A Chorus of Mushrooms

by Hiromi Goto

Chorus of Mushrooms won a 1995 Commonwealth Writers Prize and was co-winner of the 1996 Canada-Japan Book Award. This book heralds the debut of a young Japanese Canadian feminist, Hiromi Goto. Until the publication of ‘Chorus of Mushrooms’ in 1994, the primary voice heard from Japanese Canadians was that of the people interned during World War II. Hiromi Goto examines the immigration experience of the Japanese Canadian beyond war and into present day Alberta. Celebrating cultural differences as a privilege, this novel explores the shifts and collisions of culture through the lives of three generations of women in a Japanese family living in a small prairie town.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Audiobook, Canada, Historical Fiction, Magical Realism, Fantasy

Unknown Binding

First published October 16, 1993

About the author

Hiromi’s first novel, Chorus of Mushrooms (1994), received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the Caribbean and Canada region and was co-winner of the Canada-Japan Book Award. Her short stories and poetry have been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. Her second novel, The Kappa Child (2001), was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Regional Book, and was awarded the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. Her first children’s novel, The Water of Possibility, was also published that year. Hopeful Monsters, a collection of short stories, was released in 2004. Her YA/Crossover novel, Half World (2009), was long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and received the 2010 Sunburst Award and the Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award. Her long poem, co-written with David Bateman, came out in Fall 2009. Wait Until Late Afternoon is her first book-length poetry publication. Darkest Light, companion book to Half World, will be released in 2012 with Penguin Canada.

Hiromi is an active member of the literary community, a writing instructor, editor and the mother of two children. She has served in numerous writer-in-residencies and is currently in BC, working on Darkest Light.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dear Hiromi Goto,

We read your novel, Chorus Of Mushrooms , for our Salon in beautiful Pomona, California.

There was seven of us ranging from our mid thirties to mid forties, who read your novel and discussed it out of the shear joy of both reading and community.

We drank Hitachiko Nest beer and munched on salted squid, we ate poutine and chased it with Crown Royal whiskey.

We talked about the immigrant experience from our own perspectives, we discussed what it meant to be mothers and daughters. We talked about the magical powers of our grandmothers.

We truly enjoyed your story, the peek into the mind of a Japanese-Canadian woman, the tension of being bicultural.

But most of all, we enjoyed each other. We laughed, and ate and drank, and had a good time.

Thank you!

The Pomona Literati

[☮Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such lovely writing. I usually read for the enjoyment of it and don't try to deeply analyze a book unless something stands out to me. Here the audio had an Afterword which analyzed it for me, written by a literature instructor. It made me appreciate the nuance of it all the more and the relevance it still holds twenty years after publication. Don't try to rush through this one, take it slow and appreciate Goto's talent.

[Sunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary and mythic tale of three generations of Japanese-Canadian women. The telling alternates loosely between the voice of the grandmother, Naoe, and the granddaughter, Murasaki, while each tells and retells the stories that help them make sense of their lives. There's so much rich writing, sensual details, and emotion to luxuriate in. I can't decide what I liked best about it. I related to a lot in here but especially enjoyed the small moments the women shared during intimate caretaking of each other through brushing hair or cleaning out earwax. I also flashed back to the feeling of safety and home I experienced when lying on my mother's lap getting my ears cleaned as a kid. Read this if you like magical realism, myths and folklore, the power of stories, family tales, or just want to read a damn good story.

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is so difficult to imagine how to begin to review this remarkable text, especially given CHORUS’s deliberate and considered evasion of language, and the forceful shattering of any semblance of illusion it provides. On its surface, this is a story about a family: a grandmother who has lived, and continues to live, in spite of her children, what can only be described as “one hell of a life.” It is the story of a grandmother traversing the bounds of reality and fiction — inspired by Goto’s own grandma, she attends to the magical and the realistic with an unselfconscious hunger. Food, fucking, family — she is hungry for it all.

Yet this story does not conclude with consumption. Instead, we as reader-eater-lovers are treated to an erotics unstable time and place and manner; every part of speech getting flipped and wrung out. Because this is not only the story of a family, it is the story of communities facing ambivalent attitudes about race and migration, age and gender, as they navigate canada’s settler colonial landscape. This is a novel of the ineffable and untranslatable, one that knows itself inasmuch as it refuses to be known, and delights in its own opacity — up to and including the subversion of an entire “part” of its body.

Each sentence, from the first to the last of the interview now included in the 20th anniversary edition of CHORUS, was a pleasure and an inspiration to me as an inter/anti-genre wordworker. I emerge from this story in a happy & perhaps musky haze, and in this postcoital embrace, feel like I know a bit better what a novel can be.

