Japanese feminine literature currently has two strongholds that export their books all over the world with a narrative vitola that combines the calm Japanese character with the exploration of current Western literary currents.
The first one is Banana yoshimoto, the second is Hiromi kawakami. The order is perfectly alternating, since both play a high-flying literature with that charm of the miscellany of the two worlds, that of the rising sun and that of the setting sun as a successful astronomical allegory about such disparate cultures.
The discovery of the writer Hiromi arose, as it often does in many other cases, from the unexpected. Who else who less has that tendency to write stories or stories.
The point is that when Hiromi went a little further and ended up putting together an anthology Kamisama "God" that looked out into the existential from the classic symbols of Japan, finally portraying an allegorical world of simple prose but very capable of provoking that awakening of the emotions that start from the fantastic but end up addressing current issues in a captivating tone.
This is how Hiromi Kawakami found his place in literature, finally abandoning teaching in a field as theoretically distant as biology to indulge in an already more productive narrative in the novel.
Top 3 best Hiromi Kawakami books
The sky is blue, the earth is white
In that transforming simplicity, in that ability to narrate to the magical rhythm and cadence of everyday life (including our ups and downs of memory towards that past turned into shadow), this novel becomes the author's paradigmatic work.
A true masterpiece, a discovery of the narrative as a way to elevate the fundamental details of life such as love. Tsukiko is a woman in her late thirties and whose vital baggage seems to blur into a nebulous routine. Until he meets an old Japanese teacher.
And then the meeting supposes a total focus on the characters, on their loving approaches, putting aside any other aspect of their existence.
He is a cultivated man, she a modern woman who vaguely remembers the teachings of her teacher. But between the two there arises a very special space, intimate in all aspects, deep.
The characters are two brilliant beings through whose lives we travel with the sole but not slight intention of reaching that knowledge of being and the ultimate value of love as desire and shelter, as need and foundation.
Something that shines like the sea
The perspective of communication from the world of young Japanese. The abandonment, the uprooting, the ancestral Japanese respect and the need for transgression of some characters left to their fate.
A very interesting novel to see the world from some underprivileged and forgotten boys even by their own. Midori Edo has nothing to do with a young Westerner. He supports the weight of his world on his shoulders but assumes his fatal destiny.
His mother Aiko can contribute little to him from his feeling of abandonment. And if that wasn't enough, her grandmother Masako ends up composing her set of premature responsibilities.
Together with Midori we find friends like Hanada, who are much more dissatisfied with that despicable piece of life that they have had to live in a neighborhood that revolves around misfortune.
Mr. Nakano and the women
Somehow, Hiromi Kawakami is capable of awakening, from the endearing and simple, powerful ideas of injustice, feelings of loneliness, perspectives on isolation that can be deciphered in dialogue.
Hitomi goes to work in an antiquarian but really is introduced to a unique family in which the patriarch Nakano acts differently from how he preaches. Where another employee, Takeo, establishes a unique relationship with Hitomi.
The strange sister, Masayo, becomes a magnet for Hitomi, from whose interaction we enjoy the most intense sensations of that Japanese-like humanity ...
In the contrast that the antique shop supposes with the Japan that awakens the modern, all the characters remain suspended in a limbo that serves the plot to fill each scene with sensations and emotions.
Excellent description of the temperament of the characters and the scenarios in which they unfold, lacking any fictitious feature. Everything that is narrated in Mr. Nakano and the women is perceived by the reader as real, genuine, simple and profound. Everything happens naturally, like life itself. It is a book that is fondly and frequently remembered.
Thank you very much for your accurate appreciations.