La Venere e io

by Emi Yagi

Horauchi Rika è una ragazza timida e impacciata che lavora in un magazzino di prodotti surgelati. Fin da bambina, nei momenti di imbarazzo o quando sente su di sé lo sguardo degli altri, percepisce la presenza di un impermeabile giallo: uno scudo invisibile agli altri, che la protegge ma, al tempo stesso, la soffoca e le provoca disagio. Quando un suo vecchio professore la ingaggia per fare compagnia a una statua di Venere custodita nelle sale di un museo cittadino, accetta di buon grado: il lunedì è il turno di riposo dal magazzino e questa insolita attività può distrarla dalla banale routine delle sue giornate, e dall'invadente padrona di casa, una donna anziana che non smette di assillarla con domande inutili. I lunedì, infatti, quando il museo è chiuso al pubblico, la statua di Venere è sola, e ha bisogno di qualcuno che la intrattenga nella sua lingua madre, il latino. Ed ecco che Rika, che Venere chiama amichevolmente Hora, inizia una strana relazione con la statua, fatta di silenzi, ma anche di complicità e di confessioni. Hora mostra a Venere il mondo reale, attraverso musica, libri e fotografie; Venere, seducente e bellissima, la ascolta. Solo quando sono una accanto all'altra, l'impermeabile giallo diventa inutile. Per quanto surreale, tra Hora e la statua nasce una forte tensione erotica, tanto che la ragazza inizia a provare gelosia nei confronti del direttore del museo che si prende cura dell'opera. Servendosi di una storia del tutto originale e simbolica, Emi Yagi offre al lettore una riflessione intelligente sulla condizione della donna oggi: il disagio di subire lo sguardo scrutinante degli altri, l'essere oggettivizzate e apprezzate unicamente per via della propria bellezza sono questioni che non riguardano solo la Venere, ma i corpi femminili in generale. Un romanzo divertente e onirico, dove la finzione diventa uno strumento di indagine profonda della realtà e metafora della società contemporanea.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Magical Realism, Fantasy, LGBT, Japanese Literature, Contemporary

Kindle Edition

First published March 16, 2023

About the author

Emi Yagi is an editor at a Japanese women’s magazine. She was born in 1988 and lives in Tokyo. Diary of a Void is her first novel; it won the Dazai Osamu Prize, awarded annually to the best debut work of fiction.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Emi Yagi was criticised for the less realistic elements of her debut novel Diary of a Void, she decided to revel in that aspect of storytelling, the result is a compelling novella which effortlessly blends the everyday with the fantastical. A celebration of non-conformity and freedom from society’s constraints, it’s a surreal, myth-like piece, a highly inventive variation on a queer love story. Yagi’s main character Rika Horauchi is an outsider, tentative, withdrawn, she hides inside an invisible yellow raincoat which both shields and forcibly separates her from the world around her. But an unlikely skill, the ability to speak conversational Latin, brings Horauchi aka Hora to a small private museum. There she’s paid to converse with an ancient, marble statue of Venus, a solitary Roman surrounded by a bevy of Greek goddesses. Venus too is alienated, designed to fulfil an ideal of stoical, passive female beauty, she longs to escape, even if that means an end to her existence. As Hora slowly falls for Venus, she finds herself vying with the museum’s curator Hashibami, a man whose obsessive desire for Venus manifests in sinister ways. For Hashibami love equals control and unfettered access.

Yagi was initially inspired to write this by numerous sightings of discarded, naked mannequins inside shops abandoned during the pandemic. Yagi wondered what might happen if they could speak, what they might say about their period of isolation. Her carefully-constructed narrative builds on these imaginings, playing on the sense of the uncanny stirred by objects that mimic the human form. Yagi’s claustrophobic yet richly intertextual novella invokes a variety of pieces featuring similar scenarios from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Hoffman’s “The Sandman” – Hashibami, with his disdain for living women, reads like a contemporary incarnation of Ovid’s Pygmalion with Venus a candidate for Galatea. But the disturbing interplay between Hashibami and Venus also connects to a strand within Japanese culture, a tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects – something that crops up throughout the novella - echoed in the many rituals involving dolls. For Hashibami Venus is essentially a kind of doll, a projection of his fantasies, a thing for him to pick up, and then discard at whim.

