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A review by mobyskine
Territory of Light by Yūko Tsushima
4.0
A delicate yet unsettling premise of 12 fragments that revolves around the trials of life and solitude of a young woman who just separated from her husband and need to raise a two-year-old daughter alone in her new apartment. I love the sentimental and melancholic setting and how the storytelling could grasped the lonesome beauty of lights that always came streaming through her apartment’s windows— each moment and glow that the woman encountered subtly reflected her present emotions, of thoughts and lingering past that delved vividly through her days of surviving.
Neat prose with slow-moving progress, bit exhausting too to follow few of her rants and musings, and somehow her interactions with the daughter can be distressing much— those late night drinks, sleep till late and to ignore her daughter’s needs at times. An absorbing exploration that actually made me understand more on the reality of a single parent; of the imperfection and flaws, the anxieties and struggles to bear and deal on their own while still striving to provide the best for the child.
Love how the author managed to relate and explicate the issues on societal prejudice, patriarchal culture as well on marriage and relationship dynamics to present-day concerns despite this being first published in the late 1970s. I like the few last chapters of it; the relation of deaths to her luck and guilt, ways she dealt with her relationship conflict and discovering the new change. It was such a quiet, enlightening and heart-moving read to me. 4 stars to this!
Neat prose with slow-moving progress, bit exhausting too to follow few of her rants and musings, and somehow her interactions with the daughter can be distressing much— those late night drinks, sleep till late and to ignore her daughter’s needs at times. An absorbing exploration that actually made me understand more on the reality of a single parent; of the imperfection and flaws, the anxieties and struggles to bear and deal on their own while still striving to provide the best for the child.
Love how the author managed to relate and explicate the issues on societal prejudice, patriarchal culture as well on marriage and relationship dynamics to present-day concerns despite this being first published in the late 1970s. I like the few last chapters of it; the relation of deaths to her luck and guilt, ways she dealt with her relationship conflict and discovering the new change. It was such a quiet, enlightening and heart-moving read to me. 4 stars to this!