Paucis Verbis

“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me.”

“Kitchen” ( キッチン )  published in 1988 , Banana Yoshimoto’s ( よしもとばなな )  novel is a book that brings a strange and peaceful mood while you reading it.
A story starts when Mikage Sakurai, a young woman who is just in fact a girl entered into the life with a suffering. Mikage is all alone after the death of her grandmother - the last remaining relative.
At the crossroads of the life Mikage soon makes friends with Yuichi Tanabe, a classmate, who knew Mikage’s grandma while working part time at the flower shop after school. Yuichi concerned that she might need an emotional support as well as financial, offers her place to live in his apartment together with his transsexual father-turned-mother, Eriko.

Mikage though is still grief-stricken by grandmother’s death, trying to find a sense in her life and to keep life going, she is cooking everyday in the Kitchen partly to repay their kindness and at the same time find it relaxing , also kind of psychotherapeutic nourishment…

Her residing in the Yuichi’s apartment becomes also her the first step to a real-life maturity, even though harshly treated by life she finds equivalent of a family ties that with the passing of time becomes her real loving family.
In the story a lot of space has been given to her relations with Eriko - Yuichi’s father-turned-mother,who makes a breathtaking first impression to Mikage : “I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Hair that rustled like silk to her shoulders, the deep sparkle of her long, narrow eyes; well-formed lips, a nose with a high, straight bridge–the whole of her gave off a marvelous light that seemed to vibrate with life force.
She didn’t look human. I had never seen anyone like her”.

Apart from Eriko’s gender also her attitudes towards Mikage was diffrent from typical Japanese older-person attitudes towards younger-one. When first meet Mikage, she speaks to her informally, whereas Mikage replied in formal way using desu/masu form , but by the time both became closer and they call each other by names.
One tragic day breaks again Mikage’s seemed stable life…

The book is like the window to Japan’s society. Shows teenagers and young who are on thethreshold of adulthood - their worries, their dreams, their first steps first step towards real-life, their search for love in the country of Sakura.
Uncover their mentality and sensitivity - that is expressed partly in infantility but also in maturity.
I have dozens of Japanese friends and everytime when I read Kitchen once more I see them and each of them has something from Mikage or Yuichi or Eriko, like each of us too.

Dedicated to my Japanese friends ( their photos in the gallery )  and Giang who keeps asking me “When are you gonna write something new?! “   ;)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 14:50 and is filed under Seen and commented. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.