シャンデリア [Shanderia]

by Mieko Kawakami, 川上未映子

「わたし」は毎日のようにデパートに出かけ、気まぐれに買い物をして、ほぼ一日を過ごす暮らしを送っている。朝十時きっかり、開店と同時に、あふれんばかりの従業員の笑みに迎えられる。いつもデパートはつるつるして光っている。高い吹き抜けの天井にはシャンデリアが燦然と輝いている。一階のコスメ売り場から四階のハイジュエリー売り場へ。レストランフロアでお腹を満たすと、また降りて、高級ブランドショップをはしごする。店員たちは皆、顔なじみだ。語り手の買い物には計画もなければ、予算もない。

結婚もせず、ワンルームに一人暮らしの「わたし」に、思いもよらない大金が口座に振り込まれ、デパート通いが始まった。

その日「わたし」はあるブティックで、見るからに裕福そうな老婆に出会う……。

川上未映子（かわかみ みえこ）
1976年、大阪市出身。文芸誌に詩を投稿したのを手はじめに、2007年には文芸誌「早稲田文学」に短編「わたくし率　イン　歯ー」を発表、芥川賞候補作に推された。2008年、二作目となる中編「乳と卵」で芥川賞を受賞。2010年には、初めての長編『ヘヴン』で芸術選奨文部科学大臣新人賞と紫式部文学賞を受賞し、作家としての地保を固

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

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 11, 2017

About the author

Mieko Kawakami (川上未映子, born in August 29, 1976) is a Japanese singer and writer from Osaka.

She was awarded the 138th Akutagawa Prize for promising new writers of serious fiction (2007) for her novel Chichi to Ran (乳と卵) (Breasts and Eggs).

Kawakami has released three albums and three singles as a singer.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

The women in Mieko Kawakami’s work tend to function as an expression of the effects on society at the intersection between capitalism and patriarchy, moving like a specter of anxiety through a world that becomes increasingly threatening. Chandelier, a short story by Mieko Kawakami, focuses the author’s incisive gaze on a department store and the siren call of glitz and glamor that ensnare people in a sort of beauty industrial complex where women’s lives are as if for display purpose only. This short story was single bound for the 2022 Independent Bookstore Day, a promotional material for the release of All the Lovers in the Night (a fantastic novel) that included the short story as well as an interview with translators Sam Bett and David Boyd, and was quite the excellent find. While brief, the story is a succinct left-hook of Kawakami’s signature themes and dives directly into oppression of self-image in a patriarchal society and deteriorating mental health, particularly in relation to the loss of the narrator’s mother. Sharp and sinister, this story strikes fast and leaves you chilled.

This story feels particularly akin to Kawakami’s Breast and Eggs, demonstrating the social conditioning that has women spending their money on beauty and external self-image. The narrator here has unexpectedly come into a large wealth due to royalties from a job she did years ago, a sudden windfall after the death of a mother and a lifetime of barely making ends meet. She spends her entire time in a department store, watching all the shiny products calling out to customers. Kawakami quickly plunges us into a dark space, with consumerism taking on a sinister tone and into a place where image is all that women seem afforded in life. Adorning one’s body with the latest fashion, the best make-up, and even beauty surgeries, become the one aim of the lives trapped in this retail purgatory. The narrator’s social media only furthers this, filled with young women defining themselves by their appearance. ‘The natural beauties--those with no need for surgery--sit at the top of the hierarchy,’ she reflects, ‘but even they have nothing but respect for the girls who go under the knife to win their beauty.’ We see an older woman, immaculately dressed, who talks about how her husband keeps her daughter with his money out of not wanting her to marry and give another family an outlet to his money. She is to be polished and kept on the mantle of society like a trophy.

The surface image wears thin in this sort of life. Dressed up and wealthy, the narrator doesn’t feel happy and wishes every day for the brilliant chandelier hanging in the department store to fall and kill her. She fantasizes death with every purchase, abrupt, violent, dramatic death. Consumption of fine things doesn’t satisfy a life, clothes don’t make a person and no amount of money can bring an absent mother back from the dead.