[Meghan Fidler · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Chorus of Mushrooms" is full of fantastic sensations, thoughts, and experiences. Focusing on Murasaki and Naoe, granddaughter and grandmother, the narrative "unfolds from the middle" with details of war, assimilation, forgetting, remembering, and age. By far, Naoe's character was my favorite, charming in ideology and delightful in humor (in the excerpt below, Keiko is Naoe's daughter, Murasaki's mother).

“It’s sadly unfortunate that I was too angry to enjoy sex when I had it. Too bitter, too proud to fall into my flesh. Long after the divorce, I still wouldn’t let anyone touch the surface of my skin. Not even Keiko. Now I pay, I suppose. Eighty-five years old and horny as a musk-drenched cat. The only human contact I have now is when Keiko washes my hair. When Murasaki sometimes hugs me. I love them and their touch makes my old heart almost pain with emotion, but there is nothing for this dull beating ache I find between my thighs. Most unseemly, to be this age and horny, but it is funny after all. This muttering, old, lamb-haired Obāchan wearing elastic-waisted polyester pants, brown collarless shirt with pink flowers, grey cardigan and heel imprinted slippers. Just pulling out the waistband with one quavering hand and the other just about to slip into cotton briefs, toying with the idea of—
‘Obāchan! What are you doing?!’
I release the elastic and it snaps back to my wrinkled stomach with a flat smack and Keiko standing in the doorway with her mouth open. I start to mutter an excuse, but Keiko’s expression, my elastic pants, my horniness, my age, I start laughing and laughing until the old muscles in my stomach start to ache. Ahhh Keiko, it is funny after all.”

Goto's narrative is not only filled with ineffable particulars, it also excels at drawing the reader into the conversation of the novel in a way few authors accomplish: "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There" and "Neuromancer" are examples of achievement in this line of storytelling. Goto accomplishes this in the same manner as William Gibson: by flashing between points in time, points of view, and reflecting the readers thoughts as questions posed by characters.

“ ‘You switch around in time a lot,’ you say, a bowl of coffee resting in your palms. ‘I get all mixed up. I don’t know in what order things really happened.’ You lift the coffee to your lips and slurp at hot liquid. Nibble a dry Italian biscuit and look expectantly up at me.
I tip my chai to my lips, and lick sweet aromatic milk that lingers. I want to just ignore you. You with your dry biscuits and expectations. But it would be rude and you have listened with care and intelligence. You have participated in the story.
‘There isn’t a time line. It’s not a linear equation. You start in the middle and unfold outward from there. It’s not a flat surface that you walk back and forth on. It’s like being inside a ball that isn’t exactly a ball, but is really made up of thousands and thousands of small panels. And on each panel, there is a mirror, but each mirror reflects something different. And from where you crouch, if you turn you head up or around or down or sideways, you can see something new, something old, or something you’ve forgotten.’
‘Wow,’ you say. ‘Wow, that sound like some mind bend. Some people might call it madness.’
‘Yeah, I guess. But some might call it magic.’
‘Abracadabra,’ you say. ‘Shazam! Presto! Open Sesame! Chi chin pui pui! I love peanut butter sandwiches!’ you yell, waving your arms in a vaguely mysterious fashion. Everyone in the coffee shop is staring at you and I laugh and laugh until I am crying.”


*SPOILER below*

While I, indeed, adored this story I wavered at the ending and at the incredibly poor lovemaking scene. With such tactile details throughout the novel, the intimate scene fell flat, giving the impression that an editor suggested the story needed some sex and that Goto was uncomfortable with writing.

"She ran one finger up the skin of his inner thigh, stroked tender-smooth. He moaned. She smiled, and stretched a sure hand. Touch. The soft skin of a salamander. He sucked back his breath and held, sighed with dismay when she moved her hand away. Stretched her hand again. Touch. Touch. Salamander smooth."

Ehhh? Touch touch? It felt as if a bath scene from "Hustler" and a the highest-browed literati had a child.

Finally, the ending was not one--in Japanese literature, this is fine. In Japan, narratives tend to end before a resolution. If there is a love interest, as in this story, the story ends with the relationship in a limbo of longing, hope, and separation. I was, however, expecting more than just the non-ending continuance common in Japanese literature, I was hoping Goto could pull my imagination forward with intrigue. This did not happen, and, perhaps, could not happen given the non-linear multi-persepective tone of the novel.

[Ligeia · Rating 4 out of 5]

coro di donne


“Raccontaci dei piedi” dicono. “Tua nonna doveva fasciarsi i piedi, da piccola?” Veramente in Giappone non c’è mai stata questa usanza, ma qualcuno continua a diffondere il mito. Sempre la stessa storia. I piedi fasciati. La deformità. Il rituale dell’hari kari. Veramente sarebbe harakiri, ma lo chiamassero pure Cara Chiri o Cala Chili, per quel che mi importa. Non è per essere acidi. Ti invitano da qualche parte per parlare. Per tenere una conferenza. Su quello che sia. Tutti in giacca e cravatta e in abito da sera. Sei l’unica persona non bianca che non fa il cameriere, lì in mezzo. Non è per essere acidi. E’ una constatazione. La gente parla di razza qui, di etnia là. E’ facile formulare teorie, se le parole vengono da qualcuno che ha poca o nessuna traccia di pigmentazione. Se ti chiami Hank e hai tre ragazzini biondi, nessuno ti verrà incontro da Safeway e ti chiederà, indicandoti un qualche tipo di ortaggio: “Cos’è quello?”

Keiko è emigrata in Canada
sua madre, Obachan, parla solo giapponese e nessuno se ne preoccupa,
sua figlia Muriel, ribattezzata Murasaki da sua nonna, cerca di fare la vaga, ma si secca quando il fidanzatino delle scuole le chiede di fare "sesso orientale"
in effetti ci sarebbe da prenderlo a padellate, però nel complesso l'aspetto più affascinante al momento è il mondo interiore di Obachan, contrariamente a sua figlia, lei non ci tiene a sembrare occidentale, e se ne frega della lingua, lei vive nel passato e mangia pesce essiccato, come si usa in Giappone...

“Il mio sonno è un luogo sgombro da sogni. Chi era quello sciocco filosofo cinese? Quello che si addormentò osservando una farfalla e sognò di essere una farfalla che sognava di essere un filosofo. Quando poi si svegliò non sapeva più se era un filosofo o una farfalla. Che assurdità. Questo bisogno di fare distinzioni. Che diamine, era entrambi, naturalmente. I pensieri lasciano un segno sulla pelle delicata e un sapore può persistere per giorni. Le parole mi ruzzolano fuori dalla bocca e cambiano forma e dimensione. Si fanno crescere braccia e gambe e strisciano nella polvere ai miei piedi, con dita curiose raccolgono falene rinsecchite e mi tirano la gamba dei pantaloni. Io le nutro di storie che loro masticano e masticano, rumorosamente. Diventano più grandi e più forti, finché non escono dalla porta per vagabondare su questa terra.”

Infine è proprio Obachan il fulcro del racconto,
è lei che si muove con disinvoltura nelle leggende e nella fantasia di Murasaki, ex Muriel, nipote e erede della gioia di esplorare di sua nonna...donne che non si fanno fregare dal desiderio di uniformarsi, ed è per questo che nell'insieme corale di una storia di donne il racconto si fa portatore di un solo unico valore: la diversità, non intesa come barriera culturale, ma come ricchezza, questo e nulla più,
e da sempre sono le donne a farsi bandiera della diversità delle proprie radici...


“Mi vedrai su ogni strada, in ogni angolo, nel camion che sorpassa il tuo. Sarò la donna che porta via i vassoi sporchi al chiosco dello zoo. Sarò l’analista di sistemi nell’ufficio in cui un giorno andrai a lavorare. Sarò l’insegnante nell’università popolare dove andrai per imparare l’arte della composizione floreale. Mi passerai davanti al McDonald, mi vedrai da Woolco e mi pesterai un piede all’ippodromo. Aleggerò nel vento e tra le foglie e dimorerò nel terreno sotto ai tuoi piedi. Mi tratterrai persino dentro il tuo corpo ogni volta che respirerai”.

[SS · Rating 3 out of 5]

A story about family and their immigrant life (Japanese) in Canada. But this book is more than that and peculiar in its delivery. As an audiobook I found it quite jilted, as I wasn't always sure who's story line was being told and who the narrator was. I think it could be a quite enticing and engaging read as a physical book and maybe one day I will come back to it.


In the audiobook version i had, there was an in-depth analysis of the book at the end, which enriched my experience of the deep themes but took away some of the marvel of the writing as it appeared 'on the page'.

This book was published in 1994, and as the analysis states, it is fascinating and in some ways saddening that the race themes are still as relevant now as they were at the time of publishing.

[~•k a t•~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been an interesting and insightful journey, one that i partly relate to. Honestky went in because it has mushroom in the title, but very gripping and funny too!

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Poetic. Inspiring and gently yet powerfully challenging. I don't have the words to do justice to the grace, sensitivity, and emotional depth in Goto's writing. I particularly enjoyed the wealth and profundity of meaning explored in the themes of being, eating, and naming. A master spinner of story.

[Anna (lion_reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's funny how you can sift your memories, braid them with other stories. Come up with a single strand and call it truth.

A strange, but an enjoyable novel—kind of like a dream. I appreciated so much about it. Goto writes the immigrant experience with uncomfortable echoes of accuracy. Her attention to language is beautiful. There are so many resonant phrases I simply had to underline. I like what she says about the barriers culture creates within a family—the way language and storytelling becomes slippery across place and time. I loved all the moments where the story wouldn't do what you expect it to do. I loved all the ways in which memory was shown to be unreliable, how folk tales fill in the space left by that unreliability.

Goto also confronts racism in Canada, a condition we like to pretend is no longer a problem. The way she does it is both direct and subtle and effective. It is also the story of strong women.

Although I liked the premise of the storytelling melting with the listener, I found the structure a bit odd which made it tough to love 100%. However, still worth a read for its frank description of what it's like to reclaim one's cultural identity.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, thank you to the publisher for the Bespoke Editions audiobook! The dual narrators did an excellent job bringing the characters to life.

Chorus of Mushrooms was Japanese-Canadian author Hiromi Goto's first novel and was originally published in the 1994 to critical acclaim. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in the Caribbean and Canadian Region.

This novel tells the story of 3 generations of Japanese women living in Alberta, Canada. The story is a feminist tale that takes a thoughtful look at the experiences of Asian-Canadians. The narration jumps between the grandmother and the granddaughter. After the grandmother leaves her daughter slips into a depression and the daughter tries to comfort her. The granddaughter ends up on a personal journey to figure out more about her family. There are definite elements of magical realism in this novel, which I loved.

This book gave a good glimpse at what it is like to live or grow up as an "other" in a mostly white, small town in Canada. There are scenes where the characters talk about how it is to be instantly judged based on the color of your hair or the shape of your eyes.

This was the first book I've read by Hiromi Goto but I definitely plan to pick up more.

[sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's no point in trying to summarize something this beautiful except to say that I hope you read it.

[Yvonne Boon · Rating 5 out of 5]

20+ years later, this book is still so relevant now. Beautiful poetic writing, storytelling. A book that I would love to read again annually.

[Isabelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story. All the magical realism and “good gracious me and my tits”

[Sirene · Rating 4 out of 5]

In diesem Jahr, zum aller ersten Mal, wurde der BücherFrauen-Literaturpreis vergeben und der Roman von Hirmoi Goto schaffte es auf die Shortlist. Der Preis ist neu, ich erwarte nicht, dass er euch sofort was sagt, daher gibt es einen Auszug seiner Bedeutung:

"Im 30. Jahr ihres Bestehens loben die BücherFrauen einen neuen Preis für Belletristik aus. Mit dem BücherFrauen-Literaturpreis wollen wir Autorinnen auszeichnen, die mit ihrem Schreiben zur Gleichstellung der Geschlechter und zur Stärkung von Frauen und Mädchen beitragen. Der Preis wird erstmals im November 2021 und danach alle zwei Jahre vergeben."
https://www.buecherfrauen.de/buecherf...

Die Autorin schreibt über drei Frauen, drei Generationen aus dem Mund der jüngsten Person, Murasaki. Die Großmutter Nao, bereits 85 Jahre alt, kam vor über 20 Jahren nach Kanada und lebt mit ihrer Familie in einem Haus. Ihre Tochter Keiko, ist soweit integriert in der neuen Kultur, dass sie allem japanischen mit Abneigung gegenüber steht. So verbringt die alte Dame viel Zeit auf der Terrasse. Redet mit sich selbst auf japanisch und erinnert sich zurück, an den Krieg, ihren Ehemann und das Leben, dass sie einst geführt hat. Einzig allein ihre Enkelin Murasaki, eigentlich Muriel, steht ihre Nahe und interessiert sich für die alte Heimat, wie auch für die alten Geschichten der Oma.
Als ihre Tochter und deren Ehemann beschließen, dass Nao in ein Heim muss, flieht die alte Dame, während ein Schneesturm tobt und landet bei einem jungen Trucker, der sie mitnimmt. Der Roadtrip beginnt.
Und Murasaki, die in telepathischer Verbindung zur Großmutter steht, fängt an zu erzählen…
Nachdem ich mich das erste Mal über das Buch informiert hatte, war mir klar, dass es gelesen werden muss. Aber am Ende hatte es doch länger gedauert es zu beenden, als gedacht. Es gab ein paar Momente, wo ich den Faden im Buch verloren hatte. Der Roman erfordert oftmals ein konzentriertes Lesen, es gibt immer wieder Perspektiven- und Zeitenwechsel, als auch japanischen Passagen. Zu Beginn war es weniger ein Problem, es tauchte eher nach der Hälfte auf, als die Geschichte anfing an Fahrt zu gewinnen und man bereits drin war in den verschiedenen Schicksalen.
Sonst kann ich nur gutes über den philosophischen Roman von Hiromi Goto sagen. Angefangen mit ihrem Schreibstil, der poetisch ist in seiner Fülle und mit Metaphern versetzt. Sie schafft es den Dinge mit wenigen Worten eine gewisse magische Atmosphäre zu geben.

"Aber wir hielten einmal Händchen, als ich in der sechsten und er in der siebten Klasse war. Im Juni, wenn die Wolken dick und schwarz von Westen wabern und sich durch das Hügelvorland quetschen."
Chor der Pilze, Goto – S. 154 f

Die japanisch-kanadische Autorin, selbst immigriert nach Kanada, erzählt über das Leben zwischen zwei Kulturen, dem Leben in einem neuen Land und zeigt, wie unterschiedlich sich das auf eine Person auswirken kann. Wie sich eine kulturelle Identität entwickeln kann. Die drei Frauen, aus einer Familie, aber unterschiedliche Generationen, sind ihr Beispiel dafür. Sie sind so verschieden und sich doch eigentlich so nah. Ihre Beziehung ist ein weiterer Kernpunkt in dem Buch. Ich mochte es sehr, wie die Autorin über all die Dinge redet und viele Weisheiten weitergibt durch Obachan (Großmutter).

Wenn ihr gerne Romane aus dem “magischen Realismus” liest, zwischen Traum und Realität, mehr wissen wollt zu Immigrantenschicksal und wie eine Familie damit umgeht, kann ich es euch wärmstens ans Herz legen. Es ist ein Roadtrip mit Überraschungen, den es sich lohnt anzutreten!

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, but it made me wish I remembered more of the Japanese I learned, that one term in college, a million years ago. (Languages evaporate so quickly when not used. I was far from fluent, but I'm even further from it now.) I suppose I could have plugged the words into Google translate, but I wasn't near a computer when I was reading, so I didn't bother. I sounded it out instead, and pretended I understood. I think I understood the story, even without the added nuance of the Japanese text.

Part folk legend, part family history, this story is told primarily from the points of view of grandmother Naoe and her granddaughter Muriel, with occasional glimpses from the middle generation in the sandwich, Keiko. It's a poignant examination of how little we understand those we are apparently closest to, and how easy it is to become disconnected when that which unifies us - in this case, a culture and a language - ceases to be shared. Naoe clings to the language and the culture of the country of her birth; Keiko rejects all of it, including the food, in hopes of being seen as Canadian; and Muriel struggles to find her own place in each.

Naoe was my favourite character. I hope I'm as independently minded when I'm an old woman.

[श्रेया (Shreya) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although there are lots of great things about the story and the writing, it really didn't seem that good to me because I found it so similar to Joy Kogawa's Obasan. Now, that could have been a great thing, but I somehow got tired of the similarities this time.

[RatGrrrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a true gift of a random grab from Libby.

I'm still going through it with covid, so this will brief, but I've got to start giving these reviews more of a go or the backlog will be absolute hell.

Told through the interweaving perspectives of three generations of a Japanese family who immigrated to Canada and the stories and memories they brought with them, collected, and created over the years, Chorus of Mushrooms is an absolute triumph of storytelling, a beautiful, living love letter to stories, and a masterpiece of fiction that refuses to play by the rules or be pigeon-holed by the 'acceptable' narratives for immigrant stories.

In Acknowledgements 1994, Goto states that she took "tremendous liberties with [her] grandmother's history" and that "this novel is a departure from historical fact into the realms of contemporary folk legend." There's genuinely no better way to describe what this masterpiece is.

This book starts slow and soft, growing like mushrooms in the dark, mycilieal family network from a seemingly simple family drama dealing with the difficulties of identity, culture, and racism with the grandmother, mother, and daughter under one roof, but the caps bloom with a raucous, emotional, heart stirring, heartbreaking, glorious, and ridiculous orchestra into three separate, by eternally linked melodies that play as discordance and harmony with one another. To me, the fungi are more the rhythm section of the outfit, binding everything together, with the chorus (in the Greek dramatic sense) being the stories shared throughout, folklore new and old.

There's just so much in here! So much emotion and experience and pain and joy, captivaty and freedom, truth, fiction and life that it becomes something so much more real and honest for the art and artifice wrought into it. It's a novel that is very aware of stories and narratives and expectations, but not bogged down with following them, while at the same time not beaching itself or losing any coherence or effectiveness in being overly contrarian. I don't feel like I'm making my point very well. What I mean to say is that there is such a personal drive for this book to be what it needs to be that doesn't suffer from that headstrong and passionate focus. It is a distinct break from expected and 'acceptable' stories about immigrant experiences, Japanese characters, and especially women, and so glorious for that.

I'm just a white trans gal stuck on TERF island, so I don't have a lot of experience or anything more to say about that side of things, but I do have a very difficult and now almost entirely broken relationship with my family and the dynamics on display here are incredibly relatable and hit home in many ways.

The folk tales are sensational, strange, and unexpected. I loved them so much and how they reflected the events and added colour and shade. Having reading Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson recently, I was reminded of how Winterson does something similar, though her inclusions and retellings are separated from the narrative, while Goto weaves the tales in the story into the novel. I don't really have a point here, I just enjoy this element of telling stories with stories and creating additional meaning from juxtaposition.

This truly was a glorious surprise and I will absolutely be tracking down anything else Goto I can get my hands on!

I hope my fever-induced review made some sense at all. My brain is literally smoking and my ears are on fire.

[Michèle · Rating 4 out of 5]

»Einfache Sache, einen Namen zu ändern. Man braucht nur Tinte und ein Blatt Papier. Eine ganze Dimension eines Familienstammbaums ausgelöscht, wenn ein Name abgelegt und ein anderer angenommen wird. All diese Mütter und Töchter und Mütter und Töchter verschluckt in den Namen von Männern.«
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Auf dem Futon liegend erzählt Murasaki ihrem Freund von ihrer Großmutter Naoe, welche vor 20 Jahren aus Japan nach Kanada emigrierte, seitdem unverrückbar auf einem ungemütlichen Stuhl im kanadischen Haus ihrer Tochter Keiko saß und alles beobachtete, bis sie in einer Nacht voller Schnee und Wind verschwand.
Murasaki hatte zu ihrer Großmutter schon immer eine tiefe Verbindung, sie sprachen zwar längste Zeit nicht dieselbe Sprache, haben sich aber dennoch immer verstanden. Die Verbindung bricht auch nicht mit ihrem Verschwinden.
Niemand weiß, wo Naoe ist, warum sie gegangen ist, wohin es sie treibt. Nur Murasaki scheint die einzige Person zu sein, die aufgrund der tiefen Verbindung alles von ihr weiß, sie versteht und so auch weiterhin im Gespräch mit ihr bleibt.
Als Leser*in kann man das schon sehr bald nachvollziehen, denn das Buch ist voller japanischer Wörter und Sätze, die stets aus Naoe heraus brechen und unübersetzt auf den Seiten bleiben. Im Buch sagt Murasaki auf den ersten Seiten zu ihrem Freund »(…) Sei nachsichtig mit meiner Sprache, ja? Mein Japanisch ist nicht so gut wie mein Englisch (…)« und ich dachte „meins leider auch nicht, eine Fußnote mit der Übersetzung wäre echt klasse…“, merkte allerdings schnell, dass sich ein ähnliches universelles Verständnis zwischen Leser*in und Buch wie zwischen Murasaki und Naoe entwickelte, denn der Sinn der fremden Zeilen ergab sich immer öfter im Kontext.
Es ist ein Generationenroman dreier Frauen, die alle drei ihre eigene, starke Stimme und Geschichte haben. Naoe steht für Mut, Emanzipation und Selbstschätzung. Während es scheint, als wolle Keiko ihre japanische Kultur komplett ablegen – stets darauf bedacht, sich bestens in Kanada anzupassen –, muss Murasaki also eigenhändig zurück zu ihren Wurzeln finden. Es geht um Heimat, Sehnsucht, kulturelle Identität, (antiasiatischem) Rassismus, Mikroaggressionen, Feminismus, Sprache und ums Geschichtenerzählen. Obwohl das Buch bereits 1994 erschienen ist, sind die Themen hochaktuell und relevant. Ein auf die beste Art sonderbares sowie nachhallendes Buch.
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Herzlichen Dank an den Cass-Verlag für das Rezensionsexemplar!

[Mahima · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 … As an Asian-American, this was a compelling and comforting read about three generations of Japanese-Canadian women. Cultural and immigrant identity is so complex. Thank you, Hiromi Goto, for such a beautiful story.

[Dani (The Pluviophile Writer) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I mutter and mutter and no one to listen. I speak my words in Japanese and my daughter will not hear them. The words that come from our ears, our mouths, they collide in the space between us."

4/5 stars.
Paperback, 268 pages.
Read from December 9, 2019 to December 12, 2019.

Review at The Pluviophile Writer: https://bit.ly/2V85BZw

A Chorus of Mushrooms is what I would describe as "my kind of book". It's the type of book that details lives and scenarios that I know nothing about, with poetic, imaginative, and dream-like writing, and with words that are in partial or full in translation. There must be something about this 'poetical otherness' that I'm completely obsessed with. Another draw for me in this book is that the town the majority of the book is set in, Nanton, is a town I visited as a kid over many summers. The book also spends time in Calgary, a city I lived in for many years.

A Chorus of Mushrooms details the lives of three different generations of Japanese-Canadians on the matriarchal side and was first published in 1993. The family lives on a mushroom farm in Nanton, Alberta, Canada. The grandmother, Naoe, is very old and requires the care of her daughter, Keiko, and granddaughter, Muriel or Murasaki, as Naoe calls her. The first person narrative switches between Naoe and Murasaki and drifts between different points of time. Naoe knows English but refuses to speak it as her Keiko has abandoned her heritage and culture in order to try and assimilate into their home in Canada. Naoe may no longer be close to Keiko but they still care for each other in their own way.  Naoe had a very different life in Japan and thing have not always been easy for her and she is frustrated because she feels she has no one to communicate with that deeply understands her. Despite her age, Naoe decides one day to leave her home in Nanton and in the middle of winter. From there, the story takes a different turn with Naoe making the reader wonder what's real or the wishful imaginings of the author. Murasaki was always extremely fond of her grandmother and recounts her childhood and all the Japanese myths her grandmother used to tell her. After Naoe leaves, Murasaki attempts to fill the emptiness of her grandmother's presence as well as a piece of her identity that has been kept from her by Keiko by attempting to reconnect with her heritage.

This beautiful book won numerous awards when it was first published and it's easy to see why. The book will always continue to relevant as it speaks to anyone looking for their own identities or to anyone who has ever had to establish themselves in another country. Further, A Chorus of Mushrooms is partially autobiographical as Hiromi Goto moved to a mushroom farm in Nanton when she was a toddler and her grandmother used to tell her stories growing up too which I'm sure contributed to the intimate and personal feel of this story. The story itself is simple, elegant, and delicately told with sentences of untranslated Japanese, along with being fiercely feminine and sexually empowering.

I loved this book. Really loved it, as I read most of it in one sitting. It's the kind of book that feels like a comfortable blanket that I'd want to crawl back into again. I would highly recommend this book to literary-fiction lovers, Murakami-lovers, or for those who are looking for something a little different but not too challenging that will still keep you engaged and captivated.

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[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel explores the immigrant experience, questions of identity and integration, the power of story to create reality and even the question of what is “real”. Three generations of Japanese-Canadian women offers three vantages from which to observe what it means to be Japanese, Canadian, female, a story maker. The language was lush, the layers of meaning were rich, the characters were compelling, the entire book deeply thought-provoking. I just wish I could read this with someone smarter and more attentive to detail than me. 4.5 stars

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Einfache Sache, einen Namen zu ändern. Man braucht nur Tinte und ein Blatt Papier. Eine ganze Dimension eines Familienstammbaums ausgelöscht, wenn ein Name abgelegt und ein anderer angenommen wird. All diese Mütter und Töchter und Mütter und Töchter verschluckt in den Namen von Männern."

Murasaki erzählt ihrem Freund von ihrer Großmutter Naoe, die 20 Jahre zuvor von Japan nach Kanada ausgewandert ist. Naoe sitzt all die Jahre auf dem schrecklich ungemütlichen Stuhl im Hausflur ihrer Tochter Keiko, behält das Haus und seine Bewohner im Blick, packt jedoch eines Tages bei Nacht und Nebel plötzlich ihre Sachen und verschwindet. Da Keiko ihrer Tochter nie japanisch beigebracht hat, trennt die Sprache Enkeltochter und Großmutter. Nichts desto Trotz haben die beiden eine enge Verbindung und Murasaki spricht über eben diese selbst dann noch mit Naoe als niemand weiß wo sie ist und was sie macht. Wir verfolgen also das Leben dreier Frauen aus unterschiedlichen Generationen, die zu der japanischen Kultur zurückfinden oder sie gar vollkommen abzulegen versuchen.

