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Mina's Matchbox
From the award-winning, psychologically astute author of The Memory Police, here is a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them.
In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens, and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion—Tomoko’s dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family’s patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko’s cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.
In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko’s life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel’s end. Behind the family’s sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand—her uncle’s mysterious absences, her German grandmother’s experience of the second world war, her aunt’s misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time—and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.
In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens, and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion—Tomoko’s dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family’s patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko’s cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.
In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko’s life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel’s end. Behind the family’s sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand—her uncle’s mysterious absences, her German grandmother’s experience of the second world war, her aunt’s misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time—and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.
282 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2006
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28232 people want to read
About the author
Yōko Ogawa
113 books5,306 followersYōko Ogawa (小川 洋子) was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor and his Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored „An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics“ with Masahiko Fujiwara, a mathematician, as a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.
A film in French, "L'Annulaire“ (The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko and Marc Barbé, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's "Kusuriyubi no hyōhon“ (薬指の標本), translated into French as "L'Annulaire“ (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura and by Ranpo Edogawa, into French).
Kenzaburō Ōe has said, 'Yōko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.' The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the--sometimes grotesquely--humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing.
A film in French, "L'Annulaire“ (The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko and Marc Barbé, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's "Kusuriyubi no hyōhon“ (薬指の標本), translated into French as "L'Annulaire“ (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura and by Ranpo Edogawa, into French).
Kenzaburō Ōe has said, 'Yōko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.' The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the--sometimes grotesquely--humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,269 reviews
December 4, 2024
"If you wanted to describe Mina in a few words, you might say she was an asthmatic girl who loved words and rode a pygmy hippopotamus. But if you wanted to distinguish her from everyone else in the world, you'd say that she was a girl who could strike a match more beautifully than anyone."
you could probably just stick with the pygmy hippopotamus thing.
this is a very simple, plodding rendition of a time in a girl's life when she lived with her cousin mina, the match-lighter / hippo-rider mentioned above.
not much happens in this, and by the halfway mark i was tired of the idyllic perfection this whole book had in it: mina is perfect, and her house is perfect, and their time together is perfect, and pochiko the hippo is perfect, and nothing changes and nothing is complicated. you have kind of a sneaking sense that something bad might happen, but that doesn't change how one-note everyone's characterizations are.
mina and tomoko become obsessed with the japanese volleyball team at one point, which seems to serve primarily to lead us into a multi-chapter interlude of zionist sentiment. by this point, my patience had just about worn thin!
i love gossip, so i was excited to read this book about "buried secrets"...but they never got unburied. it was just a whole lot of nothing.
bottom line: justice for a little girl who rides a pygmy hippo. that deserves to be interesting.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
you could probably just stick with the pygmy hippopotamus thing.
this is a very simple, plodding rendition of a time in a girl's life when she lived with her cousin mina, the match-lighter / hippo-rider mentioned above.
not much happens in this, and by the halfway mark i was tired of the idyllic perfection this whole book had in it: mina is perfect, and her house is perfect, and their time together is perfect, and pochiko the hippo is perfect, and nothing changes and nothing is complicated. you have kind of a sneaking sense that something bad might happen, but that doesn't change how one-note everyone's characterizations are.
mina and tomoko become obsessed with the japanese volleyball team at one point, which seems to serve primarily to lead us into a multi-chapter interlude of zionist sentiment. by this point, my patience had just about worn thin!
i love gossip, so i was excited to read this book about "buried secrets"...but they never got unburied. it was just a whole lot of nothing.
bottom line: justice for a little girl who rides a pygmy hippo. that deserves to be interesting.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
November 14, 2024
Deeply disappointed by Ogawa who chose to publish the translation of the book she wrote about defending israeli occupation of Palestine at a time where israelis are actively genociding Palestinians in Gaza.
She mentions the Munich olympics where a Palestinian group took 9 israeli hostages to free 200 Palestinians detained by israel; and not only did she call them terrorists, but also drew an imagery of how the hostage taking equates putting people in gaz chambers during the holocaust?! Seriously? She goes on to justify the occupation of Palestine as a right for a country for the descendants of the holocaust..
This is the last time I read for Ogawa, I cannot shake the idea of how she spun the story into a zionist propaganda. I stopped reading at chapter 29, and just forwarded ahead to see what happens - which wasn’t much really - I just couldn’t read any further and I stopped giving a damn about the characters anymore.
What a shame!
She mentions the Munich olympics where a Palestinian group took 9 israeli hostages to free 200 Palestinians detained by israel; and not only did she call them terrorists, but also drew an imagery of how the hostage taking equates putting people in gaz chambers during the holocaust?! Seriously? She goes on to justify the occupation of Palestine as a right for a country for the descendants of the holocaust..
This is the last time I read for Ogawa, I cannot shake the idea of how she spun the story into a zionist propaganda. I stopped reading at chapter 29, and just forwarded ahead to see what happens - which wasn’t much really - I just couldn’t read any further and I stopped giving a damn about the characters anymore.
What a shame!
March 20, 2024
Winner of the 2006 Tanizaki prize, Yōko Ogawa’s exquisitely-drawn exploration of impermanence deals with familiar themes - from the transient nature of existence to the loss of childhood innocence - but manages to render them fresh and vivid. The scenario at the centre of Ogawa’s variation on a coming-of-age novel is equally familiar: the outsider suddenly plunged into an entirely alien environment. Her novel’s narrated by Tomoko who’s recalling incidents from her childhood over 30 years earlier; reassuring recollections abruptly intermingled with more traumatic ones starting with the death of her father in 1966 - the first in a series of deaths that surface throughout Ogawa’s novel. Broader reflections on mortality and the fleeting nature of all things are underlined by the structure of Ogawa’s narrative which, like many Japanese stories, is organised by the passing of the seasons. All of this might give the impression this is a deeply serious, sombre piece – at times it is – but it can also be charming and funny as well as sinister and slightly surreal, laced with bursts of startling imagery.
The core of the novel opens in spring, time of new beginnings, it’s March 1972 and 12-year-old Tomoko is leaving her home in Okayama – where Ogawa grew up. Tomoko’s going to spend a year with her aunt’s family in Ashiya while her mother attempts to improve her employment prospects by studying in Tokyo. Tomoko’s aunt’s the family member who attracts the most gossip, married to the wealthy head of a beverage company, her half-German husband is considered a foreigner. But when Tomoko arrives in Ashiya she feels as if she’s entered an enchanted space. Her aunt and uncle live in a grand, Western-style mansion along with her younger cousin Mina, Mina’s German grandmother Rosa, cook Yoneda-san and gardener Kobayashi-san. Kobayashi-san has an unusual responsibility, he tends to the family pet a pygmy hippo known as Pochiko the last survivor of a zoo closed since WW2. Pochiko’s a key figure here, member of a species threatened with extinction, remnant of the past - his moods, his melancholy, his isolation mirror aspects of the family’s situation. Pochiko’s also been trained to carry fragile Mina to school and back, a task that confirms her family’s underlying eccentricity.
