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Cacería de niños
Ganadora de los premios literarios más importantes de Japón, Taeko Kōno escribe sobre mujeres con una belleza inquietante y extraña. Su genio reside en la forma tan verosímil de retratar cada detalle perturbador de la vida cotidiana. Con sorprendente audacia, la autora sabe describir la lenta pero inexorable transformación de un vago malestar en una tragedia. I
El rechazo a la maternidad y una inesperada relación con la muerte, el cuerpo como una entidad separada y truculenta, la indagación de un trauma infantil, el placer que se mezcla con el dolor, y una desmesurada aversión por las niñas. ¿Dónde se encuentra aquello que se desea con desesperación? En cada relato no tarda en aparecer un trasfondo sexual que impulsa la narración de un modo contundente.
Taeko Kōno expone los hechos con perfecta economía y prescindencia, sin explicaciones ni ninguna voluntad de aleccionar. Su estilo resulta tan vívido e intenso que el lector siente vértigo, culpa, y hasta un cierto peligro personal; pero sobre todo, una pasmada admiración por el milagro de estar frente a una obra maestra.
Traducción de Hugo Salas
“Taeko Kōno es la escritora que más admiro de todo Japón. Su implacable mirada penetra en las profundidades de la naturaleza humana exponiendo lo que allí encuentra con absoluto rigor”.
SHŪSAKU ENDŌ
“Carnal y directa, Taeko Kōno es la escritora más lúcida e inteligente de Japón”.
KENZABURŌ ŌE
“Sus cuentos exploran patologías extremas con impecable precisión psicológica gracias a un ojo aguzado para el detalle revelador”.
EDMUNDO PAZ SOLDÁN
Taeko Kōno (1926-2015) es una de las escritoras más importantes, aclamadas e influyentes de la literatura japonesa contemporánea. Su mayor fama la cosechó como narradora, pero también fue reconocida como una gran ensayista, dramaturga y crítica literaria.
Al estallar la guerra del Pacífico fue reclutada para trabajar en una fábrica de municiones. Dado que el empleo y los estudios le consumían buena parte del día, solía escribir por las noches. En 1947 se graduó en Economía. Decidida a iniciar una carrera en las letras, se mudó de Osaka a Tokio para unirse al grupo literario dirigido por Niwa Fumio. En 1965 se casó con el pintor Yasushi Ichikawa. A mediados de la década de 1990 vivió durante varios años en Nueva York.
Taeko Kōno recibió la consagración de la crítica a partir de la publicación en inglés del libro Cacería de niños, en 1996, por la reconocida editorial americana New Directions. Es la autora también de Yōjigari (1962), Fui no koe (1968), Miira tori ryōkitan (1990) e Hiji (2000).
Tanto Shūsaku Endō como el premio Nobel Kenzaburō Ōe la consideraron la mejor escritora japonesa moderna. La lista de los premios literarios que obtuvo resulta impactante: en 1962 recibió el premio Shinchōsha; en 1963 el prestigioso Akutagawa; en 1967 el Women's Literary Prize; en 1968 el famoso galardón Yomiuri, y en 1980 el Tanizaki. También ganó el premio literario de la Academia de Arte japonesa en 1984, y el Noma en 1991. En 2014 recibió la Orden de Cultura, otorgada por el emperador a artistas que hacen contribuciones notables a la cultura japonesa.
El rechazo a la maternidad y una inesperada relación con la muerte, el cuerpo como una entidad separada y truculenta, la indagación de un trauma infantil, el placer que se mezcla con el dolor, y una desmesurada aversión por las niñas. ¿Dónde se encuentra aquello que se desea con desesperación? En cada relato no tarda en aparecer un trasfondo sexual que impulsa la narración de un modo contundente.
Taeko Kōno expone los hechos con perfecta economía y prescindencia, sin explicaciones ni ninguna voluntad de aleccionar. Su estilo resulta tan vívido e intenso que el lector siente vértigo, culpa, y hasta un cierto peligro personal; pero sobre todo, una pasmada admiración por el milagro de estar frente a una obra maestra.
Traducción de Hugo Salas
“Taeko Kōno es la escritora que más admiro de todo Japón. Su implacable mirada penetra en las profundidades de la naturaleza humana exponiendo lo que allí encuentra con absoluto rigor”.
SHŪSAKU ENDŌ
“Carnal y directa, Taeko Kōno es la escritora más lúcida e inteligente de Japón”.
KENZABURŌ ŌE
“Sus cuentos exploran patologías extremas con impecable precisión psicológica gracias a un ojo aguzado para el detalle revelador”.
EDMUNDO PAZ SOLDÁN
Taeko Kōno (1926-2015) es una de las escritoras más importantes, aclamadas e influyentes de la literatura japonesa contemporánea. Su mayor fama la cosechó como narradora, pero también fue reconocida como una gran ensayista, dramaturga y crítica literaria.
Al estallar la guerra del Pacífico fue reclutada para trabajar en una fábrica de municiones. Dado que el empleo y los estudios le consumían buena parte del día, solía escribir por las noches. En 1947 se graduó en Economía. Decidida a iniciar una carrera en las letras, se mudó de Osaka a Tokio para unirse al grupo literario dirigido por Niwa Fumio. En 1965 se casó con el pintor Yasushi Ichikawa. A mediados de la década de 1990 vivió durante varios años en Nueva York.
Taeko Kōno recibió la consagración de la crítica a partir de la publicación en inglés del libro Cacería de niños, en 1996, por la reconocida editorial americana New Directions. Es la autora también de Yōjigari (1962), Fui no koe (1968), Miira tori ryōkitan (1990) e Hiji (2000).
Tanto Shūsaku Endō como el premio Nobel Kenzaburō Ōe la consideraron la mejor escritora japonesa moderna. La lista de los premios literarios que obtuvo resulta impactante: en 1962 recibió el premio Shinchōsha; en 1963 el prestigioso Akutagawa; en 1967 el Women's Literary Prize; en 1968 el famoso galardón Yomiuri, y en 1980 el Tanizaki. También ganó el premio literario de la Academia de Arte japonesa en 1984, y el Noma en 1991. En 2014 recibió la Orden de Cultura, otorgada por el emperador a artistas que hacen contribuciones notables a la cultura japonesa.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Taeko Kōno
40 books54 followersTaeko KŌNO (河野 多惠子) is a Japanese author.
Taeko Kōno was born April 30, 1926 in Osaka, Japan to Tameji and Yone Kōno; her father was a wholesale merchant. She was ill as a child and as a teenager, she was conscripted to work in a factory during World War II.
