“For poor people, window size isn’t even a concept. Nobody has a view. A window is just a blurry pane of glass hidden behind cramped plywood shelves. Who knows if the thing even opens. It’s a greasy rectangle by the broken exhaust fan that your family’s never used and never will.”
I like how the author writes. Very authentic and very “me”. Not to boast that I have the same writing skills. It’s just a feeling that you get sometimes, reading a book or a piece of somebody’s work, and you feel that that’s the kind of the world you want to be submerged in. Very “me”, very my world, very my favorite things, feelings, emotional states. So, that author feels like “me”.
That is why, obviously, I liked it ;)
Also it’s just the type of prose I am interested in. No detective, no adventure, no horror, no fantasy — all imaginary and vaguely related to my reality. I like people telling me about themselves. If they are good narrators too, that helps)
What happens to people in real life matters to me the most.
I’d guess it is more for girls than boys. Cause she speaks a lot about what women in her life went through. But I would like to see guys also reading it — because it is the way to start a conversation and to learn about each other more.
It actually reminds me of the great Korean book “Kim Jeong born in 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo. It even resembles that book in sadness. Although written more with the kind of ambiance.
— — — — — —
That was my first impression. But after an atmospheric start, the book turned out to be more common, narrative, sometimes melodramatic(maybe too much for my liking, like pieces in the diary of a teenage girl), and still informative. I’ve still read it. And still was engaged for most of the time. It took me to see a life I’ve never lived — by a relatively poor middle-aged woman in Japan. And I like those kinds of rides.
She talks about rape and rape victims. About men killing women and how scary it is for a woman to think about it. About breast implants and nipple whitening, how painful it can be. How men leave their wives to care about babies alone, without any money. How a husband’s mother can basically hate you and make you work, serving the whole house and still raising children just because in her own time she was forced to do just that. This last kind of thing seems to be especially pronounced in Japan and Koren.
Not all the tragedy in the author’s view is a tragedy to me. I wouldn’t think I’d be empty inside if I couldn’t know my father, who was merely a sperm donor. I have this strong feeling that those who cared and raised you are the parents, no matter the sperm, blood, or genes. Getting to know your genes might be interesting though, but only that.
Or wouldn’t I be torn apart by the dilemma to have a sperm donor at 38 or stay childless forever. With our views not falling in line perfectly, I still liked it. The book has good writing, so I’ve read it all up. The author is very particular about how she describes the time of the day, and the ambiance of the story. She wouldn’t just leave you with “it was late/ it was early/it was summer”.
She would literary dip a brush in several shades of colors to get it exactly right and paint the whole picture before your eyes. With words.
There are also moments I love. Like when Rie talks about her family, brutally honest, no excises. So there are all of those things…
Anyway, the second part of the book goes in-depth about the want for a baby while being lonely and lacking representation — like all the forums and websites are for couples, hetero or gay. But none are for lonely women. Which might be a subject close to somebody’s heart.
I could see people all around me, but I almost felt like nobody could see me. I heard a train go by, rumbling down the tracks, drawing a thick line between the world and my experience. I was getting cold again.
On the sperm donor thing: the internal dialog evolved into a detailed argumentation. Like she was looking for answers and internally questioned other people’s critiques and statements. She found her arguments, and they were good. It was a vibrant process to follow. More frequently I see authors presenting their point of view, more or less a turnkey solution. So this kind of meditation over what’s right and what’s wrong, the process of searching for your own answers, no matter the common knowledge, was interesting.
Of course, I’ve read a translated English version. She writes about Japanese dialects, and how they might be difficult to catch in the written words — cause you can’t add rhythm to them. And I can’t access any of it) I wish my Japanese was good enough to be able to read this one in the original… but it is still lacking a lot for that feat. Watasi-wa nihon to nihon-go ga dai suki desu..
But even in the translation version, the writing is authentic. I caught myself reading all, no usual skipping parts, cause I liked the way the words flowed. So I am sure intrigued enough to look up all of her other books — so much I enjoyed reading this one.
Above all, I think this book is valuable to Japan as a country, which hasn’t still talked much about the role of women in society. In the same way that “Kim Jeong born in 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo is valuable for Korea. Those are conversations we should all be having.
Thank you all for reading this. Clap intensely for the aspiring author). I will reciprocate the support.
