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Weasels in the Attic
From the acclaimed author of The Hole and The Factory, a thrilling and mysterious work that explores fertility, masculinity, and marriage in contemporary Japan.
In these three interconnected stories, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet fish store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada’s previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.
In these three interconnected stories, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet fish store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada’s previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.
96 pages, Paperback
First published October 4, 2022
About the author
Hiroko Oyamada
12 books468 followersHiroko Oyamada (小山田浩子) is a Japanese author. She won the Shincho Prize for New Writers for The Factory, which was drawn from her experiences working as a temp for an automaker’s subsidiary. Her following novel, The Hole, won the Akutagawa Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 517 reviews
October 19, 2022
Hiroko Oyamada excels at tapping into the uneasy vibes lurking in everyday life, honing in on details that culminate into a overwhelming feeling of implacable anxiety that is often blended with a threatening surrealism. Weasels in the Attic, her latest to be translated into English by chronicles three interconnected scenes in which Oyamada turns her focus towards ideas of maternity, motherhood and masculinity. To have—or to not have—children is a very personal, intimate decision and the role of mothers is very central to life as we know it, though under patriarchal framings of society it is often pushed aside as merely a standard duty of women and Oyamada’s choice to narrate this book from the perspective of a man captures this idea and decenters motherhood from the narrative even when it is the primary focus. While I’ve quite enjoyed her previous works, especially the sinisterly surreal The Hole, I found this one to lack much resonance and feel simultaneously too thin and overly long despite being just over 70 pages. Still, Oyamada’s depictions make for striking investigations into the ways motherhood is treated in society and how the masculine fragility becomes an oppressive and othering force.
There is a muted distance and detachment to the telling of Weasels in the Attic that makes each scene sort of echo in an eerie hollowness even though there are a multitude of details within them. The story moves from a friend-of-a-friend’s apartment above his failed exotic fish store, to the friend’s home where a weasel infestation is overturning his newly married existence and later when the narrator and his wife go to visit this friend’s newborn baby. In each story a baby, or lack thereof, feels like the pull of gravity putting the events and conversations in orbit around them. The narrator himself has been trying and thus far unable to conceive with his wife, while the two other men, Saiki and his recently deceased friend Urabe, have children with much younger women.
We see the lives of these men, repeatedly mentioned as not the marrying or fatherly type, interjected by infants in scenes that mostly consist of eating and drinking while the young wives do all the labor in the background. Food is a constant theme here, such as the story of Urabe giving fish food to eat to a young girl whose family cannot afford food. Though no connection is directly drawn, it is wondered if this was an act of grooming the girl, especially considering the awkwardness when the narrator asks the new wife what year she was born (she is said to be 20 but looks younger). ‘It was just like Saiki to mention her age,’ the narrator thinks when Saiki reveals his own marriage to have over a ten year age gap, which points at an interesting aspect of patriarchal psychology. There is, of course, the avoidant attachment theory in which an older man dates a younger woman as it pushes aside thoughts of impeding old age and death and reminds them of themselves at a younger age. There is also the ageist sense where finding a younger woman more desirable betrays the social stigma against women aging, a double-standard in most society as men are allowed more grace for an aging body than women, as argues Le Monde diplomatique editor and journalist, Mona Chollet, saying there is an ‘additional power [men] have is that of making it so that their decay is not counted against them.’ Additionally, there is the idea that it gives them more stature amongst male peers but also there is a power dynamic that is exploited for dominance over the relationship. Now this isn’t to say there can’t be healthy relationships with a large age gap, but Oyamada is critical of masculinity in this book and this dynamic is a large example of it.
There is also the social aspect that the young wives in the novel are doing all the domestic labor, from caring for the infants to preparing the food and drinks in each of these scenes. It is a critique of the inequality of domestic labor standards, which occurs even in households where the male partner is under the impression he is helping equally. In Dr. Kate Manne’s book Entitled she cites a US study (the novel is Japan, of course, not the US, but the ideas still apply) that ‘working women took on around two-thirds of at-home child care responsibilities’, and of the 46% of male participants who said they were coequal parents, only 32% of their partners agreed. For the three men in Weasels, this is seen as normal and when the narrator feels bad the new, possibly underaged mother is doing all the labor, social stigma keeps him from speaking up about it.
His perspective also betrays a relative indifference to babies, as well as not feeling much over their own struggles to conceive beyond mentions of shame over performance such as ‘peak fertility nights that we’d missed because I couldn’t do my part.’ He is left out of the conversation for the most part, realizing his wife never tells him the results of his sperm test and mostly apathetic to it anyways. When he learns she is pregnant later, it is a surprise but one he barely registers. For a book about motherhood, it is always on the sidelines, with most of the action being about the food in front of them. When it is most directly confronted it is in a shocking and violent story about a unique way to rid weasels from a home, an act performed by the wife’s grandmother in the past. Women, it would seem here, are the ones bearing the hardest duties, and also carrying the biggest warnings to heed.
While there is some great social commentary going on, it is done rather sparsely and there isn’t as much surreal atmosphere as in Oyamada’s previous works. The small details, such as a nightmare of being crushed by a fish, add up to a successfully eerie atmosphere, but it never feels like enough and seems so washed out in too many other details. While I like the sparseness and the impressions built through juxtaposed scenes, this one never quite registered with me. This could be, perhaps, a casualty of just having read Elisa Shua Dusapin’s masterful Pachinko Parlour which pulls off this technique much more effectively. Hiroko Oyamada is a fabulous writer, this one just didn’t work for me but if you like sparse eerie tales, this might be for you.
2.75/5
There is a muted distance and detachment to the telling of Weasels in the Attic that makes each scene sort of echo in an eerie hollowness even though there are a multitude of details within them. The story moves from a friend-of-a-friend’s apartment above his failed exotic fish store, to the friend’s home where a weasel infestation is overturning his newly married existence and later when the narrator and his wife go to visit this friend’s newborn baby. In each story a baby, or lack thereof, feels like the pull of gravity putting the events and conversations in orbit around them. The narrator himself has been trying and thus far unable to conceive with his wife, while the two other men, Saiki and his recently deceased friend Urabe, have children with much younger women.
We see the lives of these men, repeatedly mentioned as not the marrying or fatherly type, interjected by infants in scenes that mostly consist of eating and drinking while the young wives do all the labor in the background. Food is a constant theme here, such as the story of Urabe giving fish food to eat to a young girl whose family cannot afford food. Though no connection is directly drawn, it is wondered if this was an act of grooming the girl, especially considering the awkwardness when the narrator asks the new wife what year she was born (she is said to be 20 but looks younger). ‘It was just like Saiki to mention her age,’ the narrator thinks when Saiki reveals his own marriage to have over a ten year age gap, which points at an interesting aspect of patriarchal psychology. There is, of course, the avoidant attachment theory in which an older man dates a younger woman as it pushes aside thoughts of impeding old age and death and reminds them of themselves at a younger age. There is also the ageist sense where finding a younger woman more desirable betrays the social stigma against women aging, a double-standard in most society as men are allowed more grace for an aging body than women, as argues Le Monde diplomatique editor and journalist, Mona Chollet, saying there is an ‘additional power [men] have is that of making it so that their decay is not counted against them.’ Additionally, there is the idea that it gives them more stature amongst male peers but also there is a power dynamic that is exploited for dominance over the relationship. Now this isn’t to say there can’t be healthy relationships with a large age gap, but Oyamada is critical of masculinity in this book and this dynamic is a large example of it.
There is also the social aspect that the young wives in the novel are doing all the domestic labor, from caring for the infants to preparing the food and drinks in each of these scenes. It is a critique of the inequality of domestic labor standards, which occurs even in households where the male partner is under the impression he is helping equally. In Dr. Kate Manne’s book Entitled she cites a US study (the novel is Japan, of course, not the US, but the ideas still apply) that ‘working women took on around two-thirds of at-home child care responsibilities’, and of the 46% of male participants who said they were coequal parents, only 32% of their partners agreed. For the three men in Weasels, this is seen as normal and when the narrator feels bad the new, possibly underaged mother is doing all the labor, social stigma keeps him from speaking up about it.
His perspective also betrays a relative indifference to babies, as well as not feeling much over their own struggles to conceive beyond mentions of shame over performance such as ‘peak fertility nights that we’d missed because I couldn’t do my part.’ He is left out of the conversation for the most part, realizing his wife never tells him the results of his sperm test and mostly apathetic to it anyways. When he learns she is pregnant later, it is a surprise but one he barely registers. For a book about motherhood, it is always on the sidelines, with most of the action being about the food in front of them. When it is most directly confronted it is in a shocking and violent story about a unique way to rid weasels from a home, an act performed by the wife’s grandmother in the past. Women, it would seem here, are the ones bearing the hardest duties, and also carrying the biggest warnings to heed.
While there is some great social commentary going on, it is done rather sparsely and there isn’t as much surreal atmosphere as in Oyamada’s previous works. The small details, such as a nightmare of being crushed by a fish, add up to a successfully eerie atmosphere, but it never feels like enough and seems so washed out in too many other details. While I like the sparseness and the impressions built through juxtaposed scenes, this one never quite registered with me. This could be, perhaps, a casualty of just having read Elisa Shua Dusapin’s masterful Pachinko Parlour which pulls off this technique much more effectively. Hiroko Oyamada is a fabulous writer, this one just didn’t work for me but if you like sparse eerie tales, this might be for you.
2.75/5
December 21, 2023
Rather ironic that once I'm done with this book, I found a leak on my roof that just smells so suspiciously and thought, was it perhaps the Weasels in the Attic? Though of course, I did not do what Saki and Yoko were advised to do.
The book follows the narrator who wants to start a family with his wife but had no luck even after three years together. It has become even more challenging to witness other people their age having children. Meetings between the main couple and two friends who have been fortunate in starting families take place in each of Weasels' three chapters. These interactions are unexpected—not weird, but on the verge of being plausible.
Now I do not know what I was expecting but getting disappointed is not part of the plan. I for once — do like the writing as it was easy to go through. Each section is rounded out by Oyamada's minimalist language, which opens up the margins to show wry insights. Weasels in the Attic excels in the quiet and contemplative, as is frequently the case with Japanese literature.
What have I contemplated though? I'm not sure I'm getting it. This sounds like a collection of carelessly chosen phrases that failed to convey any figurative meaning. Similar to the denouement —there have been numerous interpretive deconstructions because it was so unconstrained, consequently made the novella appears to be as obscure as its subject matter. Is it about patriarchy? motherhood? or simply weasels in the attic? I guess I'll never catch it.
Sometimes quirky is good and I love them being integrated with Japanese literature. In fact, I seek for it in Asian literature but just maybe not for this book. This one seems pointless where almost everything was tried to be tackled but ended up being unperceivable. The idea was there but the execution is unimpressive. I understand the author's intent, but I believe she fell short of her purpose. Maybe the plot might have played out differently if the book had been longer.
While my first encounter with Oyamada's book did not turn out well, her growing reputation that has yet to precede me makes me curious about the effulgence in her works. Hoping for better luck next time, but if you're in for a low-commitment book, Weasels in the Attic might just be the one to look for.
The book follows the narrator who wants to start a family with his wife but had no luck even after three years together. It has become even more challenging to witness other people their age having children. Meetings between the main couple and two friends who have been fortunate in starting families take place in each of Weasels' three chapters. These interactions are unexpected—not weird, but on the verge of being plausible.
Now I do not know what I was expecting but getting disappointed is not part of the plan. I for once — do like the writing as it was easy to go through. Each section is rounded out by Oyamada's minimalist language, which opens up the margins to show wry insights. Weasels in the Attic excels in the quiet and contemplative, as is frequently the case with Japanese literature.
What have I contemplated though? I'm not sure I'm getting it. This sounds like a collection of carelessly chosen phrases that failed to convey any figurative meaning. Similar to the denouement —there have been numerous interpretive deconstructions because it was so unconstrained, consequently made the novella appears to be as obscure as its subject matter. Is it about patriarchy? motherhood? or simply weasels in the attic? I guess I'll never catch it.
Sometimes quirky is good and I love them being integrated with Japanese literature. In fact, I seek for it in Asian literature but just maybe not for this book. This one seems pointless where almost everything was tried to be tackled but ended up being unperceivable. The idea was there but the execution is unimpressive. I understand the author's intent, but I believe she fell short of her purpose. Maybe the plot might have played out differently if the book had been longer.
While my first encounter with Oyamada's book did not turn out well, her growing reputation that has yet to precede me makes me curious about the effulgence in her works. Hoping for better luck next time, but if you're in for a low-commitment book, Weasels in the Attic might just be the one to look for.
October 11, 2022
Three related stories but different time frames.
There are simple, short, and warm stories.
I like the way the stories are told.
I prefer the first story regarding the pet fish shop.
I recommend reading this book when you need a short read and relaxation.
She is a good author.
There are simple, short, and warm stories.
I like the way the stories are told.
I prefer the first story regarding the pet fish shop.
I recommend reading this book when you need a short read and relaxation.
She is a good author.
November 6, 2022
Weasels in the Attic is a novella composed of three stories originally published over a number of years. They’re all narrated by the same, unnamed man who is trying to come to terms with his wife’s desire to have children and his own uncertainties. Each story revolves around an encounter with another couple and their offspring, and highlights issues around marriage, parental responsibility and the ways in which social expectations impact on communication between men and women. Oyamada draws on animal symbolism from the “wily” weasel to human-animal relations played out in the depiction of tropical fish in two of these stories. Women, on the other hand, are less well realised, shadowy or peripheral figures, sometimes close to a form of commodity – the men seem obsessed with the fact that two of the wives here are younger than their male partners, significant for their status-enhancing potential rather than as individuals in their own right. Social interactions, even between friends, are represented as tense, awkward affairs, muffled and distant. Only animals are discussed or considered in any explicit detail, from the notoriously difficult to rear discus fish to the uncanny bony tongue, and the strangely unnerving weasels that infest one character’s supposedly ideal rural home.
Oyamada’s narratives seem to focus on banalities and social convention as in the shared meals featured in each episode. But then there are sudden ruptures as in a scene recalled by the narrator’s wife, an old, macabre method for ridding houses of weasels which incidentally reinforces the conceptual gap between maternal and paternal roles. Another arresting scene involves the narrator’s nightmare about a primitive bony tongue fish, bringing to the fore the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about the prospect of becoming a father. Oyamada’s style is direct yet elliptical, there are some stirring descriptive passages and imagery, but there’s also a sense that the narratives are not quite fully formed, an impression that’s possibly deliberate, reflecting the narrator’s inability to confront or fully comprehend the feelings stirred by his interactions. Oyamada’s fragmented approach to contemplating the nature of heterosexual families, fatherhood and lifestyle choices through her conflicted narrator is interesting, novel and engaging. But the work as a whole could also seem unnecessarily vague and insubstantial. Translated by David Boyd.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Granta for an ARC
Oyamada’s narratives seem to focus on banalities and social convention as in the shared meals featured in each episode. But then there are sudden ruptures as in a scene recalled by the narrator’s wife, an old, macabre method for ridding houses of weasels which incidentally reinforces the conceptual gap between maternal and paternal roles. Another arresting scene involves the narrator’s nightmare about a primitive bony tongue fish, bringing to the fore the narrator’s ambivalent feelings about the prospect of becoming a father. Oyamada’s style is direct yet elliptical, there are some stirring descriptive passages and imagery, but there’s also a sense that the narratives are not quite fully formed, an impression that’s possibly deliberate, reflecting the narrator’s inability to confront or fully comprehend the feelings stirred by his interactions. Oyamada’s fragmented approach to contemplating the nature of heterosexual families, fatherhood and lifestyle choices through her conflicted narrator is interesting, novel and engaging. But the work as a whole could also seem unnecessarily vague and insubstantial. Translated by David Boyd.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Granta for an ARC
December 21, 2022
Captivating, gorgeous, gripping. Full of mystery, dread, and revelation. The old people in this novella know what's going on and sometimes the women do, too. The men? They are just trying to hang on and pretend they're in charge. Each moment that passes in this eerie novella is full of happenings just this side of surreal. I love stories like this, the ones that take time to make me appreciate the utter strangeness of our world. The pigs' teeth stuck in the wych-elm in Howards End. The dead sparrow hanging from a wire in Gombrowicz's Cosmos. The fish that leaps out of its tank and pins a man to his bed in Weasels in the Attic. This is the kind of fiction that captivates me. Fiction that is unexplainably weird and yet also somehow exactly the truth. Fiction that is terrifyingly chaotic and yet at the same time comforting, and I find myself thinking, yes, that's right. That's exactly the way it is.
If you liked the following books then you will probably like this novella, too: Threats by Amelia Gray. Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. Ice by Anna Kavan.
If you liked the following books then you will probably like this novella, too: Threats by Amelia Gray. Desperate Characters by Paula Fox. Ice by Anna Kavan.
January 27, 2023
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Having read Hiroko Oyamada’s The Hole and The Factory, I was intrigued by the premise of Weasels in the Attic, which has recently been translated into English. This book is divided into three self-contained episodes centred on the same character. Our narrator’s wife really wants to have children but he seems far less enthused by the idea. Two of the episodes revolve around his acquaintances/friends of his, one of whom owns large quantities of this type of exotic fish and has recently gotten together with a younger woman, the other, also married, has settled down into a home that is already occupied by a family of weasels. The male characters are all similar shades of unpleasant and obsessive as they recount their surreal experience with these animals and or their romantic relationships. Our narrator is rather unpleasant himself as he becomes intrigued by someone other than his wife (if i recall correctly…). There is a feverish, oppressive even, atmosphere characterizing most of the interactions and happenings in these stories. Realistic scenarios and dynamics are given a surreal dimension through the addition of bizarre elements or anecdotes. Oyamada seems to have a knack for drawing out the weird from everyday life, but here I found myself bored by the sameness of these three stories. Perhaps it would be more interesting if the perspective had switched from the husband to the wife, or to some other characters as the author did in The Factory which incorporated several povs. Still, even if Weasels in the Attic didn’t quite hit the right spot for me, I remain intrigued by Oyamada’s storytelling and look forward to being ‘weirded’ out again by her future works.
Having read Hiroko Oyamada’s The Hole and The Factory, I was intrigued by the premise of Weasels in the Attic, which has recently been translated into English. This book is divided into three self-contained episodes centred on the same character. Our narrator’s wife really wants to have children but he seems far less enthused by the idea. Two of the episodes revolve around his acquaintances/friends of his, one of whom owns large quantities of this type of exotic fish and has recently gotten together with a younger woman, the other, also married, has settled down into a home that is already occupied by a family of weasels. The male characters are all similar shades of unpleasant and obsessive as they recount their surreal experience with these animals and or their romantic relationships. Our narrator is rather unpleasant himself as he becomes intrigued by someone other than his wife (if i recall correctly…). There is a feverish, oppressive even, atmosphere characterizing most of the interactions and happenings in these stories. Realistic scenarios and dynamics are given a surreal dimension through the addition of bizarre elements or anecdotes. Oyamada seems to have a knack for drawing out the weird from everyday life, but here I found myself bored by the sameness of these three stories. Perhaps it would be more interesting if the perspective had switched from the husband to the wife, or to some other characters as the author did in The Factory which incorporated several povs. Still, even if Weasels in the Attic didn’t quite hit the right spot for me, I remain intrigued by Oyamada’s storytelling and look forward to being ‘weirded’ out again by her future works.
October 2, 2022
Weasels in the Attic contains three chapters / short stories with mainly the same characters. In three completely different situations, two friends, MC and Sayiki, have a conversation each time over dinner. Topics of conversations in this novel vary from fish breeding to weasels in the attic.
Oyamada examines different perspectives on marriage, fertility, children, and attitude toward women. This novella is an impressive achievement in less than 100 pages. I like the writing and the mood in this short novel. This was my first time reading Hiroko Oyamada, and I will read more by this author in the future.
Available in november. Thanks to Granta Publications for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.
Oyamada examines different perspectives on marriage, fertility, children, and attitude toward women. This novella is an impressive achievement in less than 100 pages. I like the writing and the mood in this short novel. This was my first time reading Hiroko Oyamada, and I will read more by this author in the future.
Available in november. Thanks to Granta Publications for the ARC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.
April 15, 2023
I'm not entirely sure what the point of this was. I liked the idea - three short stories of one man and three different meals, dealing with fertility and masculinity. But I just don't think it was there in terms of execution. It's too short, too jarring with no clear trajectory. As a result it's really not that memorable.
August 23, 2023
Not much to say about this slim book. Something about fish, something about weasel’s. It’s far too perplexing for me.
December 1, 2022
There is no humor in this book, or if there was, I could not recognize it. It is very short, maybe 25K words. Another mish mash of random thoughts dashed off by the author, like her other two books currently available in English. The characters are generic and unmemorable. The writing is very basic, lacking in figurative language, containing no discernible sense of voice. This is neither literary fiction, nor upmarket. It is not magical realism, nor is it genre fiction. It is a book about weasels in the attic. It describes what they do and not much else. There is some bland discussion about domestic life. No keen observations are to be found in it. I discovered no information of any possible use. I was not amused once while reading it. I skimmed over large sections, then decided to go back and read them properly, only to find that what I had skimmed over was ultimately meaningless.
If it were typical slice of life, I would have expected more (or any) character quirks, witty dialogue, societal satire, or social commentary. At least a unique perspective on life. Needless to say, none of these things were on offer here.
Dig as deep as you want, disagree with me if you will, but I found this to be an exception to Cervantes's rule: “There is no book so bad…that it does not have something good in it.”
How is this person making money, selling books, or gaining any sort of positive reception?
If it were typical slice of life, I would have expected more (or any) character quirks, witty dialogue, societal satire, or social commentary. At least a unique perspective on life. Needless to say, none of these things were on offer here.
Dig as deep as you want, disagree with me if you will, but I found this to be an exception to Cervantes's rule: “There is no book so bad…that it does not have something good in it.”
How is this person making money, selling books, or gaining any sort of positive reception?
July 30, 2022
3.5 stars. My only note is that I wanted this to be much longer! It felt like we were only getting started. Oyamada really draws you in, this isn't as weird as THE HOLE, but there are all these unusual and striking details along the way.
August 15, 2022
Mostly attic, not enough weasels.
April 8, 2024
Jak narazie trafiam w kwietniu na same słabe książki..
January 1, 2023
3.5, rounded down.
I've always been interested in sampling Oyamada, as I've heard great things about her - and this was a really quick and not very difficult read. But I am afraid I just found a lot of it impenetrable and though evocative, too enigmatic for my tastes. I don't mind when things are open-ended, or subject to various interpretations - but I always get a bit cranky when the ending of a book is SO elusive it makes me feel stupid, and I am left scratching my head.
