Better on the second reading
Interesting book on people and how they interact
Really liked the book but not maybe enjoyable. Very thought provoking. Stayed with me for a while. Meredith is saying that Sachiko is Etsuko !
Was this more than one person’s experience ? Jiro etc
To what extent does the war and the bomb play a part in this ?
Title is suggestive that this is all quite vague. You get a bit more of the picture but not really the whole picture.
Sachiko - damaged and making poor choices.
Sarah - quite a lot of ambiguity. He is troubled by the ending himself. Eerily and tense book. Didn’t warm to any of the characters. Reading a ghost story.
Japanese folklore and sad. Everyone is damaged in it. The dialogue being so ambiguous adds to it.
Is the sign of a good book that it lingers and we keep coming back to it in our imaginations ?
Sally - a bit like poetry. Father in law confronts the young educator. Show a divide of the generations. My reflections today...was like reading a rather long sad poem on these themes ...I wonder the significance of the daughter’s friend writing a poem about Etsuko with an old calendar image of the pale hills. I like to think the smiling wave at the end could suggest once retold/written for herself, E found some peace with it all.
Meredith - Am still thinking about the book.
Is the story about Mariko upset seeing a mother drown her baby both a reflection on the despair at the time AND perhaps etsuko drowning her child? After all she was pregnant, this could be the child who drowns and then she takes Mariko to England and has Nikki...
Marty - loved the way it was written. A bit slow moving but that’s the style. Mariko - something is going to happen but ? Maybe he didn’t know how to end this first book ?
Lee - linear way. The way he wrote in English about the mannerism and life style is so spot on. Her relationship with the father in law so authentic. His argument about the classmate of Jiro Old Japan vs the new Japan post war. Woman drowning her baby is horrifying and a symbol. There are so many stories of Japanese war brides - they don’t fit in. Did Mariko become Keiko and was adopted. Niki - an enigma.
Melissa - I’m sure this is the sign of a good book! And I just love the confidence of a work that is not all neat and tidy and wrapped up for us but rather creates space for the reader to bring so much of themselves to the story. Just thought to add other themes that remained with me after reading this book -
* the unreliability of memory (pale view)
* intergenerational misunderstanding - between the children, the parents and the grandparents… (then and always? But particularly between those who experienced the war and those who didn’t.) And the confusions in relation to the developing experience of equality between women and men, rich and poor.
* and of the point and purpose of looking forwards and backwards…
There is a repeated line throughout the book about there being no point in looking back - and yet often they are haunted by their past - and perhaps need to confront it… This is symbolised in the irony of Etsuko being nervously pregnant in the past reflections with a frightening example in Mariko... and having tragically lost a child in the present reflections. Our children are our “future” and yet… is their future any better than their traumatic past…?
Eg. Excerpts from pg 111-112
Sachiko: “How right you are Etsuko, we shouldn’t keep looking back to the past. The war destroyed many things for me, but I still have my daughter. As you say, we have to keep looking forward.”
“You know, “ I said, “it’s only in the last few days I’ve really thought about what it’s going to be like. To have a child, I mean. I don’t feel nearly so afraid now. I’m going to look forward to it. I’m going to be optimistic from now on.”
Sachiko…. “you have a lot to look forward to…. we must look forward to life…. there’s a lot to look forward to…”
I also found the book fascinating from a writer’s point of view - the mystery and inferences leaving space for the reader to decide, the spiral structure, the fluid method of taking the reader back and forth to the past and present, the subtlety and the incredible depth of tension underlying scenes that initially seemed superficial like the chess game or the gift of the binoculars during the day trip (pg 108 - excruciating).
8,8,8,6,8.5,8,8
Gently compelling, intriguing haunting and curious
Our next book is The Weekend by Charlotte Wood at Lee's on April 23, 2020
