Touring the Land of the Dead

by Maki Kashimada, Haydn Trowell (Translator)

A story from one of Japan's rising literary stars about memory, loss, and love, Touring the Land of the Dead is a mesmerizing combination of two tales, both told with stylistic inventiveness and breathtaking sensitivity.

Taichi was forced to stop working almost a decade ago and since then he and his wife Natsuko have been getting by on her part-time wages. But Natsuko is a woman accustomed to hardship. When her own family's fortune dried up years during her childhood, she, her brother, and her mother lived a surreal hand-to-mouth existence shaped by her mother's refusal to accept their new station in life.

One day, Natsuko sees an ad for a spa and recognizes the place as the former luxury hotel that Natsuko's grandfather had taken her mother to when she was little. She decides to take her damaged husband to the spa, despite the cost, but their time there triggers hard but ultimately redemptive memories relating to the complicated history of her family and a reconciliation with her husband.

Modeled on Junichiro Tanizaki's classic story, The Makioka Sisters, Ninety-Nine Kisses is the second story in this book and it portrays in touching and lyrical fashion the lives of the four unmarried sisters in a historical, close-knit neighborhood of contemporary Tokyo.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Short Stories, Asia, Asian Literature, Literary Fiction

138 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2012

About the author

Also under Japanese-language profile .

Reviews

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 2 out of 5]

❀ blog ❀ thestorygraph ❀ letterboxd ❀ tumblr ❀ ko-fi ❀

disclaimer: in the below review I am expressing my own entirely subjective opinion. I do not wish to invalidate anyone's feelings or thoughts about this book. If you loved it or liked it, huzzah!
If you are thinking of reading this I recommend you check out some more positive reviews.

Touring the Land of the Dead comprises two short stories. The first one follows Natsuko who is traveling with her husband, who after an unspecified neurological disease requires walking aids (he sometimes walks with a cane or uses a wheelchair). The way the narrative treats Taichi's disability is somewhat...questionable? Then again, I also recognize that many countries treat those with visible disabilities as 'undesirable' or 'pitiable' (I myself come from a country that isn't exactly disability-friendly). Anyhow, Natsuko is going to this spa with Taichi, hoping for...rest? I don't know. It wasn't very clear. All the while we get pages and pages of flashbacks which give us unnecessary glimpses into Natsuko's relationship with her horrid mother and dick of a brother. Natsuko is a kind of Cinderella who is ill-treated by her awful and greedy family. They treat her poorly, throw abuse at her, use her as a monetary source, and even behave abhorrently towards Taichi, who is shown to be kind and respectful towards them. I would have much preferred for these flashbacks to being focused on Natsuko and Taichi, as opposed to her unpleasant relatives. The prose was uninspiring and occasionally clunky. At times dialogues had quotation marks, at times they were in italics (and no, it wasn't as if one indicated a conversation occurred in the past and the other in the 'now'). I'm afraid I found this to be boring, unconvincing, and utterly forgettable.
The second story, 'Ninety-Nine Kisses', was a mess. I have no idea what it was trying to achieve but...bleargh. The narrative seemed to equate incest-y thoughts with quirkiness...which did little other than alienate me.
Overall, I had a hard time immersing myself in these stories. Usually, while I read I am 'pulled' into a story, but here...nothing happened. I read some words. That's that.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touring the Land of the Dead — what a wonderful read! 🙂 🙃 4.5 stars for me.

This won the Akutagawa Prize in 2012. Well worth your time to read IMHO. 😉

Protagonists are Natsuko, 36 years old, and her husband, Taichi who is disabled with some sort of seizure-like illness in which they had to bore a hole into his skull and implant an electrode. Anyway, she is the breadwinner in the house. She has a mother from hell and a brother who lives with the mother (ergo, he is from hell and acts like a denizen thereof). Natsuko and Taichi are not well off by any stretch of the imagination, but they go on a one-day trip to a spa that was once a luxury hotel that her mother and her father (now deceased) and her went to when Natsuko was just a child (and the mother went there as a child with her mother and father). We are given glimpses of the mother and brother through Natsuko thinking about them during the spa trip...

I liked Natsuko and grew to respect her as the book went along. I did not like Taicho initially because he seemed to expect his wife to wait on him hand and foot, but over the course of the book I grew to like him, too. I loved the writing. I want to read more by her and I will because there is a second novella in the Europa edition I read from — Ninety-Nine Kisses!

Damn I spoke too soon. That was one weird novella — Ninety-Nine Kisses. I did not enjoy it at all, in some part because I could not understand it at all.

My positive rating is based SOLELY on ‘The Land of the Dead’. If I had to rate Ninety-Nine Kisses, I would give that novella at most 1.5 stars. (On the title page they spelled ‘Ninety” as “Ninenty’!)

Reviews on ‘Touring the Land of the Dead’:
• “Touring the Land of the Dead” by Maki Kashimada (asianreviewofbooks.com)
• Touring the Land of the Dead - Kashimada Maki (complete-review.com) (12 other reviews in this link)
Note: Yoko Ogawa, one of my fave authors liked this book...”Only Ms. Kashimada can create this kind of world.”

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Touring the Land of the Dead has been translated by Haydn Trowell from the Japanese original by Maki Kashimada.

The book actually consists of two short novellas, the title piece and Ninety-Nine Kisses (of similar length with the total book running to only 144 pages).

Both stories are emotionally charged, with an obsessive first person narrator, and both also effectively, evoke the setting and particularly the food, colour of modern day Tokyo, aided by Trowell’s translation that leaves several words untranslated (although Romanized), albeit often with a gloss added for context (e.g. this on the ubiquitous street food snack):

One afternoon, Meiko came home in a really good mood, carrying a freshly cooked taiyaki. She set the fish-shaped cake down on the table oh-so-carefully.

Touring the Land of the Dead won the 2012上 Akutagawa Prize for rising authors in the original - other winners of the prize since include Masatsugu Ono and Sayaka Murata (for the novel that in English became Convenience Store Woman).

The story is narrated by Natsuko, in her early 30s. She has been married for 8 years to Taichi, but shortly after their marriage he suffered the first in a series of seizures, that have left him wheel-chaired bound:

Three years of repeated hospitalizations had passed since then, and five again since they had learned the name of the disease. Yet to Natsuko, as exacting as those eight years had been, they were still better than what had come before. She didn’t want to call to mind the time before she had met her husband, and referred to her past only as that life. That life— truly, the only words with which she could describe those unspeakable experiences. Not poverty, not loneliness, not sickness, but that life.

The brain-injured Taichi is remarkably content with their, now relatively impoverished life, almost pitifully blind to the malice of others, and yet as innocently dependent on his wife as ever.

Which contrast strongly to her mother and brother, the family now having fallen on hard times, with the former hankering greedily after the richer days of her youth and the latter an alcoholic spendthrift, both suffering from unrealistic ambitions and a cacophony of incoherent delusions

The story itself centres around Natsuko taking Taichi on a trip to a spa, once a luxury hotel much beloved of Natsuko’s grandfather and where she herself visited when she was 8, now rather run-down:

Local Health Retreat. Special Accommodation Discount. 5,000 Yen Per Night. Weekdays Only Through February.


Reading it, she found herself being carried away, torn by a contradiction of callous pleasure and unbearable pain. It was the luxury resort hotel where she had gone with her parents and brother as a child.

The contrast of the hotel to its former self mirroring the fall in Natsuko’s family and the trigger for her memories and bitter reflections that constitute the story.

Ninety-Nine Kisses is inspired by Junichiro Tanizaki's epic novel, 細雪, The Makioka Sisters in Edward G. Seidensticker’s translation (although the original title is closer to light snow, a poetic image of falling cherry blossoms), ,based on a four sisters from wealthy Osakan family in the years before the entry of Japan in WW2. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mak...)

”The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention.”

Ninety-Nine Kisses updates the setting to modern-day Tokyo.

Nanako, a college student, is the youngest of four sisters (the oldest 32) with whom she has a very close, almost incesteous, relationship:

Meiko, Moeko, Yo¯ko, I thought, chanting their names like some kind of love spell. Words have power, even by themselves. That’s why I don’t say them very much. Words like love, or death. Whenever I recite the names of my three sisters, I find myself drifting off into a deep fog. Even at college the other day, during a lecture about Marcel Pagnol, I wasn’t really paying attention to whatever my French professor, Monsieur Kimura, was saying. I just sat in my seat, repeating the names of my beloved sisters to myself over and over, writing them down again and again in my notebook.
...
“Sounds like a sister complex to me,” my classmate Tamura said when we went to Hanake to get a bite to eat.

The close relationship of the sisters and their mother - they have vowed to each other not to marry - is disrupted when an outsider comes on the scene and each of the sisters falls in love with him, leading to much jealousy between them, all except Nanako whose jealousy is rather that the man might steal away one of her beloved sisters:

When I got home, my sisters were all gossiping about this guy called S whom we had seen at the Azalea Festival at Nezu Shrine. He had only just moved into the neighborhood, but my sisters had already fallen for him. I had happened to see him myself not too long ago too, over at the Mad Hat. Everyone else was drinking Jinro, but then there he was, the odd one out with that Bloody Caesar of his. The Mad Hat. A run-down drinking house in the middle of this Shitamachi, this laid-back low town nestled in the old-fashioned, earthy half of Tokyo far from the bustle and commotion of the Yamanote. And this smug, pretentious-looking outsider sipping at his cocktail. He clearly didn’t belong here.

This story has a very strong sense of place, and Japanese literary echoes:

The place had something to do with the Bluestocking Society, the feminist literary group that used to be active around here a century ago. He was staring intently at the sign that described their connection to the local area. And then, completely out of nowhere, he went and kissed it.

My mind started wandering. Why had he kissed it? Did he feel some kind of reverence toward Hiratsuka Raicho ¯? I could picture it so vividly. S, kissing my sisters against their will. My bookish sisters, who had so eagerly devoured the works of Uno Chiyo and Okamoto Kanoko back when they were kids.

Overall: I am generally a fan of shorter books, although here I did feel, at c70 pages each, I would have liked to stay longer in the world of the stories, to become more attuned to the narrator’s strong passions. But a striking voice and an author I hope to see more of in English. Her The Kingdom of Zero, reworking Doestevsky to tell the tale of a saintly Idiot in Japan, sounds particularly intriguing. 3.5 stars.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

[Donatella Principi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il libro raccoglie due racconti: il primo mi è piaciuto molto, mentre il secondo mi ha quasi messo a disagio.

Viaggio nella terra dei morti ripercorre alcuni momenti passati della protagonista, una donna con un rapporto complicato con la sua famiglia. Durante un viaggio con il marito disabile emergono l’avidità e la cattiveria della madre e del fratello che si trovano in difficoltà economica e pretendono che sia la protagonista a risolvere tutti i loro problemi. Anche nel momento in cui la donna subisce una violenza l’unica cosa a cui la famiglia riesce a pensare è il denaro. Non è stato facile leggere questo racconto perché colpisce nel profondo sollevando tante criticità della società odierna. Anche il rapporto con la malattia del marito, seppure non centrale in questa storia, ha saputo colpirmi perché fa ben capire come spesso queste persone vengano ignorate dalle stesse famiglie. Anzi, rappresentano una vera e propria vergogna in alcuni casi.

Novantanove baci, ispirato al classico di Jun’ichirō Tanizaki Neve sottile (che io non ho letto), racconta invece di quattro sorelle legate in maniera quasi morbosa e di come il loro equilibrio venga scombussolato dall’arrivo di un ragazzo. Il mio disagio è dovuto proprio al modo in cui la voce narrante, la sorella minore, parla e descrive le sorelle anche dal punto di vista sessuale, sfociando quasi nell’incesto. Se da una parte ho apprezzato la forza e complessità del rapporto fra sorelle, dall’altra non sono riuscita a cogliere fino in fondo il senso della storia. Ci sono accenni alla vita moderna in Giappone, fra cibo e locali, alcuni riferimenti ai quartieri e al modo in cui cambia l’opinione (e a volte il carattere) della gente a seconda della provenienza, ma non si va mai a fondo.

In entrambe le storie ho apprezzato molto la scrittura e la sensibilità dell'autrice. Non a caso ha vinto diversi premi in Giappone. Una raccolta che vale la pena recuperare se si è appassionati di letteratura contemporanea giapponese. Anche solo per il primo racconto per me merita una lettura.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

“While she had always had some awareness of the unnaturalness of what she was doing, up until now she never paused to reflect on it.”

These two novellas—markedly different from one another—have a few things in common: unnatural family bonds and the internal tension of moving towards resolution. Each relies on a degree of repetition and each is haunting in its own way.

In the first—Touring the Land of the Dead—Natsuko, the daughter of a delusional and socially scheming mother, marries beneath her purported station to a man named Taichi. Her mother and sycophant brother, who crave a lavish lifestyle and unrealistically believe that Natsuko owes it to them, do not accept her husband from the start.

Soon enough, Taichi is forced to stop working because of a neurological disease. The novella centers on a trip the couple take to a one-time luxury resort hotel—now a spa—that Natusko’s grandfather had taken her mother to many years back. On first read, it appears that Taichi, with his four bad limbs, burps and tics, is a terrible burden to bear. But gradually, Natsuko gleans the truth: her husband is a special, kind, accepting and much-loved man who, from the start, was in danger of being consumed from within from her family’s illness. It is they who are truly distorted and it is he who saved her from their ugliness.

The second novella, Ninety-Nine Kisses, is a bit more of a conundrum. Our narrator, Nanako, is the youngest of four unmarried sisters, each one a quarter of a whole. When a stranger, dubbed S, comes to town, the older three all vie for his attention and his love. The one who remains disenchanted is Nanako, whose feelings for her sisters borders on incestuous. “You see, we’re all one person. So long as one of us sisters played the role of the man, it would be all self-contained. We ought to be able to do that. We’re a perfect whole. Like Adam before Eve. Or like a hermaphrodite.”

Nanako’s invasion of her sisters’ minds and intents by itself feels incestuous. Her realization that soon she would become a woman as well, filled with contradiction and stubbornness, is her own form of resolution. Yet for me, this novella doesn’t rise to the excellence of the first, although I applaud the author for delving into the mystical bond of sisterhood. A big thanks to Europa Editions who provided me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two short novellas in this book. The first is about a man called Taichi who was forced to cease work a number of years ago. They have somehow managed to survive on his wife, Natsuko’s wages from her part-time job. This is nothing unusual for her; she had a tough upbringing when her mother had almost no money and she and her brother live a hand to mouth existence.

She happens to see an advert for a spa and then realises that it is now based in a luxury hotel that her grandfather had taken her mother to when she was little. She rashly decides to treat her husband to a trip there even though she knows it is going to cost her a small fortune that she can ill afford. What she doesn’t expect is the waves of memories of her once comfortable life, that wash over her causing anguish and chasing lingering regrets.

She could hear the sound of the waves. Her tears, the waves of her emotions, had taken the form of a deep, soughing basso continuo. There was a sea in her heart, always undulating.

The second novella is about four sisters who are still living at home in their Tokyo apartment. Nanako is the youngest and still at college and they have all made a vow not to ever marry. All the sister have a close and intimate, relationship, almost bordering on obsession in Nanako’s case.

This changes when a man called S is new in the neighbourhood. The older sisters had first seen him at the Azalea Festival at the Nezu Shrine and from what Nanako could gather all three of her sisters had fallen in love with him. It goes from being a fairly harmonious and close family to one where they all want to be with this guy.

I have read a little Japanese fiction in the past, in particular, Murakami and Ishiguro. I always find that Japanese fiction has a slightly surreal way of looking at life. This book has that same otherworldly feeling too, because I get a slightly disconcerting feeling observing a very different culture to mine. I think that it is a good thing to have my perceptions broadened and challenged with regards to literature. I quite liked these stories and Kasimada has a way of getting these reflections of her society through her characters. The second story might not be for everyone though. It might not be for everyone, but I have found that reading four books on one country from very different perspectives has given me a range of insights and perspectives on the place and I would love to visit it one day.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

TOURING THE LAND OF THE DEAD by Maki Kashimada, translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell is a great translated book! This book features two novellas: Touring the Land of the Dead and Nighty-Nine Kisses.
.
I’ve really been enjoying reading translated works this year and I enjoyed both novellas in this collection. It’s always interesting to read about different cultures and perspectives. The second story had some uncomfortable topics but both were engaging in a slice of life way. It was a great quick read!
.
Thank you to PGC Books for my gifted review copy!

[Eule Luftschloss · Rating 2 out of 5]

trigger warning
mention of suicde, mention of sexual harassment, gaslighting, alcoholism

This book includes two stories. The first is about a trip a wife and her disabled husband make, with her reminiscing about her past; the second is about another protagonist coming to terms with the fact that one of her three sisters started dating.

Story one was depressing because of the family dynamic, story two was weird as the protagonist kept having sexual fantasies about her siblings .
This was not my cup of tea and I am not sure if I would have kept on reading if it had been longer.

I probably won't pick up further works by this author.
The arc was provided by the publisher.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Even when her mother brought it up, she had never seen herself heading toward some spectacular future. She had already given up on everything. And she never thought too deeply about why such unreasonableness, such unfairness, such unhappiness always befell her. She lived her life trying to think about it as little as possible."

Emotionally charged, the titular novella looks at memory and loss. Our obsessive narrator is beset with reminisces about her difficult family, her mother and her brother, while she is on a brief trip to a spa resort turned health retreat with her disabled but happy go lucky husband. They were constantly scheming & trying to take advantage of her, dismissing her husband to be beneath her. Ultimately, it is useful for her to examine these memories so that she can exorcise the past, be happy.

The second novella is inspired by Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters. I read it as a twist on Little Women. The unmarried sisters live with their single mother and share a unique camaraderie. Their home becomes a space for expression of a vibrant and different sexuality, a fresh solidarity. The figure of S, the boy the sisters become infatuated with, is a disrupter of this environment. The narrator, the youngest sister, thinks the man is creating a gap between siblings and that peace will be restored only when he is gone.

This was solid if not the best. The writing was good, really graceful and evocative in places, bringing Tokyo and elsewhere to life through great descriptions. Also, Haydn Trowell's English translation is smooth, including Japanese words as is noticeably. Overall, I found it a nice break from heavy reading and it was something different. I need more Jap Lit.




(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two novellas, both quite different. I generally love fiction translated from Japanese & the first novella (the title of the book), I really enjoyed. I’m not sure if it’s the Japanese culture or how the Japanese word translates into English, but I usually always find Japanese stories beautiful & thoughtful & heartfelt. This first story was no exception. An absolutely simple concept of one woman’s love for her husband & how she will not allow her unconventional family to ruin her love for him.

The second story, Ninety Nine Kisses, was completely bizarre & I found it a little uncomfortable at times. If it wasn’t for this second story, I’d have given the book 4 stars.

Thank you to Europa for sending me a proof copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelmed by the first story of a woman happily married but unhappily tied to family, I paused reading the second story until now.

Both stories are about a highly observant woman in a stream of conscious narrative, unable to change much around her. Not exactly a victim, but at the mercy of her own emotions and overly invested in observing those closest to her in a submissive way, despite the various imaginings otherwise.

It's an interesting style just not for me.

[Story · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for the first novella "Touring the Land of the Dead" and a DNF for the second novella "Ninety-Nine Kisses".

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I looked forward to reading this collection of two novellas in translation from the Japanese writer Maki Kashimada (trans. Haydn Trowell) back in January 2021. I have to admit, part of the attraction was the cover; this design from Europa Editions is simply gorgeous. However, I’ve liked a lot of Japanese novellas and short novels in recent years, and was excited to try a writer new to me. And I enjoyed the first and longer novella in this collection, Touring the Land of the Dead, a lot. It’s an introspective third-person piece that focuses on Natsuko, who is accompanying her disabled husband Taichi to a spa hotel she used to visit with her family in her childhood. Natsuko’s family shun and jeer at Taichi for not being able to support Natsuko. However, as Natsuko’s mind darts between past and present, we learn that ‘that life’, her past with her mother and brother, was a place of horror for her, and she is still trying to shrug them off in the present. Natsuko’s striving to become her own person in the face of family expectations is a familiar theme from much Japanese fiction written by women that I’ve read, but Kashimada puts a different slant on it. As we come to realise, Natsuko has already got out, but can’t quite credit that she’s escaped.

The second novella in this collection, Ninety-Nine Kisses, is very different in style and tone. It’s narrated in first person by the youngest of four sisters, Nanako. Her three older sisters remain unmarried and living at home with their mother, and we come to realise that Nanako sees them as parts of the same whole, and is sexually possessive over them, although she denies their relationship is incestuous. As the novella develops, we realise there is something off-kilter about the whole family, who pride themselves on being able to engage in ‘dirty talk’ with each other as a sign of their closeness. This is undoubtedly a weird and disturbing story, but I didn’t find that to be a problem in itself; instead, the style didn’t work for me because it felt like everything was spelt out as explicitly as possible. There’s a sense that Kashimada wants to shock here with blatant sexual content, but this overshadowed the more interesting aspects of the relationship between the four sisters, and made it feel like nothing changed or emerged over the course of the novella, because it was all there from the beginning.

Touring the Land of the Dead ****
Ninety-Nine Kisses ***

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touring the Land of the Dead (and Ninety-Nine Kisses) by Maki Kashimada and translated by Haydn Trowell is an upcoming release from Europa Press (March 2021). Starting the year with a book of novellas was reminiscent of last year and reading Kitchen. On the surface the two novellas included in this book do not have much in common but they have more to say than at first glance.
Touring the Land of the Dead is about a husband and wife, Taichi and Natsuko, who go on holiday together to a spa that Natsuko spent time at as a child. Her mother and brother are quite despicable and are especially awful and ableist toward her husband, who is disabled and uses walking aides, and to her throughout her life. The holiday to the past brings up many painful memories and thoughts for her, but in reliving them she heals.

In Ninety-Nine Kisses the youngest of four sisters recounts the arrival of S, a new young man who moves to their neighbourhood, and how it changes their dynamic and reveals things about each of them in turn.

The writing was lovely and different from many of the Japanese books I have read. I enjoyed both narrative voices, one for its intense introspection and the other for its explorations of sexuality. I look forward to more books by Maki Kashimada being translated.

Thank you Netgalley and Europa Editions for the egalley. All opinions are entirely my own.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I preferred the title story the most out of these two novellas, the characterisation felt more fully formed, or maybe I like these cross generational stories. Kashimada's prose is fantastically controlled in exploring Natsuko's observations and comparisons with her mother's experiences and her responses to her alcoholic brother, as she traces the ups and downs, (mainly downs), the path her family's history takes.

Ninety-nine Kisses was an engagingly condensed perspective on the Makioka Sisters, which left me really wanting to see S's (the new guy in the Shitamachi who becomes the sisters subject of interest), perspective, again the story carries an element of cross generational themes as the sisters live with their mother. I'd love to read more by Kashimada.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing Two Novellas

Two novels about families, their lives and deaths. The first is a multi generational family seemingly trapped together in death. The second is a mother and three daughters and their relationship with S.

[Rosalinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2stelle e mezzo.

Il primo racconto profondo, bello. Il secondo insipido.

Solitamente la letteratura giapponese sa essere molto più toccante.

[Carolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

No i jak mam to ocenić 😭 pierwsza nowelka - ok, ale raczej nie Akutagawa worthy dla mnie, druga - świetna. Bardzo bym chciała przeczytać jej retelling Dostojewskiego

[Kinga · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the premises for both the stories interesting and enjoyed Touring the Land of the Dead more than Ninety-Nine Kisses. But both felt flat to me and did not live up to the expectation.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book consists of two short novellas. Both of them are quite rambly and strange. I wanted to like them, but found them disappointing. The second novella was quite incestuous and felt like it was trying to be shocking for the sake of it. I only managed to finish both novellas because they were so short.

[Mar*Grieta* · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When I was little, I thought it would still be possible to return to the good old days that my mom and all the others always talked about. But then after I came to this rundown hotel as a girl, I realized that the past isn't somewhere you can go back to.” #MakiKashimida #TouringTheLandOfTheDead #EuropaEditions

Genre: #Fiction #JapaneseLiterature #Cultural #ShortStories

My rating: 4/5

This book has definitely reminded me that beauty is in simplicity. Same could be said about the literature. Maki Kashimida is writing about topics that are understandable to everyone. Love, Loss, Personal Freedom, Society Expectations, Toxicity of People. This book consists of two short Novellas. Fist story is about Natsuko and her husband and the second story is about three sisters that are finding their way in life, without losing sisterhood connection.

I was really touched by the first story. After everything Natsuko has been through, she’s isn’t depressed or regretting her life choices, she finds her way to happiness through the situations that life has given to her. She cherishes small things. Author has described her family as a toxic people, that all their life were willing to live luxury life, and when the lost it all, they started to have delusional imagination on how things should be. Ready to sacrifice everything for money, even her own daughter. It’s a story of memories from the past, and finding yourself as well as breaking free.

Second story is about three sisters, and their family. How culture affects certain life choices and if it’s good to follow more “modern” ways. It’s a story about love. Love between men and women, sister love and parent love towards their children. We are following all three sisters growing up and maturing sexually, falling in love with the first boy. How it changes them and their relationships and how things appear several years later.

I wrote in the beginning, that this book has taken me by its simplicity in writing style, it’s so easy to read! Yet problems that author is talking about are fairly deep. It isn’t like typical Japanese literature with many hidden aspects.

I would highly recommend this book for everyone who likes reading about interpersonal relationships.

Thank you @EuropaEditionsUk for this beautiful ARC, in exchange for my honest review. Separate thank you to translator H.Trowell for making this read in English possible. :))

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5****

Okay so it was definitely a strange read, but there's something uncomfortably satisfying about the way Maki Kashima tells a story.

The stories are blunt and shamelessly honest. The messiness of being human is really put out on the table.

Through the two novellas in this book, she leads us to some of the places where memory, fantasy, love, and heartache takes people in their minds.

I definitely see why this book could leave people feeling a bit (very?) weirded out. I had moments of "what am I reading?!" in the second novella with its warped eroticism and peculiar relationship dynamics.

I did enjoy the experience of reading this book though. I probably wouldn't recommend it to just anyone but.. I don't know. It was its own kind of fun.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5
This book consists of two novellas. The first one really got to me. It angered me enormously to see how badly Natsuko is treated by her family and how she doesn't even rise up against them. If a book succeeds in making me furious, it at least did something right ;-). I found the second story less interesting. Maybe I didn't get the meaning of it, but it was too weird for my liking.
All in all I enjoyed this short, modern, Japanese read.
Thank you Europa Editions and Edelweiss for the ARC.

[thewoollygeek (tea, cake, crochet & books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy all things Japanese , so I was really looking forward to this and I wasn’t disappointed. The descriptions of the Japan, the food, people and areas were just perfect. The two novellas are very different, but both very interesting and a a very unique read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

[Lisa Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were two short stories in one. Each quite different from the other. Unique, in style, writing and content. I liked it, but it was different. The characters were complex, thinking so differently from how I think, which makes for an interesting read.

[‘mell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una delle mie ultime scoperte in fatto di autrici è stata proprio Kashimada Maki, recentemente pubblicata da Edizioni e/o con il suo 'Viaggio nella terra dei morti': un romanzo formato da due racconti, grazie al quale l'autrice ha vinto il prestigioso premio Akutagawa.

🥢Il primo racconto - che presta il titolo al libro - narra la storia di Natsuko e di suo marito Taichi, affetto da una malattia neurologica. I due coniugi affrontano un viaggio in treno per soggiornare in una spa di lusso fuori città, della quale Natsuko - essendoci stata molti anni prima insieme ai suoi genitori - conserva un bel ricordo. Per lei sarà un viaggio non solo fisico, ma soprattutto spirituale: attraverso i ricordi - spesso nostalgici -, Natsuko compone quel grande puzzle che è il suo passato per riuscire finalmente a fare chiarezza nella sua mente e a cambiare le sue aspettative.

🥢Il secondo racconto, '99 baci', è ispirato invece a 'Neve sottile' di Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. Qui, Nanako, ci racconta del forte - a tratti innaturale - legame con le sue sorelle e la loro madre, e di come questo si spezza ingenuamente quando nel quartiere arriva un nuovo ragazzo.

🌿Anche se diversi tra loro per toni e stile di narrazione, entrambi i racconti vanno a toccare corde delicate e presentano delle tematiche comuni: legami familiari innaturali, amore, perdita, l'incapacità di comprendere e accettare la propria identità spesso plasmata e schiacciata dalle aspettative (tossiche) dei familiari - e più in generale della società; ma se nel primo queste sono accompagnate da una narrazione delicata e confortante, nel secondo mi sono scontrata costantemente con un senso di disagio nel leggere di argomenti più cupi e morbosi.

Non è un libro che consiglierei a cuore leggerò, però è un recupero necessario soprattutto per chi sa già muoversi all'interno della letteratura giapponese contemporanea. La penna di Kashimada Maki è decisamente interessante e non ha paura di fare scalpore.

[Shweta · Rating 2 out of 5]

TW: physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual harassment, toxic relationships, incest.

A Japanese translation with the title Touring the Land of the Dead was too much for me to resist. Without really reading the blurb or anything much about either the book or the author, I bought it. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that the titular story was but a novella! Plus, an accompanying novella - Ninety Nine Kisses, was included ( perhaps to justify the steep cost of the book?)

So here goes:

Touring the Land of the Dead
This is a story that deals with familial (emotional and mental) abuse and repressed trauma through memories. The story is dismal, raw, and almost painful to read. In the hindsight, I would have probably avoided the book had I known how brutally abuse is explored ( considering I wasn't in the right headspace for reading something like this ) Is there redemption towards the end, I am not certain. It at least seemed like the protagonist was taking a step in the right direction but, I am not sure.

Ninety Nine Kisses
Okay, holy effing hell, what was this? Just, what? This story was supposed to be inspired by The Makioka Sisters, which I haven't read and now, I don't want to. It's a story about 4 sisters living with their Mum - so far, so good. And then it got real weird, real fast. This story, seemed to me, a sort of modern, edgy, incestuous and downright creepy subversion of Little Women ( and not in a good way, mind you ) I truly didn't care for the overtly graphic sexual tones and couldn't wait for the book to end.

Europa Editions' TtLotD ought to have come with TWs. I am most upset that it didn't. I am also a little peeved about a little typo - in the blurb for Ninety Nine Kisses, it says ".......captivating tail of siblings". For a paperback that's as pricey as this, I think they could've afforded to be a bit more careful?

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two novellas, whose substance and approach are poles apart.

The first, Touring the Land of the Dead , is a melancholy reflection of a woman’s life and her restrained efforts to reconcile with it.

Learning how despicably Natsuko was treated by her ungrateful, needy family was a pretty depressing affair. They chipped away at her good nature piece by little piece and now, after escaping ‘that life’ as she constantly refers to it, her husband’s continuing welfare presents its own demands.

As her past and present ebb and flow, it feels as though she has dutifully shielded others from the elements, while a slow, painful erosion of her ‘self’ has taken place.

And then I was greeted by a mini-saga that is obsessed with over-sharing the unrelenting confused, intimate, and random thoughts of one of four unmarried sisters in particular.

Put it this way, if there was a literary scale of oddness Ninety-Nine Kisses would easily unbalance them. While I do like to read outside my comfort zone I’d rather not feel uncomfortable while reading, which unfortunately is something this particular novella achieved with ease.

(I received a digital copy of this title courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley, with my thanks, which I voluntarily chose to read and review.)

[Elif · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was bizarre.

https://elifthereader.com/books/touri...

[Marianna Zanetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dolore, disabilità, abuso.
Ne abbiamo parlato con la traduttrice qui: https://youtu.be/6hJijilwnXA