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約束された移動
こうして書棚の秘密は私とB、
二人だけのものになった――
ハリウッド俳優Bの泊まった部屋からは、決まって一冊の本が抜き取られていた。
Bからの無言の合図を受け取る客室係……「約束された移動」。
ダイアナ妃に魅了され、ダイアナ妃の服に真似た服を手作りし身にまとうバーバラと孫娘を描く……
「ダイアナとバーバラ」。
今日こそプロポーズをしようと出掛けた先で、見知らぬ老女に右腕をつかまれ、占領されたまま移動する羽目になった僕……
「寄生」など、“移動する"物語6篇、傑作短篇集。
二人だけのものになった――
ハリウッド俳優Bの泊まった部屋からは、決まって一冊の本が抜き取られていた。
Bからの無言の合図を受け取る客室係……「約束された移動」。
ダイアナ妃に魅了され、ダイアナ妃の服に真似た服を手作りし身にまとうバーバラと孫娘を描く……
「ダイアナとバーバラ」。
今日こそプロポーズをしようと出掛けた先で、見知らぬ老女に右腕をつかまれ、占領されたまま移動する羽目になった僕……
「寄生」など、“移動する"物語6篇、傑作短篇集。
216 pages, 単行本
Published November 12, 2019
6 people want to read
About the author
Yōko Ogawa
140 books5,403 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 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 5, 2023
静謐で独特な雰囲気の不思議なお話たち。出てくる人たちが風変わりで不穏さやもの悲しさを感じたり。「寄生」「巨人の接待」は結構好きだった。
November 25, 2020
やはり私は短編集が合わないようだ。
「結局なんなん？」と思ってしまう。
この作品集も同じ。物悲しいつまらない話の連続に感じてしまった。
「結局なんなん？」と思ってしまう。
この作品集も同じ。物悲しいつまらない話の連続に感じてしまった。
September 17, 2023
Rare miss for Ogawa. None of these really did anything for me, except for maybe the “parasite” one.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews