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Breasts and Eggs
Challenging every preconception about storytelling and prose style, mixing wry humor and riveting emotional depth, Kawakami is today one of Japan’s most important and best-selling writers. She exploded onto the cultural scene first as a musician, then as a poet and popular blogger, and is now an award-winning novelist.
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.
It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.
On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.
It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.
On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.
430 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 2012
About the author
Mieko Kawakami
56 books6,136 followersMieko Kawakami (川上未映子, born in August 29, 1976) is a Japanese singer and writer from Osaka.
She was awarded the 138th Akutagawa Prize for promising new writers of serious fiction (2007) for her novel Chichi to Ran (乳と卵) (Breasts and Eggs).
Kawakami has released three albums and three singles as a singer.
She was awarded the 138th Akutagawa Prize for promising new writers of serious fiction (2007) for her novel Chichi to Ran (乳と卵) (Breasts and Eggs).
Kawakami has released three albums and three singles as a singer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 7,408 reviews
May 2, 2024
Bodily autonomy is a complex issue, particularly for working-class women existing in a patriarchal society stacked against them. Mieko Kawakami is quickly becoming a new favorite author for me, and Breasts and Eggs is a much-needed and passionate voice of denouncement to the social, literary, and workplace circles of society and their methods of keeping women down through everything from beauty standards to reproductive laws and social stigmas. ‘Women are no longer content to shut up,’ Kawakami said in a recent interview with The Guardian, citing outcries over the enforcement of beauty standards, such as a code requiring women to wear high heels at work or the disproportionate burden on women during COVID (issues affecting the health and safety of women are occurring worldwide). This book works as an effective rebuttal to traditional images of Japanese women as quiet and subservient, an image she critiqued world-renowned author Haruki Murakami for perpetuating during an interview with him. Giving voice to working-class women--and to the poetics of working-class dialects as well--and illuminating their interior selves, Kawakami boldly engages in sexual politics with an unabashed candor of bodies and sexuality in this blissfully intelligent novel.
Already a sensation in Japan, Mieko Kawakami has finally reached English-speaking audiences with Breast and Eggs. Split into two parts, the first half won the Akutagawa Prize when it was published as a novella in 2008; it was reissued as the full-length novel Natsu Monogatari(夏物語) in 2019. The first half takes place over 48 hours as Mikiko takes a trip with her twelve-year old daughter to stay with her younger sister, Natsuko--who narrates both sections of the book--to visit a breast-enhancement clinic. The second, longer section jumps 10 years into the future to 2016 where Natsuko is now an author after the runaway success of her short story collection. Still single with no desire for a relationship and accepting of her inability to feel pleasure from sex, Natsuko is researching semen donor options in order to have a child. As single women are not allowed to undergo the procedure in Japan, and she is unlikely to leave the country to have it done, her options are limited to private donors. Through this, she enters a world of fertility seminars and begins to understand the perspectives of those who are the children birthed from the procedure.
Although there is not a whole lot going on plotwise, this novel brilliantly opens up the vast interior world of Natsuko and her conversations with other women. Kawakami does an excellent job of portraying nuanced opinions, and while this book passes the Bechdel test by leaps and bounds, it is interesting to note how often conversations about men are inevitable because of the patriarchal structure insisting upon itself in almost every aspect of life. And this isn’t limited to criticisms of men, of which there are many and which make up some of the most wonderfully blunt statements in the novel. There is a righteous anger boiling in many of these women, such as the popular author Rika who openly says she dislikes all men for what they’ve imposed upon women. Rie, a former bookstore coworker, discusses how her husband mocked and delegitimized her postpartum depression by saying that birth is natural and she should get over it; Rie states that she hopes when he is dying she can laugh in his face and say, ‘Dying is totally natural. Get over it.’ She also elaborates on how women have been oppressed into internalizing their own oppression, detailing how her mother was verbally and physically abused by her father but later told her children she still valued him more than her own children. Or, as Glennon Doyle once wrote, ‘A very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves.’
This form of control isn’t always imposed through intimidation and violence, but often is surreptitiously enforced through the normalization of oppressive social norms such as beauty standards. Fitting standards of beauty becomes a system of value in society, particularly when marriage is deemed as necessary and finding an advantageous arrangement is crucial.
Fitting these standards is not only socially advantageous but also often becomes a necessity for work life. Mikiko is considering breast enhancement because her job as a hostess at a working-class bar (named Chanel and adorned with the emblem everywhere as a tacky attempt at class) requires her to be desirable and she feels outmaneuvered by younger women who better fit the standards of beauty (not to mention there is a lot of profit tied into sexualizing young women). ‘Beauty is capital,’ Tavi Gevinson wrote recently in an article about this very illusion of control, ‘and grows in value based only on the exclusion of others,’ and in Mikiko we see a working-class woman having her income threatened by not fitting the male gaze.
These procedures are expensive and possibly beyond rationalization for her income as Natsuko observes, but perhaps this is all part of the purpose of the ‘beauty myth’ concept where ‘women are mere ‘beauties’ in men’s culture so that culture can be kept male.’ As is noted by Renee Engeln in her work Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, ‘We don’t consider the gender gap in time and money spent on beauty...but time and money matter. They’re essential sources of power and influence and also major sources of freedom.’ Working-class women must spend a lot of money and go through a lot of pain, such as Makiko’s nipple-lightening procedures that she says are excruciating, on physical appearance standards that don’t have a male counterpart, further exacerbating the already troubling pay gap. Even something such as readying oneself for work is cast under the male gaze and control. Companies in Japan have banned women from wearing glasses at work as it purportedly makes them appear ‘cold and unfeminine,’ something along with required hairstyle standards that male employees do not have to follow. Perhaps Tressie McMillan Cottom says it best in her book Thick: And Other Essays:
This is not limited solely to ideas of gender either, as so much of work culture creates a oppressive or dehumanizing sense. While Kawakami briefly touches on this, it is better explored in books such as Hiroko Oyamada's The Factory or even Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Bodily autonomy is threatened by bodies being seen only as a tool for productivity in a business sense, and many people can become crushed underfoot in increasingly ableist work cultures that exist all over the world.
This line of thinking about your body as controlled by patriarchial society runs deep, and even 12-year-old Midoriko--her whole story is heartbreaking and she is such a lovely character--is already aware that her body is mostly valued for her reproductive labor. Kawakami is an expert at creating parallels in this book, and one of them is the way in which Midoriko’s journal entries on her eggs become a large theme for Natsuko in Part 2. Initially, Natsuko is concerned with her own autonomy over reproduction but as she learns more and interacts with the children of anonymous sperm donation, the question of their autonomy is largely brought into focus. She realizes ‘I don’t want to have [children]. I want to meet them. My child’ as a way of shifting the focus onto them.
Some of the most powerful scenes come from the resistance of others to Natsuko’s desire for a child as a single mother--not unlike her own resistance toward Mikiko’s desire for breast surgery. For example, her editor Sengawa (whose own story as a strong, single woman takes a tragic turn that probes ideas of ableism and hiding your own debilitating illness), telling her she cannot financially afford it and that it would be squandering her talents as a writer. The biggest argument against the idea comes from Yuriko, a child of sperm donation who was violently and repeatedly raped by her father and the freshly ex-girlfriend of Aizawa, a man looking for his biological father and newly-close friend to Natsuko. Yuriko believes life is pain and that it is unethical to bring a child into this world, which is a common topic of discussion in a world with a climate crisis and political anxieties that make one wonder what life they are imposing onto a child. ‘Nobody should be doing this,’ she says, ‘whoever the child is, the one who lives and dies consumed with pain, could never be you.’ She reminds Natsuko that the act is creating a life separate from her and calls into question the autonomy of a child that could potentially only live a few hours knowing nothing but pain or a lifetime of suffering as Yuriko has.
Natsuko is someone who chooses to follow her own path and find her own meaning, although her choices are inevitably influenced by those she values. She is a reactionary, often in an empowering way, such as when her first editor, a man, insists she will never be a great writer and so she ditches him and ends up publishing a massive best-seller. This is an important characterization, showing a fairly socially rebellious side as Natsuko is the child of a poor working-class single mother from Osaka. Like her character, Kawakami is also from Osaka and grew up lying about her age to work in factories and bars to support her family. ‘If you want to know how poor someone was growing up,’ she opens the novel, ‘ask them how many windows they had.’ The book frequently circles back to her childhood escaping an abusive father and then being raised by her grandmother after her mom’s early death. Reflections on extreme poverty abound, but the remembrances ultimately center on love. In a late scene she visits the apartment she grew up in, and the sheer bittersweet emotion of that moment does in a few pages what many books can’t achieve in hundreds.
This book is an ode to the working-class woman, and much of this exists in a language that sadly cannot transfer through translation. There is much discussion about the Osaka dialect, and, according to a review in The Guardian, an early UK translation of the novella attempted to recreate it with lines that currently read as Mikiko saying, ‘I’ve been thinking about getting breast implants’ translated as ‘Natsuko, I’m thinking of getting me boobs done.’ I read this along with my wonderful Goodreads friend Usha (read her review here) and discussed the dialect a few times. She made the great point that here, in the United States and Canada, so much of our dialect is associated with race and it would be difficult to translate it without it coming across as racist or otherwise problematic. I sort of enjoy the beauty in the ineffable and that certain things just cannot transfer, but it is a shame that writing her dialogue in the Osaka dialect is something English readers have to miss out on. The translation here by Sam Bett and David Boyd is admirable. I’ve encountered criticisms of the writing as a bit clunky and uneven, but it is of a sort that I tend to find really works for me as a positive.
Breasts and Eggs is a book that reads ‘like a cross between heartache and reassurance’. The depictions of Natsuko’s depression near the end register as painfully accurate, the varied opinions feel authentic and probe toward a wider understanding and acknowledgment that ideas are nuanced, and the characters feel alive and their pain becomes something you will find yourself empathizing with. Mieko Kawakami has an eye for the world and a talent for social criticism that is quickly making her a favorite (her other currently available book, the novella Ms Ice Sandwich is phenomenal and touches on similar themes of the beauty myth. Breast and Eggs left a large and lasting impression on me and reminds me of my own privileges where standards of beauty and male gaze don’t dictate so much of my life, as well as aspects of being believed and my opinion valued or not. This is a much needed voice in literature and one that stands strong and proud as a voice of working-class women struggling against the patriarchy to carve out their happiness and value in the world.
4.5/5
‘Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness.’
Already a sensation in Japan, Mieko Kawakami has finally reached English-speaking audiences with Breast and Eggs. Split into two parts, the first half won the Akutagawa Prize when it was published as a novella in 2008; it was reissued as the full-length novel Natsu Monogatari(夏物語) in 2019. The first half takes place over 48 hours as Mikiko takes a trip with her twelve-year old daughter to stay with her younger sister, Natsuko--who narrates both sections of the book--to visit a breast-enhancement clinic. The second, longer section jumps 10 years into the future to 2016 where Natsuko is now an author after the runaway success of her short story collection. Still single with no desire for a relationship and accepting of her inability to feel pleasure from sex, Natsuko is researching semen donor options in order to have a child. As single women are not allowed to undergo the procedure in Japan, and she is unlikely to leave the country to have it done, her options are limited to private donors. Through this, she enters a world of fertility seminars and begins to understand the perspectives of those who are the children birthed from the procedure.
Although there is not a whole lot going on plotwise, this novel brilliantly opens up the vast interior world of Natsuko and her conversations with other women. Kawakami does an excellent job of portraying nuanced opinions, and while this book passes the Bechdel test by leaps and bounds, it is interesting to note how often conversations about men are inevitable because of the patriarchal structure insisting upon itself in almost every aspect of life. And this isn’t limited to criticisms of men, of which there are many and which make up some of the most wonderfully blunt statements in the novel. There is a righteous anger boiling in many of these women, such as the popular author Rika who openly says she dislikes all men for what they’ve imposed upon women. Rie, a former bookstore coworker, discusses how her husband mocked and delegitimized her postpartum depression by saying that birth is natural and she should get over it; Rie states that she hopes when he is dying she can laugh in his face and say, ‘Dying is totally natural. Get over it.’ She also elaborates on how women have been oppressed into internalizing their own oppression, detailing how her mother was verbally and physically abused by her father but later told her children she still valued him more than her own children. Or, as Glennon Doyle once wrote, ‘A very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves.’
This form of control isn’t always imposed through intimidation and violence, but often is surreptitiously enforced through the normalization of oppressive social norms such as beauty standards. Fitting standards of beauty becomes a system of value in society, particularly when marriage is deemed as necessary and finding an advantageous arrangement is crucial.
‘When you’re pretty, everybody wants to look at you, they want to touch you. I wanted that for myself. Prettiness means value. But some people never experience that personally.’
Fitting these standards is not only socially advantageous but also often becomes a necessity for work life. Mikiko is considering breast enhancement because her job as a hostess at a working-class bar (named Chanel and adorned with the emblem everywhere as a tacky attempt at class) requires her to be desirable and she feels outmaneuvered by younger women who better fit the standards of beauty (not to mention there is a lot of profit tied into sexualizing young women). ‘Beauty is capital,’ Tavi Gevinson wrote recently in an article about this very illusion of control, ‘and grows in value based only on the exclusion of others,’ and in Mikiko we see a working-class woman having her income threatened by not fitting the male gaze.
These procedures are expensive and possibly beyond rationalization for her income as Natsuko observes, but perhaps this is all part of the purpose of the ‘beauty myth’ concept where ‘women are mere ‘beauties’ in men’s culture so that culture can be kept male.’ As is noted by Renee Engeln in her work Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women, ‘We don’t consider the gender gap in time and money spent on beauty...but time and money matter. They’re essential sources of power and influence and also major sources of freedom.’ Working-class women must spend a lot of money and go through a lot of pain, such as Makiko’s nipple-lightening procedures that she says are excruciating, on physical appearance standards that don’t have a male counterpart, further exacerbating the already troubling pay gap. Even something such as readying oneself for work is cast under the male gaze and control. Companies in Japan have banned women from wearing glasses at work as it purportedly makes them appear ‘cold and unfeminine,’ something along with required hairstyle standards that male employees do not have to follow. Perhaps Tressie McMillan Cottom says it best in her book Thick: And Other Essays:
'Beauty is not good capital. It compounds the oppression of gender. It constrains those who identify as women against their will. It costs money and demands money. It colonizes. It hurts. It is painful. It can never be fully satisfied. It is not useful for human flourishing. Beauty is, like all capital, merely valuable.'
This is not limited solely to ideas of gender either, as so much of work culture creates a oppressive or dehumanizing sense. While Kawakami briefly touches on this, it is better explored in books such as Hiroko Oyamada's The Factory or even Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata. Bodily autonomy is threatened by bodies being seen only as a tool for productivity in a business sense, and many people can become crushed underfoot in increasingly ableist work cultures that exist all over the world.
This line of thinking about your body as controlled by patriarchial society runs deep, and even 12-year-old Midoriko--her whole story is heartbreaking and she is such a lovely character--is already aware that her body is mostly valued for her reproductive labor. Kawakami is an expert at creating parallels in this book, and one of them is the way in which Midoriko’s journal entries on her eggs become a large theme for Natsuko in Part 2. Initially, Natsuko is concerned with her own autonomy over reproduction but as she learns more and interacts with the children of anonymous sperm donation, the question of their autonomy is largely brought into focus. She realizes ‘I don’t want to have [children]. I want to meet them. My child’ as a way of shifting the focus onto them.
Some of the most powerful scenes come from the resistance of others to Natsuko’s desire for a child as a single mother--not unlike her own resistance toward Mikiko’s desire for breast surgery. For example, her editor Sengawa (whose own story as a strong, single woman takes a tragic turn that probes ideas of ableism and hiding your own debilitating illness), telling her she cannot financially afford it and that it would be squandering her talents as a writer. The biggest argument against the idea comes from Yuriko, a child of sperm donation who was violently and repeatedly raped by her father and the freshly ex-girlfriend of Aizawa, a man looking for his biological father and newly-close friend to Natsuko. Yuriko believes life is pain and that it is unethical to bring a child into this world, which is a common topic of discussion in a world with a climate crisis and political anxieties that make one wonder what life they are imposing onto a child. ‘Nobody should be doing this,’ she says, ‘whoever the child is, the one who lives and dies consumed with pain, could never be you.’ She reminds Natsuko that the act is creating a life separate from her and calls into question the autonomy of a child that could potentially only live a few hours knowing nothing but pain or a lifetime of suffering as Yuriko has.
People are willing to accept the pain and suffering of others, limitless amounts of it, as long as it helps them to keep on believing in whatever it is that they want to believe. Love, meaning, doesn’t matter.’
Natsuko is someone who chooses to follow her own path and find her own meaning, although her choices are inevitably influenced by those she values. She is a reactionary, often in an empowering way, such as when her first editor, a man, insists she will never be a great writer and so she ditches him and ends up publishing a massive best-seller. This is an important characterization, showing a fairly socially rebellious side as Natsuko is the child of a poor working-class single mother from Osaka. Like her character, Kawakami is also from Osaka and grew up lying about her age to work in factories and bars to support her family. ‘If you want to know how poor someone was growing up,’ she opens the novel, ‘ask them how many windows they had.’ The book frequently circles back to her childhood escaping an abusive father and then being raised by her grandmother after her mom’s early death. Reflections on extreme poverty abound, but the remembrances ultimately center on love. In a late scene she visits the apartment she grew up in, and the sheer bittersweet emotion of that moment does in a few pages what many books can’t achieve in hundreds.
This book is an ode to the working-class woman, and much of this exists in a language that sadly cannot transfer through translation. There is much discussion about the Osaka dialect, and, according to a review in The Guardian, an early UK translation of the novella attempted to recreate it with lines that currently read as Mikiko saying, ‘I’ve been thinking about getting breast implants’ translated as ‘Natsuko, I’m thinking of getting me boobs done.’ I read this along with my wonderful Goodreads friend Usha (read her review here) and discussed the dialect a few times. She made the great point that here, in the United States and Canada, so much of our dialect is associated with race and it would be difficult to translate it without it coming across as racist or otherwise problematic. I sort of enjoy the beauty in the ineffable and that certain things just cannot transfer, but it is a shame that writing her dialogue in the Osaka dialect is something English readers have to miss out on. The translation here by Sam Bett and David Boyd is admirable. I’ve encountered criticisms of the writing as a bit clunky and uneven, but it is of a sort that I tend to find really works for me as a positive.
Breasts and Eggs is a book that reads ‘like a cross between heartache and reassurance’. The depictions of Natsuko’s depression near the end register as painfully accurate, the varied opinions feel authentic and probe toward a wider understanding and acknowledgment that ideas are nuanced, and the characters feel alive and their pain becomes something you will find yourself empathizing with. Mieko Kawakami has an eye for the world and a talent for social criticism that is quickly making her a favorite (her other currently available book, the novella Ms Ice Sandwich is phenomenal and touches on similar themes of the beauty myth. Breast and Eggs left a large and lasting impression on me and reminds me of my own privileges where standards of beauty and male gaze don’t dictate so much of my life, as well as aspects of being believed and my opinion valued or not. This is a much needed voice in literature and one that stands strong and proud as a voice of working-class women struggling against the patriarchy to carve out their happiness and value in the world.
4.5/5
‘Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness.’
February 27, 2024
I love Goodreads so much.
If you need a reminder of this site's delirious one of a kind unhinged-ness, take a gander and a scroll down the page of reviews for this book. The top review, by the wonderful s.penkevich, is an excellent, well thought-out analysis of its meaning, citing sources and generally acting as publishable literary criticism (but more fun to read).
This is followed by a series of middling reviews by (mostly) men all but outright saying "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WOMEN AND I DON'T THINK THEY DESERVE 500 PAGES WRITTEN ABOUT THEIR TRAUMAS AND REPRESSIONS AND THE IMPACT OF SOCIETAL STANDARDS ON THEIR PSYCHES" and (mostly) women annoyed that this book is more social commentary than it is plot-driven. (I am desperate to avoid making this gender-based generalization, but unfortunately it's true.)
Then there's a few more good ones. And repeat.
I love slowly murdering my brain by spending uncalled for amounts of time on this hellsite and I will never ever leave.
Everything you need to know about this book before you get into it can be found in the title. An exploration of feminine gender roles in Japan, the first section (once a standalone novella) is all about BREASTS!!!! Accordingly, we spend this time examining women's society-given duty to be sexually appealing, and the struggle to maintain the illusion of constant adhesion to social standards as we age. It's excellent.
The second and longer section is all about EGGS!!!! And as length would indicate, this is a more complex look at the ties between the sexual societal responsibilities given to women in the previous book, and the enduring biological responsibility for women to have babies. Our protagonist, Natsuko, wants to have children, but she doesn't want to have sex, and the holy-sh*t-the-world-is-on-fire responses this warrants from the men (and women!) she tells is such an amazing (and as far as I know, one of a kind) way of looking at how distant the two definitions of sexual have become, even as we continue to expect them from women.
I think I'm done with being self-indulgent now. But isn't that what this site is all about?!
Bottom line: This book and the reviews of it are sooo worth the read.
---------------
pre-review
let's talk about gender, baby, let's talk bodily autonomy
let's talk about all the bad things and more bad things and...babies?
review to come / 4 stars
If you need a reminder of this site's delirious one of a kind unhinged-ness, take a gander and a scroll down the page of reviews for this book. The top review, by the wonderful s.penkevich, is an excellent, well thought-out analysis of its meaning, citing sources and generally acting as publishable literary criticism (but more fun to read).
This is followed by a series of middling reviews by (mostly) men all but outright saying "I DON'T UNDERSTAND WOMEN AND I DON'T THINK THEY DESERVE 500 PAGES WRITTEN ABOUT THEIR TRAUMAS AND REPRESSIONS AND THE IMPACT OF SOCIETAL STANDARDS ON THEIR PSYCHES" and (mostly) women annoyed that this book is more social commentary than it is plot-driven. (I am desperate to avoid making this gender-based generalization, but unfortunately it's true.)
Then there's a few more good ones. And repeat.
I love slowly murdering my brain by spending uncalled for amounts of time on this hellsite and I will never ever leave.
Everything you need to know about this book before you get into it can be found in the title. An exploration of feminine gender roles in Japan, the first section (once a standalone novella) is all about BREASTS!!!! Accordingly, we spend this time examining women's society-given duty to be sexually appealing, and the struggle to maintain the illusion of constant adhesion to social standards as we age. It's excellent.
The second and longer section is all about EGGS!!!! And as length would indicate, this is a more complex look at the ties between the sexual societal responsibilities given to women in the previous book, and the enduring biological responsibility for women to have babies. Our protagonist, Natsuko, wants to have children, but she doesn't want to have sex, and the holy-sh*t-the-world-is-on-fire responses this warrants from the men (and women!) she tells is such an amazing (and as far as I know, one of a kind) way of looking at how distant the two definitions of sexual have become, even as we continue to expect them from women.
I think I'm done with being self-indulgent now. But isn't that what this site is all about?!
Bottom line: This book and the reviews of it are sooo worth the read.
---------------
pre-review
let's talk about gender, baby, let's talk bodily autonomy
let's talk about all the bad things and more bad things and...babies?
review to come / 4 stars
June 15, 2020
Like a lot of novels I started reading Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs not knowing much about it but hoping it would be a good ‘un. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually really good - up to a point. That point would be after the episode where the main character’s older sister and her daughter come to visit. All that stuff after - about the main character Natsu trying to get pregnant artificially - was ass!
The novel felt so much like two different stories stuck together that I looked into the background a little more and found out that, yup, the first story - let’s call it Breasts, because it’s about Natsu’s older sister wanting to get a boob job - was originally a standalone novella, and the second part - let’s call it Eggs because it’s about Natsu trying to get pregnant artificially - was written later. They’re combined here as Breasts and Eggs.
If this book was just Breasts I would giving it four out of five stars. It’s a really interesting portrait of a 30 year-old single woman working dead-end jobs and trying to be a writer while her equally impoverished older sister struggles to make a living as an aging hostess and maintaining a difficult relationship with her teenage daughter.
Both sisters have been poor their whole lives and still can’t make any decent money. It’s a fascinating portrait of the underside of Japanese society that you rarely see and reminds me of the superb 2018 Japanese movie Shoplifters. Natsu, Makiko and Midoriko are fully-realised, believable and sympathetic characters whose ability to keep going despite seemingly never-ending hardship was inspiring. I was fully onboard and couldn’t wait to see where this novel was going.
And then there’s the time jump, both in the novel and in real life, because Kawakami wrote Eggs after Breasts and also set it ten years later. Natsu’s a successful novelist now and feels the desire to become a mother - except she hates sex and can’t have a relationship with a man.
This went on and on and on for two-thirds of the book - Eggs is twice as long as Breasts and isn’t even half as interesting; this section is what really drags down the rating to two stars. Natsu looks into her options for artificial insemination, gets involved with a strange support network of people who were born artificially, and things happen for no real reason to no effect (characters dying, relationships ending and starting) before closing on a trite, feel-good ending.
Makiko and Midoriko appear briefly in Eggs but they didn’t seem like the same characters as before and it felt like their inclusion was an attempt to connect the two disparate pieces into fooling the reader that they were reading a complete novel. Even Natsu doesn’t seem like the same person she was in Eggs. I mean, sure, people change over time, but it just felt arbitrary that she would suddenly want to become a mother. Especially since a large part of Breasts was about how bad her and Makiko’s childhood was and how providing for kids had killed their single mother at an early age.
I suppose the novel is vaguely about being a woman, or something, but I didn’t think Kawakami had anything substantial to say about that, if it was. The first section alone would’ve been a great standalone piece about the struggles and relationships of working-class women in modern-day Japan but paired with the meandering, dull, utterly boring second and final piece about getting pregnant without having sex, that unfortunately makes up the bulk of this book, the novel turns into a slow and tedious slog to the final page.
I doubt anyone would stop reading after the first section, which is the only part of the book I’d say is worth reading, but, for anyone struggling beyond that point, I’d say to give up as it doesn’t get any better after it.
The novel felt so much like two different stories stuck together that I looked into the background a little more and found out that, yup, the first story - let’s call it Breasts, because it’s about Natsu’s older sister wanting to get a boob job - was originally a standalone novella, and the second part - let’s call it Eggs because it’s about Natsu trying to get pregnant artificially - was written later. They’re combined here as Breasts and Eggs.
If this book was just Breasts I would giving it four out of five stars. It’s a really interesting portrait of a 30 year-old single woman working dead-end jobs and trying to be a writer while her equally impoverished older sister struggles to make a living as an aging hostess and maintaining a difficult relationship with her teenage daughter.
Both sisters have been poor their whole lives and still can’t make any decent money. It’s a fascinating portrait of the underside of Japanese society that you rarely see and reminds me of the superb 2018 Japanese movie Shoplifters. Natsu, Makiko and Midoriko are fully-realised, believable and sympathetic characters whose ability to keep going despite seemingly never-ending hardship was inspiring. I was fully onboard and couldn’t wait to see where this novel was going.
And then there’s the time jump, both in the novel and in real life, because Kawakami wrote Eggs after Breasts and also set it ten years later. Natsu’s a successful novelist now and feels the desire to become a mother - except she hates sex and can’t have a relationship with a man.
This went on and on and on for two-thirds of the book - Eggs is twice as long as Breasts and isn’t even half as interesting; this section is what really drags down the rating to two stars. Natsu looks into her options for artificial insemination, gets involved with a strange support network of people who were born artificially, and things happen for no real reason to no effect (characters dying, relationships ending and starting) before closing on a trite, feel-good ending.
Makiko and Midoriko appear briefly in Eggs but they didn’t seem like the same characters as before and it felt like their inclusion was an attempt to connect the two disparate pieces into fooling the reader that they were reading a complete novel. Even Natsu doesn’t seem like the same person she was in Eggs. I mean, sure, people change over time, but it just felt arbitrary that she would suddenly want to become a mother. Especially since a large part of Breasts was about how bad her and Makiko’s childhood was and how providing for kids had killed their single mother at an early age.
I suppose the novel is vaguely about being a woman, or something, but I didn’t think Kawakami had anything substantial to say about that, if it was. The first section alone would’ve been a great standalone piece about the struggles and relationships of working-class women in modern-day Japan but paired with the meandering, dull, utterly boring second and final piece about getting pregnant without having sex, that unfortunately makes up the bulk of this book, the novel turns into a slow and tedious slog to the final page.
I doubt anyone would stop reading after the first section, which is the only part of the book I’d say is worth reading, but, for anyone struggling beyond that point, I’d say to give up as it doesn’t get any better after it.
May 26, 2020
Breasts and Eggs is a strange, moody novel examining womanhood and bodily autonomy. Originally two separate books, it is now published in translation as one novel of two parts.
In ‘Book One’, Natsuko is visited by her sister, Makiko, who has come to Tokyo for a boob job with her preteen daughter in tow. In ‘Book Two’, Natsuko, nearing forty, contemplates having a child via anonymous sperm donation.
Sandwiching these two books together, the resulting novel seems overlong and disjointed. Stylistically, the journal entries, occasional hallucinatory episodes, and general slipperiness of Book One are mostly absent from the more conventional Book Two, which is also longer and more meandering.
Any ‘social-issue-debate’ novel is at risk of appearing contrived: it’s a rigged contest with the author controlling all the players. Kawakami falters here, succeeds there, in preserving the illusion of her characters as real thinking beings rather than mouthpieces. Some of the arguments about sperm donation seem a bit facile (albeit Kawakami notes significant cultural differences in Japanese vs Western attitudes) and too easily dismantled. On the other hand, when one minor character goes on a fabulous, nihilistic, extended rant about the arrogance and presumption of anyone procreating — she describes birth itself as a ‘violence’ enacted on literally everyone without their consent — it comes across as raw and real.
Our protagonist Natsuko vacillates listlessly, weighing pros and cons of her solo parenthood plan, but ultimately dodges the tougher choices — her ethical conundrum is resolved by a convenient plot contrivance. One that is believable enough, but still felt like a cheat to me, as her ‘solution’ isn’t an option most real-world women have. The novel’s serious moral weight is undercut with a plot resolution from a romcom.
So the central premise is fairly unsatisfying in the end, but it’s bolstered by the surrounding matrix of Japanese slice-of-life moments, Natsuko’s outsiderdom as an Osakan in Tokyo, staunch female-centricity, and a few kooky surreal moments — all of which is enjoyable in its own right. An uneven 3 stars.
In ‘Book One’, Natsuko is visited by her sister, Makiko, who has come to Tokyo for a boob job with her preteen daughter in tow. In ‘Book Two’, Natsuko, nearing forty, contemplates having a child via anonymous sperm donation.
Sandwiching these two books together, the resulting novel seems overlong and disjointed. Stylistically, the journal entries, occasional hallucinatory episodes, and general slipperiness of Book One are mostly absent from the more conventional Book Two, which is also longer and more meandering.
Any ‘social-issue-debate’ novel is at risk of appearing contrived: it’s a rigged contest with the author controlling all the players. Kawakami falters here, succeeds there, in preserving the illusion of her characters as real thinking beings rather than mouthpieces. Some of the arguments about sperm donation seem a bit facile (albeit Kawakami notes significant cultural differences in Japanese vs Western attitudes) and too easily dismantled. On the other hand, when one minor character goes on a fabulous, nihilistic, extended rant about the arrogance and presumption of anyone procreating — she describes birth itself as a ‘violence’ enacted on literally everyone without their consent — it comes across as raw and real.
Our protagonist Natsuko vacillates listlessly, weighing pros and cons of her solo parenthood plan, but ultimately dodges the tougher choices — her ethical conundrum is resolved by a convenient plot contrivance. One that is believable enough, but still felt like a cheat to me, as her ‘solution’ isn’t an option most real-world women have. The novel’s serious moral weight is undercut with a plot resolution from a romcom.
So the central premise is fairly unsatisfying in the end, but it’s bolstered by the surrounding matrix of Japanese slice-of-life moments, Natsuko’s outsiderdom as an Osakan in Tokyo, staunch female-centricity, and a few kooky surreal moments — all of which is enjoyable in its own right. An uneven 3 stars.
September 10, 2022
This novel entranced and absorbed me, and disturbed me, too. The story illustrates the corrosive effects of misogyny and poverty on the female body and spirit, and it's so intimately told, and so full of female happenings--the feeling of a sanitary napkin between one's legs, the feeling of dissatisfaction about one's breasts or nipples or skin or some other flaw, the surprise of menstrual blood on a day when it isn't expected--that I frequently had that lovely feeling that only great storytelling can give--that the author/narrator was presenting certain truths to me that I'd never bothered to think about, or to give words to, before reading them here on the page. One small perfect, everyday observation after another is made, setting a scene and grounding the story in a gritty, practical reality--and then the narration suddenly will soar for a paragraph or two into a profound metaphysical observation, about life, or ambition, or fate, or the ravages of poverty, or the obligations of filial love. The characters in the novel are flawed and broken, but they forgive one another. They do their best. I enjoyed the first section for the way it affected me emotionally, and I enjoyed what followed for the ideas it gave me. Wonderful.
September 24, 2022
“People are willing to accept the pain and suffering of others, limitless amounts of it, as long as it helps them to keep on believing in whatever it is that they want to believe. Love, meaning, doesn't matter.”
Natsuko is a struggling writer when her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter, Midoriko, come to visit for a few days. Makiko has made the journey to Tokyo to explore affordable options for breast enhancements. Midoriko, who hasn’t spoken a word to her mother in six months, privately wrestles with her own changing body and turns to her journal for companionship.
A climactic clash occurs between Makiko and Midorko before the two return home, and the narrative flashes forward in time ten years. Natsuko has managed to publish one collection of stories but, even more than her struggle to write a novel, she wrestles with her desire to have a child. Without a partner, Natsuko seeks other possible means to fulfill her deepest wish to be a mother as she continues to grow older alone.
Breasts and Eggs is a heartbreaking story, but also joyous and profound. It navigates what it means to be alone, and to interact with others, and to give life meaning. The author describes all the sensations of the female body so lucidly. The book deals with femininity in its rawest form, life, death and birth. The setting of the novel is amazing, it feels natural and untampered and the style of prose is wonderful. The author compares the compartmentalising of emotions to folding a napkin neatly, before putting it in your pocket.
As a woman, I felt incredibly validated in my struggles and the structural unfairness in society. I applaud the author for introducing so many radical, yet logical concepts. She brought forth striking perspectives, layering toxic masculinity, the fragility of relationships, poverty, biological order, womanhood and childbearing.
I highly recommend this novel, but not if you don't like books that are slow burners, centred on thoughts and feelings and small moments.
Natsuko is a struggling writer when her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s teenage daughter, Midoriko, come to visit for a few days. Makiko has made the journey to Tokyo to explore affordable options for breast enhancements. Midoriko, who hasn’t spoken a word to her mother in six months, privately wrestles with her own changing body and turns to her journal for companionship.
A climactic clash occurs between Makiko and Midorko before the two return home, and the narrative flashes forward in time ten years. Natsuko has managed to publish one collection of stories but, even more than her struggle to write a novel, she wrestles with her desire to have a child. Without a partner, Natsuko seeks other possible means to fulfill her deepest wish to be a mother as she continues to grow older alone.
Breasts and Eggs is a heartbreaking story, but also joyous and profound. It navigates what it means to be alone, and to interact with others, and to give life meaning. The author describes all the sensations of the female body so lucidly. The book deals with femininity in its rawest form, life, death and birth. The setting of the novel is amazing, it feels natural and untampered and the style of prose is wonderful. The author compares the compartmentalising of emotions to folding a napkin neatly, before putting it in your pocket.
As a woman, I felt incredibly validated in my struggles and the structural unfairness in society. I applaud the author for introducing so many radical, yet logical concepts. She brought forth striking perspectives, layering toxic masculinity, the fragility of relationships, poverty, biological order, womanhood and childbearing.
I highly recommend this novel, but not if you don't like books that are slow burners, centred on thoughts and feelings and small moments.
September 5, 2023
Brakowało mi tylko rozwinięcia wątków siostry i jej córki, poza tym naprawdę dobre!
September 29, 2022
I have been reading japanese literature for years, and this book is a totally refreshing in its point of view. Kawakami speaks from such a different angle, from a first person experience of a womans body. I mean, I have read about it described from many male authors point of view, but here she speaks from a woman´s point of view. From the aesthetic (the woman who wants to change her breasts, or the one who tries to make her nipples pinker), or menstruation, fertility, etc. Really was a surprising read, and I will definitely be reading more of her! And to tell you the truth, I loved seeing men satirized for the first time, after reading women being caricaturized the way they sometimes have been by authors like Yasutaka Tsutsui.
June 5, 2022
i deleted my review after getting one too many comments misreading my various criticisms (either calling me "too woke" or implying that i do not respect women who want to have children or, and this gets the cake, "an anglo saxon liberal chauvinist" which makes me wonder if angry commentators such as these even take the trouble of checking my profile before making their wildly inaccurate estimates or guesses about moi).
i even had a disclaimer where i stated that what i had written was less of a review than a cathartic rant…anyway, i actually really like this author, and this is the only book by her that I did not like. i had some issues with the way the author chooses to go about her interrogation of “womanhood”, that unnecessary transphobic scene which added nothing and doesn’t even lead to a more inclusive discussion on the female experience (please do not read this as me saying that kawakami herself is transphobic), the way victims of sexual abuse are portrayed as “tragically broken”…and many other things.
but if you liked it good for you. just don’t put f*cking words into my mouth. frankly i am tired of books that equate women with breast and eggs, and while this book's title is supposedly ironic and the narrative is meant to challenge such rhetorics it ultimately doesn’t succeed (and to reiterate for those who are convinced their view is and must be universal in all things: not only is this is my opinion but my having this opinion doesn’t affect you one bit. if the knowledge that there are people out there who will interpret things differently from you leads you to leave nasty comments please unfriend me, unfollow me, and/or block me).
September 26, 2022
Wow! I honestly wasn’t expecting to love this book as much as I do!
“Breasts and Eggs” is a poignant yet hopeful story following Natsu, our narrator, and the other women in her life as they navigate womanhood in contemporary Japan.
I picked this book up on a whim, after seeing it all over my social media (thank you instagram)!
I’d never read anything by Mieko Kawakami before, though I’ve heard such wonderful things about her stories! I’m always nervous to join the hype surrounding a contemporary book, but this one deserves all the hype it has been getting!
I loved how honest and opened this story felt, as if you were chatting with Natsu yourself. I grew so attached to her journey and was left feeling as if I’d made a new friend…in Natsu and Mieko Kawakami!
I’ve also heard amazing things about her other novel “Heaven,” so I’m greatly looking forward to reading more of her lovely work!
:)
“Breasts and Eggs” is a poignant yet hopeful story following Natsu, our narrator, and the other women in her life as they navigate womanhood in contemporary Japan.
I picked this book up on a whim, after seeing it all over my social media (thank you instagram)!
I’d never read anything by Mieko Kawakami before, though I’ve heard such wonderful things about her stories! I’m always nervous to join the hype surrounding a contemporary book, but this one deserves all the hype it has been getting!
I loved how honest and opened this story felt, as if you were chatting with Natsu yourself. I grew so attached to her journey and was left feeling as if I’d made a new friend…in Natsu and Mieko Kawakami!
I’ve also heard amazing things about her other novel “Heaven,” so I’m greatly looking forward to reading more of her lovely work!
:)
December 27, 2021
Kawakami Mieko's novella 乳と卵 (Breast and Eggs) won the Akutagawa Prize in Japan in 2007.
In 2019 she published an expanded version, 夏物語 (Summer Story), and it is the longer book that has been translated here under the (it has to be said rather better) initial title by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Further in my review I include some thoughts on the translation.
Essentially this book consists of the original novella (147 pages in translation) and a second part, twice the length, that picks up the story of the same lead character 8 years later.
Given the form of the book and the title, I am not, I suspect, the first reviewer to be unable to resist saying this is something of a curate's egg of a novel: the first part in particular rather tighter and impactful than the second.
The 'breast' part of the title also makes the accompanying blurb from Haruki Murakami, clearly a huge fan of the author, somewhat interesting when one considers Kawakami's feminist views and female-centric title matter, Murakami's own treatment of his female characters, and particularly his rather disturbing fixation in Killing Commendatore. Interestingly the author of this book tackled Murakami about this very topic in a frank and revealing interview: https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critiqu... which has since been translated into a (as yet untranslated) longer critical discussion of his works. As a taster she asks him directly in the interview:
I’m talking about the large number of female characters who exist solely to fulfill a sexual function. On the one hand, your work is boundlessly imaginative when it comes to plots, to wells, and to men, but the same can’t be said for their relationships with women. It’s not possible for these women to exist on their own. And while female protagonists, or even supporting characters, may enjoy a moderate degree of self-expression, thanks to their relative independence, there’s a persistent tendency for women to be sacrificed for the sake of the male leads. So the question is, why is it that women are so often called upon to play this role in Murakami novels?
The novel is narrated from the perspective of an aspiring author and sometime blogger, the somewhat unusually named Natsuko Natsume (she frequently has to assure people it isn't a pen name). As the first part opens in 2008, with the Beijing Olympics in progress, she is living alone in Tokyo, struggling to move forward with her life.
I seriously doubt at twenty that I saw myself, in my vague dreams for the future, still being in Tokyo at thirty. No one reads my work (my blog, collecting dust in a corner of the internet, gets one or two visitors on a good day), and none of it has made it into print. Forget about readers, I barely have friends. I’m still in the same apartment with the slanted, peeling walls and the same overbearing afternoon sun, surviving off the same minimum wage job, working full time for not a whole lot more than 100,000 yen a month, and still writing and writing, with no idea of whether it’s ever going to get me anywhere. My life was like a dusty shelf in an old bookstore, where every volume was exactly where it had been for ages, the only discernible change being that my body has aged another ten years.
But she is expecting visitors from her hometown: Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself.
This novella takes us deftly through the three days they spend in Tokyo and each character's situation: their troubled family history; Natsuko's search for purpose; Makiko who works in a bar, and has decided she wants breast implants; and Midoriko, going through puberty and who only communicates with her mother via written notes, that is until her shell cracks in a memorable scene near the end of this part:
“Why . . .” she started, “do that to yourself . . .” she spat out, breaking the second egg over her head, same as the last one. Yolk and white oozed down her forehead. Without hesitation, she grabbed another egg. “You’re the one who had me,” she told Makiko. “And it’s too late to do anything about that now, but why do you have to . . .” Midoriko slapped the egg hard against her forehead. “I don’t know what to do, and you don’t tell me anything. I love you, but I never want to be like you. No . . .” She took a breath. “I want to start working, so I can help. I want to help so bad. With money, with everything. Do you have any idea . . . how scared I am? I don’t get it, any of it. My eyes hurt. They hurt. Why does everything change? Why? It hurts. Why was I born? Why did any of us have to be born? If we were never born, none of these things would have happened, none of it would—”
The second part is a rather more drawn-out (in time and pages) affair. Beginning in late 2016, Natsuko has since has success with her first novel, although she is suffering writer's block with her second. We learn that she only has had one relationship in her life, one that ended due to her mental and physical dislike of sex, but for reasons that aren't entirely clear to the reader, or indeed her, decides she wants to have a child. After investigation of the options (rather like her sister's detailed research in part one into breast augmentation options, but spelled out her in rather more detail) she settles on artificial insemination. But this isn't legally available in Japan as an option for a single person, although it is to others:
I knew these women were only venting their frustration and their anguish, but so long as they had someone, they were blessed. Technology was on their side. They had options. There was a way. They were accepted. That’s even true for same-sex couples who wanted kids. They were couples, sharing a dream with someone who could share the load. They had community, and people who would lend a helping hand . But what if sex was out of the equation? What if you were alone? All the books and blogs catered to couples. What about the rest of us, who were alone and planned to stay that way? Who has the right to have a child? Does not having a partner or not wanting to have sex nullify this right?
But then encounters a group of those born by this method who are in search of their biological parents, one in particular who was abused by her legal but non-biological father, who berates her for her choice, albeit not for the reason she expects:
“Look, I’m not saying it’s not a little different for children of donors,” Yuriko said. “It’s not okay to set them or the entire family up for a future of counseling and therapy. But it’s basically the same for everyone. That’s what it’s like to be born. If you stop and think about it, that’s all life ever is. Like I was saying, the way you do it doesn’t matter. What I’m asking is: Why do you want to bring a child into the world? What would possess you to do that?”
This second half of the novel raises some interesting issues (as per some of the quotes above) but does so in a rather exposition-heavy way rather than the more indirect and psychological approach of part 1.
Overall 3 stars - although the original novella on its own would have warranted a strong 4. Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
On the translation of dialect
Mieko Kawakami is known in Japan for writing in the distinctive Kansai dialect and indeed this topic is discussed by her lead character with another author.
Then we started talking about dialect in fiction. Rika asked me if I’d ever thought about writing a whole book in Osaka dialect. When I said I’d never even toyed with the idea, Rika told me what she thought about the way that people talked in Kansai, and Osaka in particular. “That was seriously amazing,” she said. “When I went to Osaka, I saw, or really heard , these three women just talking, a million miles an hour, getting everything in there. There was so much going on. Multiple perspectives, mixed tenses, the whole shebang. They were cracking up, but they were having a real conversation. Nothing like on TV. Everything on TV is tailored for TV. The real thing , the real Osaka dialect, isn’t even about communicating. It’s a contest. Somehow, you’re both in the audience and on the stage . . . How can I put it? It’s an art.”
...
“Know what, though? What really gets me is how writing always fails to capture it. Like, the way those three women were talking. I mean, you couldn’t reproduce that performance on the page and get the same dynamic. A lot of people from Osaka have written things in Osaka dialect. I’ve read a bunch of them, just to see how they’d handle it. But it really, truly doesn’t work. Like it’s impossible. I guess what really struck me, though, was how it didn’t make any real difference if the writer was from Osaka.
As discussed above, Breast and Eggs also began life as a novella before being expanded (with a 2nd section) into this novel. And in 2012 translator Louise Heal Kawai translated some excerpts from the novella for the publication Words Without Borders: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/a...
As she explained:
I’ve long been aware of the many parallels between Mieko Kawakami’s home city of Osaka, Japan, and my own hometown, Manchester in the UK. ... The inhabitants of both cities are said to be friendly, down-to-earth, and very outspoken, just as the characters in Breasts and Eggs. And most importantly, the dialect spoken in Osaka and Western Japan is markedly different from that of Tokyo and the East. Often frowned upon as sounding rather rough or unsophisticated, Mancunian (adjective meaning “of Manchester”) is to my ears a perfect rendering of Osaka dialect.
While the original sources may differ slightly I found it fascinating to compare Heal Kawai's translation into Mancunian, admittedly one where she was having some fun, with the rendition of the novel by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
They explained in an interview https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
Q: What was the most surprising result of this particular collaboration?
Sam Bett: I’d say how little time we spent talking about Osaka dialect, which is the first thing people tend to ask about whenever the book or the translation comes up. It helps that I lived in Osaka for a while, and also that very little of the book is set in Osaka. In fact, only the main characters use the dialect, and not even exclusively, though some Tokyoite characters do make a comical effort to pass as Osaka natives, which was a fun translation challenge. For me, what links this book to Osaka is its animated spirit. The story actively engages in the spectacle it creates. I think that readers who are expecting something staid or coolly bizarre from Japanese fiction will be pleasantly surprised at the gushing life force they find here.
Some comparisons:
Bett & Boyd:
Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself. For a few years after I turned eighteen, I lived with them in an apartment back in Osaka, when Midoriko was just a baby. Makiko and her husband had split up while she was pregnant, and as a single mother she was strapped for cash and needed help around the house. Rather than have me constantly running back and forth, we figured it’d be easier if I just lived there. Midoriko never met her dad, at least not that I’ve heard of. I don’t think she knows anything about him.
Heal Kawai:
Makiko’s my older sister and Midoriko’s her kid so that makes Midoriko my niece and me her unmarried auntie, and because it’s been nearly ten years since Makiko broke up with Midoriko’s dad she doesn’t remember living with him, and I haven’t heard anything about her mum having them meet so she knows sod all about the bloke—but that’s by the by—and we all go by the same name now. So Makiko asked and now the two of them are coming up from Osaka in the summer holidays to stop with me in Tokyo for three days.
Bett & Boyd:
I’ve been thinking about getting breast implants.” It had been three months since Makiko had called me up to make this declaration
Heal Kawai:
It was about a month ago Makiko phoned me to say she was coming. “Natsuko, I’m thinking of getting me boobs done.”
Bett & Boyd:
What’s wrong with her? What the hell is wrong with her? She’s being an idiot, the biggest idiot.
Heal Kawai:
She’s off her trolley, my Mum, daft, barmy, bonkers, thick as two short planks.
I think I rather prefer the character of the Mancunian rendition.
In 2019 she published an expanded version, 夏物語 (Summer Story), and it is the longer book that has been translated here under the (it has to be said rather better) initial title by Sam Bett and David Boyd. Further in my review I include some thoughts on the translation.
Essentially this book consists of the original novella (147 pages in translation) and a second part, twice the length, that picks up the story of the same lead character 8 years later.
Given the form of the book and the title, I am not, I suspect, the first reviewer to be unable to resist saying this is something of a curate's egg of a novel: the first part in particular rather tighter and impactful than the second.
The 'breast' part of the title also makes the accompanying blurb from Haruki Murakami, clearly a huge fan of the author, somewhat interesting when one considers Kawakami's feminist views and female-centric title matter, Murakami's own treatment of his female characters, and particularly his rather disturbing fixation in Killing Commendatore. Interestingly the author of this book tackled Murakami about this very topic in a frank and revealing interview: https://lithub.com/a-feminist-critiqu... which has since been translated into a (as yet untranslated) longer critical discussion of his works. As a taster she asks him directly in the interview:
I’m talking about the large number of female characters who exist solely to fulfill a sexual function. On the one hand, your work is boundlessly imaginative when it comes to plots, to wells, and to men, but the same can’t be said for their relationships with women. It’s not possible for these women to exist on their own. And while female protagonists, or even supporting characters, may enjoy a moderate degree of self-expression, thanks to their relative independence, there’s a persistent tendency for women to be sacrificed for the sake of the male leads. So the question is, why is it that women are so often called upon to play this role in Murakami novels?
The novel is narrated from the perspective of an aspiring author and sometime blogger, the somewhat unusually named Natsuko Natsume (she frequently has to assure people it isn't a pen name). As the first part opens in 2008, with the Beijing Olympics in progress, she is living alone in Tokyo, struggling to move forward with her life.
I seriously doubt at twenty that I saw myself, in my vague dreams for the future, still being in Tokyo at thirty. No one reads my work (my blog, collecting dust in a corner of the internet, gets one or two visitors on a good day), and none of it has made it into print. Forget about readers, I barely have friends. I’m still in the same apartment with the slanted, peeling walls and the same overbearing afternoon sun, surviving off the same minimum wage job, working full time for not a whole lot more than 100,000 yen a month, and still writing and writing, with no idea of whether it’s ever going to get me anywhere. My life was like a dusty shelf in an old bookstore, where every volume was exactly where it had been for ages, the only discernible change being that my body has aged another ten years.
But she is expecting visitors from her hometown: Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself.
This novella takes us deftly through the three days they spend in Tokyo and each character's situation: their troubled family history; Natsuko's search for purpose; Makiko who works in a bar, and has decided she wants breast implants; and Midoriko, going through puberty and who only communicates with her mother via written notes, that is until her shell cracks in a memorable scene near the end of this part:
“Why . . .” she started, “do that to yourself . . .” she spat out, breaking the second egg over her head, same as the last one. Yolk and white oozed down her forehead. Without hesitation, she grabbed another egg. “You’re the one who had me,” she told Makiko. “And it’s too late to do anything about that now, but why do you have to . . .” Midoriko slapped the egg hard against her forehead. “I don’t know what to do, and you don’t tell me anything. I love you, but I never want to be like you. No . . .” She took a breath. “I want to start working, so I can help. I want to help so bad. With money, with everything. Do you have any idea . . . how scared I am? I don’t get it, any of it. My eyes hurt. They hurt. Why does everything change? Why? It hurts. Why was I born? Why did any of us have to be born? If we were never born, none of these things would have happened, none of it would—”
The second part is a rather more drawn-out (in time and pages) affair. Beginning in late 2016, Natsuko has since has success with her first novel, although she is suffering writer's block with her second. We learn that she only has had one relationship in her life, one that ended due to her mental and physical dislike of sex, but for reasons that aren't entirely clear to the reader, or indeed her, decides she wants to have a child. After investigation of the options (rather like her sister's detailed research in part one into breast augmentation options, but spelled out her in rather more detail) she settles on artificial insemination. But this isn't legally available in Japan as an option for a single person, although it is to others:
I knew these women were only venting their frustration and their anguish, but so long as they had someone, they were blessed. Technology was on their side. They had options. There was a way. They were accepted. That’s even true for same-sex couples who wanted kids. They were couples, sharing a dream with someone who could share the load. They had community, and people who would lend a helping hand . But what if sex was out of the equation? What if you were alone? All the books and blogs catered to couples. What about the rest of us, who were alone and planned to stay that way? Who has the right to have a child? Does not having a partner or not wanting to have sex nullify this right?
But then encounters a group of those born by this method who are in search of their biological parents, one in particular who was abused by her legal but non-biological father, who berates her for her choice, albeit not for the reason she expects:
“Look, I’m not saying it’s not a little different for children of donors,” Yuriko said. “It’s not okay to set them or the entire family up for a future of counseling and therapy. But it’s basically the same for everyone. That’s what it’s like to be born. If you stop and think about it, that’s all life ever is. Like I was saying, the way you do it doesn’t matter. What I’m asking is: Why do you want to bring a child into the world? What would possess you to do that?”
This second half of the novel raises some interesting issues (as per some of the quotes above) but does so in a rather exposition-heavy way rather than the more indirect and psychological approach of part 1.
Overall 3 stars - although the original novella on its own would have warranted a strong 4. Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
On the translation of dialect
Mieko Kawakami is known in Japan for writing in the distinctive Kansai dialect and indeed this topic is discussed by her lead character with another author.
Then we started talking about dialect in fiction. Rika asked me if I’d ever thought about writing a whole book in Osaka dialect. When I said I’d never even toyed with the idea, Rika told me what she thought about the way that people talked in Kansai, and Osaka in particular. “That was seriously amazing,” she said. “When I went to Osaka, I saw, or really heard , these three women just talking, a million miles an hour, getting everything in there. There was so much going on. Multiple perspectives, mixed tenses, the whole shebang. They were cracking up, but they were having a real conversation. Nothing like on TV. Everything on TV is tailored for TV. The real thing , the real Osaka dialect, isn’t even about communicating. It’s a contest. Somehow, you’re both in the audience and on the stage . . . How can I put it? It’s an art.”
...
“Know what, though? What really gets me is how writing always fails to capture it. Like, the way those three women were talking. I mean, you couldn’t reproduce that performance on the page and get the same dynamic. A lot of people from Osaka have written things in Osaka dialect. I’ve read a bunch of them, just to see how they’d handle it. But it really, truly doesn’t work. Like it’s impossible. I guess what really struck me, though, was how it didn’t make any real difference if the writer was from Osaka.
As discussed above, Breast and Eggs also began life as a novella before being expanded (with a 2nd section) into this novel. And in 2012 translator Louise Heal Kawai translated some excerpts from the novella for the publication Words Without Borders: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/a...
As she explained:
I’ve long been aware of the many parallels between Mieko Kawakami’s home city of Osaka, Japan, and my own hometown, Manchester in the UK. ... The inhabitants of both cities are said to be friendly, down-to-earth, and very outspoken, just as the characters in Breasts and Eggs. And most importantly, the dialect spoken in Osaka and Western Japan is markedly different from that of Tokyo and the East. Often frowned upon as sounding rather rough or unsophisticated, Mancunian (adjective meaning “of Manchester”) is to my ears a perfect rendering of Osaka dialect.
While the original sources may differ slightly I found it fascinating to compare Heal Kawai's translation into Mancunian, admittedly one where she was having some fun, with the rendition of the novel by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
They explained in an interview https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
Q: What was the most surprising result of this particular collaboration?
Sam Bett: I’d say how little time we spent talking about Osaka dialect, which is the first thing people tend to ask about whenever the book or the translation comes up. It helps that I lived in Osaka for a while, and also that very little of the book is set in Osaka. In fact, only the main characters use the dialect, and not even exclusively, though some Tokyoite characters do make a comical effort to pass as Osaka natives, which was a fun translation challenge. For me, what links this book to Osaka is its animated spirit. The story actively engages in the spectacle it creates. I think that readers who are expecting something staid or coolly bizarre from Japanese fiction will be pleasantly surprised at the gushing life force they find here.
Some comparisons:
Bett & Boyd:
Makiko, the one visiting me today from Osaka, is my older sister. She’s thirty-nine and has a twelve-year-old daughter named Midoriko. She raised the girl herself. For a few years after I turned eighteen, I lived with them in an apartment back in Osaka, when Midoriko was just a baby. Makiko and her husband had split up while she was pregnant, and as a single mother she was strapped for cash and needed help around the house. Rather than have me constantly running back and forth, we figured it’d be easier if I just lived there. Midoriko never met her dad, at least not that I’ve heard of. I don’t think she knows anything about him.
Heal Kawai:
Makiko’s my older sister and Midoriko’s her kid so that makes Midoriko my niece and me her unmarried auntie, and because it’s been nearly ten years since Makiko broke up with Midoriko’s dad she doesn’t remember living with him, and I haven’t heard anything about her mum having them meet so she knows sod all about the bloke—but that’s by the by—and we all go by the same name now. So Makiko asked and now the two of them are coming up from Osaka in the summer holidays to stop with me in Tokyo for three days.
Bett & Boyd:
I’ve been thinking about getting breast implants.” It had been three months since Makiko had called me up to make this declaration
Heal Kawai:
It was about a month ago Makiko phoned me to say she was coming. “Natsuko, I’m thinking of getting me boobs done.”
Bett & Boyd:
What’s wrong with her? What the hell is wrong with her? She’s being an idiot, the biggest idiot.
Heal Kawai:
She’s off her trolley, my Mum, daft, barmy, bonkers, thick as two short planks.
I think I rather prefer the character of the Mancunian rendition.
August 19, 2020
English: Breasts and Eggs
This novel has caused quite a stir: With "Breasts and Eggs", Mieko Kawakami (*1976), one of the new female literary stars alongside her countrywomen Sayaka Murata, Yōko Tawada, Hiromi Kawakami et al., has added to the growing number of feminist novels from Japan that discuss the role of women in postmodern society in a blunt, relentless way and in a matter-of-fact tone that adds more bleakness than any melodramatic rendition ever might achieve. Who gets to decide what is normal? What is individual happiness when confronted with societal expectations? Who has the right to be a parent? Kawakami shows numerous women who have taken radically different roads in life, and shows their struggles in a non-judgemental way.
The book is split into two parts: The first one is shorter and set in 2008 - it's the novella which was later expanded to the novel of the same title. In it, our then 30-year-old narrator Natsuko, an aspiring writer who lives in Tokyo, is visited by her sister Makiko and her 12-year-old daughter who still reside in Osaka. Makiko is a single mother who tries to support her daughter by working as a hostess in a bar, a job that grinds her down. While she is obsessed with the idea of getting breast augmentation, her daughter struggles with the onset of puberty and can't understand what drives her mother's wish to change her body.
Fast forward 8 years: In part two, asexual Natsuko, whose career as an author is stalling, is pondering whether she should have a child before it is too late, and if so, how. We see her interacting with the people she knows from the publishing world, her family, old friends, and new acquaintances she makes while trying to find out more about artificial insemination and private sperm donors: We meet unhappy wives, competing mothers, people who never knew their father, single women with and without children, working women and housewives, women of different ages. Again and again, femicide and violence against women are mentioned and discussed, and quite a few of the women are poor because they are single mothers (a situation Kawakami knows from the child's perspective).
While the situation of women in Japan is of course the focus of the text, I found it interesting that men and their ability or inability to father a child are also mentioned in different ways - unsurprisingly, societal expectations can also be a source of pain for men and whole families. The question is not only what is a woman or a mother, but what can it mean to be a father. In the book, dialects play an important role: Kawakami, like her main character, hails from Osaka, and the original Japanese seems to partly employ Osaka-ben, the local dialect. So yes, people do speak the same language, but a different version of it - much like the women live different versions of a female life.
While Kawakami writing style is held back and factual, the book is infused with hope because there is a way to overcome hardships: Through love and compassion, or, as the author puts it: "We shouldn’t think of love for family as something that occurs naturally, but instead work at forming relationships to attain this love. Love can’t be manipulative but must be based on true compassion.” A well-deserved winner of the Akutagawa Prize that sold more than 250.000 copies in Japanese and another radical work by a young Japanese writer.
If you want to listen to Mieko Kawakami in her incarnation as a pop singer, here you go. If you'd like to learn more about the novel, you can listen to my radio piece and our podcast episode (both in German).
This novel has caused quite a stir: With "Breasts and Eggs", Mieko Kawakami (*1976), one of the new female literary stars alongside her countrywomen Sayaka Murata, Yōko Tawada, Hiromi Kawakami et al., has added to the growing number of feminist novels from Japan that discuss the role of women in postmodern society in a blunt, relentless way and in a matter-of-fact tone that adds more bleakness than any melodramatic rendition ever might achieve. Who gets to decide what is normal? What is individual happiness when confronted with societal expectations? Who has the right to be a parent? Kawakami shows numerous women who have taken radically different roads in life, and shows their struggles in a non-judgemental way.
The book is split into two parts: The first one is shorter and set in 2008 - it's the novella which was later expanded to the novel of the same title. In it, our then 30-year-old narrator Natsuko, an aspiring writer who lives in Tokyo, is visited by her sister Makiko and her 12-year-old daughter who still reside in Osaka. Makiko is a single mother who tries to support her daughter by working as a hostess in a bar, a job that grinds her down. While she is obsessed with the idea of getting breast augmentation, her daughter struggles with the onset of puberty and can't understand what drives her mother's wish to change her body.
Fast forward 8 years: In part two, asexual Natsuko, whose career as an author is stalling, is pondering whether she should have a child before it is too late, and if so, how. We see her interacting with the people she knows from the publishing world, her family, old friends, and new acquaintances she makes while trying to find out more about artificial insemination and private sperm donors: We meet unhappy wives, competing mothers, people who never knew their father, single women with and without children, working women and housewives, women of different ages. Again and again, femicide and violence against women are mentioned and discussed, and quite a few of the women are poor because they are single mothers (a situation Kawakami knows from the child's perspective).
While the situation of women in Japan is of course the focus of the text, I found it interesting that men and their ability or inability to father a child are also mentioned in different ways - unsurprisingly, societal expectations can also be a source of pain for men and whole families. The question is not only what is a woman or a mother, but what can it mean to be a father. In the book, dialects play an important role: Kawakami, like her main character, hails from Osaka, and the original Japanese seems to partly employ Osaka-ben, the local dialect. So yes, people do speak the same language, but a different version of it - much like the women live different versions of a female life.
While Kawakami writing style is held back and factual, the book is infused with hope because there is a way to overcome hardships: Through love and compassion, or, as the author puts it: "We shouldn’t think of love for family as something that occurs naturally, but instead work at forming relationships to attain this love. Love can’t be manipulative but must be based on true compassion.” A well-deserved winner of the Akutagawa Prize that sold more than 250.000 copies in Japanese and another radical work by a young Japanese writer.
If you want to listen to Mieko Kawakami in her incarnation as a pop singer, here you go. If you'd like to learn more about the novel, you can listen to my radio piece and our podcast episode (both in German).
October 31, 2023
3.5 stars
Loved the breasts, could've done without the eggs.
Breasts and Eggs is two short novels (Eggs having been written years after Breasts) combined—and it shows.
Although the characters are the same in name, it's like the author slapped two unrelated stories together and called it a day.
Breats is far superior in my opinion, discussing themes such as capitalism, beauty standards and the objectification of the female body. Here I felt like the author actually had something to say.
Eggs, on the other hand, is a long, long, looong meditation on whether producing another human is a cruelty inflicted on said human, ending with the main character
Which made the whole journey feel rather pointless.
Breasts: 4.5 stars
Eggs: 2.5 stars
Loved the breasts, could've done without the eggs.
Breasts and Eggs is two short novels (Eggs having been written years after Breasts) combined—and it shows.
Although the characters are the same in name, it's like the author slapped two unrelated stories together and called it a day.
Breats is far superior in my opinion, discussing themes such as capitalism, beauty standards and the objectification of the female body. Here I felt like the author actually had something to say.
Eggs, on the other hand, is a long, long, looong meditation on whether producing another human is a cruelty inflicted on said human, ending with the main character
Which made the whole journey feel rather pointless.
Breasts: 4.5 stars
Eggs: 2.5 stars
February 22, 2023
Breasts and Eggs is the definition of a 'sad girl read'. Written by a woman on the struggles and realities of being a woman in the 21st century.. it's equal parts strange and relatable. 🥚🥚
A SHORT PREVIEW:
Following the story of a family of women in Tokyo, Breasts and Eggs is such a great exploration of womanhood in contemporary society, while dealing with problems both new and old for all women.
THOUGHTS:
-- There are so many different styles of thoughts running through this book and sometimes it was hard to follow the transition from one consciousness to another.
- Many of the main character's inner monologues felt like pouring out her intrusive thoughts. Sometimes it was just weird lol
- You'll read about periods and feminine hygiene products.. and I think I can effectively say this is women's literature lol
- The relationship between Midoriko and Makiko is difficult to read, but I think more so because so many women struggle in their relationships with their mothers. It's easy to identify with their struggles and thoughts.
In the spirit of DNFing books more, I've crossed it off my list. I love Asian literature, but B&E was just a miss for me right now. I'm going to keep it in my library though, because I think I'll be in the mood for it another day! It just couldn't hold my attention right now?
A SHORT PREVIEW:
Following the story of a family of women in Tokyo, Breasts and Eggs is such a great exploration of womanhood in contemporary society, while dealing with problems both new and old for all women.
THOUGHTS:
-- There are so many different styles of thoughts running through this book and sometimes it was hard to follow the transition from one consciousness to another.
- Many of the main character's inner monologues felt like pouring out her intrusive thoughts. Sometimes it was just weird lol
- You'll read about periods and feminine hygiene products.. and I think I can effectively say this is women's literature lol
- The relationship between Midoriko and Makiko is difficult to read, but I think more so because so many women struggle in their relationships with their mothers. It's easy to identify with their struggles and thoughts.
In the spirit of DNFing books more, I've crossed it off my list. I love Asian literature, but B&E was just a miss for me right now. I'm going to keep it in my library though, because I think I'll be in the mood for it another day! It just couldn't hold my attention right now?
August 25, 2020
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, published in Japan in 2008 and published translated into English in May 2020, is a good reminder of the danger of a single story. A profile of the article in The Guardian five days ago quotes the author as saying, "Japan’s literary universe is still odd, cute and a bit mysterious...But we’re not like that at all. I don’t want to write books that perpetuate that image. I want to write about real people.”
The real people in this book are women - single women - dealing with the realities of a society that is so often blind to what it takes to survive on your own, particularly as you age. As you might imagine from the title, the female body, childbirth, motherhood, and mother-daughter relationships are all major themes. Their lives aren't quirky or flashy, just normal working lives.
The author comes from this kind of background. The other element I'm interested in from my reading is the Osaka dialect which she tried to communicate in writing (which is difficult in logographic kanji, hopefully I'm referring to it properly.) The translators have written about this challenge and my book club should have fun discussing it tomorrow, but I think it comes across best when the characters have been drinking.
This is another book for Women in Translation Month and I think the translation is thoughtful, however I found it ironic that both translators would be male for this very female-centric book. It makes me wonder if there is anything they missed - the author feels it is problematic when men impose legislation without including women without being able to share their experiences - in the same vein why not use a female translator? That really stood out.
Much like my previous review, I feel I enjoyed reading about and around this book more than the book itself, but I can see what she is trying to do and look forward to what she does next.
The real people in this book are women - single women - dealing with the realities of a society that is so often blind to what it takes to survive on your own, particularly as you age. As you might imagine from the title, the female body, childbirth, motherhood, and mother-daughter relationships are all major themes. Their lives aren't quirky or flashy, just normal working lives.
The author comes from this kind of background. The other element I'm interested in from my reading is the Osaka dialect which she tried to communicate in writing (which is difficult in logographic kanji, hopefully I'm referring to it properly.) The translators have written about this challenge and my book club should have fun discussing it tomorrow, but I think it comes across best when the characters have been drinking.
This is another book for Women in Translation Month and I think the translation is thoughtful, however I found it ironic that both translators would be male for this very female-centric book. It makes me wonder if there is anything they missed - the author feels it is problematic when men impose legislation without including women without being able to share their experiences - in the same vein why not use a female translator? That really stood out.
Much like my previous review, I feel I enjoyed reading about and around this book more than the book itself, but I can see what she is trying to do and look forward to what she does next.
December 28, 2020
Audiobook...read by Emily Woo Zeller
Man....
The female body is complicated..... let alone our psyche.
Did you know that an unborn child -inside her mother’s womb—has
seven million fertility eggs- more than enough eggs to become pregnant- yet the baby is not even born yet? You didn’t? Well, now you know.
We meet Matsiko and Natsuko.....sisters!
Matsiko ( the older sister, with a daughter named Midoriko who won’t speak at home), wants breast implants.
I found this first section - *breasts-everything*, funny.....bizarre - nutty - irrational reasons in my opinion. I just couldn’t take the ‘desire & need’ for breast augmentation serious...( why do big boobies rule?)....whatever....
but I was hooked listening to the obsession - descriptions and dialogues about BREASTS, BREASTS, BREASTS!!!
Natsuko...single...wants a baby - but not sex. ( some of us prefer sex -not a baby -thank you)...EGGS, EGGS, EGGS....
Listening to this audiobook was mostly enjoyable ( a little strange, but I like strange). It was funny, sometimes —fascinating other times and thought provoking—
I drifted into my own thoughts occasionally ( the middle section of this book), but most of the time I stayed engaged....
Female body parts, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, menopause.....it seemed to me that ( at times), this book was intellectualizing mountains built out of a molehill. .....but I had a little fun.
Not ‘everything’ was about the body...
Natsuko was also an aspiring writer...living in Tokyo.
Makiko worked as a hostess in a bar.
And....Twelve year old Midoriko was facing puberty — confused as to why her mother wanted to change her body - not looking adjusting to her own naturally changing body.
Questions that were pondered throughout...
To have a child or not -
How did society view single women having artificial insemination?
How does Japanese culture view single mothers with a child?
“Breasts and Eggs” was good - enjoyable for what it was - ‘not’ the book of the year great....but an interesting exploration about female bodies, motherhood, and womanhood.
Men:
....were pretty much chopped liver in this novel....
But....
.....their sperm was useful.
Man....
The female body is complicated..... let alone our psyche.
Did you know that an unborn child -inside her mother’s womb—has
seven million fertility eggs- more than enough eggs to become pregnant- yet the baby is not even born yet? You didn’t? Well, now you know.
We meet Matsiko and Natsuko.....sisters!
Matsiko ( the older sister, with a daughter named Midoriko who won’t speak at home), wants breast implants.
I found this first section - *breasts-everything*, funny.....bizarre - nutty - irrational reasons in my opinion. I just couldn’t take the ‘desire & need’ for breast augmentation serious...( why do big boobies rule?)....whatever....
but I was hooked listening to the obsession - descriptions and dialogues about BREASTS, BREASTS, BREASTS!!!
Natsuko...single...wants a baby - but not sex. ( some of us prefer sex -not a baby -thank you)...EGGS, EGGS, EGGS....
Listening to this audiobook was mostly enjoyable ( a little strange, but I like strange). It was funny, sometimes —fascinating other times and thought provoking—
I drifted into my own thoughts occasionally ( the middle section of this book), but most of the time I stayed engaged....
Female body parts, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, menopause.....it seemed to me that ( at times), this book was intellectualizing mountains built out of a molehill. .....but I had a little fun.
Not ‘everything’ was about the body...
Natsuko was also an aspiring writer...living in Tokyo.
Makiko worked as a hostess in a bar.
And....Twelve year old Midoriko was facing puberty — confused as to why her mother wanted to change her body - not looking adjusting to her own naturally changing body.
Questions that were pondered throughout...
To have a child or not -
How did society view single women having artificial insemination?
How does Japanese culture view single mothers with a child?
“Breasts and Eggs” was good - enjoyable for what it was - ‘not’ the book of the year great....but an interesting exploration about female bodies, motherhood, and womanhood.
Men:
....were pretty much chopped liver in this novel....
But....
.....their sperm was useful.
April 16, 2023
This book felt okay to me. Breasts and Eggs makes some interesting and sharp commentary about reproduction, body image, and women’s place in society, especially women without wealth. Mieko Kawakami divides the novel into two parts, with the first section centering the narrator’s sister’s wanting breast implants and the second section focusing on the narrator’s longing for a child. The author wrote the sections at different times so they feel quite disconnected. I also didn’t feel immersed in the characters and their perspectives; a lot of events happen in this book though I didn’t find the interior lives of the characters well-portrayed. Onto the next!
July 3, 2021
Well this was a surprising read - as can probably be assumed from the title, Kawakami's most recent novel is both highly unusual and incredibly readable, particularly for women.
Hugely popular in Japan, and acclaimed by Murakami, Kawakami, certainly lives up to the hype.
This novel is unique, edgy and topical. It is very female and focused on the body, delving into all the issues common to all women - regardless of age, race or class. In doing so, Kawakami does more than provide an interesting and insightul discourse into the concept of "woman" - she examines how body is linked to identity, particularly touching on themes of fear and loss (i.e. fear of puberty and also fear of aging and loss of youthfulness) and the consequential loss of control experienced.
While the story is centred around an interesting but somewhat elusive female protagonist, her troubled older sister and her niece - with all three women struggling with the inherent problems of 'womaness' - the focus of the story is very much on the female narrator. This internalisation creates a very intimate and personal story, we are, in essence 'one' with the character - her thoughts, feelings, emotions and decision making - for example, her long standing desire to become a mother.
One criticism - the sister and niece feature prominently at the start of the story but are only peripherary as the story continues - I think the beginning in many ways was the strongest part of the novel, due to this richness of character development and interaction. I would have liked to know more about these characters - how did they reconcile their own issues, and indeed the deep seated issues they had with each other as mother and daughter?
In this way, the novel also serves as a contemporary discourse around an increasingly prevalent topic- artificial insemination, reproductive rights and, consequently, the rights of children born under such circumstances. It is equally an insightful portrait of a 'piece' of currrent Japanese society and the role of young women in it. Kawakami has probably hit a few raw nerves - good on her for doing so!
Touching, topical and deeply engaging, this may not be a novel for everyone, but Kawakami has without doubt a unique voice - unapologetic you could say, and this makes her stand out as a new novelist to keep an eye on.
Hugely popular in Japan, and acclaimed by Murakami, Kawakami, certainly lives up to the hype.
This novel is unique, edgy and topical. It is very female and focused on the body, delving into all the issues common to all women - regardless of age, race or class. In doing so, Kawakami does more than provide an interesting and insightul discourse into the concept of "woman" - she examines how body is linked to identity, particularly touching on themes of fear and loss (i.e. fear of puberty and also fear of aging and loss of youthfulness) and the consequential loss of control experienced.
While the story is centred around an interesting but somewhat elusive female protagonist, her troubled older sister and her niece - with all three women struggling with the inherent problems of 'womaness' - the focus of the story is very much on the female narrator. This internalisation creates a very intimate and personal story, we are, in essence 'one' with the character - her thoughts, feelings, emotions and decision making - for example, her long standing desire to become a mother.
One criticism - the sister and niece feature prominently at the start of the story but are only peripherary as the story continues - I think the beginning in many ways was the strongest part of the novel, due to this richness of character development and interaction. I would have liked to know more about these characters - how did they reconcile their own issues, and indeed the deep seated issues they had with each other as mother and daughter?
In this way, the novel also serves as a contemporary discourse around an increasingly prevalent topic- artificial insemination, reproductive rights and, consequently, the rights of children born under such circumstances. It is equally an insightful portrait of a 'piece' of currrent Japanese society and the role of young women in it. Kawakami has probably hit a few raw nerves - good on her for doing so!
Touching, topical and deeply engaging, this may not be a novel for everyone, but Kawakami has without doubt a unique voice - unapologetic you could say, and this makes her stand out as a new novelist to keep an eye on.
December 14, 2019
Mieko Kawakami's novel Breasts and Eggs is a bold literary statement and another first person, modern, feminist novel from Japan. Staking a claim among literary celebrities like Banana Yoshimoto, Hiromi Kawakami, Natsuo Kirino, and Yoko Ogawa, it would almost appear that the future of Japanese Literature is female. It would make sense, in a way, since its past was male though and through with the notable exception of Murasaki's monumental Tale of Genji. I first heard of M. Kawakami when I read her short stories in Monkey Business and various anthologies. All of the stories were good. Her first novel in English, called Ms. Ice Sandwich, was disappointingly simple, unmemorable, and almost unmentionable. This work is far more complex, substantial and controversial.
Mieko Kawakami is one of the few Japanese authors I know of who has been granted interview time with the reclusive Haruki Murakami. In fact, Murakami was so taken by this book, that he announced his new favorite Japanese author, namely, Mieko Kawakami. She then went on to do a book length interview with the literary superstar. Hopefully we will get this interview in English soon.
The novel was quite uneven in my opinion. The first 40% I would rate 5 stars, the last 30% would get 4 stars and the middle 30% would earn 2 stars. The voice took on entrancing rhythm from the start, as intimate and easy to read as I had hoped. An absorbing, fast-paced chronicle involving complicated family issues ensued, including the ramifications of plastic surgery and some relatively common concerns and reminiscences of a young girl in the modern age. A very readable and rewarding first part overall. The second part falls into many tedious repetitions on the theme of fertility and the morality of artificial insemination. If you can get through it you will be rewarded by a satisfactory ending. The main character is a writer who offers us another cliched and idealistic view of the writerly life. Do writers really spend 90% of their time in restaurants discussing their meals and their work with literati? Hemingway would have you think so. Kawakami loads her novel with table conversations, and wastes our time with the inaccurate writer's complaints. Do writers really have to fend off their editors in person with clever dog-ate-my-manuscript excuses? Of course, she has writer's block - almost never touches the keyboard, yet still embodies all of the qualities we have come to associate with the ideal writer figure. She is an artist, who can't be rushed. You might begin to notice the influence of Haruki Murakami at this point. Yet, the protagonist's fixation with childbirth, its unfeasible application to her own ambition, and the relationships, hardships and sacrifices involved paint the picture of a self-absorbed artist on an existential ego trip. The character mentions this in the book, pointing out her own flaws. I commend the author for her well-rounded exploration, but the obsession infiltrates the plot so heavily that it weighs the book down for a large part.
Toward the end of the novel, many moral issues are explored with erudition and insight. Kawakami is an astute observer, and very confident in her ability to wrangle emotion out of the reader. She doesn't shirk or bow politely, she cooks up charm and smarm and really goes for broke sometimes. There is a scene detailing a meeting with a potential sperm donor that had me laughing out loud. It was the kind of masterful confrontation Murakami could have written. I was highly intrigued by Kawakami's stance or explanation of the value and demerits of sexual relationships. How they stand in stark contrast to Murakami's portrayal of sex in his novels was fascinating. It is not always productive to assume that just because a writer's main character is a writer who treats women like objects, that the writer treats women like objects. Or is it? Does writing about mistreating women constitute mistreating women? Kawakami faces off with Murakami's controversial female characters by lambasting male character tropes. She bashes men throughout the novel and takes a firm moral stance on women rights while exploring the emotional content of fertility choices. It is a vast and moving essay on the matter and an entertaining coming of age story.
The painful flaw of this novel lies in the repetition, which Murakami's style suffers from as well. It is a sort of dumbing down of the themes. But the themes are still there. The characters, their voices, and the strangled atmosphere of Japanese polite educated class strugglers tugged at my nostalgic love for Japan's literary past. I really adored parts of Breasts and Eggs, and you should give it a read.
Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC.
Mieko Kawakami is one of the few Japanese authors I know of who has been granted interview time with the reclusive Haruki Murakami. In fact, Murakami was so taken by this book, that he announced his new favorite Japanese author, namely, Mieko Kawakami. She then went on to do a book length interview with the literary superstar. Hopefully we will get this interview in English soon.
The novel was quite uneven in my opinion. The first 40% I would rate 5 stars, the last 30% would get 4 stars and the middle 30% would earn 2 stars. The voice took on entrancing rhythm from the start, as intimate and easy to read as I had hoped. An absorbing, fast-paced chronicle involving complicated family issues ensued, including the ramifications of plastic surgery and some relatively common concerns and reminiscences of a young girl in the modern age. A very readable and rewarding first part overall. The second part falls into many tedious repetitions on the theme of fertility and the morality of artificial insemination. If you can get through it you will be rewarded by a satisfactory ending. The main character is a writer who offers us another cliched and idealistic view of the writerly life. Do writers really spend 90% of their time in restaurants discussing their meals and their work with literati? Hemingway would have you think so. Kawakami loads her novel with table conversations, and wastes our time with the inaccurate writer's complaints. Do writers really have to fend off their editors in person with clever dog-ate-my-manuscript excuses? Of course, she has writer's block - almost never touches the keyboard, yet still embodies all of the qualities we have come to associate with the ideal writer figure. She is an artist, who can't be rushed. You might begin to notice the influence of Haruki Murakami at this point. Yet, the protagonist's fixation with childbirth, its unfeasible application to her own ambition, and the relationships, hardships and sacrifices involved paint the picture of a self-absorbed artist on an existential ego trip. The character mentions this in the book, pointing out her own flaws. I commend the author for her well-rounded exploration, but the obsession infiltrates the plot so heavily that it weighs the book down for a large part.
Toward the end of the novel, many moral issues are explored with erudition and insight. Kawakami is an astute observer, and very confident in her ability to wrangle emotion out of the reader. She doesn't shirk or bow politely, she cooks up charm and smarm and really goes for broke sometimes. There is a scene detailing a meeting with a potential sperm donor that had me laughing out loud. It was the kind of masterful confrontation Murakami could have written. I was highly intrigued by Kawakami's stance or explanation of the value and demerits of sexual relationships. How they stand in stark contrast to Murakami's portrayal of sex in his novels was fascinating. It is not always productive to assume that just because a writer's main character is a writer who treats women like objects, that the writer treats women like objects. Or is it? Does writing about mistreating women constitute mistreating women? Kawakami faces off with Murakami's controversial female characters by lambasting male character tropes. She bashes men throughout the novel and takes a firm moral stance on women rights while exploring the emotional content of fertility choices. It is a vast and moving essay on the matter and an entertaining coming of age story.
The painful flaw of this novel lies in the repetition, which Murakami's style suffers from as well. It is a sort of dumbing down of the themes. But the themes are still there. The characters, their voices, and the strangled atmosphere of Japanese polite educated class strugglers tugged at my nostalgic love for Japan's literary past. I really adored parts of Breasts and Eggs, and you should give it a read.
Thanks to NetGalley for the free ARC.
Read
January 6, 2022A windy exploration of a woman’s bodily autonomy in Japanese society, from breast implants to menstruation to sex to sperm banks to single parenting. I honestly liked the first part better (twas released separately in 2008 as a novella), since the message and the ending were punchier. But it was still an enjoyable read throughout and a very intelligent book that shines a light on many patriarchal issues in Japan (had no idea how difficult it was to get a sperm donor as a single woman) – I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.
May 22, 2022
SUCH an incredible and thought-provoking book. full review to come.
March 9, 2020
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I was really excited to receive an ARC of this because of the blurb by Haruki Murakami. Don't be fooled by the racy title-- this is a very serious, very dark look at gender norms and expectations for women, tackling topics such as fertility, body image, and gender conformity. Our narrator is a woman in her thirties named Natsuko and the story revolves around her, her sister, Makiko, and her niece, a teenager named Midoriko.
Style-wise, this reminds me a bit of Banana Yoshimoto's work in that there's a dreamy element to the narrative, even as Kawakami is writing about some very unpleasant things. Natsuko is feeling the ticking of her biological clock, but isn't sure if she wants children. Makiko, who has a child, is a single mother working as a hostess in an industry that seeks ever younger girls. She's feeling self-conscious about her post-pregnancy body growing older and wants to get cosmetic surgery to look young. Midoriko thinks all of this is disgusting. She finds aging terrifying, and the inevitability of it combined with her own powerlessness has essentially led to her taking a vow of silence with her mother.
The first half of this book is much better than the second half. I really enjoyed the unconventional family dynamic and all of the issues that were being presented-- something that's incredibly relevant in Japan, with women demanding more autonomy in a society that has historically repressed them. One thing that may trigger readers is the way a character who might or might not be transgender is addressed. This is a translated work and I'm not really familiar with the way that people who are transgender in Japan identify themselves, so it's possible that this is a language barrier thing, but the way it is written, people of Western audiences may see it as intentional misgendering.
The second half of the book is a bit more tedious. It takes place... I want to say 5-10 years in the future. Midoriko is no longer in middle school; now she's a young woman in college. Makiko is in her late forties and Natsuko is younger (early forties, I think) and now a successful author who has decided that yes, she does want children after all, and is looking into artificial insemination.
This is a very interesting book and I do appreciate the issues it brings to the table, but it felt like a much longer book than it actually needed to be.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!
2.5 stars
January 8, 2021
When Makiko rings her younger sister, Natsuko, to tell her that she is going to get breast implants, Natsuko is slightly puzzled, but her initial response is, fine, whatever you want to do. Maybe she thought that Makiko would lose interest and the topic would just die a natural death. However, when Makiko starts ringing after work about 3 times a week telling her that she has made her mind up and is getting them, she starts to become a little more interested, a little more worried perhaps. Makiko is 40 years-old, she has a daughter, who paradoxically is terrified of puberty and the “natural” changes to her body that are approaching. Midoriko is horrified about what her mum wants to do to her body.
Natsuko wonders what her sister hopes to achieve with bigger breasts? What difference is it going to make to her life? Will it improve it?
The second, and much longer part of the book, focuses on Natsuko, 8 years in the future. A brilliant character, with so much going on in her world. It seems she does not view herself as a woman. She hates the physical act of sex, cannot stand somebody else being inside her. She is working on her second novel with a bad case of writer’s block and she is worried that she may die alone.
She feels, but questions herself on this topic as well, that she wants to have a baby. However, she wants to have, and raise, the baby on her own. This leads to her obsession with artificial insemination and sperm donors. Natsuko wants, or does she, a baby without having to endure the trauma that she feels from sex. She ponders, with other characters asking her the question, why does she want this baby? Is it to stave off loneliness in the future? Is it nature, does every woman want to be a mother?
Women in this book are struggling to conform to a standard, or what is considered as normal. But is anybody really “normal”, and more importantly who defines what is normal? Who says that a child must be raised with a male and female parent, who gets to say that a child must be raised by two parents, who says that breasts must be a certain size? We needlessly place these pressures on ourselves and struggle to fit into what society deems “normal”, risking alienation and social ostracism if we do not conform to these standards.
Does the archetypal housewife still exist? I do not believe that men and women have predefined roles anymore. The family unit is changing. Men and women, but particularly women, are finding that it is ok to be single and motherless. This state does not define them as failures.
Another theme is sexual identity. Natsuko constantly questions whether she is a woman, not being able to answer the question. This again leads back to society and conforming. If you are born into the world in a female form, then you are female, but what if you do not feel or believe that yourself? Have we not reached the point where it is our choice to identify how we want to?
An eye raising point for me was the pain felt from the perspective of the person born from artificial insemination. The horrible feeling of lacking identity, the burning desire to find your natural father.
I think that Kawakami uses Natsuko to represent the struggles, fears, insecurities, social and economic, that many women face today. Placing emphasis on sexual identity, motherhood, and conformity. This novel is based in the author’s native Japan, but I think the problems and issues addressed are found everywhere.
It is always interesting to read about other cultures, that are so different from our own. I was fascinated with the communal bathhouses in Tokyo. Something to me that just feels anachronistic, belonging to another era. But that is what is fascinating, we are all so different. It is what makes this world such an amazing and diverse experience.
I love books that leave you wondering, pondering, for days and weeks after you have read them. With this novel I am still thinking about what it must be like for a woman to have this primal urge to have a baby, to be a mother. But does every woman feel this urge? Is motherhood ingrained in a woman’s DNA?
A thoroughly enjoyable read. 4 Stars.
Natsuko wonders what her sister hopes to achieve with bigger breasts? What difference is it going to make to her life? Will it improve it?
The second, and much longer part of the book, focuses on Natsuko, 8 years in the future. A brilliant character, with so much going on in her world. It seems she does not view herself as a woman. She hates the physical act of sex, cannot stand somebody else being inside her. She is working on her second novel with a bad case of writer’s block and she is worried that she may die alone.
She feels, but questions herself on this topic as well, that she wants to have a baby. However, she wants to have, and raise, the baby on her own. This leads to her obsession with artificial insemination and sperm donors. Natsuko wants, or does she, a baby without having to endure the trauma that she feels from sex. She ponders, with other characters asking her the question, why does she want this baby? Is it to stave off loneliness in the future? Is it nature, does every woman want to be a mother?
Women in this book are struggling to conform to a standard, or what is considered as normal. But is anybody really “normal”, and more importantly who defines what is normal? Who says that a child must be raised with a male and female parent, who gets to say that a child must be raised by two parents, who says that breasts must be a certain size? We needlessly place these pressures on ourselves and struggle to fit into what society deems “normal”, risking alienation and social ostracism if we do not conform to these standards.
Does the archetypal housewife still exist? I do not believe that men and women have predefined roles anymore. The family unit is changing. Men and women, but particularly women, are finding that it is ok to be single and motherless. This state does not define them as failures.
Another theme is sexual identity. Natsuko constantly questions whether she is a woman, not being able to answer the question. This again leads back to society and conforming. If you are born into the world in a female form, then you are female, but what if you do not feel or believe that yourself? Have we not reached the point where it is our choice to identify how we want to?
An eye raising point for me was the pain felt from the perspective of the person born from artificial insemination. The horrible feeling of lacking identity, the burning desire to find your natural father.
I think that Kawakami uses Natsuko to represent the struggles, fears, insecurities, social and economic, that many women face today. Placing emphasis on sexual identity, motherhood, and conformity. This novel is based in the author’s native Japan, but I think the problems and issues addressed are found everywhere.
It is always interesting to read about other cultures, that are so different from our own. I was fascinated with the communal bathhouses in Tokyo. Something to me that just feels anachronistic, belonging to another era. But that is what is fascinating, we are all so different. It is what makes this world such an amazing and diverse experience.
I love books that leave you wondering, pondering, for days and weeks after you have read them. With this novel I am still thinking about what it must be like for a woman to have this primal urge to have a baby, to be a mother. But does every woman feel this urge? Is motherhood ingrained in a woman’s DNA?
A thoroughly enjoyable read. 4 Stars.
February 14, 2021
3.5 stars
Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs unveils the experiences of “working poor” women and their growing estrangement not only from Japanese patriarchal society but from traditional feminine gender norms. The novel is presented in two parts written at different times, making the read a tad disjointed and scattered with cumbrous and erratic prose. Throughout the book, prose narrative regularly shifts between literary to journalistic.
Kawakami sheds a distinct light on the physical and emotional toils of female puberty; anomalous preoccupation with body image ideals and reconciling with imperfections due to ageing, sexual identity and reproductive choices for a single, "asexual" woman. This is a story about women’s struggles with societal forces; and men don’t fare well in their stories. It was not as radical read as I had hoped but it did offer distinctive reflections on pregnancy and the queries and quandaries we ponder about childbearing and perhaps will do more so on ethics of procreating and bringing children into a world that is faced with socio-economic instability, impending threats of war, overpopulation, climate change etc.
Co-read with s.Penkevich. Please check out his review, he is a reviewer par excellence.
Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs unveils the experiences of “working poor” women and their growing estrangement not only from Japanese patriarchal society but from traditional feminine gender norms. The novel is presented in two parts written at different times, making the read a tad disjointed and scattered with cumbrous and erratic prose. Throughout the book, prose narrative regularly shifts between literary to journalistic.
Kawakami sheds a distinct light on the physical and emotional toils of female puberty; anomalous preoccupation with body image ideals and reconciling with imperfections due to ageing, sexual identity and reproductive choices for a single, "asexual" woman. This is a story about women’s struggles with societal forces; and men don’t fare well in their stories. It was not as radical read as I had hoped but it did offer distinctive reflections on pregnancy and the queries and quandaries we ponder about childbearing and perhaps will do more so on ethics of procreating and bringing children into a world that is faced with socio-economic instability, impending threats of war, overpopulation, climate change etc.
Co-read with s.Penkevich. Please check out his review, he is a reviewer par excellence.
February 5, 2021
Mieko Kawakami’s novel explores issues that impact on a particular group of Japanese women through the character of Natsuko, a working-class woman, living and working in Tokyo. The piece grew out of an original novella worked and reworked and published in English as one novel although, as a lot of other readers have noted, it has a strangely disjointed quality, like two sections grafted together rather than an entirely coherent whole. In part one Natsuko’s hosting her sister Makiko and niece Midoriko. Makiko scrapes a living through her looks, working in a hostess bar, Midoriko’s on the brink of adolescence, both are affected by their relationships to their embodied selves. Makiko’s contemplating breast enhancement perhaps trying to combat aging, perhaps looking for some means of boosting her self-confidence, Midoriko’s caught up with questions about puberty, and her changing, suddenly-alien body. Through the trio’s time together Kawakami explores questions around gender and poverty - a major issue for Japanese single-mothers, a group partially characterised by the large number surviving on extremely low incomes or living below the poverty line - the so-called 'beauty' industry, consumer culture and its emphasis on surface appearances. She also introduces broader themes around family loyalty, history and heritage.
The second half of the novel opens several years later, Natsuko’s economic and social status have dramatically altered, she’s published a successful book and enjoying a more settled life. But she’s also lonely, and grappling with writer’s block, she becomes fascinated by the idea of having a child using donor sperm, clearly not sanctioned for unmarried women in Japan where even adoption for single women is not allowed, and through this comes into contact with a range of individuals who represent different aspects of debates about reproduction: single parenthood, the ethics of having children and even the anti-natalist movement. There are also parallels being drawn here between bringing a child into the world and the writer’s creative process.
It’s a difficult book to rate overall although I liked it I thought it was very unbalanced, the first half is written in a style I found vivid and compelling, the interactions between the three main characters worked really well, and the compressed timeline added to the sense of immediacy. The second half is muted in comparison, and the abrupt shift in tone and atmosphere was disconcerting at first, it’s more interior centred on Natsuko, with other voices in the narrative far less persuasive, flatter than those of Makiko and Midoriko. The other problem I had was that the subjects explored in the earlier section evolved organically out of the story, whereas the material in the second half often seemed slightly forced, contrived even, as if someone had taken a series of essays and interviews around reproductive ethics and fictionalised them – that’s not to say that the writing was bad, it wasn’t, but I was continually reminded that I was reading something carefully constructed to promote a range of perspectives rather than caught up in the plot or the individuals as I was in the initial sections. I’ve also seen reviews that call attention to the fact that Kawakami is entirely centred on a heterosexual vision of womanhood, although at one point a fleeting reference to queer culture suggests other ways of existing or being, and I did think that it was a shame that these possibilities weren’t examined further. The English translation’s very fluid but very much standard English which made me wonder what it would have been like if the chosen style had reflected Kawakami’s use of language in her original work, where she highlighted regional dialect from Western Japan in keeping with Natsuko’s background, and underlining her working-class roots.
Rating: 3.5
The second half of the novel opens several years later, Natsuko’s economic and social status have dramatically altered, she’s published a successful book and enjoying a more settled life. But she’s also lonely, and grappling with writer’s block, she becomes fascinated by the idea of having a child using donor sperm, clearly not sanctioned for unmarried women in Japan where even adoption for single women is not allowed, and through this comes into contact with a range of individuals who represent different aspects of debates about reproduction: single parenthood, the ethics of having children and even the anti-natalist movement. There are also parallels being drawn here between bringing a child into the world and the writer’s creative process.
It’s a difficult book to rate overall although I liked it I thought it was very unbalanced, the first half is written in a style I found vivid and compelling, the interactions between the three main characters worked really well, and the compressed timeline added to the sense of immediacy. The second half is muted in comparison, and the abrupt shift in tone and atmosphere was disconcerting at first, it’s more interior centred on Natsuko, with other voices in the narrative far less persuasive, flatter than those of Makiko and Midoriko. The other problem I had was that the subjects explored in the earlier section evolved organically out of the story, whereas the material in the second half often seemed slightly forced, contrived even, as if someone had taken a series of essays and interviews around reproductive ethics and fictionalised them – that’s not to say that the writing was bad, it wasn’t, but I was continually reminded that I was reading something carefully constructed to promote a range of perspectives rather than caught up in the plot or the individuals as I was in the initial sections. I’ve also seen reviews that call attention to the fact that Kawakami is entirely centred on a heterosexual vision of womanhood, although at one point a fleeting reference to queer culture suggests other ways of existing or being, and I did think that it was a shame that these possibilities weren’t examined further. The English translation’s very fluid but very much standard English which made me wonder what it would have been like if the chosen style had reflected Kawakami’s use of language in her original work, where she highlighted regional dialect from Western Japan in keeping with Natsuko’s background, and underlining her working-class roots.
Rating: 3.5
April 21, 2020
Are women more than their bodies? Seems not, according to much contemporary fiction. Here three women's identities are bound up with a) breast augmentation, b) first periods, and c) pregnancy. What gives this interest is the Tokyo setting and the fact that these women are working class. Oh, and the almost gleeful physical details - bleached nipples for the right aesthetics? No thanks!
I enjoyed this well enough as a light read but it doesn't push the boundaries like, say, The Vegetarian.
I enjoyed this well enough as a light read but it doesn't push the boundaries like, say, The Vegetarian.
July 15, 2023
Qué viaje, qué despliegue de tantas experiencias femeninas, qué brutal es ser mujer.
October 15, 2022
acting as an exploration of the experience of women, breasts and eggs tackles questions surrounding fertility, how women can become mothers, birth, motherhood, and the dominance of the patriarchy as a looming figure in our lives from birth to death.
the novel is in two halves, with half one being the breasts section. this is where we meet natsuko natsume, a single 30-year-old aspiring writer based in tokyo, and her older sister makiko, a single mother to midoriko. natsuko has issues with intimacy, finding contentment and wonder in her life as a single woman as she attempts to find who and what she wants in life. the second half is the eggs section, set a decade later. natsuko, now a published author, feels an innate desperate need to become a mother. we watch her grapple with fertility options, confident in both her abilities to become a single mother and to discover who her child will be, as mieko kawakami navigates us through the positives and negatives of donor conception in japan.
both halves are a delightful read, raising questions i would have never thought to ask or even attempt to answer, and so i feel wiser for having completed it.
- 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
the novel is in two halves, with half one being the breasts section. this is where we meet natsuko natsume, a single 30-year-old aspiring writer based in tokyo, and her older sister makiko, a single mother to midoriko. natsuko has issues with intimacy, finding contentment and wonder in her life as a single woman as she attempts to find who and what she wants in life. the second half is the eggs section, set a decade later. natsuko, now a published author, feels an innate desperate need to become a mother. we watch her grapple with fertility options, confident in both her abilities to become a single mother and to discover who her child will be, as mieko kawakami navigates us through the positives and negatives of donor conception in japan.
both halves are a delightful read, raising questions i would have never thought to ask or even attempt to answer, and so i feel wiser for having completed it.
- 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
September 1, 2023
Twórczość Mieko to jedno z moich największych odkryć czytelniczych, a ta książka tylko to potwierdziła.
April 6, 2023
Muchas emociones con este libro. Pasé de no esperar nada y perder el hilo a asombrarme de todo este mundo hecho por la autora. Qué triste pero maravillosa es la vida.
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