Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

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morebedsidebooks's review against another edition

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challenging
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.5

Breasts and Eggs by Kawakami Mieko, a novel recounting “the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties”, is a book I admit I went into with a bit of trepidation. I wondered what it might have to say about bodies, aging, womanhood, sex, children and patriarchal societies that I really aren’t deeply aware of already. 

Natsuko the asexual and sex-repulsed protagonist was the reason this novel was on my reading list in the first place. Her journey is thought-provoking to follow and melds somewhat with established traditions when it comes to Japanese feminine culture in fiction. Nonetheless a reader has to wade through so much to see how Kawakami toys with it all. The author too making use of worn-out devices, coarse raisonneur and at times poor metaphors trying to express something. (Such as a public bath scene with a ‘tomboy’ character or several segments with an incest and CSA victim character who is further anti-natalist.) 

Secondly, though I came at this book from the English edition first, as happens sometimes I then get a feeling I should look at the Japanese. It should be noted the English edition, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, took a certain approach to the Osaka dialect (namely not rendering it directly) trying to incorporate in a different way this aspect, which has a large bearing on the novel. This can be an acceptable method but, I think Kawakami’s writing may lose character and vivacity here. If this was not an already demanding book, I might have some more thoughts. Unfortunately, the last thing I want to do is a close reading. However, if one is inclined to read an excerpt of Breasts and Eggs and the decisions there of the translator of another of Kawakami’s books, Ms. Ice Sandwich, you can here. 

I have no doubt this book reaches some people. And clearly there are those who could use some of the words in Breast and Eggs. However, the novel in general has an oblique gloss to it. Despite several of its characters forging out a path of survival for themselves as they go through cycles in life this is a visceral, nauseating, deeply unhappy book. Reflecting and navigating with its fiction the many ethical, moral, personal questions among structures and oppression. Which would not be so discomfiting except I have a difficult time in believing it balances the acutely offensive parts with the meaningful or, shines in English. 

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