At first Tomoko feels as if she's a princess in a fairy tale. Outside Japan’s going through a particularly turbulent phase but the house seems part of some other, lost world. But as time passes Tomoko notices her handsome, hospitable uncle’s hardly ever around and the women rarely go out. Locked away in the house they read voraciously, inhabiting separate fictional realms. Each of them harbours secrets from Mina’s horde of vintage matchboxes and the unsettling stories she weaves around them to the uncle’s disappearances and what happened to Rosa’s sister left behind in Germany. Only Tomoko has any grounding in reality. But there are moments when the outside breaks through: the Munich Olympics and “Black September” connect Mina and Tomoko to an imagined community of TV viewers; news of Kawabata’s suicide plunges the household into mourning leading to a strange encounter with a librarian who somewhat perversely persuades Tomoko to borrow The House of the Sleeping Beauties.
As a writer Ogawa values visual images and a sense of place over plot. Ogawa’s chosen setting of Ashiya builds on personal knowledge of the area: the house’s based on a former local landmark; minor characters on people she knows there; Mina travelling on Pochiko’s back links to local stories about a private zoo and a boy who went to school by donkey. But it also allows Ogawa to play on associations conjured by Ashiya and its surrounds: its connections to a particular generation of bourgeois Japanese families and Hanshinkan modernism, and its fame as home to writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. Ashiya features in Tanizaki’s best-known work The Makioka Sisters. There are echoes of Tanizaki’s novel in Ogawa’s particularly his interest in declining cultures and the delicate interplay between individuals and wider historical events. But Tanizaki’s not the only influence on display here: Kawabata’s Snow Country, Anne Frank, Katherine Mansfield’s portraits of family life, and even Anne of Green Gables all have a part to play. Like a number of Japanese novels this started out in serial form so it’s fairly episodic and I won't claim Ogawa’s narrative doesn't have weaker moments - elements of Ogawa’s symbolism were a little too obvious and I wasn’t totally comfortable with her use of animals. But even so I was totally swept away by it. Translated by Stephen Snyder.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Harvill Secker for an ARC
The core of the novel opens in spring, time of new beginnings, it’s March 1972 and 12-year-old Tomoko is leaving her home in Okayama – where Ogawa grew up. Tomoko’s going to spend a year with her aunt’s family in Ashiya while her mother attempts to improve her employment prospects by studying in Tokyo. Tomoko’s aunt’s the family member who attracts the most gossip, married to the wealthy head of a beverage company, her half-German husband is considered a foreigner. But when Tomoko arrives in Ashiya she feels as if she’s entered an enchanted space. Her aunt and uncle live in a grand, Western-style mansion along with her younger cousin Mina, Mina’s German grandmother Rosa, cook Yoneda-san and gardener Kobayashi-san. Kobayashi-san has an unusual responsibility, he tends to the family pet a pygmy hippo known as Pochiko the last survivor of a zoo closed since WW2. Pochiko’s a key figure here, member of a species threatened with extinction, remnant of the past - his moods, his melancholy, his isolation mirror aspects of the family’s situation. Pochiko’s also been trained to carry fragile Mina to school and back, a task that confirms her family’s underlying eccentricity.
At first Tomoko feels as if she's a princess in a fairy tale. Outside Japan’s going through a particularly turbulent phase but the house seems part of some other, lost world. But as time passes Tomoko notices her handsome, hospitable uncle’s hardly ever around and the women rarely go out. Locked away in the house they read voraciously, inhabiting separate fictional realms. Each of them harbours secrets from Mina’s horde of vintage matchboxes and the unsettling stories she weaves around them to the uncle’s disappearances and what happened to Rosa’s sister left behind in Germany. Only Tomoko has any grounding in reality. But there are moments when the outside breaks through: the Munich Olympics and “Black September” connect Mina and Tomoko to an imagined community of TV viewers; news of Kawabata’s suicide plunges the household into mourning leading to a strange encounter with a librarian who somewhat perversely persuades Tomoko to borrow The House of the Sleeping Beauties.
As a writer Ogawa values visual images and a sense of place over plot. Ogawa’s chosen setting of Ashiya builds on personal knowledge of the area: the house’s based on a former local landmark; minor characters on people she knows there; Mina travelling on Pochiko’s back links to local stories about a private zoo and a boy who went to school by donkey. But it also allows Ogawa to play on associations conjured by Ashiya and its surrounds: its connections to a particular generation of bourgeois Japanese families and Hanshinkan modernism, and its fame as home to writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. Ashiya features in Tanizaki’s best-known work The Makioka Sisters. There are echoes of Tanizaki’s novel in Ogawa’s particularly his interest in declining cultures and the delicate interplay between individuals and wider historical events. But Tanizaki’s not the only influence on display here: Kawabata’s Snow Country, Anne Frank, Katherine Mansfield’s portraits of family life, and even Anne of Green Gables all have a part to play. Like a number of Japanese novels this started out in serial form so it’s fairly episodic and I won't claim Ogawa’s narrative doesn't have weaker moments - elements of Ogawa’s symbolism were a little too obvious and I wasn’t totally comfortable with her use of animals. But even so I was totally swept away by it. Translated by Stephen Snyder.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Harvill Secker for an ARC
July 20, 2024
You know when you do a deep clean of your bedroom and find random objects from years ago, even as far back as childhood, that immediately put you back in that time and place? And in some ways you are wistful for that period of your life, but also kind of sad because you realize how long ago it was and that so much has changed since then? That's the vibe that this book brings to the table.
The story is recounted to us by Tomoko nearly three decades later as she reflects on her experiences. She views various photographs and objects that call up memories and she pieces it together for us in a simple but moving narrative.
In 1972, 12-year-old Tomoko is sent to live with her aunt's family for a year while her single mother completes an education course to pursue a better career. Tomoko moves a few hours away to a palatial home filled with antique furniture, books and even a pygmy hippopotamus; a stark contrast to her humble life with her mother. Populating the house are: her aunt (her mother's sister), her handsome uncle who is the president of a soft drink company, Yoneda-san who manages the home, Kobayashi-san the groundskeeper, her great aunt Rosa, and her sickly cousin Mina—and of course Pochiko, the previously mentioned hippo.
There's nothing super dramatic or showy about this book. Once Tomoko arrived at the house, I kept waiting for something big to happen to kick off the narrative, but then realized the story itself was the big thing. For Tomoko, everything she's experiencing is new and exciting, and you begin to feel that novelty with her. Something as seemingly small as getting a library card in a new city she will only live in for a year feels like one of her first mature, adult experiences. Getting professionally tailored clothes for her new school uniform makes her feel sophisticated and out of place at the same time. As her bond with Mina grows, she begins to see the subtle and special ways that bonds between people, observed in various relationships around her, make a strong impact.
I thought the entire cast of characters was compelling and well established in the narrative. You don't always get the full picture of them since we only know as much as Tomoko knows (in both 1972 and the present as she narrates). Just like life, especially from a child's perspective, you sometimes only see the tip of the iceberg, but as you grow up you can begin to discover what's under the surface, or at least make assumptions that alter your perception of previously held beliefs. But what's most impactful is Tomoko's specific connections to each character over the course of the year she's staying with her family. The pieces of them we get to see through her are profound and beautiful because of their singularity.
I would also like to call out, especially, the translation by Stephen Snyder. He's once again done an excellent job, from what I can tell, translating not just the words but the emotions in between the lines. Thanks to the publisher for an early review copy!
The story is recounted to us by Tomoko nearly three decades later as she reflects on her experiences. She views various photographs and objects that call up memories and she pieces it together for us in a simple but moving narrative.
