Reviews

Once again I’m awestruck by Banana Yoshimoto’s beautiful writing and its consistent ability to evoke such intense feelings of nostalgia and yearning.

Goodbye Tsugumi is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that beckons you to a small seaside town in Japan where cousins Maria, Yoko, and Tsugumi have spent most of their lives at their family’s inn. Callous from a lifetime of illness, Tsugumi is a force of light in Maria’s life and as she grows older, Maria reminisces on her childhood and the intricacies of their relationship. When she returns to spend one last summer with her cousins at the seaside inn, Maria is confronted with a new understanding of Tsugumi and the very real possibility of her waning mortality.

Tsugumi is not a likeable character. However, Maria cared for her deeply and unconditionally, and it was almost impossible not to be swayed by the affection she felt for her younger cousin. I loved that regardless of how cruel Tsugumi was, through Maria’s eyes we gradually come to accept that she cared for her family just as much as they did for her, even if she had a peculiar way of showing it.

It’s true that nothing much truly happens in this character-driven novella, and the characters themselves aren’t very extraordinary. And yet, I found myself welcoming this as an intentional gift from Yoshimoto that only served to strengthen the emotional pull of this comforting story. I love its lethargic pace and mundanity, which I think just adds to its allure as an authentic snapshot of family, love, and the pain of growing up and moving on.

“Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we’ve ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.”

Even so, I’m not sure if I’m a fan of the ending yet. While I adore the use of Tsugumi’s letter as a final goodbye to the reader, I was kind of maybe anticipating her death. It’s not that I wanted her to die, but that finality was something that I was beginning to accept as the novel went on, and so I was left with an almost uneasy feeling when I realised that it was all over. But, as much as Tsugumi’s death would’ve been a bittersweet ending, a part of me relishes the ambiguous route even more. I feel like by concluding with this open ending, Yoshimoto is guiding us to channel that unease and reflect. To me, this short story is not about death, but more so the fragility of life and the love and beauty we find in it that persists despite this.

So maybe I do like the ending after all? I’m still not sure.

I just know that this book has given me so much to think about, and I know that it’ll stay with me for a very long time.

In this short novel, Yoshimoto creates a captivating reflection on life in its entirety; childhood and family, friendships and love, and the pain of saying goodbye. Overall, I really enjoyed Goodbye Tsugumi, and it might be my favourite of Yoshimoto’s works so far, even above Kitchen and Lizard. It’s incredible how adept Yoshimoto is at intricately crafting the right words to make you long for something fleeting and unknown. I feel as if there aren’t enough words for me to be able to describe just how mesmerising and meaningful this novel truly is.

“This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next—and I didn’t want to forget a single one.”

minonie's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

sophju's review against another edition

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emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

moongoblin38's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

I was fully transported whilst reading this book, I felt I could see, hear, smell, feel all that was being described. This deep sense of melancholy really sunk into me, but not in an uncomfortable way.
The things Maria describes are experiences I think a lot of people have had, and the writing perfectly captures the emotions of those moments.

Now that spring was drawing near, and each day was warmer than the last, and now we were finally going to leave, all the everyday, nothing-special scenes I was so used to seeing, like the ageing corridors of the inn, and all those swarms of bugs that gathered in the light of the sign out front, and the poles where we hung laundry, where spiders liked to spin their webs and beyond which the mountains jutted up . . . suddenly all of these hit me harder, with greater clarity. The inn seemed bathed in a haze of light.

And it seemed to me that even if you weren't actively letting your emotions ride its surface, the ocean still went on giving you something, teaching you some sort of lesson. Perhaps that was why I had never actually considered its existence before—never really thought about the thundering of the waves as they sweep in endlessly toward the shore. But since I was thinking about it, what on earth did people in the city turn to when they felt the need to reckon with "balance"? Maybe the moon? That seemed like the obvious choice. But then the moon was so small and far away, and something about it felt sort of lonely, and it didn't seem like it would really help . . .

Content Warnings

emfen's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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