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From My Grandmother's Bedside: Sketches of Postwar Tokyo
From My Grandmother's Bedside is an experiment in genre, a moving and evocative reflection on contemporary Japan, human desire, family relations, life, and death. Norma Field, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American G.I., and author of the acclaimed In the Realm of a Dying Emperor , returned to Japan in 1995 to tend to her slowly dying grandmother, who had been rendered speechless by multiple strokes. What she finds—both in the memories of her childhood in her grandmother's household and in the altered face of postmodern Japan—forms the substance of her narrative that transcends both memoir and essay to reveal, through crafted fragments, a refraction of the whole of Japan.
Having spent her childhood in Japan and her adulthood in the United States, Field speaks from the position of one who straddles two worlds. Her testimony is highly personal, her voice is intimate, her observations are keen and clear. She juxtaposes details from daily life—conversations overheard on the subway; arguments between her mother and aunts; the struggle to feed, bathe, and care for her grandmother—with observations on the political and social changes that have transformed Japan. She shows how the belated coming to terms with the war and continuing avoidance of the same are intimately related to the look and feel of Japanese society today. She gently folds back the complicated layers of blame and responsibility for the war, touching in the process on subjects as diverse as the effects of the atomic bomb, comfort women, biracial/bicultural families, the farewells of Kamikaze pilots, and the dehumanizing effects of Japan's postwar economic boom. A recurrent theme is the observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.
From My Grandmother's Bedside is also a contemplation of the many facets of the kinds of language with which her grandmother's illness has been negotiated, the wordless language her grandmother speaks, her own relationship to these languages. Through it all runs the realization that the personal and the political are perpetually entangled, that past and present converge and overlap.
Having spent her childhood in Japan and her adulthood in the United States, Field speaks from the position of one who straddles two worlds. Her testimony is highly personal, her voice is intimate, her observations are keen and clear. She juxtaposes details from daily life—conversations overheard on the subway; arguments between her mother and aunts; the struggle to feed, bathe, and care for her grandmother—with observations on the political and social changes that have transformed Japan. She shows how the belated coming to terms with the war and continuing avoidance of the same are intimately related to the look and feel of Japanese society today. She gently folds back the complicated layers of blame and responsibility for the war, touching in the process on subjects as diverse as the effects of the atomic bomb, comfort women, biracial/bicultural families, the farewells of Kamikaze pilots, and the dehumanizing effects of Japan's postwar economic boom. A recurrent theme is the observation of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.
From My Grandmother's Bedside is also a contemplation of the many facets of the kinds of language with which her grandmother's illness has been negotiated, the wordless language her grandmother speaks, her own relationship to these languages. Through it all runs the realization that the personal and the political are perpetually entangled, that past and present converge and overlap.
- GenresNonfictionJapan
204 pages, Hardcover
First published November 28, 1997
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 22, 2022
Having found Field’s In the Realm of a Dying Emperor informative, albeit flawed in some respects, I was interested to see what From My Grandmother’s Bedside might be like.
Although there are 4 pages of notes at the end of the book, I would not describe it as an academic text. Instead it is a mixture of reminiscing about growing up as a biracial child in her grandmother’s home in Tokyo, observations about the impact of the declining health of her grandmother on her mother and other family members, and comparisons of the neighborhood of her childhood in the 1950’s to her visit in 1995 on which From was based. Additionally, opinions were offered about the state of Japanese society in the context of the 50 year anniversary of the end of World War II.
Field exhibited impressive insight into how her being biracial in 1950’s Tokyo affected her. Likewise for her poignant grasp on the impact which her grandmother’s poor health was having on her own mother, who was then grandmother’s primary caretaker, and on her mother’s relationships with her two sisters. She also effectively disclosed how difficult it was for her to see her grandmother, who had been her primary caretaker while she was growing up, in such a state. Although she did not use the terms mourning or grief, she described the various feelings which are part of that process quite openly.
The author is fluent in both Japanese and English. To her credit she effectively used and translated Japanese terminology to try to explain some of the subtle aspects of the country’s social and familial relationships. Of course, no language can always be exactly translated into another one. When that was the case, she offered explanations and examples to facilitate the reader’s understanding.
The author’s observations about the state of Japanese society were largely a recapitulation of what she wrote in Realm: that the country’s leaders had never really acknowledged full responsibility for the damage inflicted on both Asia and its own people by its militarism from the early 1930’s until the end of the war in 1945. Those who have not read Realm will probably find these ideas informative. For a reader like me already familiar with Realm these were mostly redundant.
