The Book of Tokyo: A City in Short Fiction

Reading the City: A City in Short Fiction

by Michael Emmerich (Editor), Jim Hinks (Editor), Masashi Matsuie (Editor)

A shape-shifter arrives at Tokyo harbour in human form, set to embark on an unstoppable rampage through the city’s train network…

A young woman is accompanied home one night by a reclusive student, and finds herself lured into a flat full of eerie Egyptian artefacts…

A man suspects his young wife’s obsession with picnicking every weekend in the city’s parks hides a darker motive…

At first, Tokyo appears in these stories as it does to many outsiders: a city of bewildering scale, awe-inspiring modernity, peculiar rules, unknowable secrets and, to some extent, danger. Characters observe their fellow citizens from afar, hesitant to stray from their daily routines to engage with them. But Tokyo being the city it is, random encounters inevitably take place – a naïve book collector, mistaken for a French speaker, is drawn into a world he never knew existed; a woman seeking psychiatric help finds herself in a taxi with an older man wanting to share his own peculiar revelations; a depressed divorcee accepts an unexpected lunch invitation to try Thai food for the very first time… The result in each story is a small but crucial change in perspective, a sampling of the unexpected yet simple pleasure of other people’s company. As one character puts it, ‘The world is full of delicious things, you know.’

Genres: Short Stories, Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Contemporary, Anthologies, Asian Literature

180 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2014

About the author

Michael Emmerich’s scholarly interests in Japanese literature range from the classical, court-centered prose and poetry of the Heian period to the popular printed fiction of the early modern age, and on from there to the prose fiction of modern and contemporary times. His engagement with the literary products of these diverse periods is informed by a sensitivity to the material and visual forms that writing takes, and by an academic commitment to translation studies with its potential for approaching literature in a manner relatively unconstrained by linguistic and temporal boundaries, both among and within nations. His book The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature (Columbia University Press, 2013) examines the role that translations of Genji monogatari (The Tale of Genji) into early-modern and modern Japanese, and into English and other languages, have played in creating images of the tale over the past two centuries—reinventing it as a classic of both national and world literature. He is currently working on a project that explores the concept of “translation” as it relates to Japan and to various forms of the Japanese language.

In addition to his many publications in English and Japanese on early modern, modern, and contemporary Japanese literature, Emmerich is the author of more than a dozen book-length translations of works by writers such as Kawabata Yasunari, Yoshimoto Banana, Takahashi Gen’ichirō, Akasaka Mari, Yamada Taichi, Matsuura Rieko, Kawakami Hiromi, Furukawa Hideo, and Inoue Yasushi. He is also the editor of two books for students of the Japanese language: Read Real Japanese: Fiction and New Penguin Parallel Texts: Short Stories in Japanese.

Emmerich’s research has been generously supported by a number of grants, including a Fulbright Scholarship and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies. He was also the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, from 2008-2009.

Emmerich received a BA from Princeton University. After completing research in Japanese literature studies at Ritsumeikan University in Tokyo, he went on to earn a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Columbia University. He was a member of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies department at UC Santa Barbara before joining UCLA in 2013.

Reviews

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

Reading this 10-story paperback, I think, is contemporarily explorational as the imagining glimpses of interesting Tokyo-based narrations by ten writers who were born between 1948-1983, in other words, aged between 34-69 years old. Their years of birth listed with the number of writers in the brackets are the following: 1983 (1), 1978 (1), 1968 (1), 1967 (1), 1966 (1), 1964 (3), 1958 (1), and 1948 (1). So we can see that one is elderly (69, born in 1948), seven are middle-aged (49-59, born between 1958-1968), and two are young (34, 39 born in 1978, 1983); therefore, we can read this collected stories that expose three sets of narrative short stories written by an old Japanese writer (A), a group of the seven middle-aged ones (B), and a group of the two young ones (C).

My idea is that there should be something different in terms of their ways of looking at things, people, society, etc. between the three sets of writers and I would leave this task at that for those interested readers themselves to try reading and find some trends characteristic of each set. As for me, I've finished reading its stories and had two outstanding ones in mind and would divulge what I found and hoped to share with my GR friends. At present I just wonder if the two stories will belong to which set, in the same set or in a different set, and why.

First, I liked "Dad, I Love You" (scribbled nearby as 'remarkably outstanding') by Nao-Cola Yamazaki (set C), that is, she is a young writer who has masterly written to reveal a seemingly typical working man's life in Tokyo. I didn't know why this sentence "a depressed divorcee accepts a lunch invitation from a co-worker to try Thai food for the very first time ..." (back cover) rang a bell when I first read it. Arguably, our Thai food in many countries has long been uniquely famous and deliciously tasted. I think the writer having her own experience on Thai food might have tried and liked it which she includes in this story, for instance, the three Thai popular dishes: tom yum kung [a red soup, not as spicy as it looks, but sour instead. (p. 82)], khao man gai [chicken with rice. The rice is sticky. (p. 82)], and som tam [green papaya salad. It had dried shrimp and peanuts on top. It is tremendously spicy. (p. 83)]. At the end, I think, we couldn't help admiring the man, the narrator who remains anonymous, as one of the great fathers who in fact first met his adopted daughter, Yukari, when she was five years old and still takes care of her like his biological daughter till she is now eighteen studying first year at university, this is a golden-hearted man deservedly respected and honored; that's one of the reasons why the sweet sentence is uttered and wisely placed as the story's title.

Second, I found reading the six-part "Vortex" by Osamu Hashimoto (set A) delightfully entertaining due to his plot depicting a typical complex relationships of a family in metropolitan Tokyo. The protagonist is a wife named Masako, having a 25-year-old just-married daughter, who enters the scene with her worryingly reflective thinking due to her indecisive husband and her family backgrounds as we can see from these extracts. For example,

It was obvious her husband didn't want to let his daughter go. He was trying to abstain from decision, and leave everything up to his wife. He would hardly want to say something that would turn her against him.
'Masako? What do you think?' he asked, addressing her much more politely than usual.
When Masako said, 'If that's what she wants, there's nothing I can do,' her daughter said 'Cheers!' and left the table.
...(p. 115)

Once the eldest son had married and set up his own household, and the second son had left the same way, too, it was only natural that the youngest daughter should marry and move out as well. Masako thought of her parents being left alone in the house, and wondered aloud to the man she was going to marry: 'I hope they'll be all right.' The man she was going to marry was called Nakazawa, and was originally from the provinces. His parents back home already lived alone with their elderly parents.
... (p. 127)

Especially touched by this paragraph, I admired the writer's literary stature since it suggested his in-depth understanding on the elderly people, perhaps from having his own grandpa or papa. I hope you'd like it and imagine with fond memories.

Her father liked to read. He seemed to enjoy it even more in his old age, and carried on frequenting bookshops, despite his habit of saying, 'They don't write them like they used to.' He didn't mind his married daughter coming to see him, but he seemed to be fine on his own. He might even have preferred it. When she said, 'But you must be a little lonely,' to her father, who seemed to get used to being alone, he said, 'Well.' He does feel it, after all, thought Masako, but when she said, 'Dad, why don't you come and live with us?' he held out one hand, and waved it from side to side. It's not that he doesn't want to live with us, thought Masako. He just doesn't want to have to change the way he lives.
... (p. 129)

To continue . . .

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of contemporary Japanese short stories with a Tokyo thematic, stories that introduced me to many authors and made me look for their translated novels and try them - I got the book originally since two of my favorite authors had stories in (Banana Yoshimoto and Hiromi Kawakami), but after reading their stories from the collection I decided to check out pretty much all the authors there - sadly not all are translated at longer lengths, though some appear also in the Monkey Business annual Japanese fiction magazine which became another favorite due to this book

In order the stories are:

Model T Frankestein by H. Furukawa - the only one I didn't really get as it is a sort of sfnal allegory more than anything and it kinda seemed pointless, but I liked the writing well enough

Picnic - E Kaori - one of the big favorites of the book; about a married couple having a picnic and recounting how they met; God's Boat by the same author is among my current reads and I expect to like it a lot when done

A House for Two - M. Kakuta - a 38 year old woman prefers living with her mother to having a boyfriend; very good story and another favorite first person narration; Woman on the Other Shore by the author, will be one of my next tries when i get my copy from the library these days

Mummy - Banana Yoshimoto - short and in her usual style about a girl who meets a strange boy and stays with him for a few days; a good introduction to the author's style

The Owl's Estate T. Horie - another excellent story about a young Japanese man who loves French literature and uses his meager savings to order packages with books from France; when carrying one such, he is approached by a French girl who is visiting Japan and doing odd jobs (translation, club companionship, teaching French/English) on the side (and not quite legally as a tourist) while living in a house with other (mostly) young Western women doing same; excellent stuff though has an unfinished/part of a novel feel; would love to read more from the author but only French translations available and I plan to look into getting that at some point

Dad, I love you - N. Yamazaki - a company man lives with only his student girl; another very good story making me wish more translations from the author would be available

Mambo - H. Kanehara - the usual style of the superb (but brutal) Snake and Earrings novel; also plan to read Autofiction from the authorwhich just arrived in the mail

Vortex - O Hashimoto - a woman recounting her somewhat lonely life; ok though not one of favorites here, but definitely readable

The Hut on the roof - H. Kawakami - another good introduction to a favorite author's work, but with a feel of incompleteness, more as part of a larger work

An Elevator on Sunday - S. Yoshida - another of the favorites here, about a young man with no steady work whose girlfriend trains to be a doctor; excellent stuff and Parade from the author is among my current reads too

Overall, excellent panoramic view of contemporary Japanese authors and a must for anyone interested in Japanese literature

[Puty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I think this book should be called 'The Book of Lonely Tokyo People Feeling Lonely Telling Stories about Loneliness' :') I mean, everything feels lonely here; the family, the father, the mother, the couple, the singles, the sexes, the exes, the houses, the friendships :') It's beautiful nevertheless; exploring the strange feelings and invisible emotions you know exist in a city like Tokyo.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exactly what you would expect from a collection of short stories; some gems, some fairly good reads, and others that seem to be pretty much makeweight. Got to read some of my favorite modern Japanese writers, like Banana Yoshimoto and Hiromi Kawakami, and got introduced to never read befores, like Mitsuyo Kakuta. Money well spent.

[Arbuz Dumbledore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bardzo fajny sposób na poznanie nowych autorów. 5 opowiadań naprawdę bardzo mi się podobało, czyli tak mniej więcej połowa. Mimo to, na pewno warto przeczytać, chętnie do niej jeszcze kiedyś wrócę.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I need to finish reading more about traditional Japan before I can write about this collection of stories, all about social displacement, all fragmentary in form, perhaps reflecting fragmenting identities, as modern Japan moves into new modes of existence while traditional structures and mores remain part of the deeper, older culture.

[G.G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The perfect book for dipping into, either as you move around Tokyo on the trains, or virtually, from a distance.

The selection of stories is eclectic. The first, "Model T Frankenstein" by Hideo Furukawa, begins with the narrator contemplating the goats on Hachijōjima, an island far out in the Pacific Ocean but--administratively at least--part of the Tokyo Metropolis. Yoshimoto Banana's "Mummy" is rather darker than other work of hers I'm familiar with. Yoshiyuki Horie's wonderful "The Owl's Estate" is set during the bubble years in the area between Waseda University, where Horie studied and is now a professor, and Ikebukuro, and I'd guess the "I" narrator is based on Horie himself: accosted in the street one day by a French woman who recognizes the owl carry bag he has as that of a big French publisher, the two become friends, or at least she comes to depend on his coming to her linguistic aid from time to time, and he--nice guy that he is--doesn't mind helping out. The story ends with "I" finding himself at a party surrounded by drunk foreign women. It's a scene that could easily have been done differently and come out sounding if not exactly racist then at least anti-foreign, but Horie manages to make it hilarious and touching at the same time. I also thought Osamu Hashimoto's "Vortex" was beautifully done. The middle-aged Masako, "a woman without distinguishing features," contemplates a life that has coincided with the postwar "period of rapid growth."

What she didn't realise was that she'd never in her life done something because she wanted to. The things she needed to concern herself with had always presented themselves to her at the appropriate time. But there was no more to come. The future wasn't arriving.

The future is always arriving, of course; perhaps Hashimoto means to suggest that it may not be the future we--oblivious like Masako--have been hoping for.

[T.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mostly wanted this book for the Banana Yoshimoto story, "Mummy," which I don't believe is available in any other English collections. It's probably the shortest story in this set and is pretty strange, even for Banana. In it, a college student's one night stand with an archaeology grad takes a dark turn.

Although the stories are quirky, nothing much happens in most of them - a middle aged woman who lives with her mother ponders her situation; a collector of French books forms a tentative friendship with a foreign woman; an awkward businessman adapts to life after his wife leaves him; a fortysomething teacher can't sleep next to her lover; and so on... Nothing overly remarkable, but they make good reading for a daydreamy weekend.

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I thought would be a finger-licking good anthology turned out to be at times just what I wanted and occasionally almost seppuku-inducing.
Hideo Furukawa continues to perplex me in uncomfortable ways.
Hitomi Kanehara and Osamu Hashimoto and several other authors nearly unknown outside of Japan offer an uneven and rather concerning series of gritty episodes.
But the shining lights of this edition are Banana Yoshimoto, Hiromi Kawakami and Shuichi Yoshida. These are some of their best stories in English to date and the whole reason I picked up this book. Yoshida in particular is uncannily good and at this point criminally under-translated.

[Vishy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've wanted to read 'The Book of Tokyo' for a while. It looked like a beautiful ode to the city. Finally got to read it today.

Read this for #ReadIndies hosted by Kaggsy and Lizzy which is an event which runs through the whole of February and which celebrates independent publishers. 'The Book of Tokyo' is published by Comma Press, an independent publisher based out of the UK.

'The Book of Tokyo' is a collection of ten stories. I could recognize only two of the writers, Banana Yoshimoto and Hiromi Kawakami, and only one of the translators, Asa Yoneda. Some of the stories in the book were underwhelming, but I won't talk about them. I'll talk only about the good things today 😊

The first thing is the cover. It is beautiful, isn't it? I loved it. The second thing is the introduction by Michael Emmerich. It was incredibly beautiful. It was a beautiful love letter to Tokyo.

Now about the stories.

'Model T Frankenstein' by Hideo Furukawa is a Frankenstein story set in modern Tokyo. It was interesting and I enjoyed reading it. 'A House for Two' by Mitsuyo Kakuta is a beautiful story about a daughter and her mother. It made me think a lot. 'Dad, I Love You' by Nao-Cola Yamazaki is about one day in the life of a normal person in the city. I think this was the story which was close to the book's title.

