Picked this up at San Jose international airport on my way to Japan for the first time.
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (川上未映子)
Score: 7/10
First published: 2019
Original language: Japanese
Working out how to score this book depends upon whether I read for pleasure or perspective. I’m in Tokyo, Hannah’s bedroom. It’s a Sunday morning and I’m pretending to read fiction in bed. Specifically Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami (川上未映子). At first I said she’s my new favourite but now I’m not sure. It’s got the stillness of real life and the lack of momentum typical to depressed ones but it’s totally vivid still like having your head plunged underwater with every new time you open it. Quick profile of the narrator:
Age: late 30s
Relationship status: single
Economic background: poor
Main ambition in life: having kids.
Do you want to swap shoes with her? No. But it’s a stupid question to ask. Would you want to live with her? Well if the novel were a flat and the narrator were your flat mate I must warn you she spends a lot of time indoors… or at least that’s how I remember her between reading stints but once I’m back inside I remember how sane she actually is. With so much humility. And kindness. And I appreciate her domestic metaphors… the way she relates the experience of time to folding a bedsheet in half—you know, nothing fancy... a kind old woman wrinkling a smile over a bowl of rice, an egg. I appreciate her friendships too (without romance) and the magic she feels of connecting with new people… and her elation of re-finding speech! But it definitely makes me aware of my own desire (need) for happy endings. Humans living in silicone-bubble juice-suits on Mars, humans who miss the “beautiful grit & complication of earth” they would probably love this book but for those of us still here? Hmmmm… not so sure.
It wasn’t easy to finish this book. In the same way ingesting somebody’s life isn’t easy I mean how could it be?
What with all their failed hopes & dreams?
Eeeeeeeeesh.
But you should actually because you might get there…
To that place where you’re tossing and turning except you’re walking with the book between greater activities not willing to let go of the momentous page you’re at but still subjective to the Larger Order (you should have left the house by now) and this is it: the book has become you. You bring it with you to the toilet, the fridge, the rice cooker (which is chirping) and no longer do you need to find a “nice place to sit” because you’re standing in the middle of the room holding and holding and reading and
…this
It’s…
Struggling to summon the strength now
This is a woman’s book.
I’ve never said that before
All the blood drained from my hands
A gaping hole in literature…
Thank you Kawakami-san, I look forward to reading you again.
Respectfully,
Tilly