In 1972, 12-year-old Tomoko is sent to live with her aunt's family for a year while her single mother completes an education course to pursue a better career. Tomoko moves a few hours away to a palatial home filled with antique furniture, books and even a pygmy hippopotamus; a stark contrast to her humble life with her mother. Populating the house are: her aunt (her mother's sister), her handsome uncle who is the president of a soft drink company, Yoneda-san who manages the home, Kobayashi-san the groundskeeper, her great aunt Rosa, and her sickly cousin Mina—and of course Pochiko, the previously mentioned hippo.
There's nothing super dramatic or showy about this book. Once Tomoko arrived at the house, I kept waiting for something big to happen to kick off the narrative, but then realized the story itself was the big thing. For Tomoko, everything she's experiencing is new and exciting, and you begin to feel that novelty with her. Something as seemingly small as getting a library card in a new city she will only live in for a year feels like one of her first mature, adult experiences. Getting professionally tailored clothes for her new school uniform makes her feel sophisticated and out of place at the same time. As her bond with Mina grows, she begins to see the subtle and special ways that bonds between people, observed in various relationships around her, make a strong impact.
I thought the entire cast of characters was compelling and well established in the narrative. You don't always get the full picture of them since we only know as much as Tomoko knows (in both 1972 and the present as she narrates). Just like life, especially from a child's perspective, you sometimes only see the tip of the iceberg, but as you grow up you can begin to discover what's under the surface, or at least make assumptions that alter your perception of previously held beliefs. But what's most impactful is Tomoko's specific connections to each character over the course of the year she's staying with her family. The pieces of them we get to see through her are profound and beautiful because of their singularity.
I would also like to call out, especially, the translation by Stephen Snyder. He's once again done an excellent job, from what I can tell, translating not just the words but the emotions in between the lines. Thanks to the publisher for an early review copy!
March 9, 2025
I'm disappointed. I've been a fan of this author since the English translation for The Memory Police was published, and quickly made it my business to read everything of hers I could get my hands on (sadly, the number of Ogawa's translated books is a small fraction of her overall output).
Mina's Matchbox is a quiet novel, which is fine, but for me, this is too quiet, and too uneventful/mundane to inspire my interest. It's set in the early 70s, during the time when our protagonist is sent to live with her mother's sister and family, which includes cousin Mina, and also a pet pygmy hippopotamus.
Initially there's some tension in regards to the uncle (Mina's father), who is charismatic and handsome but who mysteriously disappears for unpredictable periods of time. There's tension in regards to Mina's delicate health. There's tension in regards to Mina's mother, who smokes and drinks and barely ever cracks a smile.
The tension is never relieved in a satisfying way, though. When we find out about where the uncle spends all his time away from the house, it's revealed in a rather forgettable phlump. Same with any of the other tensions the author teases. When something does happen, it's small, and it's resolved, almost effortlessly. Oh, there might be a fire, but no, it's far away and everything's fine.
Added to this, there is a LOT of volleyball talk, which was skim-worthy.
In the end, I had to accept that the novel isn't really about any of those things. Instead, it's about this particular time, a time that was meaningful to the protagonist, a time that she preserves in her heart and mind, despite the fact that she can't go back and everything has changed. I can't exactly say why this time is so important and special and why it stands out so meaningfully for her, though.
While I still truly enjoyed and admired Ogawa's style (she's one of my favourite contemporary writers, and she's a pleasure to read), this is not at all my favourite of her work. It's hard to believe this is the same person who wrote Hotel Iris. I'm still reading whatever of hers comes next, though.
Mina's Matchbox is a quiet novel, which is fine, but for me, this is too quiet, and too uneventful/mundane to inspire my interest. It's set in the early 70s, during the time when our protagonist is sent to live with her mother's sister and family, which includes cousin Mina, and also a pet pygmy hippopotamus.
Initially there's some tension in regards to the uncle (Mina's father), who is charismatic and handsome but who mysteriously disappears for unpredictable periods of time. There's tension in regards to Mina's delicate health. There's tension in regards to Mina's mother, who smokes and drinks and barely ever cracks a smile.
The tension is never relieved in a satisfying way, though. When we find out about where the uncle spends all his time away from the house, it's revealed in a rather forgettable phlump. Same with any of the other tensions the author teases. When something does happen, it's small, and it's resolved, almost effortlessly. Oh, there might be a fire, but no, it's far away and everything's fine.
Added to this, there is a LOT of volleyball talk, which was skim-worthy.
In the end, I had to accept that the novel isn't really about any of those things. Instead, it's about this particular time, a time that was meaningful to the protagonist, a time that she preserves in her heart and mind, despite the fact that she can't go back and everything has changed. I can't exactly say why this time is so important and special and why it stands out so meaningfully for her, though.
While I still truly enjoyed and admired Ogawa's style (she's one of my favourite contemporary writers, and she's a pleasure to read), this is not at all my favourite of her work. It's hard to believe this is the same person who wrote Hotel Iris. I'm still reading whatever of hers comes next, though.
September 27, 2024
Wasn’t expecting to read pro Israel sentiment in this. A shame. Complete shame. I’m so disappointed and angry right now. Avoid at all costs!
March 19, 2024
When I think back to my time in Ashiya, the day Mina showed me her boxes of matchboxes stands out as the day she really took me into her confidence. Of course, we’d been on good terms before then, but the boxes of boxes opened the final door to our friendship. I was the only one among her friends or family who knew her secret. In that enormous house in Ashiya, she and I were the only ones who knew what was hidden away in those little boxes.
A beautiful coming of age story — set in 1972 suburban Japan — Mina’s Matchbox follows two cousins as they bond over first loves, literature, and a pygmy hippopotamus named Pochiko. Translated from the Japanese original, there’s a slightly stiff formality to the writing, but author Yōko Ogawa paints a vivid picture of the time and place, and by the novel’s end, I felt totally immersed and emotionally invested. Ogawa captures something true and universal about this transitional time of life and I believed everything she writes about the long-term effects of childhood experiences, family ties, and being disappointed by the ones we most admire. I loved this, rounding up to five stars. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Whenever I return there in my memory, their voices are as lively as ever, their smiling faces full of warmth. Grandmother Rosa, seated before the makeup mirror she brought from Germany as part of her trousseau, carefully rubbing her face with beauty cream. My aunt in the smoking room, tirelessly hunting for typographical errors. My uncle, impeccably dressed, even at home, endlessly tossing off his quips and jokes. The staff, Yoneda-san and Kobayashi-san, working hard in their respective domains; the family pet, Pochiko, relaxing in the garden. And my cousin Mina reading a book. We always knew when she was about from the rustling of the box of matches she kept in her pocket. The matchboxes were her precious possessions, her talismans.
Looking back thirty years later, Tomoko remembers fondly the year that she spent living with her maternal aunt’s family (as Tomoko’s widowed mother upgraded her own education in Tokyo). Tomoko remembers her initial surprise at just how large and luxurious their family home was, how handsome and charming her uncle, and how frail and beautiful her cousin, Mina: one year younger but years ahead in knowledge and sophistication. Mina’s paternal grandmother had been born in Germany, and it added a fascinating dimension to have this ageing and elegant character — still somewhat struggling to speak and read Japanese after forty years in the country — who completely accepted (the technically unrelated Tomoko) into her heart, and whose closest friend is the family housekeeper, Yoneda-san (the pair harmonise beautifully when singing duets in both German and Japanese). It was also interesting to watch the girls excitedly follow the Japanese national men’s volleyball team as they prepared for the Munich Olympics — with the German grandmother happily cheering on both the Japanese and German teams — and then seeing the Black September terrorist attack play out (). Also interesting: the hippopotamus was the only surviving animal from a zoo that Mina’s grandfather had opened on their property (the zoo becoming another victim of WWII), and everything about the pre- and post-war experience of this German-Japanese family was intriguing to me. All of this, and more, is just what’s going on in the background as Tomoko and Mina undergo an intense year of friendship: sharing new experiences, sharing secrets, and Tomoko eventually learning that a big house doesn’t guarantee a happy home.
With the passage of time, even as the distance has increased, the memories of the days I spent with Mina in Ashiya have grown more vivid and dense, have taken root deep in my heart. You might even say they’ve become the very foundation of my memory. The matchboxes from Mina, my card from the Ashiya Public Library, the family photo taken in the garden — they’re always with me. On sleepless nights, I open the matchbox and reread the story of the girl who gathered shooting stars. I remember that Sunday adventure, when I went alone to the Fressy factory, received a matchbox from a batlike man, and found the Ezaka Royal Mansion. And when I recall those things, I feel somehow that the past is still alive, still watching over me.
The strongest point that Ogawa makes is how impressionable we are at that transitional time into the teenage years, and the experiences and influences we have during that period can build the foundations of who we eventually become. Looking back thirty years later, Tomoko shows where these seeds were planted in her own life, and I thought the whole was pulled off with a deft and subtle touch. Loved it; I will need to get to The Memory Police.
June 8, 2025
I absolutely LOVED everything about Mina's Matchbox. It had everything I love about Japanese literature and a reading experience in general. It was a magical experience without magical realism. I loved the setting of a home built high on a mountainside. The home has been in Mina's family, the generational owners of a soda company, and was once the location of a children's zoo! The railway and other aspects remain, and it makes the perfect home for Mina's pygmy hippo, Pochiko.
The book begins with Mina's cousin, Tomoko, traveling by train to stay with her aunt and uncle while her mother finishes school. Having spent part of my childhood living with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, this aspect of the story really resonated with me. Mina's grandmother and their faithful staff also live on the compound. Yoneda san is like family and I love the relationship between her and Grandmother Rose. Grandmother Rose was fascinating. She has a twin, lived in Germany for some time, is fluent in German, and her room holds mysteries for the cousins.
Books, stories, and the library are prominent throughout the novel. Mina suffers from health problems, including asthma, thus she spends many hours reading and writing stories. Her family has a special "light room" for "light therapy". Both cousins have an adult that provides for them-the man from Wednesday and the librarian. The story itself was enchanting while also being an ode to libraries, books, and translated literature. The power of the connection between author and reader is really present in this novel.
Both the mother and father had a unique characteristic that really added to the story. Volleyball and the Olympics provided a different depth to the story. I found it very timely and interesting that the abduction of the Israeli team by Palestinian extremists reflecting the reality of events going on in that area at this time.
Mina's Matchbox is an incredible escape and is reminiscent of the Secret Garden. I strongly recommend picking this one up and escaping to the mountains of Japan.
The book begins with Mina's cousin, Tomoko, traveling by train to stay with her aunt and uncle while her mother finishes school. Having spent part of my childhood living with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, this aspect of the story really resonated with me. Mina's grandmother and their faithful staff also live on the compound. Yoneda san is like family and I love the relationship between her and Grandmother Rose. Grandmother Rose was fascinating. She has a twin, lived in Germany for some time, is fluent in German, and her room holds mysteries for the cousins.
Books, stories, and the library are prominent throughout the novel. Mina suffers from health problems, including asthma, thus she spends many hours reading and writing stories. Her family has a special "light room" for "light therapy". Both cousins have an adult that provides for them-the man from Wednesday and the librarian. The story itself was enchanting while also being an ode to libraries, books, and translated literature. The power of the connection between author and reader is really present in this novel.
Both the mother and father had a unique characteristic that really added to the story. Volleyball and the Olympics provided a different depth to the story. I found it very timely and interesting that the abduction of the Israeli team by Palestinian extremists reflecting the reality of events going on in that area at this time.
Mina's Matchbox is an incredible escape and is reminiscent of the Secret Garden. I strongly recommend picking this one up and escaping to the mountains of Japan.
April 11, 2025
we need to talk abt that section in the middle that’s pro-israel
This is the latest translated novel by this author. The original novel’s from 2006 and obviously not a recent work, so I am STRUGGLING to reconcile (if even possible) my love of her other novels and the section in the middle that completely soured my reading experience. The thing is, it’s historical fiction and set in 1972 during a very specific time in history, and I am also cognisant of how a text unavoidably changes during translation. Is the author herself expressing implicit support towards Zionists and deliberately portraying Palestinian resistors as antagonists? Or is she neutrally showing that people in Japan (like Jewish immigrants or Eurasian descendants) during that period in history saw it that way? Is the narrator herself, a 13-year-old Japanese girl (with a very limited worldview and tendency to romanticise Germany) passing any kind of judgment, and even if she is, is it shown to be problematic and skewed because of her inexperience? I hesitate to draw conclusions because a translation, no matter how faithful, can never fully represent authorial intention IMO.
The story is quiet and very focused on the day-to-day of one well-to-do family living in Ashiya, especially on the sickly お嬢様, Mina. The narrator is a maternal cousin who’s visiting for a year. She is wowed by the grandeur of the house and the opulent way of life funded by the family’s booming soft drink business. The narrator is very perceptive although she is only a year older than the cosseted Mina. She notices that her aunt does not share the same bed as her handsome foreign husband, that the elder son does not write to his own father, and that Mina has a huge crush on the delivery boy who comes by every Wednesday and helps her build her matchbox collection. She tries to help them all in her own way. The family also keeps a pygmy hippo as a pet (think Moo Deng) and the narrator often projects her own feelings and musings onto the animal.
This is the latest translated novel by this author. The original novel’s from 2006 and obviously not a recent work, so I am STRUGGLING to reconcile (if even possible) my love of her other novels and the section in the middle that completely soured my reading experience. The thing is, it’s historical fiction and set in 1972 during a very specific time in history, and I am also cognisant of how a text unavoidably changes during translation. Is the author herself expressing implicit support towards Zionists and deliberately portraying Palestinian resistors as antagonists? Or is she neutrally showing that people in Japan (like Jewish immigrants or Eurasian descendants) during that period in history saw it that way? Is the narrator herself, a 13-year-old Japanese girl (with a very limited worldview and tendency to romanticise Germany) passing any kind of judgment, and even if she is, is it shown to be problematic and skewed because of her inexperience? I hesitate to draw conclusions because a translation, no matter how faithful, can never fully represent authorial intention IMO.
The story is quiet and very focused on the day-to-day of one well-to-do family living in Ashiya, especially on the sickly お嬢様, Mina. The narrator is a maternal cousin who’s visiting for a year. She is wowed by the grandeur of the house and the opulent way of life funded by the family’s booming soft drink business. The narrator is very perceptive although she is only a year older than the cosseted Mina. She notices that her aunt does not share the same bed as her handsome foreign husband, that the elder son does not write to his own father, and that Mina has a huge crush on the delivery boy who comes by every Wednesday and helps her build her matchbox collection. She tries to help them all in her own way. The family also keeps a pygmy hippo as a pet (think Moo Deng) and the narrator often projects her own feelings and musings onto the animal.
