Съпругата на доктор Ханаока

by Sawako Ariyoshi, Ружица Угринова (Translator)

Историята на едно японско семейство от миналия век е разказана на един дъх чрез привидно обикновената съдба на Кае — чувствителна, но по японски жертвоготовна жена, съпруга на известен лекар, който първи в света успешно прилага приготвена от него упойка и извършва сложна хирургическа операция.
Традиционните отношения в японското семейство, сблъсъците на характери и на стремежи избледняват пред голямата цел, която обединява семейството — успеха.
Но колко е висока тази цена, измерена в непостигнати мечти, самоотречение и самота?

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Japanese Literature, Asia, Classics, Novels

135 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Born in Wakayama City and a graduate of Tokyo Women's Christian College, Sawako Ariyoshi spent part of her childhood in Java. A prolific novelist, she dramatises significant issues in her fiction such as the suffering of the elderly, the effects of pollution on the environment, and the effects of social and political change on Japanese domestic life and values, especially on the lives of women. Her novel The Twilight Years depicts the life of a working woman who is caring for her elderly, dying father-in-law. Among Ariyoshi's other novels is The River Ki, an insightful portrait of the lives of three rural women: a mother, daughter, and granddaughter. Her novel The Doctor's Wife, a historical novel dramatising the roles of nineteenth-century Japanese women as it chronicles the experience of a pioneer doctor with breast cancer surgery, has identified her as one of the finest postwar Japanese women writers. The Doctor's Wife (1966) is considered as her best novel. Starting in 1949, Ariyoshi studied literature and theatre at the Tokyo Women's Christian College until she graduated in 1952. In 1959 she spent a year at the Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She then worked with a publishing company and also wrote for journals, joined a dance troupe, and wrote short stories and scripts for various media. She travelled extensively, getting material for her serialized novels of domestic life, mostly dealing with social issues. Recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1959, Ariyoshi had received some Japanese literary awards and was at the height of her career when she died quietly in her sleep.

See Wikipedia

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ariyoshi is not for me. She writes short novels and -- still -- I am unable to push past the halfway mark. There's no momentum, and the language is serviceable at best. Hence, reading this novel makes me feel as though I am rafting down a river where the water is low and there's no current. I'm deciding to get out now, walk to shore, drag my raft to the car and head elsewhere. Figuratively speaking.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Doctor's Wife" is a fictional account of the lives of a Japanese doctor, Hanaoka Seishu (1760-1835), and the women in his family who contributed to his success. Hanoaka Seishu is famous for performing the first known surgery under anesthesia in 1805 before ether or chloroform were used in Western medicine.

The story is told from the point of view of Kae who was asked by Otsugi, Seishu's mother, to be her son's wife. Kae had admired the beauty and poise of Otsugi for years, and was excited to be her daughter-in- law. She married Seishu in absentia while he was studying medicine in a distant city.

Kae became comfortable with Otsugi and Seishu's sisters while she waited for her groom. The women wove cloth which they sold to support Seishu's medical education. The income also allowed him to buy expensive medical instruments and medicines. Two of Seishu's sisters did not marry since there was not enough income for marriages when all their resources went to Seishu.

When Seishu returned home to take over his father's medical practice, Kae and Otsugi became enemies as they both wanted to be the most important woman in his life. The competition reached its peak when they both volunteered to be used in human experiments of a drug combination for anesthesia. The herbal mixture had been previously used only in animal experiments. Seishu became a famous surgeon and took in many students to learn his methods.

Otsugi, Kae, and Seishu were eventually buried all in a row with Seishu's large tombstone overshadowing the others. The final sentence of the book captures the role of the women who sacrificed for Seishu's success:

If you stand directly in front of Seishu's tomb, the two behind him, those of Kae and Otsugi, are completely obscured.

This excellent book tells the stories of the unrecognized women who contributed to a man's success. It's also an interesting look at a society where a woman leaves her own family, and is dominated by her mother-in-law in close quarters. I enjoyed this introduction to Sawako Ariyoshi's insightful writing.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edit 7/25/25: Hiding out here till ISBN 9784770009531 stops getting fucked over.