Hashibami's deeply unsettling behaviour closely resembles that of numerous male characters within a particular body of Japanese literature – sometimes referred to as ‘doll-love’ fiction’ - exemplified by stories produced by writers like Kawabata, Edogawa and Tanizaki. Yagi’s novella deftly critiques the misogynistic attitudes and patriarchal values this subgenre promotes. She could have based the relationship between Hora and Venus on the interactions between a child and her doll. But instead of making Hora the one who confides in Venus, Yagi has Venus take the lead. Venus encourages Hora to open herself up to new ways of thinking and communicating; their bond gradually moving towards equality. Yagi partly modelled their unorthodox romance on Patricia Highsmith’s Carol. She’s even encouraged readers to picture Venus superimposed with the face of Cate Blanchett as Carol in the film adaptation. Yagi’s experiment with the surreal could easily have misfired but I found it completely gripping and oddly convincing. It helped that it’s so well-written/fluidly translated, shot through with arresting, memorable imagery. Translated by Yuki Tejima.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Vintage for an ARC

[emma]

new dream job unlocked (having conversations with a talking statue)

[Ville Verkkapuro]

My second Emi Yagi, which I enjoyed as much as the first one, though I understood maybe even less. And, in a way, I understood it all. Just... you know, not the most straight-forward and clear storytelling, not a hero's journey, no logic yet still pretty clear. Dead languages and all, statues and such. Had a good time with this, but couldn't tell you anything else about it, not even at gunpoint.

[Tierney Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure I’m clever enough to fully decipher this interesting short novel. Perhaps I can comfort myself by saying that maybe … maybe no one can as that’s possibly the author’s intent. Maybe.

It’s also why my review might be as valid as anyone’s; I think that different readers will take away different things from this delightful tale of one girl’s challenges in living a modern life. The novel is pitched on the idea of Rika falling in love with a statue of Venus. That happens, but it’s only one strand of the tale, taking up about 30% or so. This metaphor for Rika’s difficulties in forming genuine relationships is extended across several facets that make up her daily existence, her goals, and her perceptions—particularly of herself.

Rika is shrouded within the bright yellow raincoat she can never take off. Rika pursues and masters a near-dead language, Latin (near dead in terms of current use outside of connections to history, art, and literature). Which itself informs us about her challenges of communication in life. Rika works in a freezer, layered in life-saving clothing.

Metaphor, metaphor, where art thou? Sprinkled within the liberal doses of magical realism, verging on being surreal. The prose is beautifully translated, lyrical and enchanting, and one of the reasons I enjoyed the novel.

If you’re expecting a pure romance told within a similar setup to the Night at the Museum movies, When the Museum Is Closed is not that. It’s different, and while it should be a challenging read, the ideas, the MC’s charm, and the wonderful prose elevate this short novel to something much more.

Thank you to the author and the translator, to the publisher, and to NetGalley for the opportunity to float through the beauty of this ARC.

[Jodie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you so much to bookramblerpr and vintage books, as well as Netgalley, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When The Museum is Closed is one of those books that left me finishing it and thinking, "What did I just read?"
It actually took me a while to gather my thoughts and decide whether I've liked this one or not, and honestly, I'm still not sure.

It’s a short and easy read, and while I didn’t always feel fully connected to the story, I didn't feel like I was forcing myself to read it.

The premise is rather... unusual. Rika, a museum worker, ends up forming a relationship with a statue of Venus, who only speaks Latin.

It sounds bizarre, and it is, but the book leans more into quiet surrealism than full-on absurdity. The plot also isn’t really the focus here, I'd say it’s more about vibes, internal shifts, and quiet introspection. A lot is left open to interpretation, and that can either feel thoughtful or frustrating depending on you.
I personally wasn’t quite sure what it was trying to say at times, but there are interesting themes around desire, loneliness, and how hard it is to move through the world when you feel small or invisible. I appreciated the exploration of those ideas, even if it didn’t all fully land for me.