September 1, 2024
I’m afraid I don’t have anything good to say about the book. It was probably the most “YA” book I’ve read in years, and I’ve read many “Kids’” books that were more exciting. Considering how much I loved The Housekeeper and the Professor, I found it hard to believe it was written by the same author! Of course, no one should be surprised that—being the animal lover I am—Pochiko, the pygmy hippo, was the best part of the book for me.🦛🩵🐾
I regret feeling this way, but I have to be honest.😟 I found the book quite boring, and the girls cloyingly immature. I was anxious for it to end as I could tell early on that the story wouldn’t amount to much. I’m usually fairly sure I’m going to love a book even before I buy it, and I felt that way about Mina’s Matchbox. But, boy, was I wrong!🤦♀️
2 “You-can’t-love-them-all” stars ⭐⭐
I regret feeling this way, but I have to be honest.😟 I found the book quite boring, and the girls cloyingly immature. I was anxious for it to end as I could tell early on that the story wouldn’t amount to much. I’m usually fairly sure I’m going to love a book even before I buy it, and I felt that way about Mina’s Matchbox. But, boy, was I wrong!🤦♀️
2 “You-can’t-love-them-all” stars ⭐⭐
October 24, 2025
This story turned out quite differently from what I had expected when I first picked it out at the bookstore. I've previously read and thoroughly enjoyed, The Housekeeper and the Professor from Yoko Ogawa, so I had somehow conjured up in my head that this one would likely be an equally enthralling tale.
I enjoyed Ogawa's smooth, delicate prose in Mina's Matchbox, which made the story flow quite easily. The storytelling slowly reeled me in and succeeded fairly quickly in arousing my curiosity. In a blink of an eye I found myself a hundred pages in, pondering about what would come next. Most of all what propelled me forward was where the story was going. It felt somehow like Ogawa was building up towards some dramatic denouement with all the subtle details and slight twists and turns of the plot.
Yet, the further I got into the story, the more it seemed to meander aimlessly towards an almost forgetable anticlimactic ending. Somehow this one did not resonate with me. Hence I'm only able to give a modest 3 star rating. Perhaps a reread in the future may be worth considering...
I enjoyed Ogawa's smooth, delicate prose in Mina's Matchbox, which made the story flow quite easily. The storytelling slowly reeled me in and succeeded fairly quickly in arousing my curiosity. In a blink of an eye I found myself a hundred pages in, pondering about what would come next. Most of all what propelled me forward was where the story was going. It felt somehow like Ogawa was building up towards some dramatic denouement with all the subtle details and slight twists and turns of the plot.
Yet, the further I got into the story, the more it seemed to meander aimlessly towards an almost forgetable anticlimactic ending. Somehow this one did not resonate with me. Hence I'm only able to give a modest 3 star rating. Perhaps a reread in the future may be worth considering...
March 16, 2024
Mina's Matchbox is literary fiction at it's finest. The story is about one year in the life of a young girl, Tomoko, who is sent to live with her wealthy Aunt and Uncle. While this is not an action packed, quick paced story, it is full of discovery and bittersweet moments meant to be savoured slowly, a bit at a time.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
November 30, 2024
I thought the book was okay until about halfway through, when suddenly there's a chapter spouting pro-Israel nonsense — referring to Palestinians only as terrorists and justifying Israel's colonization of Palestine because of the Holocaust. It felt out of place and completely soured my experience with the book. Very disappointed and I'll be sure to avoid this author.
September 3, 2025
Mina's Matchbox - Yōko Ogawa
النبذة الخادعة لهذه الرواية كانت ما اوقعني بفخ قراءتها..
نبذة مثيرة للاهتمام؛ طفلة ترسل في بداية السبعينات لمنزل خالتها وتقيم هناك لعام مع عائلة خالتها الغنية وزوجها الأجنبي والجدة الغريبة وابنة خالتها المريضة وفرس نهر قزم يقيم بحديقة المنزل ..
علاقتي معقدة مع يوكو أوغاوا؛ لم تعجبني النوفيلا الوحيدة التي قرأتها لها من قبل.. لم أتجاوز الفصول الأولى لروايتها الأخرى "شرطة الذاكرة"، وهذا العمل كانت قراءته تعذيبًا محضًا.
لدي عمل قصير جدًا لها لا أدري إن كنت سأقرؤه يومًا أم سأفقد الأمل بالقراءة لها مرة أخرى.
النبذة الخادعة لهذه الرواية كانت ما اوقعني بفخ قراءتها..
نبذة مثيرة للاهتمام؛ طفلة ترسل في بداية السبعينات لمنزل خالتها وتقيم هناك لعام مع عائلة خالتها الغنية وزوجها الأجنبي والجدة الغريبة وابنة خالتها المريضة وفرس نهر قزم يقيم بحديقة المنزل ..
علاقتي معقدة مع يوكو أوغاوا؛ لم تعجبني النوفيلا الوحيدة التي قرأتها لها من قبل.. لم أتجاوز الفصول الأولى لروايتها الأخرى "شرطة الذاكرة"، وهذا العمل كانت قراءته تعذيبًا محضًا.
لدي عمل قصير جدًا لها لا أدري إن كنت سأقرؤه يومًا أم سأفقد الأمل بالقراءة لها مرة أخرى.
February 19, 2025
reading English translations of books from Japanese authors, trying to stay away from Zionist apologists but little did I know.
June 23, 2025
This was a bittersweet book about a young girl being forced to grow up though it's not quite her time yet. It's not the same as when I was a kid and had a ton of adult responsibilities. Instead, it's about a girl who needs to mature emotionally pretty quickly if she is to find healing within her family.
A few things that struck out at me - none of which have answers:
The grandmother is a German immigrant with a Japanese family. I have to wonder if she found her way over to Japan during WWII (we know she was alive during WWII).
What happens to the matchbox delivery boy? Is he also a figment of Mina's imagination?
How exactly does Tomoko's father die, and why did her mother send her to live with these specific relatives, given who her uncle ends up might being?
Quintessentially Japanese - the fleetingness of time and the effort to hold onto it nonetheless, the meaningful meaninglessness of things, fragility of life and the push-pull of holding on and letting go, the silent shroud around everything that needs to be understood without being voiced - for the sake of family harmony, etc.
This book has charm, but it's slow paced. If you are looking for something with more action, this is the wrong place to stop. If you want to know more about Japan, this is a nice place to hang out for a bit.
Rounding up to five.
A few things that struck out at me - none of which have answers:
The grandmother is a German immigrant with a Japanese family. I have to wonder if she found her way over to Japan during WWII (we know she was alive during WWII).
What happens to the matchbox delivery boy? Is he also a figment of Mina's imagination?
How exactly does Tomoko's father die, and why did her mother send her to live with these specific relatives, given who her uncle ends up might being?
Quintessentially Japanese - the fleetingness of time and the effort to hold onto it nonetheless, the meaningful meaninglessness of things, fragility of life and the push-pull of holding on and letting go, the silent shroud around everything that needs to be understood without being voiced - for the sake of family harmony, etc.
This book has charm, but it's slow paced. If you are looking for something with more action, this is the wrong place to stop. If you want to know more about Japan, this is a nice place to hang out for a bit.
Rounding up to five.
March 2, 2024
Het lezen van de herinneringen van Tomoko doet me denken aan het kijken naar een zonsondergang boven zee.
De verstilde schoonheid van het gebeuren, zonder toeters en bellen noch strijkorkest, de kleuren nooit schreeuwerig, het tempo gezapig.
Niet zichtbaar maar aanwezig de verraderlijke stromingen onder de golven.
4,5*
De verstilde schoonheid van het gebeuren, zonder toeters en bellen noch strijkorkest, de kleuren nooit schreeuwerig, het tempo gezapig.
Niet zichtbaar maar aanwezig de verraderlijke stromingen onder de golven.
4,5*
August 19, 2024
I really enjoyed this book and it was really wholesome. It was about a girl who stays with her uncle, cousins and grandmother for a year in their huge house and becomes really good friends with her cousin Mina who collects matchboxes. Mina also rides to school on their pet hippo and reads really interesting books from the library, so she broadens the narrators mind and the two cousins bond over their shared love of volleyball and learning.
I’ve not read much Ogawa but I feel like she is always writing really different and unique every time she publishes something new. I love her writing style though and I find her work so pleasant and easy to read.
One thing I was a bit confused at was the random almost Israel sympathising in the middle? It was totally strange? The grandmother just starts talking about how the Jewish people ‘created’ Israel and it was a bit like ummm? I just wasn’t sure why it was in there and haven’t seen anyone else mention it.
I’ve not read much Ogawa but I feel like she is always writing really different and unique every time she publishes something new. I love her writing style though and I find her work so pleasant and easy to read.
One thing I was a bit confused at was the random almost Israel sympathising in the middle? It was totally strange? The grandmother just starts talking about how the Jewish people ‘created’ Israel and it was a bit like ummm? I just wasn’t sure why it was in there and haven’t seen anyone else mention it.
January 16, 2025
My book club picked this for our February meeting. I abandoned it after 60 pages because I wasn't interested. Then I picked it back up and thought, okay, not bad. And I proceeded to stay with it by telling myself, "Just one more chapter," until I'd gotten to the midway mark and then finishing it to complete my club's assignment seemed the right thing to do.
I found the writing to be monotone. Very little variation between the voice of the narrator/author (who is writing from an adult perspective 30 years after the events she tells in narrative) and the voices in dialogue, no matter if a child was speaking. Full sentences for the most part. I understand this book is the very specific genre of a reflection, or in theater terms, a "memory play." But for that to intrigue me, I need more: a break from the narrator's voice where the characters come to life in their own voices; or an energy or tension that underlies the words. In this book, even when there are small breaks for characters' voices, and despite the plot and everyone being carefully endowed with specific "quirky" characteristics, it all felt analytical and muted by the narrator's voice, and I felt no subtle vibration, so it became dull. Perhaps this is a problem with the translation. Maybe in Japanese, it's full of unspoken dramatic tension.
The book was well written, but I didn't connect with it enough to be excited to turn the pages.
***
As I said, the problem I had might be in the English translation and there might be plenty of energy coursing through the Japanese version of this book. I wrote this article in the winter edition of Oh Reader magazine that applies to my experience.
I found the writing to be monotone. Very little variation between the voice of the narrator/author (who is writing from an adult perspective 30 years after the events she tells in narrative) and the voices in dialogue, no matter if a child was speaking. Full sentences for the most part. I understand this book is the very specific genre of a reflection, or in theater terms, a "memory play." But for that to intrigue me, I need more: a break from the narrator's voice where the characters come to life in their own voices; or an energy or tension that underlies the words. In this book, even when there are small breaks for characters' voices, and despite the plot and everyone being carefully endowed with specific "quirky" characteristics, it all felt analytical and muted by the narrator's voice, and I felt no subtle vibration, so it became dull. Perhaps this is a problem with the translation. Maybe in Japanese, it's full of unspoken dramatic tension.
The book was well written, but I didn't connect with it enough to be excited to turn the pages.
***
As I said, the problem I had might be in the English translation and there might be plenty of energy coursing through the Japanese version of this book. I wrote this article in the winter edition of Oh Reader magazine that applies to my experience.
August 31, 2024
Yoko Ogawa is a sorcerer, not only magically transporting her readers to different worlds but also conjuring different levels of reality. That’s a tricky feat to pull off, and her mastery never ceases to amaze me.
Case in point: in The Housekeeper and the Professor, she weaves a tale of a professor whose short-term memory only lasts 80 minutes, although his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. Each morning, he and his housekeeper are introduced to each other anew. In her dystopian Memory Police, ordinary objects begin to disappear, both physically and through collective consciousness – hats, ribbons, birds, roses – and overnight wipe them from collective consciousness. In Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, sinister tales are chained together in unexpected ways.
This may be saying that I expect the unusual from Yoko Ogawa and her flights of imagination. Mina’s Matchbook is a different sort of book. It’s far more introspective, guileless, and evocative. Although this author’s trademarks – the suspense, the presentation of the unusual (a pygmy hippopotamus?), the eye for detail – it seems like a departure from her previous works.
Which is not to say it isn’t enjoyable. It’s more of a coming-of-age book, centering on a 12-year-old girl named Tomoko, who goes to live with her mother’s sister and family: her elegant half-German uncle who heads a soft-drink conglomerate, her absent male cousin who is off at university, and Mina, a slightly younger, asthmatic cousin who cherishes her hidden collection of matchboxes.
The year is 1972 and it’s a time of life when everything is happening and yet nothing is happening.
The family is secretive but well-meaning. The environment? Close to idyllic for a young girl. Yet there are hints that the world itself isn’t entirely as innocent (the premature death of a cherished Japanese volleyball champ and the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics). The author suggests that life is filled with stories, some poignant, some unsettling, and several that are fictional (Tomoko’s excursions to the local library to forage for library books for Mina and her crush on the librarian is a vital sub-story).
For those who love quiet and whimsical books that capture a transformative slice of time and touch your heart, Mina’s Matchbox checks all the boxes. Yoko Ogawa’s long-time translator, Stephen B. Snyder, does another superb job. I am grateful to Pantheon Books for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
Case in point: in The Housekeeper and the Professor, she weaves a tale of a professor whose short-term memory only lasts 80 minutes, although his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. Each morning, he and his housekeeper are introduced to each other anew. In her dystopian Memory Police, ordinary objects begin to disappear, both physically and through collective consciousness – hats, ribbons, birds, roses – and overnight wipe them from collective consciousness. In Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales, sinister tales are chained together in unexpected ways.
This may be saying that I expect the unusual from Yoko Ogawa and her flights of imagination. Mina’s Matchbook is a different sort of book. It’s far more introspective, guileless, and evocative. Although this author’s trademarks – the suspense, the presentation of the unusual (a pygmy hippopotamus?), the eye for detail – it seems like a departure from her previous works.
Which is not to say it isn’t enjoyable. It’s more of a coming-of-age book, centering on a 12-year-old girl named Tomoko, who goes to live with her mother’s sister and family: her elegant half-German uncle who heads a soft-drink conglomerate, her absent male cousin who is off at university, and Mina, a slightly younger, asthmatic cousin who cherishes her hidden collection of matchboxes.
The year is 1972 and it’s a time of life when everything is happening and yet nothing is happening.
The family is secretive but well-meaning. The environment? Close to idyllic for a young girl. Yet there are hints that the world itself isn’t entirely as innocent (the premature death of a cherished Japanese volleyball champ and the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics). The author suggests that life is filled with stories, some poignant, some unsettling, and several that are fictional (Tomoko’s excursions to the local library to forage for library books for Mina and her crush on the librarian is a vital sub-story).
For those who love quiet and whimsical books that capture a transformative slice of time and touch your heart, Mina’s Matchbox checks all the boxes. Yoko Ogawa’s long-time translator, Stephen B. Snyder, does another superb job. I am grateful to Pantheon Books for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
February 11, 2025
I wanted to read something lighter so I started Mina's Matchbox. The first half of the book can only be described as "nice." There's no plot, no major conflict, and hardly anything worth feeling anything about. I assumed I'd finish this book, give it a 3/5 and move on with my life. That was until 2/3rds of the way through when Ogawa does something I thought was disgusting on many levels.
