愛がなんだ

by Mitsuyo Kakuta, 角田光代

「私はただ、ずっと彼のそばにはりついていたいのだ」――ＯＬのテルコはマモちゃんに出会って恋に落ちた。彼から電話があれば仕事中でも携帯で長話、食事に誘われればさっさと退社。すべてがマモちゃん最優先で、会社もクビになる寸前。だが、彼はテルコのことが好きじゃないのだ。テルコの片思いは更にエスカレートしていき……。直木賞作家が濃密な筆致で綴る、〈全力疾走〉片思い小説！

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 14, 2003

About the author

Mitsuyo Kakuta (角田光代, 1967–) set her sights on becoming a writer from an early age. Her debut novel—Kōfuku na yūgi (A Blissful Pastime), written while she was a university student—received the Kaien Prize for New Writers in 1990. She has been working continuously as an author ever since, never having had to support herself with a separate job. Three nominations for the Akutagawa Prize serve as a measure of the promise with which she was regarded from early in her career. Then, at the encouragement of an editor, she shifted toward the entertainment end of the literary spectrum, where she garnered a much broader readership with works depicting the lives of women in her generation, from their mid-thirties to forties. After publishing two brilliant novels in 2002, Ekonomikaru paresu (Economical Palace) and Kūchū teien (Hanging Garden), she went on to win the Naoki Prize for the second half of 2004 with Woman on the Other Shore (tr. 2007). Her successes continued with The Eighth Day (tr. 2010), which received the 2007 Chūō Kōron Literary Prize and was made into a televised drama series as well as a movie; the book sold more than a million copies, vaulting her into the ranks of Japan's best-selling authors. In 2012 she added to her list of honors by earning the Shibata Renzaburō Award for her novel Kami no tsuki (Paper Moon), and the Izumi Kyōka Prize for her volume of short stories Kanata no ko (The Children Beyond).

Mitsuyo Kakuta is currently working on translating the Tale of Genji into modern Japanese.
(source: BooksFromJapan.jp)

Reviews

[Marika · Rating 5 out of 5]

読んだタイミングが良かったのかとってもとっても面白かった。大好きになっちゃった。
テルちゃんやばい女だな、まもちゃんみたいなくずお存在するのかと思いつつ、共感できちゃう部分も沢山会って私はもっとしっかりしないとと思えた。
解説に書いてたように常に”他人事と思えない“気持ちになった。

[Emi · Rating 4 out of 5]

すごいな、テルコ。客観的に見てる分にはいいけど、自分がテルコの立場だったら苦しくて仕方ないだろうし、身近にテルコみたいな人がいたらイライラが止まらないと思う。こういう人って年取ったらどうなるんだろう。。。

[Maymay · Rating 3 out of 5]

わたしはテルちゃんみたいになってしまう派。
一日中ボンヤリと好きな人を思い続けて、
呼ばれれば馬鹿みたいな時間に向かい
置いてかれて傷付いてんのに
何でもない顔してまた向かう。
でも結局これって愛と呼べるのだろうか？
他人にすがって、
自分を全てほっぽり出してしまう。

自分を大事にしたい
だけどどうしたらいいんだろう。