a girl finds her family and turns a space into a home
and encounters ghostly apparitions, rain, and excellent meals
One of my favourite moments of the day is the empty late afternoon. The sun slants and turns golden, sounds soften, and time expands for me. Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen feels like this time of day. Easy to breeze through and fulfilling to devour, Kitchen is basically a tale of grief. The novel has been translated from Japanese, and perhaps because of this shift, it reads as unbelievably simple. This feature, instead of being boring, bleeds sincerity.
Mikage Sakurai is a young woman who is reeling from her grandmother's death–her only guardian. Not knowing what to do about the sheer amount of stuff around her, a house that is too big, and a sudden wave of lethargy that compels her to lie on the floor for hours, she decides to move in with her classmate and his mother. One thing that I found incredibly special about the writing was the sensorial medley it produced. By overlapping different senses like electrical wires, the sentences buzzed (see: “white tile catching the light (ting! ting!) and “my gaze landed with a thud”).
I won’t tell you more because information is sacrosanct in such a short novel (150 pages). However, you should know that 2/3rds of the way through it, the story changes completely, and the timeline shifts to the past. Bizzaro! In really a lovely way. You then have to piece together whether or not the two sections are related, and if so, how? I love a good puzzle. The Monday morning newspaper crossword awaits us both.
Film: Waitress (2007)
You're right on about some translations being so simple but so sincere! Love that <3
I hate empty late afternoons, you make them sound so lovely and comforting.