A Cappella

by Mariko Koike

Kyoko Noma visits the city of Sendai, where she used to live, and reflects on the events that took place there 20 years earlier, in the second half of the sixties, when the winds of the counterculture student movement were sweeping Japan. This is a tale of intense, heartbreaking love in adolescence, and the tragedy it gives rise to.  

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature

183 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 1990

About the author

小池真理子 Mariko Koike is a popular detective and horror novelist. Koike was born in Tokyo and graduated from Seikei University. Her first collection of essays was Recommendations to Women of the World and it became a bestseller. She has been a novelist since her novel came out in 1986. Several of her novels have been translated in to English by Deborah Boliver Boehm.

Reviews

[S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mariko Koike's 1990 major work "A Cappella" (無伴奏) is an even-toned memoir-like piece that derives fairly clearly from Haruki Murakami's 1987 blockbuster "Norwegian Wood (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Vintage International)." Marking as it does the beginning of Koike's switch from feminist critique to horror/popular works to what eventually became known as her 'love trilogy' of three romance-oriented novels [ultimately resulting in the 1995 Naoki Prize-winner 'Love [Japanese Edition],'--Koike's "A Cappella" may be seen as both response to--and participatory in--the Japanese literary establishment's currents of the late 80s and early 90s. Like Norwegian Wood and Ryu Murakami's "69," (1987) "A Cappella" is drenched in nostalgia and longing--longing for school days, nostalgia for a Japan riveted with protest movements and sexual exploration, sentiment for perhaps a simpler era. But in the end this work falls a little short of brilliance and internationally-acclaimed status, and Koike's work seems more suited for the obsessive Japanese-literature specialist or academic, and less for the general reader. If we give credit to Koike for the effective use of the Rolling Stones' "As Tears Go By" early in the book to set mood and time period in anticipation of Haruki Murakami's 1992 "South of the Border," at the same time there is not much here that is an advance rather than repeat of "Norwegian Wood." At the most extreme, we might even call this work derivative.

Part of the problem for the Western reader lies in the dynamics of translation and publication itself. Were we part of the Kamakura set spending our summers loafing on beaches and sailing small boats, we would have received this work as part of that 1987-1995 explosion of nostalgia pieces and re-examinations of protest-era Japan. Read on the beach during those years, "A Cappella" would have been part and parcel of that time, and recognized as a valuable contributory element. But today in 2013, some twenty-three years after initial publication and well after many of the authorial principals of that period have gone on to hone their specialisations, Koike's work inevitably finds itself weaker than its peers of type and its revelations and plot twists just a notch less shocking or moving. Our morals and expectations have evolved, so to speak, and we are less shocked and shaken up by the turn of events of Koike's work, even if her prose remains clipped and understated and her always celebrated descriptions evocative and detailed. 穏やか回顧録、ノルウェイの森に似て

[Alan M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three years after Murakami published 'Norwegian Wood', Koike's novel resonates very loudly of that piece. An older person (in this case Kyoko Noma) looks back on her past life and a major relationship that ends tragically. As with Murakami's whole output, music is central to this story as well, adding layers of emotion and feeling to the events unfolding. It is beautifully written and desperately sad, and the late 1960s in Japan and student unrest is a suitable backdrop to the emotional turmoil suffered by Kyoko and her group of friends. A book well worth reading, if a little sombre and troubling at times.

[sanaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, count on a Japanese writer to write a sad sad story of youth! But I very much liked how the young narrator was dealing with the knowing herself and coming to cope with the deep sense of loneliness and not being able to open up to anyone.

[Sherice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good.

[Rorhy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cant believe i finished the book alreafy. I just couldnt put it down.
Grabe where do I start?
In the end I felt so lonesome for Kyoko. In the end she bore with everything by herself and in the end she never really had a friend to open up to.
Which is why in one chapter I understood why she said that kind of thing might actually salvage you into living.
Just once, being able to spill and vent and be so raw. But none of the girls did that.

I was so surprised about the twists here and there. I didnt have major expectations really, i thought keri lang typical depressive novel kay the chika lagi is same2 sa Norwegian Wood. But lo and behold, mas ganahan ko ani actually.

I still want to chika more but mag bask sa ko sa pag finish nako sa book and all the feelings im feeling right now.

[Rini · Rating 4 out of 5]

i do feel that my rating is skewed because how jarring the section from about 118 to 160 just. in terms of kyoko's feelings and wataru's reasoning was, but i really i think the depth of those scenes is what makes this book memorable..

[lornapalmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5