I've always been interested in sampling Oyamada, as I've heard great things about her - and this was a really quick and not very difficult read. But I am afraid I just found a lot of it impenetrable and though evocative, too enigmatic for my tastes. I don't mind when things are open-ended, or subject to various interpretations - but I always get a bit cranky when the ending of a book is SO elusive it makes me feel stupid, and I am left scratching my head.
March 6, 2023
Strange and intriguing. One I'll be pondering for a while.
October 28, 2022
4.5 stars really.
I've read a couple of other reviews to see what others thought of this novella (is it a novella or a short collection of short stories?) But anyway taken at face value this is quite typical of other Japanese literature I've read. I like strange and unsettling and this seemed to be heading that way but held back.
These are three stories involving more or less the same cast of characters. The stories evolve in that in the first story we meet an old friend of the narrator and his new wife. In the second story another friend has also married. In the third we meet the second friend and his wife, plus the new addition to the family.
Behind all these meeting and strange happenings with tropical fish and weasel infestations there is the growing concern of the narrator that he might never become a father, would he be a good father and is it really what he wants. His desires and concerns are echoed in the odd situations and his dreams.
I get the feeling from reading reviews of her other work that maybe they are stranger and would suit me better (I loved Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata). There is also that odd sense of Hiroko holding something back. I also wanted just a little more of this prose and hope that her next book will deliver.
I did enjoy the book and would recommend it for anyone who likes Japanese literature if the less strange variety (Convenience Store Woman, Heaven (Mieko Kawakami) or Yoko Ogawa's work comes to mind).
I've read a couple of other reviews to see what others thought of this novella (is it a novella or a short collection of short stories?) But anyway taken at face value this is quite typical of other Japanese literature I've read. I like strange and unsettling and this seemed to be heading that way but held back.
These are three stories involving more or less the same cast of characters. The stories evolve in that in the first story we meet an old friend of the narrator and his new wife. In the second story another friend has also married. In the third we meet the second friend and his wife, plus the new addition to the family.
Behind all these meeting and strange happenings with tropical fish and weasel infestations there is the growing concern of the narrator that he might never become a father, would he be a good father and is it really what he wants. His desires and concerns are echoed in the odd situations and his dreams.
I get the feeling from reading reviews of her other work that maybe they are stranger and would suit me better (I loved Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata). There is also that odd sense of Hiroko holding something back. I also wanted just a little more of this prose and hope that her next book will deliver.
I did enjoy the book and would recommend it for anyone who likes Japanese literature if the less strange variety (Convenience Store Woman, Heaven (Mieko Kawakami) or Yoko Ogawa's work comes to mind).
November 8, 2022
This novella explores fertility, masculinity, marriage, and tropical fish in contemporary Japan.
There are three interconnected scenes in the book. The connection is the narrator and one of his male friends called Saiki. The Narrator has a wife and they want to have children.
In the first story, The Narrator and Saiki visit a friend of Saiki called Urabe who lives above a failed pet shop with a lot of tropical fish. When they arrive, the two men find that Urabe is not only married but has a baby too, something Saiki was not aware of.
In the second story, The Narrator and his wife visit Saiki who also has a new wife called Yoko and has moved to the country. They eat local rural food and discuss how to remove the weasels in the attic which are causing problems for Yoko and Saiki.
The third segment is also set at Yoko and Saiki's house after they've had a baby together. There's a blizzard and The Narrator and wife have to spend a night in a room lined with fish tanks and The Narrator has a weird fish-related dream. The book ends with a revelation to The Narrator provided by a neighbour of Yoko and Saiki's.
There are three interconnected scenes in the book. The connection is the narrator and one of his male friends called Saiki. The Narrator has a wife and they want to have children.
In the first story, The Narrator and Saiki visit a friend of Saiki called Urabe who lives above a failed pet shop with a lot of tropical fish. When they arrive, the two men find that Urabe is not only married but has a baby too, something Saiki was not aware of.
In the second story, The Narrator and his wife visit Saiki who also has a new wife called Yoko and has moved to the country. They eat local rural food and discuss how to remove the weasels in the attic which are causing problems for Yoko and Saiki.
The third segment is also set at Yoko and Saiki's house after they've had a baby together. There's a blizzard and The Narrator and wife have to spend a night in a room lined with fish tanks and The Narrator has a weird fish-related dream. The book ends with a revelation to The Narrator provided by a neighbour of Yoko and Saiki's.
March 25, 2023
This is the first book by Oyamada that I have read.
I can’t say I am overly impressed.
In three interconnected short stories, Oyamada explores the topics of motherhood and gender roles in domestic settings.
Despite its elements of surrealism and the understated but constant senses of uneasiness it manages to convey, I find the writing a tad too sparse to be effective.
I also find the macabere and symbolic story of how ( spoiler alert !) the killing of the mother weasel provides the ultimate solution to the infestation of weasels in the narrator’s friend Saiki’s house to be a little too on the nose when the novella has been subtle otherwise.
A lot of happenings in this novella revolve around food.
( and of course, women are doing all the work)
Oyamada’s handling of the food scenes, especially in the second story, is my favourite part of this novella. The efforts she puts into describing the minute details such as a swirl of gray-brown scum clinging to the edge of the pot and a piece of enoki had tangling itself around one of Yoko's long chopsticks work well in building an unsettling and claustrophobic atmosphere in my opinion.
While I appreciate the author’s intention of dissecting gender roles in this novella, as a work of literature, it is a bit lacklustre for me.
I have heard great things about The Hole by the same author, I might give it a try later.
2.5/ 5
I can’t say I am overly impressed.
In three interconnected short stories, Oyamada explores the topics of motherhood and gender roles in domestic settings.
Despite its elements of surrealism and the understated but constant senses of uneasiness it manages to convey, I find the writing a tad too sparse to be effective.
I also find the macabere and symbolic story of how ( spoiler alert !) the killing of the mother weasel provides the ultimate solution to the infestation of weasels in the narrator’s friend Saiki’s house to be a little too on the nose when the novella has been subtle otherwise.
A lot of happenings in this novella revolve around food.
( and of course, women are doing all the work)
Oyamada’s handling of the food scenes, especially in the second story, is my favourite part of this novella. The efforts she puts into describing the minute details such as a swirl of gray-brown scum clinging to the edge of the pot and a piece of enoki had tangling itself around one of Yoko's long chopsticks work well in building an unsettling and claustrophobic atmosphere in my opinion.
While I appreciate the author’s intention of dissecting gender roles in this novella, as a work of literature, it is a bit lacklustre for me.
I have heard great things about The Hole by the same author, I might give it a try later.
2.5/ 5
November 28, 2022
3,5 - A strange but fun and very readable, little Japanese novella-in-three-parts.
It is about two 30-something friends who meet at three different occasions: the death of a mutual friend, a housewarming and the birth of a child.
The stories all have something unsettling, tension builds up, but then often they end a little too abruptly (which was somewhat thought-provoking but I suspect it would have been more satisfying if things were a bit more spelled out).
It is about two 30-something friends who meet at three different occasions: the death of a mutual friend, a housewarming and the birth of a child.
The stories all have something unsettling, tension builds up, but then often they end a little too abruptly (which was somewhat thought-provoking but I suspect it would have been more satisfying if things were a bit more spelled out).
April 14, 2024
Subtle, funny and very enjoyable, if a little slight.
June 30, 2022
These stories push you off-center, though are not as dark and foreboding as, say, the surreal Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, but if you enjoy a bit of ratcheting tension you might enjoy this reading experience. A quick and interesting look at friendships over time, marriage, fertility, and what couples don't say to each other.
The translation is probably fine, but I can't help feeling like it 's done by someone who doesn't have an ear for music. Dialogue translated from Japanese to English loses a lot of nuance, and it's difficult to attribute much thought and depth to characters. Here's an example of something that made me cringe: there are certain very common daily phrases that should just be put in italics, such as when you're announcing you've arrived at your front door Tadaima! without translating it as "Uh, I'm home." I hope you agree.
Also, I can't figure out what "water celery" is, I've tried asking my Mom who still cooks Japanese cuisine every week -- she immigrated from Japan as an adult. Maybe it's watercress? I kind of wish that had just been put into italics so I can ask her. Also, I believe daikon is common enough now -- or just let folks google an image -- that it doesn't have to be translated as "radishes" as it looks nothing like the beautiful little red radishes we are used to. I don't mean to be petty with the food-related stuff, but these little throwaway details give authenticity to place in these short stories.
The translation is probably fine, but I can't help feeling like it 's done by someone who doesn't have an ear for music. Dialogue translated from Japanese to English loses a lot of nuance, and it's difficult to attribute much thought and depth to characters. Here's an example of something that made me cringe: there are certain very common daily phrases that should just be put in italics, such as when you're announcing you've arrived at your front door Tadaima! without translating it as "Uh, I'm home." I hope you agree.
Also, I can't figure out what "water celery" is, I've tried asking my Mom who still cooks Japanese cuisine every week -- she immigrated from Japan as an adult. Maybe it's watercress? I kind of wish that had just been put into italics so I can ask her. Also, I believe daikon is common enough now -- or just let folks google an image -- that it doesn't have to be translated as "radishes" as it looks nothing like the beautiful little red radishes we are used to. I don't mean to be petty with the food-related stuff, but these little throwaway details give authenticity to place in these short stories.
November 27, 2023
Three abstract and interconnected stories confronting aspects of motherhood, fertility and masculinity - each tale containing a scene with a meal as its focal point.
Oyamada narrates each story from the perspective of a man, and in doing so centralises patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and an 'othering' of womanhood and motherhood. Female lives are fractured, confined, subordinated.
It took me a while to get into this at first - it seemed to lack much substance and was unengaging. It warmed up slightly from the second story onwards - leaving me wanting more by the time it was finished at just over 70 pages. Worth a go!
Oyamada narrates each story from the perspective of a man, and in doing so centralises patriarchy, toxic masculinity, and an 'othering' of womanhood and motherhood. Female lives are fractured, confined, subordinated.
It took me a while to get into this at first - it seemed to lack much substance and was unengaging. It warmed up slightly from the second story onwards - leaving me wanting more by the time it was finished at just over 70 pages. Worth a go!
October 23, 2022
Three stories, enjoyed them.
February 5, 2023
This book is weird af.
Love the writing and got the gist of it but need to think over 😂😂😂
RTC
Love the writing and got the gist of it but need to think over 😂😂😂
RTC
November 8, 2022
Fascinating slim novel about fertility, marriage and friendship with a surreal atmosphere. The endings are sudden and open, almost as if you missed something, but it worked for me here and had me intrigued.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley for the DRC.
Thank you Granta and Netgalley for the DRC.
Read
November 22, 2022Bad Writing, Bad Publisher
Reviews on Goodreads are often positive, generous, supportive, and accommodating, and that is wonderful if the authors in question read the reviews. It's also thoughtful for people who might need encouragement to read the book. My notes here are usually critical, because I use this forum to try to understand what I might have done differently than the author. At the same time I usually only write about books that I think are worth engaging.
This is a forgettable book, in the cliché phrase, and so the proper thing for me to do would be to forget it. But like many readers I have spent some portion of my life on books like this, and every hundred or so forgettable books I like to stop and protest. That was my time! I'd like to say, and if I can't get it back, at least it should be possible to articulate the frustration. In that entirely ungenerous spirit here are some thoughts on this novel.
"Weasels in the Attic" is loosely imagined. If it were a photograph or film it would be out of focus. Oyamada misses opportunities to make things sharp and persuasive. She opts instead for a kind of perpetual panning shot, in which scenes swing by without stopping. The book's form (three stories woven together) is only superficially innovative. Each of the three has a very familiar structure, composed of framing elements, temporal gaps, and surprise endings.
But mainly, for me, the problem is that the book is poorly written. The kind of writing failure I have in mind is not an effect of translation, and it isn't a matter of cultural differences. I know this because the issues I have in mind are problems in narration. This is just poor writing.
In the first story, the characters are in an apartment filled with fish tanks. They have nothing to snack on. One person goes "over to a cabinet with a fish tank on top," opens it, and pulls out a plastic bag of dried shrimp. That's all you need to know to conclude that he's giving his friends fish food. But Oyamada thinks it needs a long setup:
"Once he finally looked up, Saiki saw the shrimp and jerked back. 'Is that....'
"'Sure is,' Urabe grinned as he picked up a shrimp from the pile and put it in his mouth. I was about to grab one, but Saki reached out to stop me.
"'What?' I asked, but Saki didn't answer. 'H-Hey, Urabe...' Saki's voice shook. I didn't understand. they looked like ordinary shrimp to me.
"'Why are you looking at me like tha? It's just dried shrimp.'
"'But they're...'
"'Totally safe. I eat them all the time.'
Urabe took another one, took a sip from his cup, then said, 'Great stuff.' His giant Adam's apple slid up and down.
Saki turned to me with a serious look and said, 'The shrimp... are for them.'
"'Them?'
"'The fish.'" (pp. 13-14)
My copy is marked with strikethroughs and marginal notes like "not necessary," "reader knows," "timing is wrong." You don't need to be an editor like Gordon Lish (famous for cutting dialogue to bare bones) to find fault here. A reader who needs this long passage in order to relish the idea that someone might inadvertently eat fish food is a reader whose attention, whose capacity for imaginative engagement, is significantly different from mine. The book asks me to be a reader who does not pay full attention to the writing, who treats the story or novella format as a screenplay, storyboard, or graphic novel. "Bad writing" here isn't a disguised appeal to a norm that has been supported by privileged readers, critics, and publishers and needs to be rethought in each new context. (As if, for example, a look at contemporary Japanese atitudes to fertility requires a lack of focus of the sort that leads to page-long descriptions like the one I quoted.) "Bad writing" in this context is a marker of a departure from various practices that comprise the current state of writing, including literary fiction.
As long as I'm likely to get some sour replies for my sourness, I'll go a couple of steps farther. "Weasels in the Attic" has the kind of writing errors and missed possibilities that would be flagged by many literary magazines and MFA programs. New Directions should not have published it. Maybe publishers with the luxury of a good reputation should think twice about accepting projects like this one.
Reviews on Goodreads are often positive, generous, supportive, and accommodating, and that is wonderful if the authors in question read the reviews. It's also thoughtful for people who might need encouragement to read the book. My notes here are usually critical, because I use this forum to try to understand what I might have done differently than the author. At the same time I usually only write about books that I think are worth engaging.
This is a forgettable book, in the cliché phrase, and so the proper thing for me to do would be to forget it. But like many readers I have spent some portion of my life on books like this, and every hundred or so forgettable books I like to stop and protest. That was my time! I'd like to say, and if I can't get it back, at least it should be possible to articulate the frustration. In that entirely ungenerous spirit here are some thoughts on this novel.
"Weasels in the Attic" is loosely imagined. If it were a photograph or film it would be out of focus. Oyamada misses opportunities to make things sharp and persuasive. She opts instead for a kind of perpetual panning shot, in which scenes swing by without stopping. The book's form (three stories woven together) is only superficially innovative. Each of the three has a very familiar structure, composed of framing elements, temporal gaps, and surprise endings.
But mainly, for me, the problem is that the book is poorly written. The kind of writing failure I have in mind is not an effect of translation, and it isn't a matter of cultural differences. I know this because the issues I have in mind are problems in narration. This is just poor writing.
In the first story, the characters are in an apartment filled with fish tanks. They have nothing to snack on. One person goes "over to a cabinet with a fish tank on top," opens it, and pulls out a plastic bag of dried shrimp. That's all you need to know to conclude that he's giving his friends fish food. But Oyamada thinks it needs a long setup:
"Once he finally looked up, Saiki saw the shrimp and jerked back. 'Is that....'
"'Sure is,' Urabe grinned as he picked up a shrimp from the pile and put it in his mouth. I was about to grab one, but Saki reached out to stop me.
"'What?' I asked, but Saki didn't answer. 'H-Hey, Urabe...' Saki's voice shook. I didn't understand. they looked like ordinary shrimp to me.
"'Why are you looking at me like tha? It's just dried shrimp.'
"'But they're...'
"'Totally safe. I eat them all the time.'
Urabe took another one, took a sip from his cup, then said, 'Great stuff.' His giant Adam's apple slid up and down.
Saki turned to me with a serious look and said, 'The shrimp... are for them.'
"'Them?'
"'The fish.'" (pp. 13-14)
My copy is marked with strikethroughs and marginal notes like "not necessary," "reader knows," "timing is wrong." You don't need to be an editor like Gordon Lish (famous for cutting dialogue to bare bones) to find fault here. A reader who needs this long passage in order to relish the idea that someone might inadvertently eat fish food is a reader whose attention, whose capacity for imaginative engagement, is significantly different from mine. The book asks me to be a reader who does not pay full attention to the writing, who treats the story or novella format as a screenplay, storyboard, or graphic novel. "Bad writing" here isn't a disguised appeal to a norm that has been supported by privileged readers, critics, and publishers and needs to be rethought in each new context. (As if, for example, a look at contemporary Japanese atitudes to fertility requires a lack of focus of the sort that leads to page-long descriptions like the one I quoted.) "Bad writing" in this context is a marker of a departure from various practices that comprise the current state of writing, including literary fiction.
As long as I'm likely to get some sour replies for my sourness, I'll go a couple of steps farther. "Weasels in the Attic" has the kind of writing errors and missed possibilities that would be flagged by many literary magazines and MFA programs. New Directions should not have published it. Maybe publishers with the luxury of a good reputation should think twice about accepting projects like this one.
January 17, 2023
"My grandma told my dad that it was the mother weasel they'd caught, and that a whole family had been living up there. She said that sound - the mother weasel's final scream - was a warning to the father weasel and their children...It's a good thing we got the mother, she said. When you get a baby, they just scream for help. Father weasels get violent and wear themselves out trying to chew through the cage before you can even get them in the water. The mother's the best"
Weasels in the Attic (translated from Japanese by David Boyd) consists of 3 interconnected stories, and the paragraph above somewhat sets one of the overarching themes and the metaphor of weasels in these stories: motherhood. Interestingly, while the themes of motherhood and fertility (both rather "feminine" themes) took the center stage in the stories, all three stories were narrated by a male narrator. In the first story, the narrator was informed that his friend Urabe had passed away and the narrator recounted his memories where he had a meal at Urabe's house with his friend, Saiki. The second story opens with the narrator visiting Saiki and his new young wife, Yoko, at their new house in the countryside. The house has a problem with weasels and the narrator's wife proposed a suggestion to solve the weasel problem. In the third story, the narrator and his wife visited Saiki and Yoko as well as their newborn baby. The third story perhaps amplified another main theme of the stories i.e. fertility via the interactions between the narrator's wife and the baby, as well as the interaction with some of the locals there.
With the use of a male narrator, Hiroko Oyamada explored infertility issues (a problem faced by Japanese society as well), as well as motherhood from the perspective of males. It is also notable that Oyamada explored masculinity and the misogynist attitude of men in Japanese society premised on the household setting in the three stories. In fact, the obsession with younger women by Japanese men is also highlighted through Saiki's marriage with a much younger wife. Oyamada's quiet and subtle prose shines throughout the stories, probably to create a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere. However, though I appreciate the metaphors used by Oyamada in bringing out the themes of the stories and her approach to social commentary, I am not sure whether the surrealism aspect is well-executed. Especially when my mind is still stuck with Samanta Schweblin's approach to surrealism (via Fever Dream and Seven Empty Houses). The length of this book (70++ pages) also made it almost impossible to create a surreal atmosphere effectively. This is a 3.8/5 star read to me as I expected something more than this due to the author's fame achieved through The Hole and The Factory.
Weasels in the Attic (translated from Japanese by David Boyd) consists of 3 interconnected stories, and the paragraph above somewhat sets one of the overarching themes and the metaphor of weasels in these stories: motherhood. Interestingly, while the themes of motherhood and fertility (both rather "feminine" themes) took the center stage in the stories, all three stories were narrated by a male narrator. In the first story, the narrator was informed that his friend Urabe had passed away and the narrator recounted his memories where he had a meal at Urabe's house with his friend, Saiki. The second story opens with the narrator visiting Saiki and his new young wife, Yoko, at their new house in the countryside. The house has a problem with weasels and the narrator's wife proposed a suggestion to solve the weasel problem. In the third story, the narrator and his wife visited Saiki and Yoko as well as their newborn baby. The third story perhaps amplified another main theme of the stories i.e. fertility via the interactions between the narrator's wife and the baby, as well as the interaction with some of the locals there.
With the use of a male narrator, Hiroko Oyamada explored infertility issues (a problem faced by Japanese society as well), as well as motherhood from the perspective of males. It is also notable that Oyamada explored masculinity and the misogynist attitude of men in Japanese society premised on the household setting in the three stories. In fact, the obsession with younger women by Japanese men is also highlighted through Saiki's marriage with a much younger wife. Oyamada's quiet and subtle prose shines throughout the stories, probably to create a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere. However, though I appreciate the metaphors used by Oyamada in bringing out the themes of the stories and her approach to social commentary, I am not sure whether the surrealism aspect is well-executed. Especially when my mind is still stuck with Samanta Schweblin's approach to surrealism (via Fever Dream and Seven Empty Houses). The length of this book (70++ pages) also made it almost impossible to create a surreal atmosphere effectively. This is a 3.8/5 star read to me as I expected something more than this due to the author's fame achieved through The Hole and The Factory.
April 25, 2023
This "novel" is comprised of 3 brief, well-written, connected short stories, each with a seemingly different focus: 1) high-end fish collecting; 2) Weasels at friend's new house; 3) friend and new bride's new baby, and high-end fish and fish tanks in the guest bedroom. Is there a larger through-line here? I'm not going to say no. Our protagonist and his wife are trying to get pregnant...kind of. They're going through the motions of getting tested, etc., and she seems to have a deep affection for the friend's new baby. The solution for the weasels in the second story, brought to light by the protagonist's wife (that of drowning a female weasel so the other weasels will hear its warning screams) was disturbing. That the friends never had a weasel problem again and it was all thanks to her was also disturbing but thankfully occurred "off-screen."
The writing is strong in this book, as usual for Hiroko Oyamada, but the story wasn't as captivating as her previous translated effort, The Factory. Either way, I'll purchase her books in the future, synopsis unseen.
The writing is strong in this book, as usual for Hiroko Oyamada, but the story wasn't as captivating as her previous translated effort, The Factory. Either way, I'll purchase her books in the future, synopsis unseen.
July 6, 2023
This is essentially three short stories linked by the characters, rather than one continuous novel. In the first story, we meet the narrator as his friends Saiki and Urabe. Saiki appears, along with the narrator, in both of the next stories. Gradually, other characters are introduced, including Saiki's wife and child and Urabe's girlfriend and child. I appreciated the different themes that emerged, like birth and death, parenting and the longing for a child, etc. But as with other translations of Japanese writing I have read, I was a bit put off by what I felt was a bit of a stilted style. I'm sure it's cultural.
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