening, and her quest for understanding of self. Ferrante perfectly captures the changes of adolescence. How the mind transforms from a child’s to an adults — through love, the crushing realization that one’s dreams are impossible dreams, and the meaning we derive from comparisons to our peers. 

The major symbol in the novel, Lila and Rino’s shoes, embody the goodness — the “love” — of the people in the community. They’re a product of hard work, innovation, and family togetherness. Yet, they’re tainted by their inherent nature as a product. They’re sold as such, and become a vessel for Stefano, the wealthy young grocer, to win Lila’s heart and eventually betray her. The brilliant Lila (and as an extension of her greatness' influence, Elena as well) had been disillusioned by the glamour of wealth. While Elena acknowledges its crucial role in maintaining the foundation of the community, Lila is led astray by its overwhelming power. Ferrante shows, carefully but critically, that wealth is a necessary evil and an unavoidable and pervasive essence in the lives of everyone. And those who are captured by its influence seem destined for ruin. Yet those who live without it are ruined as well. 

The power of Lila and Elena’s friendship is made evident by Ferrante’s deep understanding of scene writing. The girls are together in either person’s most tense or intense moments; or if they’re not, they share with each other and speculate about how and where to move forward. Even as the girls grow apart, with Elena adhering to her childish obedience to studies with Lila moves on toward womanhood and marriage, they are forever intertwined. They never waver in their love for each other, even as they go through bumps in their relationship attributable to their maturing personalities (and appearances). The depth of their friendship, and particularly of Elena's fixation with Lila and yearning to make sense of her brilliant mind, is simultaneously touching, raw, and relatable, as it highlights, more than Lila's personal greatness, Elena's own concept of self-understanding. She compares herself to the greatest person she knows, tries to unravel her, and use this image of her as a way to see into her own heart and discover who she is.

Throughout the novel, there is a foreboding feeling that Lila and Stefano’s seemingly perfect relationship, which has notably changed Lila’s personality, will fail due to the undercurrent of constant financial dealings on which the relationship is floating. The novel ends perfectly, with Stefano betraying Lila -- inviting her most hated person to their wedding (after agreeing explicitly to keep him out), and selling the shoes she worked painstakingly on to him. Ferrante perhaps views financial gain as the antithesis of love, a challenging desire to overcome, not necessarily because it is tempting, but because it is required to survive. Ferrante seems to demonstrate that it exists in a superlative form -- either we are very rich or very poor -- on either end of this spectrum people are destined to behave in such a way that moves them further in the direction they're already in.

spoilers ahead...

"What is real, and what is not? In this world is there really something like a wall separating reality from the unreal? I think there might be.... But it's an entirely uncertain wall. Depending on the circumstances and the person, its texture, its shape transforms. Like some living being."

The City starts marvelously, contains an outstanding middle portion, and then completely botches the final part. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if Murakami himself was very pleased with this novel; it seems to satisfy something he had been scratching at for decades. The theme of an alternate world, one that is separate but simultaneously a part of the reality we all experience, is ubiquitous in Murakami's novels, but was never more concrete than in Hardboiled Wonderland, in which two distinct worlds actually did exist and mirrored each other. That novel, which has its own cult following, was a low point for me because it delved a little too much in fantasy/science-fiction and was written during Murakami's formative years as a professional. He had not seemed to develop his style adequately at this point, and some of the dialogue and scenarios contained echoes of the writing in his very early/juvenile work (Wind/Pinball). Or maybe it was just the Birnbaum translation I read. Regardless, decades later, Murakami has revisited the world in Hardboiled -- which had admittedly given me some pause before reading -- but notably, he has connected it to the "real world" in a much more meaningful way. 

For starters, in a subversion of Murakami's usual shtick, the main character starts the novel in the fantasy world and returns to reality for the majority of the book. It's an interesting twist for Murakami's readers, who expect the story's characters to get sucked into weirder and weirder places/scenarios (although there is still plenty of progressive weirdness, non-sequiturs, etc.). I think Murakami succeeded a bit with the creation of the world (it's interesting and vivid in its existence), its juxtaposition with the real world (it runs parallel to it in a mysterious way that I find rich with interpretive possibilities), and the flow of the plot (I enjoyed leaving the City to return to reality and discover how the narrator "heals" and makes sense from this experience). 80% of the story was actually a great pleasure to read. Murakami is immensely talented at writing in his formulaic way. There is something inexplicably pleasurable about reading Murakami's typical protagonist going about his daily life -- purchasing some muffins at the cafe, walking and noticing the sky and the weather, ironing clothes, etc. -- that will never get old for me. I enjoy his humor, his wacky idiosyncrasies (ears and the Beatles are back big in this novel), and his genuine knack for blending serious literary ambitions with mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy. Murakami is unbound in a sense; he continues to write his "same book." The plot and themes are both very familiar, unlike most writers who have favored themes that are explored through different stories, Murakami tends to replicate both his themes and plots. Yet it works every time for his cult following, which I suspect can largely be attributed to his prose style and authentic interest in and display of his subject matter. 

As far as the book's major symbol, the uncertain wall is the blurry distinction between reality and unreality. This is Murakami’s way of suggesting the magic in his books exists/can exist. The city symbolizes the infinite imaginative power of magic — ostensibly distinct from our world, but in actuality connected in ambiguous but meaningful ways. This powerful idea seems to be the culmination of what Murakami had been trying to convey over and over again. I feel that, with this understanding achieved, he may finally be freed of the need to rewrite this type of story again. Other than this theme, books (and libraries) are a 3rd sort of element where magic exists in the “real world.” Books are magical in the sense that they evoke feelings in a person that only they can evoke and they contain stories and ideas unrestricted by imagination. In our physical world, libraries, containing within near-infinite words and pages, are the closest thing we have to a magic portal. Where else but than in a book/library can a person escape from reality and exist so personally as someone else? Murakami references magical realism a little bit as well, which I found surprisingly relevant and self-aware. 

Now for my two major gripes - Part 3 is incredibly rushed. I have much less of a problem with the direction the story took than how it was written. It seems like Murakami had written an outline for part 3 and instead of fleshing it out just jumped from event to event to event. We needed at least 100 more pages of exposition. For example, the merging of the boy and the main character really had no justifiable meaning. The events pass so quickly in this act and lead to a boring conclusion - that the narrator has to ambiguously “disappear.” I get that the narrator “heals” as a result of his multidimensional journey as he and the girl finally disappear, but once again, other than a short dream sequence, the love interest of the narrator (whose obsession with her ruins his life for decades) is not fleshed out at all beyond the first part. Their relationship is introduced beautifully on the first page, too. What a shame that a meaningful connection could not have been made at the end of the story (she is also completely neglected in part 2, although the narrator's "hook-up" during this sequence could hold some weight as a stand-in/symbol for her -- there's some mystery surrounding this for me). But Murakami does deserve some criticism for how he wrote this love interest character, truly this time she is a vessel for the narrator's journey, something I normally had never agreed much with in the past. 

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.