If this book ever became more popular on this site, I'd imagine the rating would tank and the reviews would be choked with mewling and puking about polemics and misandrists and god knows what other instances of fragile masculinity. This is not your Kawabata or your Tanizaki or even your Enchi, but a fictional take on a real historical instance that sacrifices subtlety in order to put forward its critique on its nonfictional origins. Domestic politics, the rights of the patient versus the power of the doctor, Eurocentrism wiping out records of other cultures getting to scientific discoveries first: the bone is yours to pick. The writing also doesn't have many metaphorical flights or long and self-indulgent trends of digressions, so you're hardly going to be distracted from the straightforward plot line of culturally indoctrinated internalized misogyny transforming a woman-loving-woman love story into a nuclear family fueled success story for the benevolently dividing-and-conquering patriarch. If that doesn't sound like necessary reading, run back to your Murakami: either one will do.

This is a story of a girl who married a man because she fell in love with his mother, a boy trained in the fine art of playing one female worshiper off the other for the sake of professional fulfillment, and a paragon of womanhood whose perfect embodiment of Japanese feminine ideals inevitably led to self-destruction. If all that sounds uncomfortable, that's probably cause, instead of all this acting as a backdrop to some male's character development in addition to some girlfriend-in-the-refrigerator action and aesthetically pleasing rape scenes, this is the story front and center. It certainly gets one thinking about history books and their treasure troves of famous names and famous deeds and famous discoveries, as it's not as if all those famous figures gave birth to themselves. The book's nowhere near the level of Medical Apartheid, but there's a similar effort to turn the spotlight away from the pristine medication and perfect scalpels and venerable white coats and towards the bleeding and broken bodies disproportionately sacrificed for a disproportionately ladled out remedy. There's also the twist of cultural norms interfering with gendered surgery, which, however initially interesting, is hardly novel when considering how much the centuries-long ban on dissecting female-presenting bodies in West Asia (hint: Europe has no geographical excuse for declaring itself a separate continent) still interferes with identification of incoming heart attacks. Will making an app for that prove that we have truly "progressed" since the early 19th century that shaped this work's setting? The world may never know.

I hardly made this sound appealing, did I. True, if your main goal in reading is for the sake of entertainment or reaffirming the artificial construct of your comfort zones, yes, you'll be sorely disappointed. However, it's not as if this (completely) lacks a happy ending, or (conscientiously) refuses to conform to a standard plot arc of build/climax/resolution, or spends (most if not) all its time harping on backstage stories and historical representation, so there's hope yet.

Don't you think men are incredible? It seems...that an intelligent person like my brother...would have noticed the friction between you and Mother...But throughout he shrewdly pretended he didn't see anything...which resulted in both you and Mother drinking the medicine...Well, isn't it so?...I think this sort of tension among females...is....to the advantage...of...every male. And I doubt that any man would volunteer to meditate in their struggles." She tried to clear her throat. "He would probably be considered weak if he did, and I suspect...he would perish like an over-fertilized mandarin tree."

Your eyes, your throat, your breast, your genitals, your child, your life. Something's gotta give.

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars

I first read Sawako Ariyoshi’s The River Ki (Kodansha 2004) in June last year, this is her second novel I read and found it inspiring due to her powerful narration and lively dialogs that focus on “the life of the first doctor in the world to perform surgery for breast cancer under a general anesthetic” (back cover). From her two novels, I noticed, they primarily don’t suggest romance, ideal or sentimentality; rather they present something social, practical, rural in which her characters struggled in remote Japan long time ago. For instance, this book has portrayed the life of Hanaoka Seishu who lived in Kishu province (in Wakayama prefecture nowadays) from 1760-1835 (p. v), in other words, in the middle 18th- early 19th century.

Some of the good points we get from reading this book acclaimed as her best novel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawako_...) is that, first, we know more on a rare custom of Japanese-style marriage then from this excerpt:

In the fall of 1782, the Imoses held a lavish farewell party for their daughter who was about to set off to get married. Afterwards, in accordance with local custom, Kae, wearing a white cotton veil and elegant bridal kimono, was carried to Hirayama in a palanquin, unaccompanied by her family.
Upon her arrival, the lovely bride walked alone into the house, whereupon she was warmly greeted by an eager and impatient Otsugi, who led her by the hand into the main room. There a special cushion awaited her. The ceremony which was about to begin would have to take place without the groom, who had gone to Kyoto more than half a year before. … (p. 29)

Second, while reading the ongoing story, I think, we simply can’t help admiring the author’s brilliant imagination and creativity that duly shape and produce this outstanding biographical novel for the world to see and read. Of course, there have long been innumerable Japanese titles in this genre but Ms Sawako Ariyoshi has done her best on this pioneering doctor in his field of advanced surgery.

Third, the key protagonist, Kae (the doctor’s wife), and another one, Otsugi (the doctor’s mother) have revealed their roles via their discourse and action till we might wonder who is more important. However, I think, they willingly share their devotion for the success of such anesthetic experiments, the first ever, on human beings by means of the dose prepared from certain Japanese herbal plants. For instance, the experiment on Otsugi as the first voluntary subject has suggested its effectiveness; later, the one on Kae as the second eager subject has confirmed its safe application.

However, with my respect to the two translators, when I came across this sentence, “It consisted of just two dishes, one of which was the festive red bean rice.” (p. 31) I wondered why ‘bean’. Then, I compared it with this one, “Tears filled her eyes as she washed the rice by the well, careful not to spill a single grain.” (p. 129) Therefore, I think the word used to signify a kind of rice should be ‘grain’ instead of ‘bean’. Thus, the first one should read, “…, one of which was the festive red grain rice.” [My misunderstanding kindly informed on October 11, 2015 by Kaion that it is 'red beans' (specifically adzuki beans), please visit her attached website below, message 6]

In short, this novel has been so well-written, fantastic that I long to read her Fukugo-osen (The Complex Contamination, 1975), Kokotsu no Hito (The Twilight Years, 1972) and Hishoku (Not Because of Color, 1964). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawako_...]

[Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

well, Interesting story about the efforts of 3 women, mother, wife and sister for the success of a young doctor, detailing the complexity of the relationships between characters. I found it interesting!

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Ariyoshi book starts with Kae as a young woman and follows her through the rest of her life, primarily focusing on her marriage to the noted surgeon Hanaoka Seishu. He was a real surgeon in the 18th-century who made his name for, amongst other things, being the first to perform surgery using a general anesthetic, and specifically for using the anesthetic for breast cancer surgery. This fictionalized account of their life together is fascinating not only from a medical standpoint but also from a cultural, which is why I'm quickly becoming a fan of Ariyoshi's books. I felt the culture driving her writing with The River Ki, and felt it equally here. Instead of the focus being on the relationships between three generations of women, the important relationship in this book was between Kae and her mother-in-law, a woman Kae had previously looked up to until she found in marriage that her mother-in-law had no intention of treating Kae like a member of their family.

Superstition also plays a part here, in that Seishu is reluctant to perform breast surgery as the Japanese belief that a woman can not survive without her breasts was prevalent in the 18th-century. He is a young physician with great hopes for the medical field, hoping to combine the things he learned from his own father with the Dutch way of performing surgery. He felt that between the two all bases in surgery would be covered, from knowledge to experience to faith.

Another Ariyoshi under my belt, and no intentions of ever finding one to disappoint.

[Vesela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Някъде из ФБ мернах, че някой я чете, заглавието ме заинтригува и я намерих от Читанка.
Книгата се разказва за първия лекар - Сейшу Ханаока, направил успешна операция на тумор на гърдата под пълна анестезия през 1805г. Много интересни неща научих - за опитите му да създаде упойваща отвара от цветове на татул, ��амакитка и други билки и експериментирането ѝ първо върху животни, после върху най-близките му хора...
Разказът е , разбира се, главно за неговата съпруга - за отношенията ѝ със свекървата, със зълвите, за цялостния бит на японското общество от края на 18-началото на 19 век.
Много харесвам подобни книги и затова давам с удоволствие 5*!

[Alex Pler · Rating 3 out of 5]

"La esposa del médico" sería un título más adecuado para esta novela sobre Kae, una mujer prometida desde muy joven a un prometedor estudiante de medicina. Ella lo sacrificará todo por el futuro de él. Tiene momentos intensos y perturbadores, pero en general me ha faltado el alma que sí tenía "Las damas de Kimoto" de la misma autora. Quizás al estar inspirada en personajes reales, Ariyoshi mantuvo cierto respeto o distancia.