Der Einstieg in die Geschichte viel mir recht schwer, da sich darin viele japanische Sätze und Wörter finden lassen, die dort so ganz ohne Übersetzung stehen gelassen wurden. Das fand ich anfangs recht störend. Das änderte sich jedoch mit der Zeit, als ich bemerkte, dass sich dadurch eine ähnliche Situation wie der zwischen Murasaki und ihrer Großmutter ergibt. Als Leser*in versteht man die Worte zwar nicht, kann sich den Sinn jedoch aus dem Kontext herleiten. Mir gefiel wie Hiromi Goto das Thema Migration anhand der drei Frauen aufgearbeitet hat und dabei jeder einzelnen ihre ganz eigene Stimme gab. Nebenher hat sie es zudem geschafft die verschiedensten Themen einzuflechten - Feminismus, Heimat, kulturelle Identität und Rassismus aber auch das weitererzählen von Geschichten über die Generationen hinweg. Dadurch entwickelt sich die Geschichte jedoch nicht nach einem klaren roten Faden, sondern erscheint stellenweise sogar etwas durcheinander. Das empfand ich als gewöhnungsbedürftig aber nicht als schlecht.

"Chor der Pilze" ist ein fabelhafter Generationenroman der die Leben dreier starker Frauen erzählt. Feinfühlig und mit viele Tiefe werden verschiedene Themen, im Mittelpunkt das der Migration, aufgegriffen. Definitiv eine tolle Geschichte die weitaus mehr Aufmerksamkeit verdient!

Rezensionsexemplar vom Cass-Verlag. Vielen Dank, dass ihr solch außergewöhnliche Geschichten für uns herausbringt!

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly I chose this novel because it was set in Alberta and it didn't sound boring or depressing or romancey. It actually sounded interesting. It allegedly "explores the collision of cultures within a family between three generations of Japanese Canadian women" (back cover). That's true. The three female characters are the grandmother (Obachan), the mother, and the daughter, although the story is only ever told from either the grandmother or daughter's point of view. It's told through many interwoven stories that flip back and forth, which sounds cool but it actually annoying because not only does the point of view change, but the time period changes as well. Sometimes I wasn't sure whose story it was or how old they were. I enjoyed the Obachan character and wanted to learn more about her story, but every time I got into that narrative, the story changed.

Good idea, but, um, well, I didn't think it was quite magic. You know what else was annoying? Sometimes Obachan would speak Japanese, which fit with the story quite well, but obviously I couldn't understand it. Consequently, I felt I was losing something every so often. I think this was done purposely and a glossary or footnotes would've defeated the purpose, but still, those translation additions would've been appreciated.

I enjoyed the daughter character too, and the local Alberta references. The mother character did fall flat, although in the end it is revealed why she is how she is. Also it was typeset in a font I had a hard time reading. And there was too much unnecessary sex. Necessary sex I'm ok with; unnecessary sex is just...uncomfortable.

I get the point though. It was interesting to read about the experiences of a Japanese Canadian family living in rural Alberta. That was the poignant part, and a bit of an eye opener. This is where the book excelled, and as a reader I enjoyed the cultural parts of the book.

A person with much deeper thinking ability would probably enjoy this book more than I did (clearly I need to take a university English class to brush up on my ability to spot symbolism). It was a mediocre surface read - it certainly was no Indian Horse. I'm not quite sure how it ended up being chosen as a book of the year, but I learned a bit about Japanese Canadian culture so in the end it was worth a read, but I wouldn't highly recommend it. It reminded me about why I generally stay away from general fiction.

[Amino · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the fastest I've read a book in a long time and I got so immersed in it that it no longer felt like a chore but the opposite. I had to catch myself a couple of times when I felt like I was procrastinating and remind myself that it's actually a required reading for class. The magical realism, the immigrant narrative, the language – I loved it all. It's just what I needed to read right now. I'd recommend it to anyone who can identify with the notion of identity crisis in a place that doesn't quite feel like home. I can't sing this book's praises loud enough.

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ooooh, I liked that. Definitely one to read for those that like different writing styles, is that what I am trying to say? It is not written linearly anyway, but I quite liked it once I knew who was who. I like to think I have read a decent amount of Japanese Canadian literature but I like the new and different feel this one has. It is a multi-generational immigrant tale but with a spin. The storytelling aspect is great. It also has quite a bit of humour and Canadiana. It will have a permanent home on my bookshelf.

[Chaneli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! i love this so much! The discussion on language, living between two cultures, immigrating to a new land and having to assimilate, the story of these three generations of women and all intertwined with storytelling and food, oh the food! So many words of wisdom and I just love them so much.

[Big Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pondering and poetic exploration of the lives of three generations of Japanese women whose family has immigrated to western Canada. This novel explores both the challenges and rewards of preserving your culture while living in a foreign environment.

[Jemeima · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's my review: https://momentedesseins.wordpress.com...

[Melita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great and insightful novel.