Overall, I wouldn’t call it gripping, but I didn't dislike it either. It was a weird little story with some interesting ideas and some unexpected weight beneath its quirky surface. A solid three stars.

[Susa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ihanan inhimillinen pieni teos, joka muistuttaa, että kaikki me haluamme tulla nähdyksi mutta emme ihan millä tavalla tahansa.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ihana pieni kummajainen, absurdi fantasia, älykäs pienoisromaani Japanista. Nautin.

[Majda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was weird.

[Saara (bookandsnake & sivukujalla) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's once again just slightly weird Japanese magical realism things in a very small book and I can't explain it at all but it's amazing.

Alternative title: How To Be Perceived (The Right Way)

[Bill Muganda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the weird stuff I’m down for, I’m down to fall in love with a statue

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty weird book, but you have to stick with it to see some interesting commentary about insulating yourself against the world with language/speech and then the nature of love and ownership. Honestly, I would have enjoyed some point-of-view chapters from Venus as well, given her long and lonely existence. Overall, though, an interesting and off-beat idea and well executed.

[Sanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5/5

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the Museum is Closed is a short Japanese novel about an unusual relationship, as a woman gets a job talking to a statue. Rika works in a frozen food warehouse, but when she's offered an extra part time job using her Latin skills to talk to a statue of Venus in the language, she finds herself with new meaning in her life. As she falls in love with Venus, who is frustrated at being a statue trapped in a museum, she finds herself pitted against the museum curator who wants to keep Venus for himself.

This book is a surreal, magical realism story which explores loneliness and connection, not just between Rika and Venus, but also the other people who appear in Rika's life. As well as talking statues, there's also a yellow raincoat that Rika is always forced to wear but no one else can see, and this idea of hidden impediments is interesting in contrast to the obvious impediments for Venus, who isn't human and faces the limitations of a statue. I liked the quirkiness of Rika being able to speak great conversational Latin, though there were a few things she discussed with Venus that I wondered how they had Latin vocabulary for (but, suspension of disbelief is crucial with this book anyway). The book being in translation adds an additional layer to the languages and ideas of communication in the story, too.

Overall, I think it's a tender book that reminds me most of other novels about people falling in unusual love like Sky Daddy, but unlike some of those books, it is more of a vibe than a book with a lot of plot, and the romance element is only part of it.

[Nailya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some books are actively promoted or framed as 'queer literature', either when they are first published, or whenever their author and/or contents can be celebrated as a queer icon. Others do not get the same level of queer conceptualising, regardless of the actual content of the text. I doubt that When the Museum is Closed will be placed in the LGBTQ+ section of your local library, or promoted at an LGBTQ+ indie bookstore, even though Emi Yagi is being more open and willing to engage with queer issues than the more lauded and ostensibly radical Japanese authors like Mieko Kawakami or Sayaka Murata.

Do you remember the last 30% or so of Yagi's debut Diary of a Void? The part that felt a bit like a dream and didn't make much sense? Well, all of Museum is like that. The protagonist, a shy Japanese woman who works in a freezer warehouse, permanently wears a raincoat no one else can see and happens to be a fluent Latin speaker, is hired by a local museum to be a conversation partner and a companion to a 2000 year old Roman statue of Venus (yup, all states can talk in this reality). Of course, she falls in love with Venus, and even has some confusing but passionate sex with her right there in the museum.

For a book with such phantasmagorical premise and details, the actual ideas discussed and the overall message are, as Scar would put it, unspeakably plain. It is all about how women are limited and controlled, one is naked and ogled at, and the other hides from the world in her coat of shyness and modesty. Of course they will find their freedom in each other. We've kind of seen it all before.

It was quite short, well-paced and easy to read, and it would quench the thirst for 'weird Japanese fiction written by a woman' (tm) if that is your jam. And kudos to Yagi for writing a Sapphic love/lust story.