After the war, she finished her economics degree at Women’s University (currently Osaka Prefecture University), graduating in 1947. She has said that at this time "she felt a new sense of freedom and had an urge to do something, but was not sure what". She joined literary groups, eventually moving to Tokyo, Japan. She worked full-time and wrote in the evening. In 1962 "Toddler Hunting" (幼児狩り) was published and awarded the Shinchosha Prize. In the early 1960s, just before she was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for "Kani" (Crabs) (蟹) in 1963, she quit her job to focus on her writing. In 1965 she married the painter Yasushi Ichikawa. In 1967 she received the Women's Literary Prize for Saigo no toki and subsequently the Yomiuri Prize for "A Sudden Voice" (不意の声) in 1968, as well as the Tanizaki prize in 1980 for "A Year-long Pastoral" (一年の牧歌). She also received a literary prize from the Japanese Art Academy in 1984 and the Noma Literary Prize in 1991 for her novel Miiratori ryōkitan (Mummy-Hunting for the Bizarre, 1990). Kōno became popular and received critical attention after the publication of an English translation of Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories in 1996.
(from Wikipedia)
Taeko Kōno was born April 30, 1926 in Osaka, Japan to Tameji and Yone Kōno; her father was a wholesale merchant. She was ill as a child and as a teenager, she was conscripted to work in a factory during World War II.
After the war, she finished her economics degree at Women’s University (currently Osaka Prefecture University), graduating in 1947. She has said that at this time "she felt a new sense of freedom and had an urge to do something, but was not sure what". She joined literary groups, eventually moving to Tokyo, Japan. She worked full-time and wrote in the evening. In 1962 "Toddler Hunting" (幼児狩り) was published and awarded the Shinchosha Prize. In the early 1960s, just before she was awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for "Kani" (Crabs) (蟹) in 1963, she quit her job to focus on her writing. In 1965 she married the painter Yasushi Ichikawa. In 1967 she received the Women's Literary Prize for Saigo no toki and subsequently the Yomiuri Prize for "A Sudden Voice" (不意の声) in 1968, as well as the Tanizaki prize in 1980 for "A Year-long Pastoral" (一年の牧歌). She also received a literary prize from the Japanese Art Academy in 1984 and the Noma Literary Prize in 1991 for her novel Miiratori ryōkitan (Mummy-Hunting for the Bizarre, 1990). Kōno became popular and received critical attention after the publication of an English translation of Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories in 1996.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 214 reviews
August 9, 2023
The rating and review are for the short story called Full Tide whoch appears in the colection Toddler-Hunting. The story was read in Found In Translation anthology.
According to the Anthology’s editor “Kōno Taeko (1926–2015) was one of the most important Japanese women writers of the second half of the twentieth century. She established a reputation for herself as an acerbic essayist, a playwright and a literary critic. By the end of her life she was a leading presence in Japan’s literary establishment, and one of the first women writers to serve on the Akutagawa Literary Prize committee. Alternative sexual practices is a popular theme that permeates Kōno’s work”
The short story is set before and during the WW2 and it concerns with the move of a family to the suburbs and the fading relationship with the children’s grandmother. I liked the writing style but I did not really understand what the author wanted to transmit with the story. It wasn’t too much about the war although it touched the subject. There were some ideas about the children adapting to a new neigbourhood and school but not much. There was a strange twist about the grandmother at the end which felt like it came from nowhere. It felt a bit unfocused.
According to the Anthology’s editor “Kōno Taeko (1926–2015) was one of the most important Japanese women writers of the second half of the twentieth century. She established a reputation for herself as an acerbic essayist, a playwright and a literary critic. By the end of her life she was a leading presence in Japan’s literary establishment, and one of the first women writers to serve on the Akutagawa Literary Prize committee. Alternative sexual practices is a popular theme that permeates Kōno’s work”
The short story is set before and during the WW2 and it concerns with the move of a family to the suburbs and the fading relationship with the children’s grandmother. I liked the writing style but I did not really understand what the author wanted to transmit with the story. It wasn’t too much about the war although it touched the subject. There were some ideas about the children adapting to a new neigbourhood and school but not much. There was a strange twist about the grandmother at the end which felt like it came from nowhere. It felt a bit unfocused.
August 17, 2019
Very fun, dark collection of short stories about the secrets women hold, both from society (in their relationships with men) and from the men themselves. There is a real sense of diminishing returns in that most stories have a near identical structure (Innocuous-seeming female lead is somewhere, it is revealed that she has a sexual kink (the nature of which I won't spoil), and then her bizarre back story is unearthed. This is not the fault of Kōno - i would love to read one of her novels, to see how this form stretches. Her sense of humor is real. Her eye for body horrors is astounding, and little details (ants on a piece of meat, blood out of a corpses nostril, a baby turtle floundering, near death) have not left my head since I finished the collection.
December 14, 2021
Qué gran nueva escritora he descubierto! Precisa, carnal, certera, inquietante. Cada uno de los cuentos trata sobre mujeres, parejas, la vida cotidiana aparentemente como la nuestra. Pero pronto se revelan hechos extraños, perturbadores, que lo dan vuelta todo. Su lectura es increíblemente atrapante. Y muy audaz. Nunca he leído alguien que trate con tanta crudeza los temas de estos cuentos. Mucho está sugerido. 'Una salida nocturna' me recordó la serie La dimensión desconocida, por el manejo del tiempo. 'Cacería de niños' es la versión narrativa de 'Pegan a un niño', el ensayo de Freud. Este libro ya había sido elogiado por su traducción al inglés, en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra. Y la versión al español es excelente. Estamos frente a una escritora de impresionante maestría que aborda temas muy perturbadores. Solo nos queda ponernos de pie para aplaudir: ok estos hechos existen, agradezco que se me cuenten de esta manera tan soberbia.
January 23, 2023
The book of female disquiet
With literary fiction’s current (but is it really?) obsession with disaster women, this collection of short stories feels remarkably fresh and modern. Only it is about post-war women in Japan.
They are unsatisfied restless women alright, but it all boils under the facade of respectability. Taeko is fascinated with obsession, masochism, disturbing transgressive fantasies that cannot be ever noticed or addressed, but that are always there for these women. And a lot of more mundane issues women encounter since the dawn of time: jealousy, stigma and shame of being a divorcee, relationship with mothers, feeling uncomfortable in gender roles assigned by the society and expectation about marriage and childbearing. These stories are dark and subversive, and unputdownable. Taeko can masterfully write a compelling even if unsympathetic woman in just a few strokes. Admittedly the type of woman is quite similar from one story to another.
The most famous one, Toddler hunting, may be the most disturbing of the stories (it is about a masochistic woman who hates little girls and has a very unhealthy obsession with little boys and fantasies about acts of sadism towards them), but my favorite story must be Snow. It is a melancholy view on a complicated mother-daughter relationship and of the price girls pay for their mothers’ unresolved trauma: how the destructive influence of that relationship can destroy a young woman’s life (and even worth, be passed down further).
A memorable collection and a fascinating writer of short form (and I don’t tend to like it as a rule)
With literary fiction’s current (but is it really?) obsession with disaster women, this collection of short stories feels remarkably fresh and modern. Only it is about post-war women in Japan.
They are unsatisfied restless women alright, but it all boils under the facade of respectability. Taeko is fascinated with obsession, masochism, disturbing transgressive fantasies that cannot be ever noticed or addressed, but that are always there for these women. And a lot of more mundane issues women encounter since the dawn of time: jealousy, stigma and shame of being a divorcee, relationship with mothers, feeling uncomfortable in gender roles assigned by the society and expectation about marriage and childbearing. These stories are dark and subversive, and unputdownable. Taeko can masterfully write a compelling even if unsympathetic woman in just a few strokes. Admittedly the type of woman is quite similar from one story to another.
Whenever Hideko heard an opera’s first few notes, she always felt that the music wanted to tell her that, even if only for a little while, she could be liberated from all trivial cares. And she would eagerly seize the opportunity to be transported to another world.
The most famous one, Toddler hunting, may be the most disturbing of the stories (it is about a masochistic woman who hates little girls and has a very unhealthy obsession with little boys and fantasies about acts of sadism towards them), but my favorite story must be Snow. It is a melancholy view on a complicated mother-daughter relationship and of the price girls pay for their mothers’ unresolved trauma: how the destructive influence of that relationship can destroy a young woman’s life (and even worth, be passed down further).
A memorable collection and a fascinating writer of short form (and I don’t tend to like it as a rule)
January 12, 2023
... it won't do any good to just tell you; that won't make you see how all your tricks are gathered, intertwined, and packed inside me. The only way to prove it will be to have you cut me open and look. Look, everybody. Here they are: all the deceit and tricks I was forced to hold inside.
Obsessive and disquieting, this collection feels absolutely contemporary even though the stories were written during the 1960s. Kōno excels at dialectics: the grace and fluidity of her prose which is used to articulate violent, even sickening, scenes; the tension between the everyday of her female characters and the dark undersides that spill over via dreams and fantasies into their lives, especially their homes; the push-pull of sadomasochism where extreme pain is also acute pleasure.
One of the things that makes these stories work so well is that they are long enough to feel dense, rich and detailed. We get to know the female characters at their heart who initially appear innocuous, and the slide into something darker, more transgressive, even perverse at times, is given plenty of time to breathe.
These women have troubled relationships: with husbands and lovers, with mothers, with children - with the concepts which comprise cultural strictures of 'womanhood', not least motherhood. Bodies, inevitably, are given intense focus: wounds, both sexual and otherwise, are prominent, as is eating, illness and thoughts of death.
Kōno makes fine use of Japanese landscapes, from urban settings in Tokyo and Osaka to seaside resorts, and the snowy north (and my favourite story is 'Snow'); and, especially, the domestic interiors of tatami rooms and sliding paper doors where it is even more imperative, and impossible, to keep what is secret inside. The elegant prose is used to create oppressive images that haunt both characters and reader, and desire is covert, pressing and unstoppable.
I especially like the balance between the manifest and the restrained - not all the stories end on a climax and there are no crude and obvious twists and reveals. Instead these stories explore the inner lives of these female characters and the darkness that haunts them, that may need to be buried, or released like blood.
Transgressive stories, then, that hover between images of women crushed and those where women's frustrations emerge via fantasies of cruelty against self and others. These are intense and subtly fierce but also written with impressive control, vision, authority and a strange beauty.
Stunning.
November 30, 2011
One of the best short story collections I've read in recent years. It's a shame that Taeko Kono isn't better known and though she appears to have authored several books, this seems to be the only one translated into English.
The stories were written in the 60's but do not feel in any way dated. Each story creates a world as rich as any novel...The lives of women are explored, their relationships, the violence of their longing, the way pain and pleasure mix. Setting: a seaside town, an urban neighborhood, is equally important, evocative. One thing I like about the stories is that they do not follow a typical trajectory, though they build in tension to a sort of climax, often the ending is but a suggestion, an image, another moment in a richly textured and confusing life, a hardening or burnishing perhaps of all that's been building...much is suggested, nothing is spelled out. There is a bravery and boldness in the way that Kono depicts the complexity of women's lives and desires, no judgment passed on their wish to be whipped during sex, for example, or another's fascination with young boys, hatred for girls; another for the meat closest to the bone or shell: "All those varied bone and shell dishes began to give her the feeling that a sense of taste had been awakened throughout her body; that all her senses had become so concentrated in her sense of taste that it was difficult for her to move." (263).
Really I am surprised this author isn't better known. She should be.
Kenzaburo Oe writes: "At once the most carnally direct and the most lucidly intelligent woman writing in Japan." I believe him.
The stories were written in the 60's but do not feel in any way dated. Each story creates a world as rich as any novel...The lives of women are explored, their relationships, the violence of their longing, the way pain and pleasure mix. Setting: a seaside town, an urban neighborhood, is equally important, evocative. One thing I like about the stories is that they do not follow a typical trajectory, though they build in tension to a sort of climax, often the ending is but a suggestion, an image, another moment in a richly textured and confusing life, a hardening or burnishing perhaps of all that's been building...much is suggested, nothing is spelled out. There is a bravery and boldness in the way that Kono depicts the complexity of women's lives and desires, no judgment passed on their wish to be whipped during sex, for example, or another's fascination with young boys, hatred for girls; another for the meat closest to the bone or shell: "All those varied bone and shell dishes began to give her the feeling that a sense of taste had been awakened throughout her body; that all her senses had become so concentrated in her sense of taste that it was difficult for her to move." (263).
Really I am surprised this author isn't better known. She should be.
Kenzaburo Oe writes: "At once the most carnally direct and the most lucidly intelligent woman writing in Japan." I believe him.
February 10, 2023
2 ½ stars
Toddler Hunting and Other Stories is an unnerving and subversive collection that doesn’t shy away from depicting perverse desires, sickening fixations, unhealthy appetites, and troubling relationships. The collection opens with a very tame story that, surprisingly enough, actually ended up being the only one I really appreciated. I found the quiet unease permeating this first story far more effective than the graphic portrayals we get later on of women who want to act out their sadomasochistic fantasies or children being physically and emotionally abused. This story has a seemingly simple premise, that of a married couple heading out to visit some friends of theirs, that is elevated by the ‘clandestine’ nature of their visit and by the subversion of our expectations in regard to how the night will pan out. It had this disquieting dreamlike quality that I have come to associate with the work of David Lynch and Kazuo Ishiguro.
The other stories are mostly populated by women who want their partners to whip/flog them as they find physical pain to be a source of pleasure. Given that these stories were published in the 1960s, the author’s unflinching exploration of her character’s sexual desires, their bodies and psyches, these stories were definitely avant-garde, transgressive even, and they can still be seen as such given that many of the women in these stories express or envision depraved fantasies.
The title story is the most ‘shocking’ one given that we follow a woman who out of a mixture of self-hatred or internalized misogyny finds girls repulsive. However, she seems to feel quite differently about little boys and finds ways to watch them undress or eat. Other women in this collection seem to find it arousing to scold children or imagine someone else scolding, or even brutally beating up, children. Some of Taeko Kōno’s women brought to mind Jean Rhys’ passive heroines, as they also find themselves drawn into other people’s volatile marriages (people who are rather 'unattractive' and 'unpleasant'). Others instead made me think of Mariana Enríquez and the infamous Humbert Humbert.
Certainly, Kōno has no trouble presenting her readers with discomforting scenes or delving into taboo subjects as grooming, sadomasochism, strange malaises, abject bodies, cruelty to children, self-abnegation, and unnerving portrayals of motherhood are motifs of this collection. While I am usually drawn to this type of restrained prose and morally dubious characters, I was, despite the stories’ graphic contents, bored. I found the stories too-samey, repetitive even. The women in these stories, despite their disruptive and ambiguous desires, were not particularly fascinating to me and I do not attribute depth or value to graphic content alone. I need something else, something, apologies to my fellow vegans, ‘meatier’ to sink my teeth into.
Some of my friends here on GR seemed to have had a more rewarding experience with this collection so if you are interested in reading I recommend you check out their reviews instead. Maybe I shouldn't have read this collection all at once, maybe then the stories would have felt more distinct from one another, so I am open to revisiting Kōno's work in the future.
Toddler Hunting and Other Stories is an unnerving and subversive collection that doesn’t shy away from depicting perverse desires, sickening fixations, unhealthy appetites, and troubling relationships. The collection opens with a very tame story that, surprisingly enough, actually ended up being the only one I really appreciated. I found the quiet unease permeating this first story far more effective than the graphic portrayals we get later on of women who want to act out their sadomasochistic fantasies or children being physically and emotionally abused. This story has a seemingly simple premise, that of a married couple heading out to visit some friends of theirs, that is elevated by the ‘clandestine’ nature of their visit and by the subversion of our expectations in regard to how the night will pan out. It had this disquieting dreamlike quality that I have come to associate with the work of David Lynch and Kazuo Ishiguro.
The other stories are mostly populated by women who want their partners to whip/flog them as they find physical pain to be a source of pleasure. Given that these stories were published in the 1960s, the author’s unflinching exploration of her character’s sexual desires, their bodies and psyches, these stories were definitely avant-garde, transgressive even, and they can still be seen as such given that many of the women in these stories express or envision depraved fantasies.
The title story is the most ‘shocking’ one given that we follow a woman who out of a mixture of self-hatred or internalized misogyny finds girls repulsive. However, she seems to feel quite differently about little boys and finds ways to watch them undress or eat. Other women in this collection seem to find it arousing to scold children or imagine someone else scolding, or even brutally beating up, children. Some of Taeko Kōno’s women brought to mind Jean Rhys’ passive heroines, as they also find themselves drawn into other people’s volatile marriages (people who are rather 'unattractive' and 'unpleasant'). Others instead made me think of Mariana Enríquez and the infamous Humbert Humbert.
Certainly, Kōno has no trouble presenting her readers with discomforting scenes or delving into taboo subjects as grooming, sadomasochism, strange malaises, abject bodies, cruelty to children, self-abnegation, and unnerving portrayals of motherhood are motifs of this collection. While I am usually drawn to this type of restrained prose and morally dubious characters, I was, despite the stories’ graphic contents, bored. I found the stories too-samey, repetitive even. The women in these stories, despite their disruptive and ambiguous desires, were not particularly fascinating to me and I do not attribute depth or value to graphic content alone. I need something else, something, apologies to my fellow vegans, ‘meatier’ to sink my teeth into.
Some of my friends here on GR seemed to have had a more rewarding experience with this collection so if you are interested in reading I recommend you check out their reviews instead. Maybe I shouldn't have read this collection all at once, maybe then the stories would have felt more distinct from one another, so I am open to revisiting Kōno's work in the future.
October 27, 2012
This is what I'm coming as on Hallowe'en:
Because she's fucking scary. A thing of horror can be a thing of beauty. Don't you just love Japan? Ban this filth, I want it too much.
Because she's fucking scary. A thing of horror can be a thing of beauty. Don't you just love Japan? Ban this filth, I want it too much.
January 5, 2023
Savoured re-reading this dark collection over several weeks.
The pieces were all written in the 1960s. Each story has some additional twist or complication that is completely unexpected. Some of the twists are infused with the spirit of S/M, physical or emotional.
The back cover uses the word "transgressive" and some well-known Japaneses writers (all male of course) describe Kono as the best female writer. I think Kono the writer deserves higher praise. This collection is one of the strongest I've ever read, and if those well-known male writers were not simply jealous of Kono's obvious talent I'll eat my yukata.
The pieces were all written in the 1960s. Each story has some additional twist or complication that is completely unexpected. Some of the twists are infused with the spirit of S/M, physical or emotional.
The back cover uses the word "transgressive" and some well-known Japaneses writers (all male of course) describe Kono as the best female writer. I think Kono the writer deserves higher praise. This collection is one of the strongest I've ever read, and if those well-known male writers were not simply jealous of Kono's obvious talent I'll eat my yukata.
December 19, 2019
First published in 1996, this collection is every bit as contemporary-feeling and feminist as Machado, Bender, Link, except that they're also clearly written by someone who has lived through the war and its aftermath. The titular story "Toddler Hunting" is the most disturbing but each of these stories managed to affect me deeply. Seek this one out--it's well worth your attention.
August 16, 2019
Any stereotypes of that you may have had about Japanese woman being quiet, shy, and non-confrontational will be swept away in this collection of short stories. Taeko Kono’s women are strong and know what they want, and their desire is not satisfied by the usual ‘conventional' means. Toddler Hunting takes you to the very edge of what is usually acceptable, and, at times, it maybe slips over that edge. I found it refreshingly subversive and totally unsettling, and I wonder why this is the only one of her books that is translated into English
April 14, 2023
These pieces of writing were unlike anything I've read before – telling tales of everyday life, they had unsettling and sometimes disturbing elements to them that must have been actually shocking in the 60s when these were first published.
Toddler Hunter & Other Stories are a collection of short stories by a Japanese woman who was a factory worker during WWII. It's hard to tell whether her experiences of the war were part of what made her look so deeply into the human condition and its dark sides, but what she presents us with here are tales of mostly women who don't quite fit into society.
