Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa ask

 

So many images flood my mind as I close the cover of this tender book. I see bottles of pale blue soda, called Fressy; a pygmy hippopotamus named Pochiko; a brown Mercedes driven by a suave and elegant uncle; and an asthmatic girl named Mina, whose presence is not only in the cover, but throughout the entire novel.

Mina’s cousin, Tomoko, has come to live with her family. In this way, her mother can continue her education in order to gain a better job. It is during her stay with her relatives, that Tomoko relates the family’s lives. There is Grandmother Rosa, from Germany, who is Mina’s grandmother; her mother, and two gentle Japanese people who help care for the home:  Yoneda-san, the cook, and Kobayashi-san, the gardener.

It is an innocent tale, told by a thirteen year old middle school girl. She tells of the special room where Mina takes “light-baths” to help combat her asthma. She tells of going to the library for Mina, who is far too fragile to make the trip herself, and checking out books such as The House of Sleeping Beauties by Kawabata. The librarian is impressed by Tomoko’s knowledge, which is really only a repetition of Mina’s interpretations.

I am charmed by Mina riding Pochiko to school, in a harness her father has created especially for this purpose. Her father, the president of Fressy, the owner of the aforementioned Mercedes, can do anything. He makes the family laugh. He fixes whatever needs to be repaired. He is endlessly patient and sophisticated. But, he often goes away for long periods of time with no explanation.

That is when his wife goes to the smoking room and quietly drinks her whiskey.

But, when Tomoko makes a discovery, everything seems to change. He stays home. Mina gets better. Life continues, even to the last Christmas celebration that Grandmother Rosa prepares. One with stuffed chicken, a real tree filled with ornaments, and lit candles in every candlestick the house contains. 

I will leave another surprise for you, which is what Mina does with the matchboxes she collects. 

This is a book which most certainly should be included in your Japanese literature awareness. It was a marvelous way to begin the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, as well as the New Year 2025.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki (translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood)

I found The Full Moon Coffee Shop to be a pleasant variation on an oft-repeated theme; so many Japanese books with cats as the central characters seem to have seized the market. While I like cats, I am not so fond of astrology, another theme within this book. But, there are other ideas within its pages that gave me pause.

Let’s start with the idea of a “pop-up” cafe appearing when you need it most, and serving delicacies suited just for you. Take for example, a simple glass of water:

…I gazed down at the glass. It was small, slightly curved, and contained three ice cubes and some water. At the gentle impact of the glass being set down on the table, tiny shards of light began to shimmer on the surface of the water, like gold dust. Baffled, I leaned to get a closer look, but the golden specks had disappeared.

 I took a long gulp of water to steady my nerves. It tasted purer than any water I’d ever drunk. As it trickled down my throat, it seemed to dissolve directly into me…

What is more refreshing than water when one is truly thirsty? And, if you’re ready for a snack, how about some of these:

• Full Moon Pancakes have a sphere  of butter and Astral Syrup accompanies them, with a golden shimmer.
• Lunar Chocolate Fondant on a white plate, consisting of a piece of cake out of which thick molten chocolate oozes forth.
• Planetary Affogato has two spheres of yellow ice cream in a glass, which seemed to have been sprinkled with gold dust, and coffee poured over the top.
• Mercury Cream Soda, a beautiful sky blue soda, topped with ice cream and a cherry. The pale gray ice cream is actually lemon sorbet.

These imaginary treats tickled my fancy, and though Christmas decadence has recently ended, I long to indulge in these. I also found myself writing down quotes which seemed applicable to  myself or those around me:

The full moon gives us the power to let things go. That includes negative emotions such as regret, jealousy, or obsession. Those weren’t the only things I wanted to let go of. There was also the fear of what others thought of me. My terror of being criticized. My habit of facing up to the truth. “I think I could do with a bit of letting go,” I murmured. 

and

What I really needed…was to live as comfortably and peacefully as I could in the present. Rather than living in the past and possible future. 

and

Our world is governed by the mirror principle, everything you do in life is reflected back on you in time. Hurt someone, and it’ll rebound on you eventually. Affairs inevitably cause a great deal of pain - especially when there’s family involved. All that suffering will come back to haunt you.

and

If you obsess too much over the restrictions you've placed on yourself, you’ll lose sight of what you really want. Instead liberate yourself. Embrace who you really are.

and 

Throughout my life, I’d always been my harshest critic, constantly policing my own desire. 