‘God, what a joke. These shoes, those shoes. These heels and those heels. It was too stupid to call them the same thing. Nothing made any sense. Not the meaningless shiny floor, or the fact that somebody was smiling, breathing, walking, had color, could see…or these shopping bags…or the fact that one person was living while someone else was dead. Every single thing was so unbelievably stupid.’

The narrator invents a life with a mother she never had, falls apart, lashes out at the world. It comes as a surprise but with every sentence we feel the narrator’s mind coiling with tension and anxiety, ready to strike. The emotional outpouring and emptiness at the end of the story felt so authentic and successfully done, and I am always in awe how well Kawakami can navigate the seas of changing and tumultuous emotional states.

This stand-alone short story makes me hope there is a short story collection on the way. Kawakami does have quite a few from what I've read, it would be lovely to see them all bound together in translation. I have certainly become a major fan of Mieko Kawakami and I hope there is many more translations of her work on the way.

4/5

[crypt reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost passed on this lil indie bookstore day freebie, but ended up going back for it because of a Feeling. Very glad I did; I devoured it in about 30 minutes and it immediately became my favorite read (so far) for the year!

For such a short read, it packs an enormous punch. My best description would be 'retail gothic'. The nameless narrator and vague department store are both very eerie, and the slow build of disquiet and deteriorating mental state reveal was superb. Also, though it seems to be set in the present, it has the feeling of a cyberpunk dystopia—right down to the void of capitalism and consumerism, and the narrator's fantasies of merging herself with her clothes and the building.

Pretty prose, tight plotting, bleak/realistic portrayal of mania, the weird sense of time and place...it's all so well done. Showstopping! Game changing! I love love loved this, and will probably read it a few more times after letting friends borrow it!

[Irina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chandelier is about a woman who spends her days at a luxury mall. She didn’t become wealthy the way most people do - through inheritance, lottery or smart investments, but she is rich alright! Soon enough it is revealed to us how she managed to get so much money. Nothing criminal or unsavory whatsoever, yet she is someone who has been hurt in the past. While strolling through the mall she finds herself at a Gucci store. There she meets a wealthy old woman and the two strike up a friendly conversation that turns into a pleasant day of shopping together. What happens next is a brief but deeply disturbing turn of events that Kawakami throws at the unsuspecting reader the way only she can. Brilliant.
I hope a collection of her short stories will be coming out soon enough because her writing is fantastic.

I loved it.

[ashes ➷ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE a bound short story, and particularly after wailing to myself about What I Leave Behind I felt like I just had to read + review this one.

Chandelier is cynical. It seems almost to lack emotion or feeling. In its surreal, almost too grounded tone I felt as though I recognized something people love and hate in Murakami; something that comes from a combination of deliberate antipathy and possibly the simple fact of Japanese-English translation-- I often feel Japanese-to-English prose is very "clean" or "minimalist" solely because Japanese has so few synonyms (in comparison to English), so the same story inherently sounds plainer in English (or more complex in Japanese).

I found myself deeply affected by this purposeful misanthropy, and I certainly still thought of the short story after I read it... so I'm giving it five stars, because I honestly can't think of a criticism to make (as is my policy), even if it's not personally my thing to be so nasty. I totally agree with the reviewer who called this "retail gothic"-- it has a totally unique tone to it as a result, and accomplishes, I think, exactly what it means to. Even if I was grumpy about that anti-twist.

[rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

unique combination of otessa moshfegh and yuko tsushima.. i can’t wait to buy more of her books

[Lauryn]

I don’t rate short stories, but glad to have been given this IBD exclusive with my order last year and happy to have finally read something by Kawakami! Makes me wanna pick up Breast and Eggs soon

[Donutbrisket · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortest little book I’ve ever read! I’ve had my eye on Mieko Kawakami for a while now, can’t wait to read more of her stuff

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely. Story & feeling-wise, this falls somewhere between “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” & “Convenience Store Woman.”

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

good voice
felt like a set up and it was