[Smitha Murthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Japanese literature is probably dominated by its male writers. It was with some anticipation that I picked up this offbeat book. Sawako Ariyoshi’s spare and arresting tale, ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ was gripping and revealing. Based on the life of the first doctor in the world to perform surgery for breast cancer, it immediately plunged me into a world of 17th century Japan. And as I so love Japan, how can I not love this book? No one at your bookclub will talk about this book. And you won’t be able to show off in front of other friends. But this book deserves a place in our hearts.

[Dioni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mee's rating: 4.5/5

First published at: http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2018/02/...

My first book of the year is another book club read with the Japanese Lit GR group. Ariyoshi seems to be one of the favourites among the members and the group has read another of her book - The River Ki, which I missed, so this is my first Ariyoshi.

First published in 1966, The Doctor's Wife has quite an amazing premise. The story is based on the life of Hanaoka Seishu (1760-1835), a provincial doctor who invented anaesthetic, thus was able to perform major surgery, including, most amazingly, breast cancer. 'Seishu's first operation occurred in 1805. Nothing, however, was known of this doctor's achievement in the West. In England and the US the general anaesthetics were not used until the 1840s' (the Introduction).

The book however, focused on the two women in Seishu's life: his mother Otsugi and his wife Kae. 'Seishu's dreams, ambitions, experiments, and desire for success are the underlying catalysts that propel the two women in his life into constant conflict' (the Introduction). The story is mainly told from Kae's perspective, who came from an old samurai family, and therefore 'above' the doctor's family. Otsugi herself has come from a family that was also above Seishu's station. But doctors at that time were in an odd 'category'. They were not peasants nor nobles, and they're educated, so they seem to get concessions from the strict classed society.

The book is only 174 pages and covered about 70 years, so there are often 'jumps' between chapters in which you have to make educated guesses on how old everyone was after every 'jump'. This seems typical of Ariyoshi, as her other books are about the same length, covering a rather long period of years too. It wasn't a big problem for me, and in fact I liked how succinct it was.

I really enjoyed this book overall, apart from a couple of quibbles. The ending is amazing (especially the last sentence) and summarises the book and Ariyoshi's intent on writing this I think. I love how the author picked such an unusual semi-historical figures/story, that I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise. When I told a friend that I was reading a novel about a village doctor in 18th century Japan, her reply was a frown and "How did you come across that?", hah.

I intend to read The Twilight Years next, when I get a chance.

[Pascale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find this novel difficult to rate because although the writing leaves something to be desired, especially in the awkwardly preachy final chapter, the material is fascinating. This is the fictionalized story of a remarkable doctor from Wakayama prefecture, the same province where the author hails from. Because of Japan's isolationist policies, Hanaoka Seishu's achievements were virtually unknown outside his country in his lifetime, and by the Meiji era similar advances in anesthesia and surgery had been made in the rest of the world. Ariyoshi seems to have taken great pride in rescuing Seishu's reputation from obscurity, yet she makes it clear that she sees him as a very flawed human being who owed a lot to the womenfolk in his life. In fact Ariyoshi gives no clues as to what goes on in Seishu's mind. Apart from his dedication to his profession, we know little about him, except that his charisma drives both his mother and his wife to a frenzy of self-sacrifice on his behalf. The story starts when 8 year old Kae catches a glimpse of Hanaoka Otsugi, the beautiful wife of the local doctor Hanaoka Naomichi. Originally from a wealthy landowning family, Otsugi marries beneath her because Naomichi cured her of an intractable skin ailment and claimed her for a bride as the price of his success. Fascinated by the legends surrounding Otsugi, Kae goes on hunger strike when her father initially refuses to let her go to the Hanaoka household as the bride of Naomichi's eldest son Seishu, who has gone to Kyoto to learn medicine. Otsugi herself has picked Kae as excellent material for a doctor's wife without being aware of the girl's near obsession with herself. Apart from beauty and poise, Otsugi is endowed with brains, an iron will and a burning ambition for Seishu to become the most successful doctor of his generation. That ambition is shared by all of Seishu's siblings, who work themselves to the bone in order to contribute to his medical studies. One of the great scenes is when Seishu returns from Tokyo and displays the latest surgical tools in front of his adoring family. So impressed are they with Seishu's potential that even the sisters who know the money for their dowry has gone into these instruments cheer for him. To me one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the light it throws on the transformation of the status of doctors as the age of scientific medicine dawns, largely through the efforts of people like Seishu. Naomichi and Otsugi are aware that the medical profession is about to undergo dramatic changes, and all their children fall in line to support the son most likely to spearhead those changes. Is that Ariyoshi writing in hindsight, or were these people really so prescient and disciplined? Hard to tell. After Seishu comes home from Kyoto and his marriage to Kae is finally consummated, the loving relationship between Otsugi and Kae unravels as both women aspire to come first with the golden boy. Devastatingly for Kae, for well over a decade she doesn't produce a male offspring, which keeps her in a weak position vis-a-vis her mother-in-law. Nonetheless, Kae's conviction that Otsugi has started to hate her seems unwarranted, even to Kae's own mother, who is rather pleased with the way Kae is treated in the Hanaoka family, given what most daughters-in-law had to put up in those days in Japan. The love-hate relationship between Otsugi and Kae occupies so much of the narrative that I wondered what Ariyoshi really meant by it. The last word on this comes from Seishu's sister Koriku, who delivers the following insights on her death-bed: "Don't you think men are incredible? It seems that an intelligent person like my brother would have noticed the friction between you and Mother. But throughout he shrewdly pretended he didn't see anything, which resulted in both you and Mother drinking the medicine. Well, isn't it so? I think this sort of tension among females is to the advantage of every male. And I doubt that any man would volunteer to mediate in their struggles. He would probably be considered weak if he did, and I suspect he would perish like an over fertilized mandarin tree. (...) As long as there are men and women side by side on this earth, I wouldn't want to be reborn as a woman into such a world. The only luck I've had in my entire lifetime is that I didn't get married and didn't have to be somebody's daughter-in-law or mother-in-law." Explosive stuff in a country where women, even nowadays if you believe Sakaya Murata, are supposed to feel unfulfilled and ashamed of themselves if they fail to marry and produce a son. Koruki's bitter accusations are all the more surprising since up to this point she's behaved like a good soldier and wholeheartedly supported Seishu's efforts to produce a reliable anesthetic. In the end, though, she claims to have made a lesser sacrifice than her mother and Kae, since at least working for her brother spared her the need to marry. But it could be argued that Otsugi, at least, and maybe even Kae, acted as free agents in choosing to be Seishu's guinea-pigs for his new drug. Without them not only Seishu's career but the march of modern medicine would have been held back. The last image of the book, showing Seishu's huge tombstone obscuring the more modest ones of Otsugi and Kae, is a powerful reminder that scientific progress comes at a price, paid by lots of anonymous people whose complex motivations disappear with them. This book deals with lots of important issues and deserves a much higher place in the Japanese canon.

[Sara Solomando · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quizás por haber crecido en un pueblo con uno de los cementerios más bonitos del mundo o por haber visto algún que otro cuerpo sin vida, soy de esas personas que sienten atracción por los camposantos. Si visito una ciudad encuentro tiempo para perderme entre sus callejitas, curioseo las tumbas, leo las lápidas, me pregunto si fueron felices, si alguien les quiso, si supieron amar, amar bonito, si sostuvieron sus manos mientras morían, si sabían que se les apagaba la vida, y, cuando veo que las fechas entre nacimiento y muerte están muy próximas, fantaseo con qué fue lo que trajo a este lugar al difunto.
Esta afición mía por el silencio de los cementerios no ha sido jamás del gusto de mis amigos o amantes, pocos o ninguno entendió jamás esta atracción por las esculturas de la muerte. Sawako Ariyoshi habría sido mejor compañera. Visitó la tumba del primer médico en realizar una cirugía con anestesia general, Seishu Hanakoa, y tras la de este hombre, enorme, destacada, encontró otras dos más pequeñas, casi insignificantes, que pertenecían a dos mujeres. La madre y la esposa. Otsugi y Kae. Frente a sus lápidas fantaseó Ariyoshi y escribió una historia de mujeres enfrentadas, esposa y suegra en guerra por la atención de un hombre para el que eran casi invisibles, tan obsesionado estaba por encontrar la forma de que sus pacientes no se retorciesen de dolor durante sus cirugías. Las imaginó poniéndose en sus manos, como cobayas, para que sus experimentos con animales fuesen testados en personas. Las inventó rivalizando por un reconocimiento que sólo les llegaría a través del éxito de los varones de su estirpe. Una historia trágica que parece sostener la teoría de que las mujeres son las peores enemigas para las mujeres, y que, sin embargo, se deshace como papel mojado cuando entiendes los resortes culturales y tradicionales de la sociedad japonesa. Una sociedad que alimenta el conflicto entre las mujeres en su propio beneficio.