2.5 stars

[Natasha den Dekker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adding to my collection of people falling in love with unexpected objects.

In this instance it's a statue of Aphrodeite (Venus for the Romans obvs). Our FMC Rika somehow speaks conversational Latin that she's picked up from a year abroad in Finland and her tutor recommends her for a job at a museum where her job is to...talk to a statue. The concept is wildly simple and excellently executed.

As with all these books - the statue is the hook but actually it's Rika and her life outside of this that makes this such a good read. There's a visualisation in the book that Rika's been wearing a yellow raincoat with a hood since she was little and that causes her to not be able to talk to trip over and to get heat rashes and blisters. It's sad, really sad but also it's an amazingly surreal viz of how we psychologically close ourselves off from the world around us. We meet a boy in her apartment complex who comments that he can see all the things that adults are wearing (have psychologically constructed for themselevs) and it's brilliant?

If I'm honest I loved that Rika's relationship with Venus brings her out of her shell (she dyes her hair!) and we love some queer representation. BUT it is the mental state of Rika that I stayed for and understanding how to become a part of the world instead of observing it. The scenes in her freezer job reminded me of Fidipur in Tepper's Decline and Fall and bit scary to think that this is literally how our frozen food is chosen for us.

It doesn't get 5 stars because the translation is very American and I had to do a mental shift when I read 'bangs' and a few other bits.

Really enoyable read.

[Enya · Rating 4 out of 5]

so like, everyone wears an invisible piece of clothing that they can never take off and which can cause them pain and discomfort. just like how everyone has something that makes them different or something that makes things hard for them, but it's invisible to most others and no one talks about it, so no one realises that everyone else is also hiding something. The narrator feels more comfortable speaking Latin, a dead language that almost no one uses in conversation - her alienation from the world expresses itself both in her invisible yellow raincoat and in her use of Latin. She falls in love with a statue of Venus who she can talk to in Latin - queer people find each other and are sometimes able to communicate in a way that they cannot with straight people.

So many reviews seem to feel a confusion towards this book that I have not felt. I think it's pretty clear, but maybe too subtle if you have not continuously experienced a feeling of alienation yourself in your life?

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique premise, simple and sweet

[Sarah (sarahanneisreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Tom Hazelden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully poetic while still being accessible and without being pretentious.
Incredibly creative and captivating story.
Stunning.

[ash florence · Rating 5 out of 5]

“people can get through the day because they have something to wait for. it can be big or small; something that might not even come to pass. it’s the waiting that keeps them going. they wait to eat three times a day, wait for the weekend, wait for new classes, wait for their lovers to arrive, wait to graduate, wait to be transferred, find a new job, retire. they wait to sleep. and finally, they wait to die.”

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before reading this book I thought that it was going to be about a woman falling in love with a statue and it coming to life as a result, sort of like a sapphic Galatea with a Pinocchio storyline. I guessed wrong but I think I like the actual story better. On one hand, it's about living with mental illness, and on the other, about how men seek to control women under the guise of loving them.

Rika has spent her life wearing an invisible yellow raincoat that she cannot take off. It restricts her movements, gives her chronic skin problems, and makes her voice too small to be heard by others. It's both a hindrance and ever-present barrier, no prizes for guessing what it's a metaphor for. She is friendless and lives alone while working at a freezer facility where she can hide behind layers and silence. As an extension of her inability to communicate with those around her, she is very fluent in latin, a dead language. Ironically, it is this fluency that gets her a part-time job talking to a status of Venus on Monday evenings.

Venus and her fall in love but the museum curator is a creepy incel who is obsessed with preserving Venus' beauty and making sure that only he gets access to her. He abuses his professional position to repeatedly violate Venus with his gaze and touch. While the curator's goal is to ensure Venus remains a desirable object forever, Venus herself longs to live for herself. I found it sad how she would rather cease to exist than carry on being a prisoner to the pedestal men put her on. Even being put in a grocery bag is preferable, and Rika gets it. In a way, their love for each other saved them from their respective cages. I love that they got a happy ending and I love that their relationship is so unconventional and obviously an allegory for undefinable queerness that defies heteronormative structures.

[Kirjoihin kadonnut || Johanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mä en päässy yhtään sisälle tähän kirjaan. Tosi omituinen ja absurdi pieni kirja kerrassaan.

[LX · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Harvill / Vintage books for sending me a finished copy!

3 stars!

I didn't dislike this but it didn't grip me either I did appreciate how Rika and Venus would communicate and how people don't understand or seem to get it, sort of how they just seemed to flow with one another st ease because of their connection.

[Linnea · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love weird little books. tää oli idealtaan outo ja upee mut eteneminen ja teksti oli vähän liian töksähtelevää ja olin vähän liian kujalla. silti nautin tän outoudesta? lyhyt kirjanen joka käsitteli how to be perceived but in the right way.

[fuyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Différent de son autre roman mais je retrouve son style avec ici un côté fantastique. Un coup de coeur !

[Yasmin · Rating 3 out of 5]

would love to yap with an ancient Roman statue

[Resh (The Book Satchel)]

At the end of this book, I feel like I am not clever enough for the read. I kind of liked it but I am also questioning it. This is a magical realism story of a woman Rika, whose job is to converse with the statue of Venus kept in a museum. She has to converse in ancient Latin. Sometimes the prose got disjointed which made me distracted from the book, at other times I read in rapt attention. This could be a hit or miss and I am still figuring out how I feel about it.

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[Ross · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe like 2.5?? i enjoyed a lot more than diary of a void (that’s not hard) but also with quite an exciting premise i felt it was way top safe. a quick short read.

[Gabbie Pop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walked a wobbly lined between being too weird and not weird enough.
There are some true gems in the writing, and thematically this has a lot to say in a subtle manner about being separate for the world, ill equipped and best expressed in a language almost nobody else speaks, being objectified and misunderstood etc. In the most basic way, this is a book about connection (or lack thereof) to the world.
Unfortunately, the book did lose me by the end (although I don't know if it ever even fully got me).

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emi Yagin Venus ja minä toi mieleen Muratan kirjan Lähikaupan nainen. Molemmat avaavat vahvasti neuroepätyypillisen japanilaisnaisen elämää työssä ja vapaa-ajalla. Molempien kirjojen päähenkilö maskaa hyvin voimakkaasti. Lähikaupan nainen matkii ja opettelee ulkoa sosiaalisia sääntöjä, kun taas Yagin päähenkilön Rikan maski on muille näkymätön mutta Rikalle hyvin todellinen suojapuku/pakkopaita, tarkalleen ottaen paksu ja hiostava sadetakki, jonka helmoihin hän kompastelee ja jonka huppu tukahduttaa kuiskaukseksi Rikan vähäisetkin vuorosanat. Ainoa hyvä puoli tässä muille näkymättömässä kumipuvussa on se, että se suojaa häntä kaikenlaiselta läheisyydeltä. Edes sadepisarat eivät tavoita Rikaa suojan alla..

Kirjan alussa Rika aloittaa työn pienessä museossa. Hänen ainoa tehtävänsä on jutella latinaksi museon kauniille Venus-patsaalle, joka kaipaa kipeästi juttuseuraa. Maagista realismia siis. Rikalla on myös toinen työ kylmävarastolla, sekä halpa asunto vanhan puolikuuron naisen nurkissa. Rikan ongelmien taustoja raotetaan vain hiukan, mutta olennaisempaa on jännittää, mahtaako naapurin pikkupoika tai kaunis Venus saada tuskallisen ujon Rikan avautumaan ja sadetakin katoamaan. Tässä mielessä kirja toi etäisesti mieleen Tove Janssonin Näkymättömän tytön, ja kirjassa viitataankin ohimennen Suomeen ja Muumimuseoon.

Vaikka kirja oli vain 105 sivua pitkä, se oli mielestäni parhaimmillaan hitaasti luettuna. Itse sain tähän tuhrattua kolme päivää, mikä oli juuri sopivasti pohdittavaa per päivä.