As I mentioned earlier in the post, New Age thinking and Astrology do not appeal to me. Instead, I gain my hope and peace from Christ. And yet, there are principles in this book which I can eagerly apply in this new year, such as letting go of others’ opinions, or living fully in the present. I found this book a light, and enjoyable, way to begin the Japanese Literature Challenge 18.

p.s. The collage of pictures is from the artist Chihiro Sakurada, to whom the author credits her story.

Japanese Literature Challenge 18

Welcome! How lovely it is to see this challenge continue on to its eighteenth year. I so appreciate each of you readers. Here is the Review Site for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18. Please leave the link to the book(s) you have read this January and February in the widget below.

2024: The (Reading) Year in Review

It’s been a strange year for reading, and blogging, for me. My husband has been quite ill, and after a serious cycling accident in October, he has required much of my attention. Switching from WordPress to Blogger, as my domain at WordPress was full, was not as smooth as I had hoped. Nor did my relative lack of interaction with all of you help.

But, I have been reading, and fulfilling much of the blogging events I’d signed up for, nonetheless. Here is a list of the books I’ve read this year:

Books read in 2024

~January~

1. Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto (Japanese Literature Challenge 17)
2. First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston 
3. The Forbidden Notebook by Alba De Cespedes (reread)
4. Don’t Let Her Go by Willow Rose
5. The Final Curtain by Keigo Higashino (Japanese Literature Challenge 17)

~February~

1. Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino (Japanese Literature Challenge 17)
2. Life and Death in Shanghai by Nein  Chung (book club)
3. Nowhere Like Home by Sara Shepard
4. A Well-Behaved Woman by Anne Therese Fowler (book club)

~March~

1. The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker (reread)
2. God Save The Child by Robert B. Parker (reread)
3. Mortal Stakes by Robert B. Parker (reread)
4. Undiscovered by Gabriela Weiner (IBP longlist 2024)
5. The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone (IBP longlist 2024)
6. Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (IBP shortlist 2024)
7. A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare (IBP longlist 2024)

~April~ 

1. Not A River by Selva Almada (IBP shortlist 2024)
2. The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov (IBP longlist 2024)
3. The Details by Ia Genberg (IBP shortlist 2024)
4. Lost On Me by Veronica Raimos (IBP longlist 2024)
5. The Promised Land by Robert B. Parker
6. The Judas Goat by Robert B. Parker
7. Simpatia by Rodrigo Blanco Calderon (IBP longlist 2024)
8. How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino, translated from the Japanese by Bruno Navasky (#1937 Club)

~May~

1. Knife by Salmon Rushdie
2. The Hunter by Tana French
3. Looking For Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
4. Early Autumn by Robert B. Parker
5. A Savage Place by Robert B. Parker
6. Ceremony by Robert B. Parker
7. A House Like An Accordion by Audrey Burges

~June~

1. Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland (Paris in July 2024)
2. Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
3. Long Island by Colm Toibin
4. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (Paris in July 2024)

~July~

1. Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See (book club)
2. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (Paris in July, Reading Orwell 2024)
3. Tsar by Ted Bell
4. The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald 

~August~

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Classic Club Spin #38/Pulitzer Prize winner)
2. The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk  (Women in Translation Month)
3. The Other Woman by Therese Bohman (Women in Translation Month)

~September~

1. Emily Forever by Maria Navarro Skaranger
2. Nightmare in Pink by John MacDonald
3. Kristan Lavransdattar: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset
4. Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staaleson 

~October~

1. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
2. Speaks The Nightbird by Robert McCammon (R.I.P. XIX)

~November~

1. The Other Name by Jon Fosse (Norway in November)
2. Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik (Norway in November)
3. Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad (Norway in November)
4. Death Deserved by Horst and Enger (Norway in November)

~December~

1. The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami
2. The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki
3. The Therapist by B. A. Paris

Top Ten for 2024

1. The Forbidden Notebook by Alba De Cespedes (although a reread, it stands the test of time)
2. Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino (the imagery still lingers)
3. Not A River by Selva Almada (for a mother’s love)
4. Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy (because friends are found in unlikely places)
5. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (every reread provides fresh insight)
6. The Wreath by Sigrid Undset (it further launched my passion for classics, and Norwegian lit)
7. The Other Name by Jon Fosse (a true favorite, again offering fresh insight each reread)
8. Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik (I’m always interested in stories of couples)
9. Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad (offered a perspective on society)
10. The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (because who doesn’t love reading about cats, and libraries, and loneliness, along with a parallel universe?)

As you can see, I have continued with my passion for literature in translation by reading for The Japanese Literature Challenge 17, The International Booker Prize, Paris in July, Women in Translation Month, and Norway in November. I have also read for R.I.P. XIX, 20 Books of Summer, and Reading Orwell.

I plan to host the Japanese Literature Challenge 18, for which the Review Site will be available tomorrow. I also agreed to host Pride and Prejudice in March for Reading Austen 2025. After that, who knows? Perhaps you will see me from time to time. Meanwhile, I wish you the happiest New Year, and may the quality of each book you read abound in 2025!

Love,

Bellezza 

I’m beginning to think of Japanese literature again…

 

It’s hard to tell from the small section included in the picture, but this is a window seat under our dining room window, in which I plan to sit and read All Day. I hope to finish Haruki Murakami’s latest, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which is proving to be just as enigmatic, and intriguing, as I had hoped. Once again, I find some of the same themes: libraries, dreams, walls, and loneliness, and I am reminded of my love for Japanese literature.

When my husband and I were in Kyoto, in 2018, one of the many photographs I took were of the beautiful flower arrangements in the hotel. They were so elegant, and so simple at the same time. I have chosen one of  the photographs to represent the upcoming Japanese Literature Challenge 18.

It won’t officially begin until January, but if you choose to participate again, or for the first time, you have several weeks in which to choose what it is that you will read. I am compiling a list myself, which includes such titles as these:

• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
• Palm of the Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
• Harlequin Butterfly by Toh Enjoe (speculative fiction, winner of the Akutagawa Prize)
• Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa
• We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida
• Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashino
• The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki
• Marshland by Yotohiko Kaga

This list is comprised of short stories, classic authors, and newly published works. I hope you find something which encourages you to consider joining us, as we read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18. (Review site to come.)

Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik “I love you.”

 

If Ti Amo wasn’t in the fiction section of the library, I would have thought I was reading a letter. Or, more accurately, a personal journal entry. 

It is exquisite in its poignancy.

At first, I was apprehensive about reading a novel in which the narrator’s husband is dying of pancreatic cancer. The pain is raw, and the description of his suffering is graphic.

But then, the novel evolves into being more about her than him. Suddenly, quite near the end, she discloses an attraction to a man who is only called A; he has come to meet her on a book tour for one of her books in Guadalajara, Mexico.

She does not betray her husband. She writes this about meeting him four years earlier:

It was when I was writing Over the Mountain that I met you. I wrote myself into a place then where our coming together became possible, I knew that the work I was doing in writing that novel, approaching the girl-child parts of me from which I’ve detached myself all my life, despised and shunned, was in order to ready myself to live in nearness to another person and love them. Because if I couldn’t be near the vulnerable, soft and silly girly parts of me, the parts that so yearned for affection, how could I believe I could ever allow another person to be? Another person can’t make me love what I despise about myself, therefore if I hate myself I can never feel loved. And I longed for someone to love. (p. 108)

We learn about the process of dying, as we read, and what it does to a couple who love each other. But perhaps more importantly, to me at least, we learn about how we must also love ourselves. 

Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad “…he kept himself at a certain distance, he had always done that…”

 

Silly me. I was intrigued to read this book not only for the Norwegian challenge I have put forth, but also because I thought it would be a kind of thriller. Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad has, at its core, a murder. And I love Scandinavian noir. But, this is noir of an altogether different kind.

On Christmas Eve, Professor Anderson sets the table in his dining room. He changes into formal clothes, and serves ribs with crisp crackling from his own oven. We think, perhaps, that he is preparing a party. But, no, he sits down and eats all by himself, taking his coffee and cognac to sit before the fire when he has finished his meal.

“That’s odd,” I think, for even to an introvert such as myself, this seems like a tremendous amount of effort for one’s own holiday celebration. Even more odd is that when he stands looking out of his window he sees a beautiful young woman in the window across from him. Suddenly, a man appears behind her, puts his hands around her neck, and with flailing arms she falls to the ground. Apparently, she has been murdered.

We never see the body. We don’t know for certain if she has been killed. We don’t even if this event really occurred, or if it is just Professor Andersen’s imagination. What we do know is that he doesn’t report the event. He goes about his business, accepting a dinner invitation with friends, and then flying to visit a colleague in another city, all the while consumed with what he witnessed and what he should have done. When it is entirely too late.

Professor Andersen is a professor of literature, and the author of his own bizarre life. He is removed from people; more interested in how he appears to them, than how he connects with them. 

“…he kept himself at a certain distance, he had always done that and it had become more and more important to him over the years.” (p. 113)

What is important to him is having a well-organized life. He makes assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. He is passive. Removed from people on any level beyond the superficial. He lives alone and chooses to be almost completely isolated.

New Directions, who publishes the book, says, “Professor Andersen’s night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel, written in Dag Solstad’s signature concise, dark, and witty prose. “He’s a kind of surrealistic writer, of very strange novels,” Haruki Murakami wrote. “I think he’s serious literature.”

If this novel is meant to portray society today, as I have read, then I fear for us. 

If comedy is not far from tragedy, then Solstad’s writing is very witty indeed. 

Norway in November: The Other Name Septology I-II by Jon Fosse

 

In a way that is similar to the photograph I took of this bird and its reflection in the water, Fosse gives us a reflection of two men; one may be real, and the other a shadow. One may be transformed from the other into the person he has now become. Whatever the case, I have been intoxicated by the story of Asle. And, Asle.

The first is a painter, who begins his narration by telling us of the painting he has just finished. It is one wide line of purple, and one wide line of brown, crossing each other like a St. Andrew’s Cross. Like the photograph above; two images intersecting into one.

Asle goes into town, stopping at a park where he sees a man wearing a long black coat just like his. The man pushes the woman in a swing, and Asle hears their entire conversation which he transcribes for us. (Is he seeing this interaction, or remembering it?)

When he continues on his way, he thinks he must stop at Sailor’s Cove to see Asle, who is shaking and trembling from too much drink. Again, Asle (the narrator) gives us specific details about Asle (the drunk) shaking in his apartment, looking at his dog, Bragi, as he pours himself another drink.

But, Asle carries on into town, where he buys canvas, wood from the hardware store, and an open face, ground beef sandwich for lunch.

After he has unloaded his supplies at home, he realizes he really must go back and check on Asle in Sailor’s Cove. And so, tired as he is, he drives into town for the second time. 

Lo and behold, he finds Asle in the street! Lying in the snow, outside of The Lane, quite unaware and unable to get up. Asle helps Asle to stand, and takes him to a diner for dinner. For warmth. But, it is clear that the drunk Asle is very, very ill, and after taking him to The Clinic in a taxi, Asle is then admitted to the hospital.

I will stop retelling the story here, for soon you may not find a reason to read it yourself.  But, I can’t emphasize the beauty of the writing enough; it’s as though I know Fosse, or better yet, Fosse knows me.

This can’t be just because I’m (part) Norwegian too, can it? How can a person write of one’s past, one’s thoughts, one’s career, with such relevance to my own? I am not a painter, by any means, yet his words resonant with who I am. Like this:

“…tomorrow the same as every other day, yes, since he was maybe twelve years old, somewhere around there anyway, there hasn’t been a single day when he didn’t either paint or draw, it just happens by itself, that’s how it is, like it’s him in a way, painting is like a continuation of himself…” (p. 47)

This is exactly how I am concerning my need to write in my notebooks…and, there’s this:

“…I always tend to think I’m not allowed to do things, that’s why I always do the same things over and over…” (p. 49)

Or, this:

“…I like driving as long as I don’t have to drive in the cities, I don’t like that at all, I get anxious and confused and I avoid city driving as much as I can…” (p. 61)

Or, this:

“…and as for anything to do with maths I can’t do it, that’s for sure, and nothing with writing either, or, well, actually to tell the truth it’s pretty easy for me to write…” (p. 210)

Or, this:

“…it’s in the silence that God can be heard, and it’s in the invisible that He can be seen…” (p. 212)

And finally this:

“…it’s not often I pray in my own words, and when I do it’s for intercession…if I pray for something that has to do with me then it has to be let me good for someone else, and if it specifically has to do with me then I pray that it should be God’s will that it happens…”

The Other Name is written in a contemplative, dreamlike stream of consciousness, relating a deep introspection…there seems to be a deep sorrow just beyond reach, as if he is trying to define it. Or, explain it. We wonder, as we close the final pages, are the two Asles namesakes? Relatives? Old friends? 

Or, as is my personal belief, is one redeemed and the other not?

The Other Name Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (the first 100 pages) for Norway In November

 

‘And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.’ — Revelation

One of the things that immediately draws me in to this contemplative, deeply introspective, novel is the way that Fosse speaks of faith.

From the epigraph on, faith is a recurring theme. We read the quote from Revelation (above), and then open to the very first page where Asle has painted a picture “with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line…and I’m thinking this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be…” (p. 12)

I carry blithely on in my reading, marking more passages pertaining to faith such as this one:

“…it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us.” (p. 96)

and this:

“…I say that no thing, no person, creates itself because it’s God who makes it possible for things to exist at all, without God there’s nothing, I say…since nothing can exist without God sustaining it, without God having made it exist, given it being  as they put it, then it’s He who is, it’s He that everything has in common, yes, God says Himself, about what we should call Him, that His name is I AM, I say…” (p. 99)

And then suddenly, a thought begins to crystallize in my mind about Asle, the one who is a painter in Dylgja sharing his thoughts with us, and Asle, the one who is shaking from drinking too much in Sailor’s Cove. These are the points I want to talk about in future posts.

I do hope you have a chance to read this with me. There’s so much I want to discuss…

Welcome to Norway in November (and Review Site)

 

I am so excited to begin Norway in November. Long have I been selecting the choices, from which I will read, and anticipating the reread of The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse. Pictured above you will find:

Kristin Lavransdattar by Sigrid Undset

Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik

Trilogy by Jon Fosse (comprised of three novellas, this work received the Nordic Council’s Prize for Literature in 2015, and could be read for Novellas in November, too, hosted by 746 Books and Bookish Beck)

Septology: The Other Name I-II by Jon Fosse

and The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (which is not in the photograph because I have temporarily misplaced it). This book is nonfiction, which could be read for Nonfiction November, for whom one of the hosts is Readerbuzz.

These are books most fiercely calling my name, and from which I will be reading and reviewing this month. Oh, that November was longer!

Please join in my reading anything translated from Norwegian this month, and leave the link to your review for us to enjoy below:

What I’m Seeing, What I’m Reading

 

I stand in awe at the colors of October.

Who could imagine such glory and bounty?

Even the quietness of a still lake is glorious to me…

as we transition from Summer into Autumn.

I have picked up and laid down many books this month. I can’t even remember what happened in An Event In Autumn by Henning Mankell well enough to describe it to you. Sadly, I can remember Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride enough to tell you I abandoned it halfway through. It is for Book Club on Wednesday, a club which now seems to consistently pick bestsellers; they never please me. Even in reading, I seem to be off the beaten path.

Instead I have been entranced by Robert McCammon’s Speaks the Nightbird. What a book! It is perfect for R.I.P. XIX, but I would enjoy it any time, not just for an eerie autumnal read. The atmosphere, the writing, are magnificent, and the story has me lost for hours in an evening.

Before I go, I will add a reminder for Norway in November, should you wish to join. Simply choose a work which has been translated from Norwegian to English, and leave a link in the review site here (which I will soon put up). There are books which also coincide with Nonfiction November, as well as

Novellas in November. I would be happy to recommend some if you would like, just let me know in your comment.