[Kinga (oazaksiazek) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Żona doktora Hanaoki" to bardzo dobra pozycja dla wielbicieli dawnej medycyny. Sporo w niej także informacji o roli kobiety w społeczeństwie japońskim. Poza tym historia zawiera ciekawie opisaną relację pomiędzy teściową a synową.

Ta pozycja idealnie nada się na akcje typu wieczór z krótką książką czy czytanie powieści poświęconym kobietom.

Muszę jednak przestrzec, że pojawiają się w niej opisy eksperymentów medycznych na zwierzętach domowych...

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose was clear and straightforward, similar to a journalistic account. Ariyoshi employs a third-person omniscient approach and to focus on the motivations of the Mother of the house and her Daughter-and-law, who vie with one another for the attentions of the eldest son (and, in the Daughter's case, her husband). Much of the tension in the book draws from the sustained misunderstanding between Mother and Daughter, both of whom take for granted the idea that one is trying to outdo the other.

The drama in this little novel is plausible, and the more I think about it, the more it rocks my own view of the marriage of individuals and the subsequent marriage of families. I live in the 21C (and, as of this writing, in NYC), and the idea of someone moving into the house of her spouse's parents is bizarre, while the thought of losing your voice after marriage is unacceptable. This book truly opened a window to another life in another time, and I was moved by what I witnessed.

[Chairein Ferras · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the competition for Hanaoka Seishu's attention and affection between Otsugi (the mother) and Kae (the wife). At first, they were like mother and daughter but as Seishu finishes medical school and comes back from Kyoto, the relationship between Otsugi and Kae starts to fall apart. Seishu discovered the tsusensan, an anesthetic. Before the anesthetic's widespread popularity and efficacy, Seishu had been experimenting on either Otsugi and Kae. It's so funny how Otsugi brags to Kae about being the stronger one just because she awakes at a lesser number of days than Kae. This makes Kae really angry and so she insists on submitting herself for experimentation on Seishu's next trial. They think dying for Seishu deserves the highest honor.

[Biblibio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Might write a longer review later, but for now: The Doctor's Wife is a great bit of Japanese historical fiction, focusing on the wife of real-life historical figure Hanaoka Seishū (credited as being the first doctor to conduct a surgery under general anesthesia) and her influence on his work. A good portion of the book is dedicated to the relationship between Kae and her mother in law. The book quietly shows what life was like for Japanese women in the late 18th century, without needless drama or noise. Sawako Ariyoshi has a trademark blunt writing style, simple and direct. Her books are short, not particularly lyrical, but pack a significant plotty punch, telling stories about Japanese women that you otherwise might not have heard. Definitely worth reading, if you get the chance.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting and rather horrifying to read what being a daughter-in-law in Japan in the late 1800s was like. The true part of the story has to do with a Japanese doctor in that time performing the first breast cancer surgery. The rest is a fictionalized view of the household.

[Abdullah Hussaini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sebuah novel yang hebat. Konflik, pilu dan pengorbanan menjadikan cerita benar2 meninggalkan kesan kepada pembaca.

[Istvan Zoltan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is an account of how Kae, Hanaoka Seishu's wife, and her mother in law played a role in developing the world's first effective anesthetic. Hanaoka Seishu used this anesthetic to perform removal of breast tumors and other difficult surgical procedures which were impossible before.
The book's focus is on the emotional experiences of the women in the Hanaoka family. It portrays how they lived through the time while Seishu experimented for long years on animals, and then eventually on Kae and Otsugi (Seishu's mother). Both women made huge sacrifices and were willing to take risks, as much from love for Seishu and interesting in advancing medicine, as for personal reasons of rivalry and seeking recognition.
The book is pleasant to read, Ariyoshi's style flows easily, she is good at capturing emotional states and moods in a few sentences. Kae's life is depicted in a series of sketch-like chapters which each give an idea of the age, the surroundings, society, and the life of the Hanaoka's and then focus on the personal. A very readable and likable book. Both interesting and relaxing to read, while it can at points stimulate reflection on the emotional life of people in one's surrounding.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Doctor's Wife" written by Sawako Ariyoshi is a work of historical fiction. I found it to be somewhat interesting. I did not know that Hanaoka Seishu was the "father" of general anesthesia (or at least some consider him to be the father of anesthesia...first surgery performed with tsūsensan in 1804). Being from an anesthesiology department I was always thought it was a Dr. Crawford Long from Georgia (Long used ether for the first time on March 30, 1842, to remove a tumor from the neck of a patient but did not publish his findings until 1849) or Dr. William Thomas Green Morton (in 1846 gave the first successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia during surgery). "The Doctor's Wife" relates the story....supposedly his wife and his mother both wanted to help him out by having him try his concoctions on them...because they were both vying for this affection. The experimentation apparently caused his wife to go blind. I do not know how much poetic license was taken in this work of historical fiction. The book was also about the status of women in a traditional Japanese household. For many it appeared to be grim. This book was first published in 1967 and I believe first translated into English in 1978.

[Nugzar Kotua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Сэйсю Ханаока - выдающийся японский врач, который впервые, на рубеже 19 века, применил общий наркоз. Это первый официально подтверждённый случай. «Жена лекаря Сэйсю Ханаока» писательницы Савако Ариёси - прекрасное «жизненное» произведение. Жена лекаря Каэ сыграла главную роль, использовав себя в качестве подопытной, потеряв зрение. 13 октября 1804 года под общей анестезией с использованием специально разработанного химического вещества была проведена операция по удалению рака молочной железы.
Роман пропитан женской болью, отношениями между молодой женой Каэ и ее свекровью, красавицей, которая ревностью к своему сыну разрушила отношения с молодой невестой.

[Powersamurai · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful book about two women's fight to gain the attention of one man: a mother-in-law and wife. The secondary story is about one doctor's search for an anaesthetic so he can perform operations, especially for breast cancer. Hanaoka Seishu successfully developed the anaesthetic before the West and used it for the first time to operate on breast cancer. This book does not read like a translation from the original Japanese. It is an easy read and it's simplicity draws you in from the beginning.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this in both English and Japanese. Its unbelievable, and truly one of those books that will shake your core. If I remember correctly parts of this are based on fact, but its mostly fiction. Still, what the wife and her mother-in-law endure for the love of one man and his mission to improve medical science is unfathomable. Great for those who want to understand more about the plight of women in Japanese society before the turn of the 20th century as well as family life.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting portrayal of the situation of a Japanese wife in a traditional pre-modern family, dominated by her mother-in-law. It's also interesting to see how developed Japanese medicine was during this period, around the beginning of the 19th century.

[Ian Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

While not my favorite of Ariyoshi's works, still worth a read.

Full Review:

https://ianjoshyateswriting.blogspot....

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 4 out of 5]

A masterful portrait of the daughter-in-law/mother-in-law relationship in Confucian society. Kae, a young woman wed to a doctor, is held hostage in a relentless competition with her mother-in-law Otsugi. Based on the true story of a Japanese doctor who became the first in the world to successfully perform surgery for breast cancer, while pioneering general anaesthesia decades before Western medicine, The Doctor's Wife is a compelling psychological novel.

At the center of the story is the rivalry between Kae and Otsugi. Being a white, Western woman myself, with a close and enjoyable relationship with my mother-in-law, I couldn't directly relate to Kae's situation. However, Ariyoshi drew her dual portrait so intimately that I felt I knew Kae, was her confidante, and could sympathize with her struggles. There are a lot of cultural codes here that I couldn't understand firsthand, but the introduction helped me out with that. My feelings about the introduction are mixed. On the one hand, it provided helpful context and allowed me to immerse myself in the story more quickly. On the other hand, it gave away the particular conflicts so explicitly that I was anticipating them long before the story arrived there.

