Reading Banana Yoshimoto
I first read her books back during the pandemic. I think we all had more time to read back then. Lately I've been writing on my Isekai story and watching House of the Dragon so I needed a little palate cleanser.
I had bought a copy of Kitchen two years ago and never got around to reading it. Which is fun because this is like, the main Banana Yoshimoto book folks start with. I started with Hard Boiled/Hard Luck and was hooked but after finding a copy of Kitchen. I think the reason I didn't want to start it was the way it was described on the cover. For some insane reason I thought it was going to be a boring family story about a girl and her mom living their lives through receptive domestic tasks in the kitchen.
Well, that was thankfully not the case. And I do have to point out that I am reading English translations of these books because as much as I can follow extremely basic Japanese speech I absolutely can not read it outside a few phonetic bits of kanji. So right off the bat I think I am missing 75% of the craft involved in her stories.
But, that doesn't take away from the point. What I really love about these stories is the little mundane journeys these characters take. Walking in the mountains, walking through town, going to get dinner, staying in a hotel, staying at an onsen, staying at hotels with haunted onsen, finding absolute joy in basic things like getting takeout food or making something to eat. It's just so simple and something that nearly anyone could do and experience.
And yeah, a lot of her characters are sad about something. But it's something they have no control over, making doing things like day to day activities a struggle or more important. You end up rooting for the main character to simply be happy and when they end up finding something that does make them happy it's just all that more enjoyable to read.
So many writing tips tell you that your main character needs to want something, and fairly often that something is a royal love interest or magical item or to become "the best in the world" at something. Things that would be a far reach or outright impossible for us regular people. But with Yoshimoto's characters the concept of going on a hike and eating tonkatsu at midnight is just so much more enjoyable.
I love to just be along for the ride with these stories. The translation makes the text seem extremely simple. It's very easy to read. The words are lean and sharp in a way that tells me I'm missing a lot of good shit that doesn't translate well. Like when you watch anime and see the subtitles say 3 words while the character is saying way more. Which sucks, but the point gets made.
Oh, and um, yeah a lot of her translated works were written in the 80's up to the 2010's. Don't read it expecting modern viewpoints or politically correct language for certain topics. The originals and the translations are products of their time. Folks will tell you to start with Kitchen and you need to be aware of when it was written.
Magical realism is a term thrown around about some of the elements of her stories but I think that's only used because it's the closest thing you can compare it to. Her books tend to be compilations of short stories which is such a good concept, we need more short stories.
Going to pick up Goodbye Tsugumi next.