'Vortex' by Osamu Hashimoto was probably my most favourite story in the book. It is about the life of a woman from the time she was a young girl and what happens through her life. Reading it made me sad, because it made me feel that there is not much we can do in our lives, we just do what everyone else is doing, and we just follow norms and conventions, some of us rebel a little bit but then rebellion becomes the norm, and then one day it is all over. It was a moving and beautiful story and it gave me a deep ache. 'Vortex' has been translated by Asa Yoneda who has translated some of Banana Yoshimoto's stories. She picks up beautiful stories for translation, and I'm not sure whether it is because of her translation or whether because she picks good stories, but the stories translated by her are always wonderful to read.

'The Hut on the Roof' by Hiromi Kawakami is a story of a strange friendship. 'An Elevator on Sunday' by Shūichi Yoshida is the story of an unlikely romantic relationship.

I enjoyed reading 'The Book of Tokyo'. There are more books in this series celebrating cities across the world. Hoping to explore them.

Sharing some of my favourite parts from the book.

From 'A House for Two'

"I often come across things I think men would never understand. Indeed, I’m almost positive no man could ever understand most of the things I feel. Not just the good things that happen after shopping, but also my insistence that one should work back from dessert when selecting among the options for a full-course meal, or the enormous difference between a gift box with a ribbon and one without, or the fragrant smell of a brand new book, or the existence of a colour that is definitely not cream and could only possibly be described as eggshell. Thinking how a man would never be able to understand such things reminds me that I would never be able to live with one. It’s a refreshing thought. Not every woman wants to pair up with a man. Not every woman who is single is looking for love. Not when there is so much in life that is richer and more beautiful."

From 'Dad, I Love You'

"When people all over the world, throughout history, have already had these same problems, why do we have to deal with them all over again? We could all live a lot longer otherwise. It would be more efficient if, from the start, there were a set number of people that existed and we could all grow up together. This system where the old die, new children are born, and we start again from ‘A’ seems so stupid."

From 'Vortex'

"With a growing child around, a house gets cluttered. It seemed like confusion spread through the house as the child grew. In the morning, her daughter would shout ‘Mum, where is it?’ and she’d reply, ‘Where’s what?’, skirmishing with her daughter before school. By the time she’d set off, her room would be strewn with clothes already, and she’d think, How did that happen? Masako would say ‘Tidy your room!’ only to do it herself, and clean, and do the washing, without ever stopping to think about it. She had to; otherwise, the house would be overrun by something, like an unweeded garden. I couldn’t sort it all out if I tried, she thought, which made her anxious – it wasn’t unbearable, but somehow, she didn’t feel at ease. That restlessness had become normal, and some part of her had given up on getting everything in order. But her daughter was married now, and the house was tidy. With no one to clutter it, everything was still and silent. The only living, growing things were the weeds in the garden. Without a young person around, it felt like there was a void in the house."

"Once she quit calligraphy, there was nothing for Masako to do. She had a husband, and he went to work, and came home from work. His existence gave her certain responsibilities. But there was nothing else. Whatever she did, whatever she thought of doing, there was always the question: What good would it do? Her future looked vague and misty. When she asked herself, What do I want to do? the answer was shrouded and invisible. The more she wondered what she wanted to do, the more the not knowing weighed on her. What she didn’t realise was that she’d never in her life done something because she wanted to. The things she needed to concern herself with had always presented themselves to her at the appropriate time. But there was no more to come. The future wasn’t arriving. Her husband seemed to epitomise this stagnating future. But she wasn’t driven to take aggressive action: What can’t be helped, can’t be helped, she thought. Hence, her apathy."

From 'An Elevator on Sunday'

"The longer he was unemployed, the more he lost the sense of what day it was, and the boundaries between yesterday, today, and tomorrow grew ever more blurred. However mixed up time became, today could only be followed by tomorrow, but then suddenly something got messed up and it wasn’t tomorrow but rather yesterday again; so time passed in the utter absence of any motivation."

Have you read 'The Book of Tokyo'? What do you think about it?

[Ignacio Peña · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an enjoyable collection to read. The editor talks a bit about Tokyo's role as the publishing center of the Japanese literature world and the intent of the collection to offer various snippets of life in the city through several well established writers' works. One of the aspects of Tokyo that is established from the start is the mammoth size of Tokyo itself. With this canvas established, certain things became very apparent in such a huge place, one of which is just how one life in Tokyo could never describe the experience of any other life surrounding them; and also, just how frequent feelings of loneliness and emotional disassociation creep into so many stories here as well. Whole suburbs in such a huge city can be islands unto themselves, and yet, there is a commonality that such isolation creates, and seeing these intersections across the various stories also illustrate just how common and relatable the human experience is, whether its in a big city like Tokyo or anywhere else in the world.

[Phee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a bit of a bust for me. I didn't feel invested in the stories and I only truly liked the second story, Picnic. Such a shame because generally, shorter Japanese works are more my cup of tea than longer ones.

I think I will give Banana Yoshimoto's books a go though. Mummy was an interesting story but it was too short to really have much of an impact.

[Dylan Kakoulli · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was such a disappointing read.

Full of dull, flatly written, narrow-minded, misogynistic views of Tokyo/Japan, that left very little to be desired.

