ReviewTwo tales of contemporary Japan, told by one of the country’s most honest writers
Plus, a science-fiction sequel that is absorbing, if overlong and overwrought
by Toshiki Okada
Pushkin
4/5 stars
Ten years after The End of the Moment We Had won the prestigious Kenzaburo Oe Prize, Yokahama-born Toshiki Okada’s two novellas have finally been released in English.
The titular story begins with six drunken young men annoying fellow passengers on Tokyo’s Hibiya Line train. They are heading to a club where a famous actor is giving a mysterious performance. One of the gang, the casually misogynist Azuma, was talked into attending by an over-fond girl he met the night before. The perspective switches restlessly: a different man and woman make their way from the club through protests against America’s invasion of Iraq to a hotel where they hook up for four days.
Meanwhile, My Place in Plural is narrated by a woman lying on a futon. Her mind drifts between the song stuck in her head, the messages flashing on her phone, a favourite blog about people phoning call centres and the state of her apartment. Her listless apathy reflects an unsatisfying marriage: she lashes out at her overworked husband seemingly to wake him from his own passivity.
Okada is a singular writer, acutely aware of the strange movements of thought and feeling, and of individuals in thrall to their own lives.