A Month of Novellas, Book 4: Hardboiled - Banana Yoshimoto (2001)

making friends on my bedroom floor

This was one of two novellas included in the small volume by Banana Yoshimoto. Actually to say a Yoshimoto volume is small is a bit redundant as all her work leans to the slim side…or at least every book I’ve read of her so far.

She was probably the first Asian writer I ever read, way back in the early 90s when I first discovered her through the wondrously eye-opening membership in the Quality Paperback Book Club, a mail-order book club that used to be very generous with their goods J I believe ‘Kitchen’ was my first introduction to her sparse work.

I immediately thought of her when I first came up with this theme but didn’t want to re-read any of the works I was already familiar with. But then I came upon ‘Hardboiled & Hard Luck’, two novellas in one book. Purely randomly, I chose to read the latter ‘Hard Luck’.

This turned out to be a bit of an emotional choice. ‘Hard Luck’ is a wee little novel, clocking in at only 56 pages, but it deals with some pretty heavy material.

The narrator’s sister Kuni is laying in a hospital room in a vegetative coma, the sister’s fiancé has abandoned her, and the fiancé’s brother seems to be into her. It’s all very emotionally draining and confusing for the narrator, until suddenly it’s not, as the doctors tell her parents that her sister will never recover. Now everything becomes just a bit clearer, now there’s a purpose, so life isn’t quite so painful anymore.

This story hit a bit close to home as I’ve had a friend diagnosed with a terminal illness who within a very short period passed away. She might have faced a similar fate as that of the narrator’s sister if not for the ‘merciful’ swiftness of her disease.

Yoshimoto’s language is always quite simple and measured, so I was surprised to find a few odd phrasings within this story:
“The tears I shed lately, particularly those linked to memories, were all but meaningless. They came out on their own, like bird shit.” pp.133

And I couldn’t tell if this was meant as a joke:
“”Apparently they’re going to take your sister off the respirator soon.”
There was no difference between my dad’s tone when he said this and when he’d said “Pooch is dead” when the dog we had had for so long and who had liked my father best passed away. That’s how deep his sorrow was.” pp.130

Is the narrator really saying that she equated her father’s sorrow at his daughter dying with that of his dog dying? I love my cats and understand the deep love one feels towards them, but that sentence still felt odd.

There are other moments that felt strange like when the narrator is with Sakai, the fiancé’s brother, and says:

“I knew he was weird, and kind of a fraud, and that he was cold and unreasonably cheerful, and that he had no sense of responsibility.” pp. 140 But where was this all coming from? She’d mentioned that he ran a successful business and he’d been kind to her. It was another strange moment that I couldn’t quite explain away.

The bits about the stress and eventual peace related to her sister dying felt real, but much of the rest seemed odd for odd’s sake. I’ll have to read ‘Hardboiled’ as well to see if it holds up better than ‘Hard Luck’.