Overall, I found The Doctor's Wife a satisfyingly character-driven novel, with many moments of literary merit. It's short, but "slow," in that very little action happens for much of the book, but I'm not put off by "slowness." Sawako Ariyoshi is evidently a highly respected novelist in Japan, and I hope to read more of her work in translation.

Content warnings: graphic description of surgery reprinted from a primary source; death from breast cancer; medical problems of all kinds; hatred between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

[natura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un excelente retrato instrospectivo de una forma de vivir y pensar que, por la distancia geográfica y cultural que nos separa de la sociedad japonesa, podría parecernos muy ajena y que termina por sonarnos muy familiar.
Porque la autora no solo narra el caso de una familia en particular. Aprovecha un punto de partida basado en hechos reales para reivindicar el papel de la mujer japonesa en sus múltiples aspectos, reflejando unas formas de pensar, y actuar, nada tópicos, un sistema de oficios, de relaciones sociales, políticas e intrafamiliares que nos sitúan en la época y en las mentes de los protagonistas de forma natural y comprensible.
Las luchas internas son impresionantes, y ahí sí que destaca el carácter oriental de la historia: todos los silencios, las miradas, los gestos más mínimos, tienen gran importancia, y el duelo feroz que enfrenta a las dos protagonistas, suegra y nuera, cobra una fuerza que será el motor de todo lo que las rodea.
Mientras el papel de los personajes masculinos funciona como catalizador de las acciones de las féminas, son estas las que tienen el verdadero protagonismo. Tanto Otsugi como Kae son caracteres fuertes y, a la vez, muy sensibles y sufridoras, lo mismo que Okatsu y Koriku, las hermanas de Sehisū, el hijo y marido de ambas.
Acertadisimo retrato de una sociedad japonesa de hace varios siglos que tenía tan encorsetadas las relaciones socio familiares que acababa provocando dramas destructores inmensos aunque silenciosos.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly short novel, set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and based on a true story of a doctor who pioneered (through horrifying experiments on dogs and cats and later on people) surgery under general anaesthetic, about a woman who marries into a family considerably below her own in status mostly because she is fascinated by the man's beautiful, elegant mother, but also because she sees marriage to this man as providing a way for her to be useful in the world in some way. She doesn't even meet her husband until three years have passed (the ceremony is a proxy one) because he's away in Kyoto studying medicine. When he comes back, the relationship between her and her mother-in-law turns sour, as they are in competition for his attention and for the vicarious sense of purpose they are both desperate for and which only he can give them; the competition and the animosity are quiet and almost entirely unvoiced, but no less potent for all that. He, of course, is oblivious to what's happening, absorbed utterly in his sense of his own medical mission and quite willing to let these two intelligent women erase themselves in service to him and his work.

[Astrid Carrillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de mis favoritos del año. Gran historia. La rivalidad entre suegra y nuera a un nivel enfermo, al mismo tiempo que el tercero en discordia desarrolla la primera anestesia y ellas son sus conejillos de indias. Trato de no spoilear ... la historia sorprende e ilustra. Seishu logra hacer la primera cirugía con anestesia general en el mundo, una mastectomia, previo a esto te platica que la mama femenina era un órgano que no se tocaba por considerarse sagrado y el padecer cancer de mama se convertía en una sentencia.
Es un libro feminista que te pone a analizar la relación entre las mujeres del relato, pero también de historia de la medicina y ambas de una forma fascinante.

[Bryan Cebulski · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ariyoshi's conservatism really got me in this one in ways that it didn't in The River Ki and The Twilight Years, which are both excellent novels that are complicated enough to avoid being too hampered by their questionable "I'm a Japanese woman who's relentlessly treated like shit by her entire family, but I've learned to love and appreciate my place in society because of Tradition" messaging.

The Doctor's Wife was just a lot of really screwed up "ends justify the means" arguments about gender roles and casual animal torture.

And it wasn't even well plotted, either. Poor, repetitive structure, sorely lacking in psychological insight. Skimmed the last 20 pages. Not a fan.