Japanese Literature discussion

The discussion thread for the works of Yoshimoto Banana,
The Premonition, was the March 2024 group read. https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Moshi Moshi was the 06/2017 group read.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The Lake was the 03/2020 group read.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The following list is still incomplete.
Here are the publications with the Eng title, jpn title, pub dates:
Moonlight Shadow, ムーンライト・シャドウ, 1986 jpn, 1991 ita, 1993 eng (included in most editions of Kitchen)
Kitchen,キッチン, 1988 jpn,, 1991 ita, 1993 eng
(Transient/Sanctuary),うたかた／サンクチュアリ, 1988 jpn
The Premonition, 哀しい予感, 1988 jpn, 2003 ita (Sad Omen), 2023 eng
Goodbye Tsugumi, TUGUMI, 1989 jpn, 1994 ita, 2002 eng
Asleep, 白河夜船, 1989jpn, 1994 ita (Deep Sleep), 2000 eng
N.P, N・P, 1990 jpn, 1992 ita, 1994 eng
Lizard, とかげ, 1993 jpn, 1995 ita eng
Amrita, アムリタ, 1994 jpn, 1997 ita eng
(Marika's lengthy night, dreamlog in Bali), マリカの永い夜・バリ夢日記, 1994 jpn
(Hachiko's last lover), ハチ公の最後の恋人, 1994 jpn, 1999 ita
Sly, SLY, 1996 jpn, 1998 ita
(Honeymoon), ハネムーン, 1997 jpn, 2000 ita
Hardboiled & Hard Luck, ハードボイルド/ハードラック, 1999 jpn, 2001 ita, 2005 eng
(Occult) Collection of essays selected by the author 1, オカルト, 2000 jpn
(Love) Collection of essays selected by the author 2, ラブ, 2000 jpn
(Death) Collection of essays selected by the author 3, デス, 2001
(Life) Collection of essays selected by the author 4, ライフ, 2001
(The body knows everything), 体は全部知っている, 2000 jpn, 2004 ita
Furin to Nanbei (Adultery and South America), 不倫と南米, 2000 jpn
Daisy's Life, ひな菊の人生, 2000 jpn
(Kingdoms, first instalment, Andromeda Heights), 王国 その1 アンドロメダ・ハイツ, 2002 jpn
(Rainbow), 虹, 2002 jpn
Argentine Hag (with drawings and pictures by Yoshitomo Nara), アルゼンチンババア 2002 jpn, 2002 bilingual jpn/eng
(Cloak of feathers), ハゴロモ, 2003 jpn
Dead-End Memories, デッドエンドの思い出, 2003 jpn, 2022 eng
(Don't worry, be happy), なんくるない, 2004 jpn
(High and dry (first love)), High and dry (はつ恋), 2004 jpn, 2004 ita
(Lid of the sea), 海のふた, 2004 jpn, 2007 ita (~ The Cover of the Sea)
(Kingdoms, second instalment, the shadow of lost things, and ensuing magic), 王国 その2 痛み、失われたものの影、そして魔法, 2004 jpn, 2014 ita (~ The pain, the shadows, the magic II)
(Kingdoms, third instalment, the secret flower garden), 王国 その3 ひみつの花園, 2005 jpn, 2016 ita
The Lake, みずうみ, 2005 jpn, 2010 eng. 2015 ita
(Dolphin or Are you there?), イルカ, 2006 jpn, 2010 ita
(Salamander or The small shadow), ひとかげ, 2006 jpn
(Chie and I), チエちゃんと私, 2007 jpn
(Hawaii dreaming), まぼろしハワイ, 2007 jpn
(South point), サウスポイント, 2008 jpn
(About her or About my girlfriend), 彼女について, 2008 jpn
Moshi-Moshi: A Novel, もしもし下北沢, 2010 jpn, 2012 ita, 2016 eng
(The acorn sisters), どんぐり姉妹, 2010, 2018 ita (~ The Donguri Sisters)
(Another world, Kingdoms, fourth instalment), アナザー・ワールド　王国　その4, 2010 jpn, 2017 ita
(Sizzle sizzle), ジュージュー, 2010 jpn
(Sweet hereafter), スウィート・ヒアアフター, 2011 jpn, 2020 ita
(A night with Saki and friends), さきちゃんたちの夜, 2013 jpn,
(Hostess bar stumble), スナックちどり, 2013 jpn
(Shall We Love?), 僕たち、恋愛しようか?, 2013 jpn
(Take an afternoon nap on a bed of flowers), 花のベッドでひるねして , 2013 jpn, 2021 ita (~ On a Bed of Flowers)
(Birds), 鳥たち, 2014 jpn
(Circus night), サーカスナイト, 2015 jpn
(Funafuna Funabashi), ふなふな船橋, 2015 jpn

(I still need to add book from 2016-2022 but these two are available in Italian:
The Strange Case of Fukiage, 2017 jpn, 2022 ita
Rice Bowls, The Strange Case of Fukiage Vol 2, 2019 jpn, 2023 ita )

I will try to add concomitant translator profiles in the folder for that later on on any group reads.
Note: A number of Yoshimoto works are not translated to English, but are available in Italian, so I am noting those also for our forum members that might read them. For example High and dry (はつ恋) is available in jpn and ita. Bill read the original (thanks!) and I struggled with ita (to get a sense of the story only).
-Jack

Movies too! Please add comments if you have seen any of these and what you thought of the movies based upon her works.

The last one was:

Moonlight Shadow, Director Edmund Yeo
Original title: Mûnraito shadou
2021, 1h 33m in length.
Starring: Nana Komatsu, Hio Miyazawa, and Asami Usuda

"Satsuki's lover Hitoshi dies suddenly. She is unable to get over his death and is mired in deep sadness. Satsuki keeps thinking about the Moonlight Shadow phenomenon, which she heard about in the past. The Moonlight Shadow phenomenon is a mysterious event that allows a person to meet the dead at the end of a full moon."

I really like this Yoshimoto novella published in 1986 (jpn). It was packaged with the English and Italian translations of Kitchen.

Older Movies are:
Kitchen (キッチン , Kicchin ) , directed by Yoshimitsu Morita (1989), based on Kitchen (1988 jpn, 1991 ita, 1993 eng).
Tsugumi , directed by Jun Ichikawa (1990), based on Goodbye Tsugumi (1988 jpn, 1994 ita, 2002 eng).
Wo ai chu fang (我愛廚房), directed by Yim Ho (1997), also based on Kitchen.
Argentine Hag (アルゼンチンババア ) , directed by Naoki Nagao (2007), based on Argentine Hag (2002 jpn, 2002 bilingual jpn/eng with illustrations by Yoshimoto Nara).

I'm reading Dead End Memories now.

The first story ("The Ghost House") is a comfortable look at a well-matched couple that meets at the wrong time in their lives. The ghosts in the story are not central to the plot, but are well integrated into the story, much more so than, say, the little people in her novel High and Dry (First Love). Nice ghosts are rare in literature, and the best ones I can think of are from Strangers by Yamada Taichi.

That said, there's a flaw in The Ghost House. 15 pages before the end, at a sharp break in the story, Yoshimoto decides to spoil the ending. It caused me to switch from enjoying the pleasant stroll through the story to wanting to race to the end. It would have been better without those two sentences. More arguably, it could have be good without the last 15 pages, left as a nostalgic memory of youth and a road unchosen.

I'm halfway through "Mother!" now, or as Morgan put it, "Mama!" It's unclear yet as to how the title fits the story. Perhaps later our protagonist will have a child...? Given when it was written, I can't help think of Aum Shinrikyo, which was still in the news at the time. Maybe some of you have read Underground by Murakami Haruki. I hope Yoshimoto's story is more optimistic than the reality of Underground, or the film Safe which continues to haunt me many years after I saw it.

It's interesting that the GR entry for Dead End Memories says copyright 2003. The copy I have in Japanese says copyright 2006. It adds that "Tomo-chan's Happiness" was published in SWITCH, vol 21, no 1, 2003, and that all the other stories were written specifically for this collection.

Maybe I'll finish this collection in one try. But I suspect I will put it back on the shelf and save the rest of the stories to enjoy some other year. I'm not implying anything negative at all by this. I often read part of a volume of short stories and put it back on the shelf. There's no need to finish a collection all at once, unlike a novel that you can forget the first half of.

The meaning behind the title "Mother" doesn't occur until late in the story, but is important to the plot. It's not until the climax that our MC spends a night in her old family home, has a dream about her mother in the safety of her old room, and comes to terms with the trauma that's keeping her single. This is perhaps too quickly passed through to get to the resolution of the story. I would have liked to see more detail and exploration of the her feelings after the dream.

The next story ("No, it's Not Warm") is about a young, single woman thinking back on a childhood friend. It's full of pathos. But more than that, she wants to emphasize something I hadn't seen in a story before. A large, prosperous family with a long pedigree more important as a corporate entity than as individuals. Individuals come and go, but the family continues. It makes me think of a mound of mice in a cage: each one only lives a few years, but the mound of warm, sleepy mice can last for decades.

I didn't get the point of "Tomo-chan's Happiness". It didn't seem to go anywhere.

But on to the last, eponymous story!

I'm not going to say anything about "Dead End Memories" itself. It's a straightforward story, and doesn't need any commentary from me.

In the afterward (which might have not made it into the English translation), Yoshimoto has three things to say:

"In all my writings, this is the closest I've come to autobiographical fiction" [B: 'shishosetsu' is never strictly autobiography, so don't read too much into that].

"You're probably all wondering why you had to pay good money for such sad stories" [B: Not really. J-Lit is usually depressing].

"Of all the stories I've written, Dead End Memories is my favorite"

Nearly done with Honeymoon .

The boy & girl next door get married at 18, and each continues to live in their family home. The husband sneaks in through his wife's bedroom window on a regular basis, which apparently they were doing well before the marriage, anyway. The bulk of the story takes place five years later, when the wife is doing little more than helping her family, and the husband is still in college. The husband's grandfather dies that year, leaving him all alone in his house. Will something change in their marriage at that point?

While there are a few beautiful scenes, there is very little in the way of plot. I can see why they skipped translating it into English. It's only going to appeal to those who really like Yoshimoto's writing style.

I’ve been reading Japanese literature for years but just read Banana Yoshimoto for the first time this year. I enjoyed Kitchen and Hardboiled & Hard Luck a lot. Goodbye Tsugumi was good too. I plan to read Dead-End Memories and Moshi Moshi next. She might become one of my favourite authors.

Trevor wrote: "I’ve been reading Japanese literature for years but just read Banana Yoshimoto for the first time this year. I enjoyed Kitchen and Hardboiled & Hard Luck a lot. Goodbye Tsugumi was good too. I plan..."

She is one of my favorites and I still have more works to go. I have Mittens and Pity: Stories on preorder. it is expected in Nov 2024.

Mittens and Pity is now Jan 6th, 2025 for the US release. :(

I have been corresponding with Meredith recently. Meredith has a very long running Wordpress site that has hosted a Japanese Literature Challenge for 17! Years and has actually run out of Wordpress space.

She has several interesting observations on Banana Yoshimoto books at: https://dolcebellezza2.wordpress.com/... Look down about 1/2 way on the page when she is discussion her impressions of several works.

Meredith’s site is worth exploring for the Japanese lit and author observations (and the amount of other literature).
Her new blog postings are at: http://dolcebellezza.blogspot.com/

Does anyone know what's going on with US/Canada release of "Mittens and Pity" by Banana? Originally I thought this was pushed back from November to January 2025. But Indigo, Amazon, etc. now list the release date as January 2026! A whole year!? Am I missing something here? I'm sad, have been waiting for this one!! Thanks in advance if you have any details.

Hi! Regarding Mittens and Pity, I have no clue! I even thought it was purchasable as a hardcover in the UK+ in November and December, but those copies seem to have been pulled? The publisher may have changed?

All I can say is, I track these things closely and this one caught me complexly off guard, too.

These sorts of changes aren’t unheard of. They were more common in 2020-21ish with COVID-related supply-chain issues. Frankly, I suspect this will be an “interesting” year for the publishing industry. 😑

T.J. wrote: "Does anyone know what's going on with US/Canada release of "Mittens and Pity" by Banana? Originally I thought this was pushed back from November to January 2025. But Indigo, Amazon, etc. now list t..."

Thank you for your reply, Alison. I visit your website frequently to check updates to your upcoming releases list. Thank you for helping wrangle all the info to one coherent place. Always appreciated.

As for Banana, I guess I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope for more translated releases of her work sooner than later. I thought maybe it was just delayed in Canada, but sounds like it didn't come out at all yet.

And yes, sadly I think it won't just be the publishing industry... :(

You’re very welcome. A lot of members of this group work together to pool info.