Reading Banana Yoshimoto’s works never fails to please. She has the uncanny ability to articulate profound thoughts in unadorned yet beautiful prose–it certainly takes a skilled writer to do that.
In Lizard, she confronts the despair and loneliness that plagues many in urban living. Through the six short stories, we’re presented with six different protagonists who form a microcosm of the problems that people in urban societies face.
In the first short story Newlywed, a 28-year-old salaryman is taking the train home as is his usual practice. He is, however, reluctant to alight at his stop as the train pulls into the station. What awaits him at home is his dutiful wife who has made the home her universe, busying herself all day with finding trinkets for the home. The honeymoon stage is over and he finds himself lost–is this how it’s going to be for the rest of his life? His wife forever mulling over the house and him just bringing back the dough? At this point, a stranger appears and helps guide him back to his station through an interesting conversation.
If you–or anyone on this train, for that matter–thought of life as a kind of train, instead of worrying only about your usual destinations, you’d be surprised how far you could go, just with the money you have in your wallet right now.
Incidentally, this short story was serialised in the Tokyo subway system. I wished we had something like in Singapore!
In Lizard, a male medical officer realises that he is in love with his female friend of many years. He calls her “Lizard” because she has “round, black eyes that gaze at you with utter detachment, like the eyes of a reptile. Every bend and curve of her small body is cool to the touch, so cool that I [he] want to scoop her up in my two hands”. Both lost souls, the reader is led to see how these two find solace in each other.
Helix is written in a somewhat similar vein to Lizard. A writer finds himself unable to tear himself from his on-off girlfriend. He resigns himself to the fact that it is “an infinite helix, the chance of two souls resonating, like the twist of DNA, like the vast universe”.
The protagonist in Dreaming of Kimchee gives a voice to women who find themselves as the third party in relationships. Her insecurity and despair tugs at one’s heartstrings and to me, serves as a reminder to never tread in such waters!
Blood and Water will resonate most with people who have left home to work in another country or city. The protagonist has left the small town she was from for several years. When she first arrived in Tokyo, she found everything fascinating but eventually realises that wherever one goes, there’re always “escapists who just can’t cope than healthy people who live their lives to the fullest”.
Though she finds herself sometimes wanting to go home to her parents and small town who will always love her for who she is, she is unable to do so. She does not like the small town mentality and Tokyo has become her home despite its occasional alienating environment.
No one else could go home again, even if they wanted to. For lots of people, in fact, the impossibility of return only intensifies their yearning.
Personally, I liked Blood and Water best as I could relate to some of the protagonist’s feelings.
Indulging in orgies was the protagonist’s way of deriving pleasure in A Strange Tale from Down by the River. Another lost sheep, she soon finds it all a very empty existence. Like a lone leaf that falls into a flowing river, she finds herself being swept along with no sense of control. Thankfully, there is hope for her yet…
Unlike the river I had seen moments before, full of chaos and anxiety, the water now appeared calm and powerful, like an image frozen by a camera lens. It was peaceful, like the passage of time, flowing by, gentle and unchanging. It amazed me how utterly different things can look, just with a change of heart.
In her afterword, Yoshimoto said that in writing this book, she wanted to explore time, healing, karma, and fate. The characters in the six stories are lost and lonely souls encountering hope for the first time.
A recommended book for those of us in need of some reflection but are sick of those Chicken Soup for the Soul series which are, in my opinion, too feel-good and Oprah Winfrey-like for my liking.