On its own, having characters voice the incorrect opinion on a human rights issue isn't inherently wrong. Elderly misinformed people watching the news are more than likely to have the wrong opinions about stuff. In 1972 (and in 2024 as we saw with the US election), propaganda was the news and the news was propaganda. Israel had a tight grip on their image, and with an unyielding support from the US, I'm sure many people unfortunately adopted Zionist beliefs. However, there is not a scrap of evidence in this book that suggests Mina's family is not to be trusted or that they're not educated.
In short, the book takes place in 1972, the year the Japanese men's volleyball team won an Olympic gold medal, and the year a Palestinian resistance group captured Israeli athletes and held them hostage (eventually killing some), demanding that 200 of their Palestinian comrades be released from an Israeli prison. This is not an casual inclusion. And the verbiage used in the book isn't without meaning (repeatedly calling Palestinians terrorists). The comparison to these Israeli hostages and Jews in concentration camps is gross, and the very specific choice to write this story in 1972 so that the kids would see this event after randomly becoming infatuated with Olympic volleyball is not incidental. Although written in 2006 when the world had less direct access to the history and current events in Palestine, the English translation of this was release in 2024. A coincidence? Fuck no.
It's so easy to throw up your inflammatory opinion based on little knowledge and have readers walk away from it thinking, "I don't know anything about this thing, but seems pretty messed up to me based on that I just read." To strip a group of people from their history and oppression so that we can label them terrorists is part of the reason they're currently victims of an ongoing genocide. Palestinians have been victims of apartheid for far, far too long for authors to be getting on their high horse and erasing that history.
On its own, having characters voice the incorrect opinion on a human rights issue isn't inherently wrong. Elderly misinformed people watching the news are more than likely to have the wrong opinions about stuff. In 1972 (and in 2024 as we saw with the US election), propaganda was the news and the news was propaganda. Israel had a tight grip on their image, and with an unyielding support from the US, I'm sure many people unfortunately adopted Zionist beliefs. However, there is not a scrap of evidence in this book that suggests Mina's family is not to be trusted or that they're not educated.
In short, the book takes place in 1972, the year the Japanese men's volleyball team won an Olympic gold medal, and the year a Palestinian resistance group captured Israeli athletes and held them hostage (eventually killing some), demanding that 200 of their Palestinian comrades be released from an Israeli prison. This is not an casual inclusion. And the verbiage used in the book isn't without meaning (repeatedly calling Palestinians terrorists). The comparison to these Israeli hostages and Jews in concentration camps is gross, and the very specific choice to write this story in 1972 so that the kids would see this event after randomly becoming infatuated with Olympic volleyball is not incidental. Although written in 2006 when the world had less direct access to the history and current events in Palestine, the English translation of this was release in 2024. A coincidence? Fuck no.
It's so easy to throw up your inflammatory opinion based on little knowledge and have readers walk away from it thinking, "I don't know anything about this thing, but seems pretty messed up to me based on that I just read." To strip a group of people from their history and oppression so that we can label them terrorists is part of the reason they're currently victims of an ongoing genocide. Palestinians have been victims of apartheid for far, far too long for authors to be getting on their high horse and erasing that history.
August 12, 2024
Yoko Ogawa is an author who can make the simple sublime through the magic of her language. Her other works The Housekeeper and The Professor and The Memory Police were exquisitely crafted stories that struck a deep chord with me. This ability to bring a certain lyrical, enchanting beauty to the everyday continues in Mina's Matchbox.
Translated by Stephen Snyder into English from the original Japanese, Mina's Matchbox is part coming of age narrative, part chronicle of a time, place, family and part reflection on the little things that stay with us forever no matter where life takes us. We follow a young girl Tomoko as she goes to stay at her mother's sister's house for just over a year after the death of her father because her mother is working in Tokyo and cannot afford a place for both of them right away. Mina is Tomoko's aunt's daughter and they form a bond of friendship and understanding as they spend time together and grow up in the same household for a while. Tomoko also bonds with all the other members of the household including a delightful non-human (slightly unconventional) Pochiko.
Much like in Ogawa's The Housekeeper and The Professor, it is not so much what happens as to how it is conveyed. The days go by, we get a sense of how the different members of the household interact and go about their lives. We spend time with Mina, Tomoko and Pochiko and see Mina give flight to her imagination through stories which she constructs taking inspiration from the images on matchboxes she collects. It is almost a motif for how through observation, the ordinary can metamorphose into something special and leave a lasting impression in our hearts for Tomoko always cherishes the time spent at her aunt's house.
A gentle, beautiful, often humorous novel and as is often the case with Ogawa's works, tinged with a slight sadness. I was transported to the world that Ogawa describes and completely immersed throughout the novel. When it ended, I was left with a wistful sense of something beautiful coming to a close. At the same time, Ogawa's writing (translated so beautifully by Snyder) brought me peace.
Mina's Matchbox is a quietly wondrous book. I recommend this to any reader interested in a slice of life narrative or a story with immense heart.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage for the eARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Translated by Stephen Snyder into English from the original Japanese, Mina's Matchbox is part coming of age narrative, part chronicle of a time, place, family and part reflection on the little things that stay with us forever no matter where life takes us. We follow a young girl Tomoko as she goes to stay at her mother's sister's house for just over a year after the death of her father because her mother is working in Tokyo and cannot afford a place for both of them right away. Mina is Tomoko's aunt's daughter and they form a bond of friendship and understanding as they spend time together and grow up in the same household for a while. Tomoko also bonds with all the other members of the household including a delightful non-human (slightly unconventional) Pochiko.
Much like in Ogawa's The Housekeeper and The Professor, it is not so much what happens as to how it is conveyed. The days go by, we get a sense of how the different members of the household interact and go about their lives. We spend time with Mina, Tomoko and Pochiko and see Mina give flight to her imagination through stories which she constructs taking inspiration from the images on matchboxes she collects. It is almost a motif for how through observation, the ordinary can metamorphose into something special and leave a lasting impression in our hearts for Tomoko always cherishes the time spent at her aunt's house.
A gentle, beautiful, often humorous novel and as is often the case with Ogawa's works, tinged with a slight sadness. I was transported to the world that Ogawa describes and completely immersed throughout the novel. When it ended, I was left with a wistful sense of something beautiful coming to a close. At the same time, Ogawa's writing (translated so beautifully by Snyder) brought me peace.
Mina's Matchbox is a quietly wondrous book. I recommend this to any reader interested in a slice of life narrative or a story with immense heart.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers Knopf, Pantheon, and Vintage for the eARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
April 25, 2024
i am full to the brim with so much melancholic childhood whimsy rn you cannot even comprehend. rtc!!!
dnfs
August 8, 2024DNF at 30%
as with so many of the books i DNF, i was bored 🤷♀️ the writing was good and i generally liked the tone but at a certain point the story just lost my interest and reading the book started to feel like a chore. i dont need every book i read to have an intricate plot, but i DO need *a* plot, and i didnt feel like there was much of one here.
as with so many of the books i DNF, i was bored 🤷♀️ the writing was good and i generally liked the tone but at a certain point the story just lost my interest and reading the book started to feel like a chore. i dont need every book i read to have an intricate plot, but i DO need *a* plot, and i didnt feel like there was much of one here.
