Product Description: Two stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow," told through the eyes of a pair of contemporary young Japanese women, deal with the themes of mothers, love, transsexuality, kitchens, and tragedy. Reprint. NYT.
Solid 4 Star Read Yosimoto's first book is part romance, part coming of age story, written in an easy style that draws in the reader. It felt real, believable, and had characters that I cared about, that I could be friends with, that I could expect to meet going about my daily life.
The story follows Mikage after the death of her grandmother, coming to grips with the death of her only family and her emptiness. She is helped through this tough time by an unexpected offer of friendship and by a discovery of a love of cooking. Another death and more love follow Mikage in the ensuing months and she struggles to handle it as any twenty-something would. While the story was sometimes silly with romance (for me), it was still about real life and for that I liked it.
The companion novella is Yosimoto's first published work and also deals with the themes of love and loss through death. This is a much more sentimental story, too much so for my taste, but the elements of the preternatural kept me interested. It ends in a very satisfying, and again real life, ending that just "felt right".
I was very enchanted with Yosimoto's easy style and realism and plan to read her more recent novels at some point as well.
good book, bad translation In Japanese, "Kitchen" is not the kitsch piece of trash the English translation makes it out to be. Even so, I'd hold off reading "Kitchen" until another translation appears, unless you can read it in Japanese.
Here's why: As others have said, the translator took some liberties and manhandled the feel of the novel. In several cases the translator (Backus) completely removed sentences (does a 100-page book need abridged?), and in other cases replaced prose, elegant in its simplicity, with cliche.
An example of the latter is the very last sentence of the second part, "Full Moon" (this isn't a spoiler). In Backus's translation: "I launched into what time I'd be in and what platform I'd be on." In Japanese, it's literally "I started to explain my arrival time and what platform I'd be on." I can't remember the last time I got so excited I fell out of my seat and "launched" into telling someone something mundane like I was going to be home at 3:20pm.
It's the gross overuse of cliche in the translation that destroys that fragile atmosphere Yoshimoto Banana created in the Japanese prose. For example, when a page is filled with a few precise words, it's like a Monet painting: hundreds of tiny strokes carefully arranged to create a greater image. But to translate those emotionally-loaded carefully chosen words into goofy cliche is to take a Monet painting and make a few strokes with a floor mop. Spare yourself of this translation.
Two thoughts to add to other reviews First, the translation is very poor. The novel is conversational yet phrases such as "god-awful" and "ungodly" are simply not a part of Japanese daily conversation. The translator takes far too much license and a lot is lost in this loose translation. It would have been better to leave the translation a bit more strict and stilted. Second, the use of specific foods and the descriptions thereof conjure up specific imagery that is unique to Japanese culture. For example, it is uncommon for the average Japanese household to have jasmine tea on hand. A western reader would have to be aware of this to understand the imagery. What this symbolizes may be very different for a Japanese reader. It would be difficult for a western reader to "get" these nuances. Even after living in Japan, I certainly don't. Read carefully the section on the "incredible" katsudon she was served (page 92 paperback). This is a very deeply Japanese description of well-enjoyed meal. Such obsessive mulling over and judging of food and meals is a part of Japanese culture that I will never fathom, yet it is important to note within the cultural context of the novel, especially this novel in which food and the kitchen are liberally spoken of throughout.
It was for my book club Maybe its because we read it so long after the hype but I thought this book seemed like the latest trend in fiction. The setting was fine and the read was still enjoyable but this did not change the way that I see life or offer any big message. It's just sort of sad and a little obsessive.
Simply kitsch! This novel is charming rather than good, pleasant rather than profound in any way. Is in Japanese chick lit? I don't know.. I know it has reached immense popularity in the author's native Japan, and I did get the feeling that this must be what contemporary Japan is like for 20-something females.
The book deals with death. Yes, quite a heavy topic for light reading, and that might be part of its problem. It would seem that the topic would automatically "deepen" the novel... I liked the first part of the book the best (the actual kitchen novella), and I felt a certain connection to Eriko (the transvestite), Yuichi (the son) and Mikage (the narrator), and I found myself cheering for the budding love between Mikage and Yuichi.
However, the language and the "depth" of the book seemed superficial at best. It is saturated with clichees (the phrase "I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off" is used as an actual description). It seemed to be written in a way that a self-absorbant 20-something would talk. But does it reflect the original writing or did it get a bit lost in translation????
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