Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, 150 pagesJapanese Literature Challenge; 1% Well Read
Actually two stories, Kitchen, a novella and Moonlight Shadow, a short story, this book was less dreary than you'd expect for two stories all about grief.
I preferred Moonlight Shadow with its touch of supernatural to help the young girl deal with the death of her boyfriend. The story was simpler but touched me a bit more.
Kitchen is the story of two young adults who come together in their shared grief of what seems like the death of everyone around them. I found this story a bit more abstract with the relationships. It's hard to know when the problems in a story are with the translations. There were some nice phrases and images however.
In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions, much of one's life history is etched in the senses. page 75
I should see if my library has this...
ReplyDeleteThis book was so beautifully written, to me, that such a young author could express grief so well. I just remember it generally, though, not well enough to talk about specifically here.
ReplyDeletekailana - it was in our school library, the provincial library didn't have it.
ReplyDeletebellezza - that's a good point. The first one was maybe more of the randomness of dealing with grief. I really liked the second one, and felt the emotion more.