Bad writing or bad editing -either way, it’s a no from me.

1 star

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Model T Frankenstein - 2/5 - Too fractured for my taste. And abstract, like a splatter painting only with words.

Picnic - 4/5 - A sensory piece about things being a bit off. A trademark of Japanese writers imo.

A House for Two, by Mitsuyo Kakuta - 5/5 - Stories that appeal to personal experience are a feast. Such is this story of a possessive mother through the eyes of the spinster daughter. Excellently written.

Mummy, by Banana Yoshimoto - 4/5 - A bold piece about "what ifs". I liked the ending paragraph:

I imagine, for instance, my other-dimensional self turned into a mummy like that cat. I imagine, for instance the Tajima who died, destroyed by my suffocating love, his head cracked open.
I couldn't bring myself to think that world was so terrible.

Bold.

The Owl's Estate - 3/5 - About the promiscuous life of the ephemeral foreign escorts in Tokyo. Lacking courage though.

Dad, I love you, by Nao-Cola Yamazaki - 5/5 - A text like a meditation. I read in review here that said the novel explores thai food: only if the aftertaste is so spicy that you consider committing suicide but only your adopted daughter's love brings you back from the brink.

Mambo - 2/5 - Something about taking your sexual desire on a leash for a walk. Instructions unclear.

Vortex, by Osamu Hashimoto - 3/5 - In the same reflexive tone as Dad, I love you but less engaging for me. Reminded me of Remains of the day: a meditation on one's own life. The title, Vortex, symbolizes Death, seen here as a new beginning, a regression or a return back to ancestry in due course. Not yet there to feel it. After I finished the book, I was curious if Osamu was the oldest of the writers and there he is, born in 1948. Now after finishing the book, I think I was unfair to this novel: it may have been the best of the volume along with Dad

A Hut on the Roof - 3/5 - Something more than a friendship develops when two old men that once shared a lover, live together.
An Elevator on Sunday - 4/5 - Probably the only story with any action to mention, beside Mummy. Refreshing bitter-sweet ending for the whole collection.

[L. Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tragically underwhelming and below the usually high standard for contemporary Japanese fiction. There are 10 stories in this book, a few mildly interesting, the others bland as a stale bag of rice. Despite the short page length, I was struggling to finish this and only did so to boost my number of completed books for the year.
The stories themselves range from supernatural to completely and utterly bland conversations of boring, everyday Japanese people. There is no charm; no wit. There's also some mildly unsettling sexual content.

The stories are written by a number of authors, including Banana Yoshimoto and Hiromi Kawakami. Hiromi Kawakami is one of my favourite authors but her work in this collection was also a complete disappointment. Although, Yoshimoto's work was above her usual standard, which, sadly, is not a compliment.

By no means do I recommend this. It's another of those unfortunate but thankfully uncommon filler novels that hit the market with a few famous names just to rake in some cash.

[Ramprasad Saptharishi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tokyo is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited and I read most of the book on the flight back from Tokyo. I was expecting the short stories in this book to show me more about the magical city.

I was wrong.

I disliked almost every story in the book. A few were good ('A house for two' and 'Dad, I love you' for eg.), a couple of them were just plain wtf (Model T Frankenstein and Mummy). The rest of the stories, I just read it line by line with no emotion. Overall I was very annoyed almost. Despite being a small book, the whole reading experience was laboured for me.

[Andrew]

Stories of modern Tokyo have a distinctive tone to them, decidedly fluffy and blasé and sighing. The best representatives of that style there – what’s up, Banana? – and there are some rather pointless misses. But on the whole I liked this volume. That aforementioned Tokyo tone just generally works for me, and especially given how much of my life I spend book in hand in quiet megalopolitan bars and lost in my own world in otherwise noisy izakayas.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most stories were good. Slices of life mainly. Funny, the one I liked the most was written by the Japanese author I gave 2 "A's" to, and one "F' for her novels (Hiromi Kawakami)!

[Sergsab · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perderse por las calles de Tokio. Quizás uno no pueda pegarse dicho lujo en el día a día. La literatura siempre nos acaba ayudando en ocasiones de este tipo. Novelas, cuentos o pequeñas historias que nos intentan llevar al otro lado. Cruzar el paso de cebra más transitado del mundo o perderse por los callejones de Shinjuku. La experiencia está ahí, entre líneas. Estos relatos pretenden dicho viaje.


1. Model T Frankstein de Hideo Furukawa.

La antología empieza con el relato más experimental del conjunto que juega con la idea de un Tokio terciario que esconde en su interior a una extraña criatura. Furukawa trabaja con la idea de iceberg topográfico con la capital japonesa para hablarnos de realidades múltiples. Además el estilo de este autor es envolvente y consigue hacernos entrar desde el principio.

Otras novelas del autor que pueden encontrarse en inglés son Slow Boat o Horses, Horses, in the end the light remains pure. Este autor no ha sido traducido al castellano.

2. Picnic de Kaori Ekuni

Este relato utiliza unos de mis temas favoritos de la literatura: los misterios que se ocultan en lo más profundo de un matrimonio. La historia comienza con escapadas de picnic inocentes y deriva en ciertas revelaciones que resignifican la relación de la pareja protagonista. Empieza algo flojo y se va calentando hasta la traca final. No explota, pero vibra lo suficiente como para prestarle atención.

Kaori Ekuni ha publicado Luz brillante por la editorial Funambulista.

3. House for two de Mitsuyo Kakuta

De esta primera triada de relatos, éste es mi favorito. Con una sencillez que roza lo analítico, la narradora habla de la convivencia con su madre. El desengaño sentimental de ésta define el devenir de los días de su hija, una mujer en la treintena que no trabaja y no busca el amor, pero llena de ilusión y abierta a lo que la vida pueda ofrecerle. Las reflexiones sobre la mujer en la sociedad japonesa son del todo pertinentes y convierten las páginas en un auténtico tratado de sociología japonesa. Imprescindible.

Mitsuyo Kakuta ha sido traducida y publicada por Galaxia Gutenberg. Concretamente La cigarra del octavo día y Ella, en la otra orilla.

4. Mummy de Banana Yoshimoto

En este relato, una mujer es retenida contra su voluntad y usada como objeto de deseo por un fanático de la arqueología egipcia. Yoshimoto trabaja con la idea de adoración y soledad tan aplicable a nuestro tiempo. En pocas páginas demuestra porque es una de las autoras japonesas con mayor proyección internacional. Sin duda, uno de los mejores cuentos de la antología.

Yoshimoto ha sido traducida al castellano casi íntegramente por Tusquets. Su última publicación con ellos es Lagartija. Por su parte, la editorial Satori tradujo uno de sus trabajos de no ficción, Un viaje llamado vida.

5. The Owl’s Estate de Toshiyuki Horie

El relato de Horie gira en torno a un hombre que en su ir y venir a la oficina de Correos descubre una casa ocupada con chicas extranjeras que estudian y que se ganan la vida de una forma un tanto dudosa. Gracias a sus actividades consiguen un alquiler bajo en ese infierno inmobiliario que es Tokio. Sin ser de mis favoritos, plantea cosas relevantes sobre los límites de la legalidad en una ciudad donde la palabra límite está en desuso.

Toshiyuki Horie acaba de publicar con la editorial inglesa Pushkin su novella The bear and the paving Stone por la que ganó el premio Akutagawa. Horie nunca ha sido traducido al castellano.

6. Dad, I love you de Nao-cola Yamazaki

Hay algo en el estilo de Yamazaki que funciona a la perfección. Sabe hilar tan bien su mensaje optimista en torno a los personajes que configura que me extraña que no la hayamos visto publicada aún en castellano. En este cuento un salaryman típico japonés se plantea la idea del suicidio debido al abandono que ha sufrido por parte de su esposa. La búsqueda de un plan B en pos de evitar la muerte vehícula todo el relato de manera sencilla pero efectiva.

En francés podemos leer Ne riez pas de mon histoire d’amour y en inglés Friendship for grown-ups.

7. Mambo de Hitomi Kanehara

Si Yamazaki es la cara de la literatura japonesa, Kanehara es la cruz. La exploración explícita del sexo femenino a través del exceso y la reflexión continua. El relato comienza cuando la protagonista descubre que, cuanto más piensa en el sexo, más grande se vuelven sus pechos. A partir de ahí, la vorágine del deseo que no sabe explicar la arrastra hacia lugares y personas en las que va buscando una respuesta.

Kanehara ha sido publicada en castellano por Emecé, concretamente Serpientes y piercings. En inglés puedes encontrar algo más como Autofiction.

8. Vortex de Osamu Hashimoto

Quizás es mi gran descubrimiento de esta antología. Este cuento es uno de mis favoritos con diferencia. En él se nos relata el devenir de una mujer desde su infancia hasta que es madre y su hija decide marcharse de casa. Sus intentos por ser normal y eficiente a cualquier precio aboga por una crítica a la cultura japonesa en relación a las mujeres. Para mí, de lectura obligatoria. Hashimoto no ha sido traducido al castellano.

9. The hut in the roof Hiromi Kawakami

Kawakami es, junto con Banana Yoshimoto, una de las escritoras más reconocidas mundialmente. Conoce el oficio al dedillo y aunque este relato sólo sirva para perfilar ciertas ideas y construir un personaje misterioso, consigue convencer en su tramo final. El peso de la mujer en la sociedad japonesa vuelve a estar presente y de no cumplir lo que se espera de ella surge el conflicto del relato.

Kawakami ha visto traducida muchas de sus obras al castellano por Acantilado. Su obra más representantiva es El cielo es azul, la tierra blanca.

10. An elevator on Sunday de Shuichi Yoshida

La antología acaba con el relato que respira más testosterona por página. En él, un hombre desempleado que ronda los 30 y que no tiene ningún interés en cambiar el rumbo de su vida, nos relata su día a día. El autor hace hincapié en la relación que mantiene el protagonista con una chica que intenta adaptarse sin éxito a su desengaño vital.

