A friend handed me this, not telling me what to expect, and it turned out to be a very literary novel. It’s not really a novel, per se., but three long short stories or short novellas all on the theme of sleeping.
The first short story is about a woman worried about her cousin, Mari. Mari had a tempestuous affair with the narrator’s late brother, and she has a tendency to wander around at night in the cold and snow. The second story is about a woman who keeps hearing a song as she starts to fall asleep. She talks to a friend who says that it means someone recently dead is trying to contact her. The third is a story about a woman with narcolepsy, who is dating a married man whose wife is in a coma.
The writing is very interesting. Yoshimoto looks at people and their relationships to one another very delicately, like a scientist meticulously recording things down to the millimeter. She comes at things at a slightly different angle, since she’s Japanese. For example, Mari’s parents in the first story are opposed to her relationship with her cousin not because of consanguinity, but because they don’t think he’s good enough for her. And, perhaps because of the translation, they have curious speech patterns that reminded me of conversational exercises in my Japanese language textbooks, but not like any speech I’ve heard between native speakers of English.
I think if you like literary fiction, this would be a good selection. The themes are broad enough that you could find plenty of discussion fodder here with like minded individuals. There are supernatural elements here, but these elements don’t really exist outside the story. In these stories, someone can hear the weight of a phone ringing and know who is calling. In these stories, someone can tell who is on the other line by the quality of the silence, can tell from smell that someone touched the son of someone she loved. They see visions and have true dreams. They have mysterious connections to other people. It’s deep and meaningful and will probably make you feel smarter for having read it.
My main complaint with this is the same as my complaint with most literary fiction in that there’s really not much plot, and almost zero conflict. Things happen, and they reference other things that are meaningful, but you don’t see any action on screen. You deal with people getting used to how their relationships have changed now that x has died, but x doesn’t die in the story. In fact, all three stories deal with dead people who died long before the story happened. These are stories that whisper respectfully in a large, beautiful room full of delicate and valuable antiques. It’s okay once in a while, but since I view fiction as entertainment, I’d rather have action and excitement and jumping up and down on the couch.