January 12, 2025
nature is healing
August 6, 2024
Review to come
Read
August 16, 2024Such a lovely little book. A great palate cleanser, get happy book. Also I would fight an actual dragon with my fists for Pochiko.
September 22, 2024
Yoko Ogawa 2003 m. romanas. Parašytas jau po man laaabai patikusių "Atminties policijos" ir "Begalinės lygties". Net neabejojau, jog patiks. Ir dar toks fainas viršelis - begemotu jojanti mergaitė. O va, nuvylė žiauriai.
Aš likau abejinga tos devynmetės mergaitės brendimo istorijai ir viskam, kas aplink ją. Man pasirodė labai blankiai parašyta. Buvo be galo nuobodu ir net šiek tiek erzino. Ir begemotui čia nebuvo kas veikt.
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Aš likau abejinga tos devynmetės mergaitės brendimo istorijai ir viskam, kas aplink ją. Man pasirodė labai blankiai parašyta. Buvo be galo nuobodu ir net šiek tiek erzino. Ir begemotui čia nebuvo kas veikt.
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November 5, 2024
The thing that annoys me the most about Yoko Ogawa, is that every time I read one of her books there’s so much in there that has potential for me and it never gets fulfilled. I really enjoy her style of writing and storytelling, and I think her ideas are quite quirky and engaging, but someone along the line the execution of those things just falls very flat.
It started off a bit weird and wonderful which had me intrigued, but that soon fizzled out and left us with nothing in terms of atmosphere. The whole book felt like it was being set up for something… but it never came. We just sort of stay at a very steady, minimally engaging story, with equally average characters. It just honestly didn't have much substance to it, and it took a more character focused approach yet had pretty dull and uninteresting characters championing it.
This was fine to read, but overall just bland. I don’t really have a lot to say about it, because I’m so indifferent to every aspect. It was just… fine, if a little pointless. The ending was the only bit that briefly had me sucked in and feeling some kind of way, it was quite a sad way to round the book off. I wasn’t entirely sure what the point of having our narrator start the book as an adult reflecting on her childhood, to have that story being told, and then finish off with a rushed little part when she’s an adult again. It didn’t add anything to me, and served only to confuse me. It felt like there was no period of reflection, or any sort of wisdom shared from this shift in time.
There was also a really weird throwaway couple of paragraphs in this book regarding Israeli hostages and Palestinian resistance (described as terrorists) that rubbed me up the wrong way and came across as a pretty zionist take. Take that with a pinch of salt because the book was written in 2006 and our main character is 13, but it was there and had some questionable undertones. It didn’t even really need to be included as it’s mentioned so briefly and then forgotten about again. I can’t tell whether the very small minded commentary was supposed to be an intentional reflection of how naive our main character was as a young person perceiving these events or what, but it didn’t feel right.
Overall fine, if a little lacklustre. This may have solidified that Ogawa isn’t really the author for me, and that’s ok.
It started off a bit weird and wonderful which had me intrigued, but that soon fizzled out and left us with nothing in terms of atmosphere. The whole book felt like it was being set up for something… but it never came. We just sort of stay at a very steady, minimally engaging story, with equally average characters. It just honestly didn't have much substance to it, and it took a more character focused approach yet had pretty dull and uninteresting characters championing it.
This was fine to read, but overall just bland. I don’t really have a lot to say about it, because I’m so indifferent to every aspect. It was just… fine, if a little pointless. The ending was the only bit that briefly had me sucked in and feeling some kind of way, it was quite a sad way to round the book off. I wasn’t entirely sure what the point of having our narrator start the book as an adult reflecting on her childhood, to have that story being told, and then finish off with a rushed little part when she’s an adult again. It didn’t add anything to me, and served only to confuse me. It felt like there was no period of reflection, or any sort of wisdom shared from this shift in time.
There was also a really weird throwaway couple of paragraphs in this book regarding Israeli hostages and Palestinian resistance (described as terrorists) that rubbed me up the wrong way and came across as a pretty zionist take. Take that with a pinch of salt because the book was written in 2006 and our main character is 13, but it was there and had some questionable undertones. It didn’t even really need to be included as it’s mentioned so briefly and then forgotten about again. I can’t tell whether the very small minded commentary was supposed to be an intentional reflection of how naive our main character was as a young person perceiving these events or what, but it didn’t feel right.
Overall fine, if a little lacklustre. This may have solidified that Ogawa isn’t really the author for me, and that’s ok.
July 24, 2023
Η Τομόκο, πηγαίνει να ζήσει για ένα περίπου χρόνο με την οικογένεια της θείας της, ώστε να μπορέσει η μητέρα της να μαθητεύσει για να γίνει μοδίστρα. Όλοι την αποδέχονται πολύ θερμά κι ιδιαιτέρως η Μίνα, η μικρότερη φιλάσθενη ξαδέρφη της. Η οικογένεια είναι εγκατεστημμένη σε μια έπαυλη με πολλά δωμάτια και κήπο ο οποίος φιλοξενεί την Ποτσίκο, μια ιπποπόταμο νάνο. Η Τομόκο περιγράφει την καθημερινότητά της οικογένειας, τη σχέση της με τη Μίνα, τις κουβέντες τους, τα ενδιαφέροντά τους.
Σε αυτό το διαφορετικό για εμένα βιβλίο της, η συγγραφέας, με γλυκό και τρυφερό τρόπο περιγράφει τη ζωή και τις ανησυχίες των δυο κοριτσιών, την αγάπη που έχουν για τα ζώα, τη φύση, και το πως η μία από τις δύο μυεί την άλλη στον κόσμο της λογοτεχνίας. Η ασθένεια της Μίνα, αντιμετωπίζεται με στωικότητα απ' όλους, χωρίς να στέκεται εμπόδιο.
Οι περιγραφές της Τομόκο είναι γλαφυρές και πραγματικά σε κάνουν να αισθάνεσαι σαν να βρίσκεσαι δίπλα τους.
Την αγαπώ την Ogawa και το απόλαυσα κι αυτό το βιβλίο της...
"Αν στ'αυτιά σας ακούτε ένα παράξενο θρόισμα, μην τα τρίβετε πάρα πολύ. Γιατί στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις, αυτό οφείλεται σε αγγέλους που μπαλώνουν τις φτερούγες τους πάνω στους λοβούς σας."
Σε αυτό το διαφορετικό για εμένα βιβλίο της, η συγγραφέας, με γλυκό και τρυφερό τρόπο περιγράφει τη ζωή και τις ανησυχίες των δυο κοριτσιών, την αγάπη που έχουν για τα ζώα, τη φύση, και το πως η μία από τις δύο μυεί την άλλη στον κόσμο της λογοτεχνίας. Η ασθένεια της Μίνα, αντιμετωπίζεται με στωικότητα απ' όλους, χωρίς να στέκεται εμπόδιο.
Οι περιγραφές της Τομόκο είναι γλαφυρές και πραγματικά σε κάνουν να αισθάνεσαι σαν να βρίσκεσαι δίπλα τους.
Την αγαπώ την Ogawa και το απόλαυσα κι αυτό το βιβλίο της...
"Αν στ'αυτιά σας ακούτε ένα παράξενο θρόισμα, μην τα τρίβετε πάρα πολύ. Γιατί στις περισσότερες περιπτώσεις, αυτό οφείλεται σε αγγέλους που μπαλώνουν τις φτερούγες τους πάνω στους λοβούς σας."
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