Sadomasochism plays a big role in this. I don't think I've ever seen taboos introduced as nonchalantly as Kōno does in her stories. Her women explore eroticism, enjoy physical pain in sex and seem to get something out of straining relationships. They contemplate death and wonder about the meaning of their lives – there's this one story beginning with the following paragraph:
Kōno's women also have difficult relationships with children and motherhood. This came as a particular surprise, considering that Japan put so much importance on the traditional role of the woman – to find characters question that place so unabashedly felt brave and provoking. There's one woman who has an internal monologue about how much she hates girls, but loves young boys to an obsessive degree (something that is concerning on a completely different level as well), another one feels openly relived when realising that she won't be able to give birth to children.
But it's not all just about the provocation. While the toxic stuff is what makes this so juicy and intoxicating, Kōno is also just a beautiful writer. She vividly colours the inner lives of her characters, fills them with metaphors and images that are just delightful and delicate to read. I'm counting this as one of my most special reads this year so far!
Toddler Hunter & Other Stories are a collection of short stories by a Japanese woman who was a factory worker during WWII. It's hard to tell whether her experiences of the war were part of what made her look so deeply into the human condition and its dark sides, but what she presents us with here are tales of mostly women who don't quite fit into society.
Sadomasochism plays a big role in this. I don't think I've ever seen taboos introduced as nonchalantly as Kōno does in her stories. Her women explore eroticism, enjoy physical pain in sex and seem to get something out of straining relationships. They contemplate death and wonder about the meaning of their lives – there's this one story beginning with the following paragraph:
"She had to die at some point, she could accept that; and to die in that particular way might even be her fate. But so suddenly, so quickly – Noriko couldn't begin to face the possibility."
Kōno's women also have difficult relationships with children and motherhood. This came as a particular surprise, considering that Japan put so much importance on the traditional role of the woman – to find characters question that place so unabashedly felt brave and provoking. There's one woman who has an internal monologue about how much she hates girls, but loves young boys to an obsessive degree (something that is concerning on a completely different level as well), another one feels openly relived when realising that she won't be able to give birth to children.
But it's not all just about the provocation. While the toxic stuff is what makes this so juicy and intoxicating, Kōno is also just a beautiful writer. She vividly colours the inner lives of her characters, fills them with metaphors and images that are just delightful and delicate to read. I'm counting this as one of my most special reads this year so far!
January 2, 2019
I first read and have known her via reading her two short stories from two collections, that is, The Last Time, in This Kind of Woman (Stanford University Press, 1982) and Toddler's Hunting, in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories (Oxford University Press, 2010). For some reason, she was then relatively mysterious to me as a non-Japanese reader till I came across this book early this month encouraged/guaranteed to be not disappointed, hopefully, by its information:
After reading her Wikipedia biography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeko_Kono), I couldn't help admiring her expertise and fame with respect and awe since comparatively, in the past decade, most translated short stories, novels, novellas, etc. I read were written by male authors. Therefore, I found reading her eight stories (two being repetitive, I have previously read them before) arguably enjoyable due to her unique style of writing in portrayals of Japanese women in particular contexts. In other words, we can visualize or imagine such seemingly typical Japanese women characters whose saying, welcoming, arguing, etc. remind us of those we have casually seen, met, observed, etc. somewhere on television, YouTube or on our trips in Japan.
The following three exemplary excerpts taken from the fourth story Snow (1962), I think, would suffice to the readers to see how the author has uniquely portrayed a character named Hayako whose troubled mind mysteriously lingers off and on; we simply can't help wondering how she copes with it:
The worst episode of her phobia had occurred while she was still living with her family in Tokyo: Kisaki had suggested one day that they get married since it would soon be his turn to be transferred. The town he mentioned was M----City, in a very cold mountainous part of the country, where his company had a factory.
"But all winter, it'll be ---" Hayako started, then found herself unable to finish. Her lips began to quiver, and the trembling became more severe, and finally she was gasping for breath. The mystified expression on Kisaki's face only fed her panic. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief. "I'd die if it got really deep," she managed to say, regaining some composure. (p. 82)
Hayako shook her head. She tried to keep her face calm as another wave of pain hit.
"No, let's go on," she said, when it abated. "I'll manage. It makes no difference now, anyway. It started."
She refused to give up. Everything depended on getting to the snowbound outpost of Sengokubara. Perhaps she could force a miracle if they got there. Her old self had been too much under the sway of her mother and the snow. She was determined to part from that old self, once and for all. (p. 99)
To continue . . .
Winner of Japan's top literary prizes (the Akutagawa, the Tanizaki, the Noma, and the Yomiuri), Taeko Kono writes with a strange beauty: her tales are pinpricked with disquieting scenes, her characters all driven by nameless desires, especially in the context of their intimate relationships. (back cover)
After reading her Wikipedia biography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taeko_Kono), I couldn't help admiring her expertise and fame with respect and awe since comparatively, in the past decade, most translated short stories, novels, novellas, etc. I read were written by male authors. Therefore, I found reading her eight stories (two being repetitive, I have previously read them before) arguably enjoyable due to her unique style of writing in portrayals of Japanese women in particular contexts. In other words, we can visualize or imagine such seemingly typical Japanese women characters whose saying, welcoming, arguing, etc. remind us of those we have casually seen, met, observed, etc. somewhere on television, YouTube or on our trips in Japan.
The following three exemplary excerpts taken from the fourth story Snow (1962), I think, would suffice to the readers to see how the author has uniquely portrayed a character named Hayako whose troubled mind mysteriously lingers off and on; we simply can't help wondering how she copes with it:
The worst episode of her phobia had occurred while she was still living with her family in Tokyo: Kisaki had suggested one day that they get married since it would soon be his turn to be transferred. The town he mentioned was M----City, in a very cold mountainous part of the country, where his company had a factory.
"But all winter, it'll be ---" Hayako started, then found herself unable to finish. Her lips began to quiver, and the trembling became more severe, and finally she was gasping for breath. The mystified expression on Kisaki's face only fed her panic. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief. "I'd die if it got really deep," she managed to say, regaining some composure. (p. 82)
Hayako shook her head. She tried to keep her face calm as another wave of pain hit.
"No, let's go on," she said, when it abated. "I'll manage. It makes no difference now, anyway. It started."
She refused to give up. Everything depended on getting to the snowbound outpost of Sengokubara. Perhaps she could force a miracle if they got there. Her old self had been too much under the sway of her mother and the snow. She was determined to part from that old self, once and for all. (p. 99)
To continue . . .
January 15, 2024
Subversive, yet mundane.
Each story shared a similar format and narrative voice and began to feel formulaic. The shock / taboo will be the thing I remember about this one in a few months' time.
Each story shared a similar format and narrative voice and began to feel formulaic. The shock / taboo will be the thing I remember about this one in a few months' time.
March 27, 2025
Short stories with a twist ad a threat of violence or danger.
A little dated for my tastes and what was probable seen as risque at the time is tame nowadays.
A little dated for my tastes and what was probable seen as risque at the time is tame nowadays.
January 20, 2012
read two of these last night, excellent. Limpid, seemingly conventional but with a real subversive bite... (next day) and then I read the third - title - story, fuck me it's strong, repellant (her fantasy bit). Jesus Christ. Still reading on though, this is good stuff, but with caution now and wondering what else will come up.
update: I've stopped reading these for a bit. Not because they're bad, quite the opposite. I just need to go and lie down in a corner (with another book: it's like cheating on this one), and think about these gentle yet violent, obsessive yet conventional stories.
.. have gone back after a couple of days because the stories have a hold now. I won't be able to stop reading them again.
..finished on the train this morning. Quite a book. Review later...
Had to revise my star rating up from 4 to 5 because these stories have got under my skin and I keep thinking about them. They concern women in their 30s mainly, married or not, having to obey the strict conventions of 60s Japanese society but underneath seething (perhaps that’s too strong a word) with obsession and usually with masochistic tendencies. Out of the blue will come a whip used on the willing woman. Or she is invited to join in sexually with another couple (one couple a male hunchback and female ‘beauty’). More disturbing is the toddler fixation hinted at - no, spelled out - in the title. A fair few of the protagonists here have a ‘thing’ for little boys (and hate little girls). There is no actual physical or sexual abuse but there is (in one story) a fantasy sequence which was very disturbing. Mostly though it is left to the reader’s imagination what these women would do given the chance - or maybe they wouldn’t – maybe just fondling their (the boy's) clothes will do. That’s what I liked about the stories, although they are very strong, there is no explicitness (hardly any), and no judgement. These things just are, and we have to live with the darkness inside.
Strongly recommended but beware can cause nausea.
Thanks Jessica for pointing out another great collection.
update: I've stopped reading these for a bit. Not because they're bad, quite the opposite. I just need to go and lie down in a corner (with another book: it's like cheating on this one), and think about these gentle yet violent, obsessive yet conventional stories.
.. have gone back after a couple of days because the stories have a hold now. I won't be able to stop reading them again.
..finished on the train this morning. Quite a book. Review later...
Had to revise my star rating up from 4 to 5 because these stories have got under my skin and I keep thinking about them. They concern women in their 30s mainly, married or not, having to obey the strict conventions of 60s Japanese society but underneath seething (perhaps that’s too strong a word) with obsession and usually with masochistic tendencies. Out of the blue will come a whip used on the willing woman. Or she is invited to join in sexually with another couple (one couple a male hunchback and female ‘beauty’). More disturbing is the toddler fixation hinted at - no, spelled out - in the title. A fair few of the protagonists here have a ‘thing’ for little boys (and hate little girls). There is no actual physical or sexual abuse but there is (in one story) a fantasy sequence which was very disturbing. Mostly though it is left to the reader’s imagination what these women would do given the chance - or maybe they wouldn’t – maybe just fondling their (the boy's) clothes will do. That’s what I liked about the stories, although they are very strong, there is no explicitness (hardly any), and no judgement. These things just are, and we have to live with the darkness inside.
Strongly recommended but beware can cause nausea.
Thanks Jessica for pointing out another great collection.
August 27, 2023
“Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories” by Taeko Kono is a collection of stories presenting such an important Japanese female perspective that I am shocked it is gaining recognition in the English-speaking world only now, nearly sixty years after the first story was written. These days a certain trend in Japanese literature written by women is to show female protagonists completely devoid of sexual desire. Taeko Kono’s protagonists, in contrast, constantly crave sex but they all enjoy an element of physical violence and psychological abuse with it. They enjoy playing the role of a subservient, deserving punishment, humiliated and reduced to an object wife. At the same time they explicitly do not want to become mothers; most are repelled by the mere idea of having children, unless, in case of some, they give birth to boys. Fascination with little boys borders on perversion, especially as in some cases it is mixed with the desire to inflict acts of violence on them.
Men in Kono’s stories are often spineless, amoral, self-centred, completely lacking empathy bores, whom their wives usually neither truly respect nor love. Yet patriarchy prevails and women need to ask men in their families for permission to do nearly anything, from going out to the shops to taking holidays to recuperate after getting ill with tuberculosis.
Kono is a brilliant observer of Japanese social norms and restrictions and the dynamic between the sexes in Japan. She gives voice to women who are ignored and her characters’ inclination for sadomasochism is a fascinating contrast to the way Japanese male authors usually presented women, namely as bland, submissive beauties dreaming of becoming wives and mothers. Kono’s characters yearn for freedom from social conventions but allow themselves to be free only in their dreams. My favourite story “Snow” depicts a woman bonded with her adoptive mother by migraines caused by snow; here too snow once was a silent witness to cruelty towards children.
My only negative remark is that all female characters are exactly the same, with the same sexual tastes and same personalities, which placed Kono only one step away from ridiculing them as another cliché.
Men in Kono’s stories are often spineless, amoral, self-centred, completely lacking empathy bores, whom their wives usually neither truly respect nor love. Yet patriarchy prevails and women need to ask men in their families for permission to do nearly anything, from going out to the shops to taking holidays to recuperate after getting ill with tuberculosis.
Kono is a brilliant observer of Japanese social norms and restrictions and the dynamic between the sexes in Japan. She gives voice to women who are ignored and her characters’ inclination for sadomasochism is a fascinating contrast to the way Japanese male authors usually presented women, namely as bland, submissive beauties dreaming of becoming wives and mothers. Kono’s characters yearn for freedom from social conventions but allow themselves to be free only in their dreams. My favourite story “Snow” depicts a woman bonded with her adoptive mother by migraines caused by snow; here too snow once was a silent witness to cruelty towards children.
My only negative remark is that all female characters are exactly the same, with the same sexual tastes and same personalities, which placed Kono only one step away from ridiculing them as another cliché.
May 16, 2021
Odd and beguiling, 10 stories on slice of life that set in classic Japanese era with both intimidating and authentic characters. I am always fond with mundane Japanese lifestyle setting, and Kōno's premises mostly having this mood. Love most of the stories but here's some thoughts on few of my most favourites--
📖Night Journey-- story of a married couple night traveling to their friend's house who did not turn up during a dinner meeting. Spooky yet fascinating, love the ending.
📖Toddler-Hunting-- on obsession and fetish but love the exploration of the character's psyche and behaviour.
📖Snow-- a haunting story of a mother and her adoptive daughter; on death and phobia but so emotionally written.
📖Final Moments-- Noriko and her last 26 hours, of all things she did just to eliminate her existence and her thoughts on her relationship with Asari; so evocative and psychologically engaging.
📖Bone Meat-- "It was last fall, but the woman could not seem to take it into her head to dispose of the belongings the man had left behind when he deserted her." Raw, poignant and moody. The ending was somehow left me perplexed.
Such an engrossing collection for me. The storytelling and plot progression were neatly done (even with some having an abrupt ending), and as the main characters mostly a female woman so it talks a lot on femininity, identity and gender roles (both relatable and arguable).
If you want to dig into Japanese literature that set during the Japan post war backdrop, I would highly recommend this collection. I find it interesting on how it was written in the 60s yet it feels so contemporary. This will be one of my favourite reads this month👌🏻
📍few stories having sadomasochism theme that you might find disturbing
Thanks to Pansing Distribution for sending me a review copy of this book in return for my honest review!
📖Night Journey-- story of a married couple night traveling to their friend's house who did not turn up during a dinner meeting. Spooky yet fascinating, love the ending.
📖Toddler-Hunting-- on obsession and fetish but love the exploration of the character's psyche and behaviour.
📖Snow-- a haunting story of a mother and her adoptive daughter; on death and phobia but so emotionally written.
📖Final Moments-- Noriko and her last 26 hours, of all things she did just to eliminate her existence and her thoughts on her relationship with Asari; so evocative and psychologically engaging.
📖Bone Meat-- "It was last fall, but the woman could not seem to take it into her head to dispose of the belongings the man had left behind when he deserted her." Raw, poignant and moody. The ending was somehow left me perplexed.
Such an engrossing collection for me. The storytelling and plot progression were neatly done (even with some having an abrupt ending), and as the main characters mostly a female woman so it talks a lot on femininity, identity and gender roles (both relatable and arguable).
If you want to dig into Japanese literature that set during the Japan post war backdrop, I would highly recommend this collection. I find it interesting on how it was written in the 60s yet it feels so contemporary. This will be one of my favourite reads this month👌🏻
📍few stories having sadomasochism theme that you might find disturbing
Thanks to Pansing Distribution for sending me a review copy of this book in return for my honest review!
September 3, 2018
I was not prepared for this unsettling and unforgettable collection. These stories left me shaken and in awe; they are incendiary, beautiful, and terrifying confrontations of the lives we keep hidden from others. Taeko Kōno fearlessly writes into the abyss, and there is no one like her.
February 11, 2020
Suitably dark and very engaging in the main.
Read
December 19, 20213.5
August 5, 2023
Medio degenereke algunos y bien melancólicos todos pero me gustaron los cuentos de la Taeko Kōno
January 19, 2022
Siempre me cuesta puntuar las antologías, porque siempre hay cuentos que me gustan más que otros... en esta antología me pasó que fueron más los que no me gustaron que los que sí.
En cuanto al estilo de la autora, me gustó mucho. A pesar de ser cuentos largos, su forma de escribir es muy llevadera. Describe muy bien la cotidianidad de la vida familiar y conyugal de Japón sin ser densa, lo que me gustó mucho ya que soy una ignorante en lo que respecta a esta cultura, y no me costó para nada seguir el hilo de los cuentos. Incluso me pareció genial su manera de introducir elementos de forma implícita, de sugerirlos, de susurrarlos, pero que de a poco terminan tomando protagonismo en la narración.
Lo que no me gustó justamente fue el contenido de estos cuentos. Hay algunos que me gustaron muchos más que otros (Marea alta, Nieve, Últimos momentos), pero no pude sacarme de encima la sensación opresora que me dejó "Cacería de niños", el primer cuento y el que le da nombre a la antología. Hay algo que yace en todos los cuentos, en algunos más explícito que en otros, que me incomodó muchísimo, and not in a good way, y que me generaba rechazo. En "cacería de niños", me sentí súper ajena a la historia, y estuve a punto de abandonar la lectura. Además, hay algunos elementos que se repiten en las relaciones de pareja de todos los cuentos que no disfruté.
En conclusión, una autora con un gran estilo, pero not my cup of tea.
En cuanto al estilo de la autora, me gustó mucho. A pesar de ser cuentos largos, su forma de escribir es muy llevadera. Describe muy bien la cotidianidad de la vida familiar y conyugal de Japón sin ser densa, lo que me gustó mucho ya que soy una ignorante en lo que respecta a esta cultura, y no me costó para nada seguir el hilo de los cuentos. Incluso me pareció genial su manera de introducir elementos de forma implícita, de sugerirlos, de susurrarlos, pero que de a poco terminan tomando protagonismo en la narración.
Lo que no me gustó justamente fue el contenido de estos cuentos. Hay algunos que me gustaron muchos más que otros (Marea alta, Nieve, Últimos momentos), pero no pude sacarme de encima la sensación opresora que me dejó "Cacería de niños", el primer cuento y el que le da nombre a la antología. Hay algo que yace en todos los cuentos, en algunos más explícito que en otros, que me incomodó muchísimo, and not in a good way, y que me generaba rechazo. En "cacería de niños", me sentí súper ajena a la historia, y estuve a punto de abandonar la lectura. Además, hay algunos elementos que se repiten en las relaciones de pareja de todos los cuentos que no disfruté.
En conclusión, una autora con un gran estilo, pero not my cup of tea.
July 21, 2016
People seem to love this book and it's so called "dreamlike quality." If I had dreams like this, I'd wake up screaming. I actually tossed this book in the trash because I was so disturbed by it but fetched it out for the sake of Mrs. Jividen, my eighth grade English teacher, who admonished us to give books a chance to absorb us into their narrative world. I bought it at a thrift store because it was Japanese fiction, and therefore, I figured, must be interesting, and it was interesting all right, in the way seeing half dead animals on the road is interesting. It occurs to me that the very things about this book that I find repugnant may be things that would recommend the book to people who tastes run in that direction. As in many works of Japanese fiction I've read, it seems to have an impersonal, distant quality, even and perhaps especially when it describes acts of intimacy. However, I get a sense of how dead the characters are since they seem to need to experience or inflict pain in order to feel that they are alive. Sorry, Mrs. Jividen. I don't want to be absorbed into this sick little world. Back in the trash it goes.
January 17, 2016
The stories in Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories were originally written in the 1960s and concerned women and their unstable or uncertain marital relationships. Kōno Taeko's genre of writing was classified as transgressive fiction owing to her use of elements of sadomasochism and aberrant behavior. The stories were often open-ended, which are really the best kind of stories; and they were propelled by ordinary details made to seem odd and entirely new, as if the outcome of the story was dictated by the way the characters think through these once-familiar details. In each story, the main character was either a middle-aged female (an obsessive, or on the way to becoming one) or a couple in a strained relationship. The story's telling will unravel a relationship or spell a kind of doom for the woman (wife or female partner). The writer was deconstructing the story through strange deployment of metaphors and symbols circling around a tragic event waiting in the wings or already hinted at even before the story started. For Kōno, it's either the "shock value" of stories was revealed behind the scenes (all the more shocking and unsettling for being untold) or the partial or incomplete shock displayed in full in all its gross profundity, in front of a well-lit stage (all the more shocking for being brazen). The intelligence of these post-war "shock" stories derived from their ability to transgress the boundaries of narrative convention, to attain unpredictability in the mechanical relationship between the sexes. We were somehow given a restrained ending when we were perhaps expecting something earth-shattering, or we were treated to something nauseating when we were bracing for a tame plot development. The uncertain feeling was perhaps summarized by this paradoxical passage from the first story, "Night Journey":
That "particular mood" hovered in every story in Toddler-Hunting, a mood that either implicated the reader as the guilty party or rendered him hapless victim of the story. A seemingly harmless mood that suddenly turned into a murky plot, twisting along a maze of menace and sick psyche. The reader of Kōno will relish the gradual shifts of focus in a story's limited duration, the bombs being dropped very slowly but surely, the monomaniacal attitudes of narrators faced with their own dissembling, and the direct exploration of issues of femininity and sexuality: motherhood, infertility, marriage, family ties, and fidelity in relationships.
Kōno Taeko, 85 years old, must be the grand dame of Japanese letters. Her outputs were praised, most deservedly, by writers like Ōe Kenzaburo ("At once the most carnally direct and the most lucidly intelligent woman writing in Japan.") and Endo Shusaku ("Kōno Taeko is the female writer I most admire among all the Japanese authors. Her unsparing gaze penetrates the depths of human nature; and she sets forth what she finds there with absolute precision."). The blurbs came from the back page of this collection of ten short stories, all translated by Lucy North (except for the last, translated by Lucy Lower), and published in 1996 by New Directions.
Kōno's intelligence as a novelist was recognized in her country where she was a multi-awarded writer. However, with only a single collection of hers appearing so far in English, she was certainly under-translated and under-appreciated. Her transgressive short stories, superior in many respects to the ones put out by Murakami Haruki, deserve to be assimilated and widely talked about. They are fleeting stories that leave lasting aftereffects, very like the afterglow of sparklers in "Full Tide":
The internal combustion in a Kōno story was lighted by the same inner explosions, the darkness and its recesses briefly uncovered by fireworks. The sparklers' glow never receded without being indelibly imprinted in a child's imagination.
For a sample of a Kōno story, here is a full story that recently appeared in TWO LINES Online of Center for the Art of Translation:
(A draft of this review was posted in my blog.)
Fukuko realized that she'd been in a particular mood for some time now, a mood that would keep her walking beside Murao into the night, walking on and on until they became the perpetrators - or the victims - of some unpredictable crime.
That "particular mood" hovered in every story in Toddler-Hunting, a mood that either implicated the reader as the guilty party or rendered him hapless victim of the story. A seemingly harmless mood that suddenly turned into a murky plot, twisting along a maze of menace and sick psyche. The reader of Kōno will relish the gradual shifts of focus in a story's limited duration, the bombs being dropped very slowly but surely, the monomaniacal attitudes of narrators faced with their own dissembling, and the direct exploration of issues of femininity and sexuality: motherhood, infertility, marriage, family ties, and fidelity in relationships.
Kōno Taeko, 85 years old, must be the grand dame of Japanese letters. Her outputs were praised, most deservedly, by writers like Ōe Kenzaburo ("At once the most carnally direct and the most lucidly intelligent woman writing in Japan.") and Endo Shusaku ("Kōno Taeko is the female writer I most admire among all the Japanese authors. Her unsparing gaze penetrates the depths of human nature; and she sets forth what she finds there with absolute precision."). The blurbs came from the back page of this collection of ten short stories, all translated by Lucy North (except for the last, translated by Lucy Lower), and published in 1996 by New Directions.
Kōno's intelligence as a novelist was recognized in her country where she was a multi-awarded writer. However, with only a single collection of hers appearing so far in English, she was certainly under-translated and under-appreciated. Her transgressive short stories, superior in many respects to the ones put out by Murakami Haruki, deserve to be assimilated and widely talked about. They are fleeting stories that leave lasting aftereffects, very like the afterglow of sparklers in "Full Tide":
The children set about lighting their sparklers. Each time she brought a flame to the tip of one, the girl's fingers would tremble slightly. She had to be careful: she could never tell exactly where the first sparks would shoot out. Then the darkness suddenly would be ablaze, and transfixed, she would be in another world. The sparkler would make fiery, spitting sounds, fizzling away before her eyes. In those few seconds, though, she knew the sparkler was living for all it was worth - fiercely, keenly, in a beautiful world of color and light. Even when everything became dark and still once more, the girl would be sure that she still saw something there, glowing and fizzling away.
The internal combustion in a Kōno story was lighted by the same inner explosions, the darkness and its recesses briefly uncovered by fireworks. The sparklers' glow never receded without being indelibly imprinted in a child's imagination.
For a sample of a Kōno story, here is a full story that recently appeared in TWO LINES Online of Center for the Art of Translation:
"An Odd Owner", translated by Goro Takano
http://catranslation.org/an-odd-owner
(A draft of this review was posted in my blog.)
April 5, 2022
Extraños, desconcertantes y a veces hasta demasiado mundanos y normales, me gustaron 👍
lamentablemente no encontré la traducción al español entonces me conformé con la traducción al inglés y no fue muy buena, it was kind of wonky e incluso tenía unos errores de ortografía jajaja pero aún así fue disfrutable
lamentablemente no encontré la traducción al español entonces me conformé con la traducción al inglés y no fue muy buena, it was kind of wonky e incluso tenía unos errores de ortografía jajaja pero aún así fue disfrutable
January 31, 2022
very japanese new wave vibes de los 60 y 70, con perspectiva de mujer. genial.
November 24, 2022
Estas historias cuentan los deseos bastante bizarros e incluso perversos de sus protagonistas, en un tono frío e impersonal, que le da a la de lectura un toque algo raro, a ratos cansón. Los escribió una mujer, además japonesa y en los 60s, así que tienen su mérito. Los 3 que me gustaron, me gustaron mucho.
Read
October 23, 2023“Carne sin hueso” me pareció excelente, muy muy bueno quede boquiabierta.
El resto, en general me parecieron muy interesantes para pensar las cuestiones de poder en las relaciones heterosexuales; y las problemáticas en las relaciones madre-hija (en “Nieve” y “Una colonia de hormigas”).
Completamente perturbador.
El resto, en general me parecieron muy interesantes para pensar las cuestiones de poder en las relaciones heterosexuales; y las problemáticas en las relaciones madre-hija (en “Nieve” y “Una colonia de hormigas”).
Completamente perturbador.
March 12, 2022
Por momentos incómodos y descarnados, y a la vez de una fuerza y precisión casi quirúrgica, estos cuentos retratan con asombrosa lucidez el mundo interior de unas mujeres que resultan desagradables, tiernas, incomprensibles, pero inconfundiblemente humanas. El estilo es llano y efectivo, va directo al hueso y dan ganas de seguir leyendo y admirando la escritura de Taeko Kōno.
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