Monday, August 1, 2011

Review: The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto




Paperback, 208 pages
Published May 3rd 2011 by Melville House (first published 2005)
ISBN: 1933633778 (ISBN13: 9781933633770)

Chihiro, a young 30-something Japanese woman, is still feeling the loss of her mother but her feelings are ambivalent; part of her is saddened at her loss yet another part of her is relieved she can now escape the confines of a small town and move to Tokyo pursuing her career as a graphic artist.
In this character driven book, Chihiro, narrates the story of her relationship with Nakajima, a young man living across from her. She finds herself watching him through her window into his apartment and becomes somewhat  infatuated or at least curious and this eventually leads to a relationship.  I'm not sure if it was just propinquity or a real attraction but to me these two characters felt like immature, wounded souls, always on the outside looking in, and that was part of their attraction to each other.

      ". . . .what I felt for him wasn't exactly love, it was closer to a sense of surprise, even shock. And so I just kept watching him, unable to get completely involved." 

Yoshimoto does have a talent for getting to the heart of emotions, particularly those of loneliness and loss. Although our childhood does not entirely shape us as adults, it does have a profound effect;one of the issues Yoshimoto explores.

. . ."for years now I had been thinking only of myself, struggling to get my own way, pressing relentlessly forward, my gaze trained on an ideal future--I'd been focused exclusively on putting as much distance between me and my hometown, steadfastly refusing to put down roots. But Nakajima was so intense he had rolled right over me, and now he was dragging me along with him. " 

Through Chihiro's narrative and internal dialog, the reader can certainly empathize with her feelings.


Both Chihiro and Nakajima have lingering emotional baggage resulting from their childhoods. Chihiro is willing to talk about her relationship with her unmarried parents but Nakajima will not open up about his past saying it was just too painful. All Chihiro knows is he misses his mother intensely and that "something" happened in the past that was very traumatizing. 

When Nakajima wants to take Chihiro to the lake to visit old friends from childhood who he hasn't seen in over ten years, Chihiro feels that their relationship is making progress but her hopes that he will reveal more of his past once she has met his friends does not come to fruition. It takes more than that to get Nakajima to open up. In sparse prose, Yoshimoto hints at something so dire in the past that it has traumatized Nakajima to a great extent. The reader is not privy to what  this is until the last quarter of the book. When it was revealed, it felt anticlimactic to me. 

For some reason, even though I felt Yoshimoto's writing was beautiful, almost dreamlike at times, I still could not get deeply involved in the story to the point where I felt compelled to keep turning the pages. My interest would lag after 30-35  pages and I would have to put the book down. In a way I guess I felt as ambivalent as Chihiro; part of the time I was captured by the author's writing and at other times, I just lost interest.

This was my first experience with the author's works and while my rating is not over the top, neither is it derogatory so I would give her writing another try. Maybe the next time, I would be more prepared for her style. 3***

Disclosure: A review e-galley (192 pages on my Nook) was provided free of charge from Net Galley.

16 comments:

  1. You always write such nice reviews. Without reading your review, I could kind of tell by the cover of the book it would not be a book I would read, and your review confirmed it.

    Thanks for your visit to My Reading Corner today.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My only experience with Yoshimoto has been Kitchen - 'dreamlike' is a perfect way to describe her writing style. Goodbye, Tsugumi is waiting on my shelf, but The Lake sounds interesting to me, too. Great review, Kaye

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've been curious about this one, half tempted to read it. After your review, I think I may hold off until I get some other reading done first.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hmmm..is this translated? Sometimes the translation can make all the difference I think and I wonder if that was an issue here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just bought this book and have been curious to start it. It sounds like I need to temper my expectations with it a bit though! Great review!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have this one from Net Galley too. I find myself moving it down the TBR pile. Eep!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was wondering the same thing as Caite. I've read translated works and wondered if something was 'lost'. It sounds like a book that would be good to read when the time was right. Does that make sense? I really liked your review, Kaye.

    ReplyDelete
  8. All of her books that I've read have that ambivalence to them. It's something you either like or you don't. I thought it worked well in The Lake.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for pointing this one out to me ...we're doing "Kitchen" for our book club in September and I'm looking forward to re-reading it, but it will be nice to have another by the same author to refer those who want to go deeper.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This one was my first with this author as well. I liked it, but didn't love it

    ReplyDelete
  11. It sounds like the emphasis was on the writing instead of the story. I do love beautiful writing, but I want the story to go somewhere too.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This is a departure from your cozies!!! I am just in love with the author's name. I know what you mean about having a hard time getting into dreamlike books. I have the same problem.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm half way through this book and I'm having the same problem. It's hard to stay with it for any length of time. But her writing is lovely, although different. Now that I've read your review, I'll stay with it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I couldn't get into this book either.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I really enjoyed Kitchen and have this one on my Kindle. I'm glad that you're open to giving her another shot.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This sounds interesting. I haven't read any of her stuff.

    How do you find net galley?I am thinking of signing up.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.