09.22.09
Banana Yoshimoto Duet
“Like a saint in the legends who reached out and took jewels from the sky,
I had the same kind of talent for gathering miracles in my life.”
Amrita, Banana Yoshimoto
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This week I read two Yoshimoto books consecutively: Kitchen and Amrita. The idea of a grieving girl who finds solace in kitchens drew me in somehow. It is a charming novella and yet full of meaning. Within the same book is an accompanying story called Moonlight Shadow and this is where I noticed glimpses of magical realism when Satsuki’s dead boyfriend reappears in an apparition to say goodbye. I’m glad that I read Kitchen first since both stories kept me asking for more because I felt that their closures arrived too soon. Then came Amrita. It seemed to compensate for what Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow lacked.
Amrita turned out to be more complex than I imagined as death, loss, recovery, and uncommon representations of “family” – leitmotifs in Yoshimoto’s stories, were weaved with Proustian parallels. What is even more amazing is how one cannot identify with just a single character; instead, one finds oneself in many. From the heroine who loses her memory in an accident and tries to retrieve them and through a novel finally recaptures them, to her clairvoyant little brother who yearns to belong despite his extraordinary abilities, to her boyfriend, a nomad writer who also happened to be the former boyfriend of her sister, a beautiful actress who committed suicide, to several other outlandish characters.
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With her concoction of magic realism, eccentric characters, slightly disturbing disclosures, and off-beat relationships, she is the kind of author that I would have admired as a teenager. I am definitely not saying that I find her writings unimpressive because she truly knows how to touch a woman’s heart and make her sigh in contemplation. I just doubt that she would have the same reverberating effect on reading men, hence my estimation of her as a Japanese Laura Esquivel, and right now I am simply more drawn to books that transcend gender. Nevertheless, this did not hinder me from appreciating Yoshimoto’s writings as it allowed me to savour an altogether different and unusual reading experience.
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karlo said,
September 22, 2009 at 7:26 am
banana is another very popular author (among young people these days) that i haven’t got myself to read yet. hope to sample any of her works soon and verify your assessment. cool pen name though, banana. :)
Miracle ♪♫ said,
September 22, 2009 at 7:56 am
Haha… I look forward to your evaluation, Karlo. Funny, I’ve just been to your blog and found a comment from you when I got back here. =)
Yes, “Banana” because it’s “purposefully androgynous”, says the author ironically. But how right she is. While the tone of the name sounds rather feminine, one can’t help but realize that its connotation is somehow phallic. =P