Published: 1988 (MK)
Setting: 1980's Tokyo
Summary: Banana Yoshimoto's first novel, Kitchen, and her novella, Moonlight Shadow, both deal with how lose makes use examine our distance to those we care about.
Mikage, the protagonist in Kitchen, lives in a tiny world filled with pots, pans, couches, and plants. What she lacks is genuine connection to others after her grandmother's death, before she befriends a man named Yuichi, her main love interest, and his transgender mother, Eriko. She slowly gets acclimated to having two, rather eccentric, people in her life, ultimately leaning into their carefree and quaint lifecycles. Right when Mikage gets comfortable, she gets a job as a culinary assistant, as well as learn that Eriko has been murdered, sending Yuichi into a tailspin that Mikage tries to corral. Mikage finds out that Yuichi loves her, but she dashes off, unable to come to process her feelings effectively. She gets put on assignment in Izu, realizes Yuichi is there, and sneaks into his guesthouse to bring him some food. After a finally getting to process her feelings over a warm portion of katsudon, she tells Yuichi she wants to spend her life with him.
Moonlight Shadow, coming in at a sparse 41 pages, details the connection between a woman and her dead boyfriend's brother, who are united by the fact that their partners died in the same vehicular crash. The woman, Satsuki, meets a mysterious women who affords her an opportunity to form a connection with an imaginary/hallucinatory version of her dead lover, thus helping her deal with her grief.
Quote of the book: "I had a feeling I wasn't crying over any one sad thing, but rather for many."
This story really focuses on the conditions and personal effort it takes to process grief, and Mikage slowly figures out what she needs to process throughout the novel.
Favorite Character: Mikage, for such a small book she is well-formed and given a unique perspective which allows the reader to crawl on the floor of a kitchen and experience the level of safety that she is lying near the fridge. She is an odd duck, but one worth examining.
Favorite Setting: Eriko's house, there is a level of warmth given to her space through Yoshimoto's thick description of Eriko and Yuichi's living habits.
Favorite reference: Katsudon, it makes me want to go to Japan and pair the chicken with the egg.
Please stay for: A quick and enjoyable ride along one person's grief-train of self-discovery. The constrained length of the novel alludes to its subject matter.
Please Question: Like any short novel, and novella, there is much more room to play.
Rating: 3.6/5, nothing in this novel jumped out as particularly special, but it was a delight to read in one sitting.
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