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pil4r's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Esta hermosa novela tematiza la memoria y todo lo que no somos o dejamos de ser sin ella. Con una narrativa lenta pero profundamente sentida y con destellos de realismo mágico, Ogawa nos deja con más interrogantes que certezas.
Bastante por fuera de la acción y discusión política que anhelaba después de leer la sinopsis de esta historia, me encontré con una prosa simple pero desgarradora que explora el olvido forzoso y nuestra relación sustancial y constitutiva-pero muchas veces desestimada- con los objetos y el mundo que nos rodea.
Disfrute mucho la construcción del vínculo entre los personajes principales, el paralelismo con la novela de la protagonista y también, paradójicamente, la pesadumbre generalizada que late a lo largo de toda la trama.
Si bien no es mi primera recomendación para quienes estén en la búsqueda de distopías orwellianas llenas de crítica y revuelta de las masas, sí recomiendo para habitúes de la literatura japonesa y para quienes tengan ganas de, habitando la melancolía, pensar sobre los entrelazamientos entre la memoria, lo identitario y nuestra existencia cotidiana (especialmente, para población argentina sensible y siempre dispuesta a continuar pensando los efectos de la última dictadura cívico-militar).
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
literary_liv's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Confinement, Xenophobia, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual assault, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
sadhbhprice's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
mads_jpg's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
The disappearances reminded me of my fears from the climate crisis. We're constantly losing endangered species and seeing alarmist articles about how we might lose foods like coffee or chocolate. It feels like the earth is constantly running out of things. Like the Florence Welch lyric "and what if one day there is no such thing as snow".
But that's just one interpretation of many you could have with this book. Its themes of loss, control, agency, and more are very impactful, and I think I'll remember this book for a long time.
Graphic: Police brutality
Moderate: Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation
Minor: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Suicide
fkshg8465's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Infidelity, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail
tomboyaoi's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Moderate: Death, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting
Minor: Animal death, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
readwithsophsx's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation
steveatwaywords's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
First, do not enter this work thinking you know how books and stories work. Ogawa is going to teach us something new. The narrative success of it may be in question, but there is little doubt that the initial discomfiture and confusion readers experience (both in setting and in narrative pace) are a critical part of what she is up to. For these reasons, if we enter the work seeking a clean and simple "answer" to the mystery of social memory loss, like it's a thriller or detective novel, we will equally be disappointed. Let the novel work on its own terms.
When we do, we find a psychological and emotional dysphoria, an internal world broadcast outward into an external dystopia. Or is it the other way around? In any event, our narrator is herself a writer of novels about writing, memory, and language, themselves highly allegorical. So there is a meta-level to this novel, as well. Which is most significant as a tale to follow?
Along the way, we have plenty of near-nameless characters who test the premise: how should we respond to a world where, each-by-each, its objects are dismantled from both reality and memory? What is the purpose for knowing an objective truth which nevertheless is not shared by a community? How much forced deprivation can or should a people accept before responding? What degree of impoverishment can be normalized?
I've seen other reviews which place specific allegorical meanings to this novel (mental health metaphors, totalitarian economic policies, marriage, etc.), and I won't say they are wrong. But Ogawa's surreal narratives (or magically realistic ones) don't just echo Orwell or Murakami or even Dazai. But she here has tendrils of memory in all these writers while still taking us, inevitably, somewhere else altogether.
Moderate: Mental illness, Dementia, Grief, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail
Depending upon how you read the novel, it is easy to see it as a parallel to mental illness, emotional abuse or destitution, etc.avie_1's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.75
Moderate: Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation
Minor: Death of parent
nonpassionproject's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Moderate: Death
Minor: Infidelity, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail