Touring the Land of the Dead
by Maki Kashimada
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Pub Date 4 Mar 2021 | Archive Date 18 Mar 2021
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Description
A dream-like, emotionally charged tale by a bold new voice in Japanese fiction
Natsuko’s husband Taichi was forced to stop working eight years ago by the sudden onset of a brain disease. Ever since then, they have been living on her part-time wages and what he receives in disability benefits. But Natsuko is well accustomed to financial hardship. Before meeting Taichi, she lived with her mother, a proud woman who clung to illusions of affluence long after the family riches had dried up. Her mother and her brother are haunted by their former station in life, restless spirits unable to live according to their present realities, and uncomprehending of Natsuko’s decision to marry a lowly functionary.
One day, Natsuko sees an ad for a spa resort posted on a bulletin board. She recognizes the place as a former luxury hotel, a symbol of that time in her mother's youth when she wanted for nothing. Natsuko’s grandfather had taken her mother to the storied hotel when she was little. When Natsuko and her husband visit the much-changed hotel, the building triggers memories and epiphanies relating to the complicated history of her family. The overnight trip becomes a voyage into the netherworld - a journey to the doors of death and back to life.
The volume also contains a short story modelled on Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters. Ninety-Nine Kisses, portrays four unmarried sisters living in an old-fashioned neighbourhood in contemporary Tokyo.
Available Editions
| ISBN | 9781787702806 |
| PRICE | £12.99 (GBP) |
Featured Reviews
Alan M, Bookseller
Two short novellas that, at first, seem quite different, but on closer reading reveal a common theme of a woman who feels that her identity is formed by those around her, that she has no real sense of self, and who slowly comes to realise the truth of her situation.
In the title story, Natsuko takes her ailing husband Taichi to a seaside hotel that, many years ago, her grandfather had taken her family. The hotel is tired and the paint peeling, but over the course of their stay Natsuko is forced to confront her memories of her mother and her husband, and the trip becomes one where she slowly starts to heal herself, finally able to forge even just a small sense of self-identity.
In 'Ninety-Nine Kisses' we have a tale of fours sisters, narrated by Nanako, the youngest. Quite different in tone to the previous novella, this is a highly-sexualised group of women, including their mother, whose carefully balanced existence is shaken by the arrival of S., a young man whom all of the sisters take a fancy and who ends up having a relationship with one of them. Nanako has always seen herself purely as someone who only exists to reflect or support the others, not necessarily as an individual: 'I don't have my own story. My story is that of my sisters.'
I really enjoyed these, the writing is beautifully slow and descriptive, and it is no surprise that the title story won the Akutagawa Prize a few years ago. It is a story with deliberate echoes of past Japanese greats, a slow meditation on love and the possibility of finding oneself. The second story is quite a contrast, openly sexual and playing with some darker themes. I got echoes of Shirley Jackson, with the strange relationships between the sisters, and it is a nice balance to the title story's theme of a woman finding herself late in life; this time, Nanako's innocent childhood is coming to an end as she is about to enter the world of adulthood.
These may not be for everyone, but I would highly recommend them to fans of Japanese literature who will appreciate the imagery and references to other works, and to those who appreciate a quiet, meditative story rather than a purely plot-driven thrillerama. A definite 4 stars.
(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)
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