El sello Destino ha traducido El hombre que quiso matarme, novela negra de Yoshida

___________________________________

En conjunto, una muy buena antología en inglés de autores que pone en tela de juicio ciertos preceptos de la sociedad japonesa. Aunque los relatos están conectados entre sí por las múltiples visiones que se tiene de Tokio, lo cierto es que sugiere otros hilos conductores a mi parecer más potentes. Es, sin duda, la abundancia de personajes femeninos lo que me hace valorar el conjunto de una forma positiva. Se nos da a entender que, al igual que en el resto del mundo, es la mujer el agente del cambio más relevante de los últimos tiempos. No es una antología de corte feminista, pero se empapa de ciertas ideas que bien podrían poner en jaque la idea de lo masculino.


じゃまた。

[Amélie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a really good book if you want to get to know more japanese authors that haven’t been translated in english a lot.

i initially only knew banana yoshimoto and hiromi kawakami but i discovered more authors i want to keep up with. i didn’t enjoy the first two stories at all and there was another weird one in the middle but apart from that, i really liked the others. they’re not too complex and there are also stuff about japanese culture which was interesting to read.

[Julie Brochmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

min største kærlighed til Hideo Furukawa, Banana Yoshimoto, Nao-Cola Yamazaki, Hitomi Kanehara og Shūichi Yoshida

[Renae Lucas-Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love reading and writing Japan-related short stories and I’m a big fan of Japanese writers so when I came across this book I couldn’t wait to start reading it. There are contributions in this book from a few famous writers like Banana Yoshimoto, Mitsuyo Kakuta, Hiromi Kawakami and Hitomi Kanehara who left school at fifteen to start a writing career and won the Akutagawa Prize at just twenty-one years of age.

I’ve been to Tokyo many times and I love the city and the Tokyoites who live there so it was great to explore the interesting characters in this book and many of them reminded me of some of the people I’ve met when I’ve lived in or passed through Japan’s capital.

I really enjoyed all the stories. Each story was unique and easy to read. I never felt bored or disappointed with any of the stories so I do highly recommend this book. I’d read Kanehara’s award-winning book ‘Snakes and Earrings’ so I knew what to expect from this young writer and I thought her short story ‘Mambo’ was consistent with her style of writing. Her colourful yet shocking characters really do lead you into some bizarre situations.

One of my favourite stories was ‘A House for Two’ by Mitsuyo Kakuta. The protagonist Ku-chan is convinced her life is exactly as it should be but it’s so clear to the reader she’s being manipulated by her mother and unable to make life choices without her. I also enjoyed ‘Vortex’ by Osamu Hashimoto. The Japan Times said this story was too long but I could have read so much more about Masako, her family and the life she was predestined to lead. If you’ve ever stayed with a family in Japan then Masako might remind you of the mother in the household and how she has to adapt her life to fit in with others and how she has to fulfill the role of what it means to be Japanese in a world which is now becoming more global.

I also loved the story ‘An Elevator on Sunday’ by Shūichi Yoshida and the fact it was written in the third person. Mr. Watanabe, the lead character, is a man whose home and lifestyle has “taken on a decidedly domestic air”. Watanabe gradually gives up going to work and looking for jobs. Once he was a hard worker with no time for cooking or meaningful relationships but now his days blur into each other and everything has become almost pointless, and this applies to his relationship with the girl he’s seeing called Keiko who turns out not to be Japanese at all. This story reminded me of the hard-working Japanese salarymen who were famous for working so hard before the economic bubble burst. Now that the Japanese economy is not so shiny and successful, Japanese businessmen and the Japanese economy have become a bit deflated yet everyone still lives in hope for success in the future, just like Watanabe in this story.

[Rabelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a mixed bag of stories as any anthology will inevitably be. However, the first stories, be it for editorial choice or mere providence, are the best it has to offer. With my favorite being Mummy, Model T Frankenstein, the Owls state and Dad I love you which have crazy developments you’ll go back and read that particular sentence again so you’re sure of what you read, they’re truly peak Japanese literature.
The last 4 or 3 stories In the chronological sequence are much weaker than the rest and missable.
But this book is very much worth the read for those five initial stories.

[Femke · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something really comforting about Japanese literature.
I mean, the first story was kinda weird and another one was just pure porn...
but the other stories were so pure and sweet and I loved the mentionings of the places in Tokyo and the food. It made me feel like a was Back in Japan.
So I really liked this collection and I made me want to read more of these authors.

[Aurora Shele · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really like this book. I was pretty disappointed, especially after reading short stories from Murakami 'Men without women' that I rated 5 stars. I didn't have that Tokyo feelings, except for maybe a few stories. Most of them seemed pretty unfinished and some of them I did not quite understand at all.

[Annas Jiwa Pratama]

Ah, yes I do love me some shorts! As with all these sorts of books, they are hits and misses. I thought I was gonna like Banana Yoshimoto’s short story in this collection but it did not really connect with me emotionally, even though it is bold and enjoyable, and her characters are great. However! I did find some gems that I really, really like:

Dad, I love You – Nao-Cola Yamazaki
○ It follows a depressed middle-aged man’s average day at work. It’s very mundane, but also humane and poignant.

○ The final passage reminds me of something Kobo Abe wrote about how looking at big things makes you want to die and looking at small things makes you want to live.

○ There is a portion of the story where the man overhears two elderly patrons in a café who seem to have been reunited after decades after a funeral. It feels like an Ozu movie, really, two old people reminiscing over drinks, nonchalantly talking about who was going to die first. The only thing left is for the scene to end with one party saying “ii tenki, desu ne?” And as with Ozu, things like this really do move me more than it should. I feel the weight of their relationship and their age, through their mundane and platonic lines.

Vortex – Osamu Hashimoto
○ Follows middle aged Masako as she reminisce about her life from childhood until her daughter’s recent marriage. Masako follows life through its “proper course”. Always staying in the path of least resistance, Masako grows old as an average woman, with a regular, average family. That’s all there is to it, really.

○ Ah, this story is made for me. It’s very matter of fact and unsentimental and the writing is terse, but there is a sort of poignancy that only comes with a story about aging that this piece conveys really well. If ´Dad, I love you’ had a perfect Ozu scene within it, this short story captures the essence of what I find really touching and interesting about Ozu’s films. In a way, its bland style and lack of overt sentimentality is what gives it strength. It doesn’t intrude on you or force you to feel in a certain way, but its scenes and mood gives you space to reflect.

○ Though not eventful or exciting, in a way Masako lives kind of a full life. Not everyone gets to have that. But I guess even when everything takes its “proper course”, as she puts it, one can’t help but feel anxious about it from time to time, huh? I think that’s partly why I like this type of stories so much, stories about average people living their average lives. That even though things are going as it should, you will still mull about it, feel lonely, get depressed, etc. Even if it’s really about nothing at all.

○ “Realising that her sweet young child had somehow turned into one of today’s young women, Masako was surprised. She was surprised, then she got used to it.”


Tangents
○ Around 2015, I think, a colleague at a place I used to work had a son. Our boss came over to his desk that morning and said, “Grats man, shit, that’s it, that’s your whole life settled, right there. All that’s left is to wait for a grandkid.” I thought of this little episode as I read Vortex.

○ From The Owl’s Estate: “Upmarket nightclubs, fitness sessions, language schools. I wondered what Japan would look like to Isabelle and the other girls.” Was what the narrator thought after seeing how a group of ijinkan-dwellers (escorts mostly) spend their day-to-day. I wonder how Jabodetabek looks like to migrants. I once asked a Malaysian friend who went to Jakarta just once for a concert to rate the city, and I was shocked that she gave it an 8 (I would’ve given like 5 or 6. Maybe that’s just how it is with any big city. You kind of hate it if you live there long enough. I wonder whether I’d miss Jabodetabek if I uproot myself long enough. Not the people I mean, just the city. Though I don’t think I have any strength left in me to leave, haha. People who can do that again and again are kind of special.

○ I did not really feel a sense of Tokyo-ness that much, bar perhaps Vortex and An Elevator on Sunday. Most of the stories feel like it can belong to any other city.

[Elle VanGilder · Rating 3 out of 5]

An anthology of contemporary Japanese short stories all placed in Tokyo, 'The Book of Tokyo' was a delight to read. Michael Emmerich notes in the introduction that one of the great pleasures of being in Tokyo is "a sense of disorientation that blends seamlessly into a seemingly opposite sense of rootedness, of being at home" and many of the stories in this book did just that. A diverse collection, despite the centrality of the location and some overlapping themes, that introduced me to a few authors that I am hopeful to read more from in the future.

Of the collection my favorites were Banana Yoshimoto's 'Mummy', Toshiyuki Horie's 'The Owl's Estate', Nao-Cola Yamazaki's 'Dad, I Love You,' and Shūichi Yoshida's 'An Elevator on Sunday.'

[Zizeloni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories from various Japanese authors, technically set in Tokyo (most of the times the city is irrelevant to the story). I liked some a lot, they had this japanese atmosphere and style that I like.
Some others I didn't like at all.
But in general they were all very different from each other, you meet different authors, so maybe it was worth it in the end.

[Héloïse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lonely people in neon cities is my absolute favorite genre, and this anthology fits it so beautifully!
I picked this book as a travel companion while visiting Tokyo, mainly because I'm finding myself really into short stories these days, and also because some authors that I love participated in it. It was a true delight to read these stories while wandering around the city, recognizing the different neighborhoods that were described, immersing yourself completely in it!
I loved to read these glimpses into people's lives, the reflections around one's purpose in life, loneliness, relationships...
As with any anthology, there were some novels that I preferred ("Dad, I love you" brought me to tears with how beautiful it was), but none of them were disappointing!
It's definitely a book that I'll read again, whenever I want to revive some memories. I also really want to try some of the other anthologies published by the same editor, because this concept is truly brilliant!

[Timothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a very engaging book. A couple of enjoyable short stories amidst the collection but the overall standard Is pretty low. It’s almost as if a few quirky stories have been selected to add an element of eccentricity.