Field’s reminisces about the neighborhood of the 1950’s vs 1995 were a mixture. Those which were presented as a reflection of how Japanese society had changed in 40+ years were informative. Those presented in and of themselves as personal impressions were superficial and barely tangentially related to other elements of the book.
As was the case with Realm the prose in From was marked occasionally by long, compound complex sentences. I found that these detracted from the book’s readability.
Finally, there was no overall organization to this book. Although sections were demarcated with italicized heading, the transition from one topic to another followed no particular pattern. This also detracted from its effectiveness.
Given that, IMHO, this book had as many weaknesses as strengths I would rate it as 3 stars. More proactive editing and better organization could have helped it a great deal.
Although there are 4 pages of notes at the end of the book, I would not describe it as an academic text. Instead it is a mixture of reminiscing about growing up as a biracial child in her grandmother’s home in Tokyo, observations about the impact of the declining health of her grandmother on her mother and other family members, and comparisons of the neighborhood of her childhood in the 1950’s to her visit in 1995 on which From was based. Additionally, opinions were offered about the state of Japanese society in the context of the 50 year anniversary of the end of World War II.
Field exhibited impressive insight into how her being biracial in 1950’s Tokyo affected her. Likewise for her poignant grasp on the impact which her grandmother’s poor health was having on her own mother, who was then grandmother’s primary caretaker, and on her mother’s relationships with her two sisters. She also effectively disclosed how difficult it was for her to see her grandmother, who had been her primary caretaker while she was growing up, in such a state. Although she did not use the terms mourning or grief, she described the various feelings which are part of that process quite openly.
The author is fluent in both Japanese and English. To her credit she effectively used and translated Japanese terminology to try to explain some of the subtle aspects of the country’s social and familial relationships. Of course, no language can always be exactly translated into another one. When that was the case, she offered explanations and examples to facilitate the reader’s understanding.
The author’s observations about the state of Japanese society were largely a recapitulation of what she wrote in Realm: that the country’s leaders had never really acknowledged full responsibility for the damage inflicted on both Asia and its own people by its militarism from the early 1930’s until the end of the war in 1945. Those who have not read Realm will probably find these ideas informative. For a reader like me already familiar with Realm these were mostly redundant.
Field’s reminisces about the neighborhood of the 1950’s vs 1995 were a mixture. Those which were presented as a reflection of how Japanese society had changed in 40+ years were informative. Those presented in and of themselves as personal impressions were superficial and barely tangentially related to other elements of the book.
As was the case with Realm the prose in From was marked occasionally by long, compound complex sentences. I found that these detracted from the book’s readability.
Finally, there was no overall organization to this book. Although sections were demarcated with italicized heading, the transition from one topic to another followed no particular pattern. This also detracted from its effectiveness.
Given that, IMHO, this book had as many weaknesses as strengths I would rate it as 3 stars. More proactive editing and better organization could have helped it a great deal.
December 28, 2020
I've never read a book that so beautifully weaves personal narrative, nuanced political observations, history, and poetic reflections of everyday life so seamlessly. I could easily see myself re-reading this again.
October 16, 2007
This is one of my favorite books, and probably my favorite memoir. I wrote my undergrad thesis on it, and I still love to reread it. One of the things I love about Norma Field is that she gives more concrete biographical information (such as dates) in her academic books than in this one. It is a sweet and melancholy examination of growing old set in an aging country. I still get teary and call my grandmother when I read it. It is also offers some very sharp commentary on U.S. and Japanese politics.
October 19, 2014
I don't recall reading another book formatted like this one. It truly is sketches--short observations that could be called prose poems. They are so loosely connected that I wonder how Ms. Field chose their order. Being of the same age as the author, having gone through issues of the care of a failing mother and mother-in-law, and having lived in Tokyo at the time this book was written, the sketches are particularly meaningful. I am not sure how one who has not lived in Tokyo at this time would react to this book.
June 16, 2013
To anyone who lives in Japan or lived in Japan in the mid-nineties, this book is full of moments of recognition. Norma Field captures the essence of her characters so well I felt I knew them intimately. Anyone who has cared for an elderly relative, regardless of culture, will also appreciate the descriptions of her mother's care for her bedridden grandmother. Her social and political commentary is piercing and still relevant.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews