Identity
Japanese Literature
Self-Discovery
Translation
Family
Star-Crossed Lovers
Love at First Sight
Time Travel
Survival
Age Difference
Secret Love
Magical Realism
Wise Old Man
Lost Love
Mythical Creatures
Love & Relationships
Loneliness & Isolation
About this ebook
Included in The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023
Stories from a Japanese master of transformative fiction, where reality, myth, and human foibles meet shifting dimensions of gender, biology, and destiny.
From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this otherworldly collection of eight stories, each a masterpiece of transformation, infused with humor, sex, and the universal search for love and beauty—in a world where the laws of time and space, and even species boundaries, don’t apply. Meet a shape-shifting con man, a goddess who uses sex to control her followers, an elderly man possessed by a fox spirit, a woman who falls in love with her 400-year-old ancestor, a kitchen god with three faces in a weasel-infested apartment block, moles who provide underground sanctuary for humans who have lost the will to live, a man nurtured through life by his seven extraordinary sisters, and a woman who is handed from husband to husband until she is finally able to return to the sea.
Hiromi Kawakami
Hiromi Kawakami nació en Tokio en 1958. Se dedicó a la enseñanza hasta la publicación de su primer libro de relatos, Kamisama, por el que recibió el Premio Pascal. Desde entonces, se ha convertido en una de las escritoras más leídas y galardonadas de su país. En 1996 obtuvo el Premio Akutagawa por Hebi o Fumu y, en el 2000, el Premio Ito Sei y elWoman Writer’s por Abandonarse a la pasión. Un año más tarde ganó el prestigioso Premio Tanizaki por El cielo es azul, la tierra blanca (Alfaguara, 2017), posteriormente galardonada con el Man Asian Literary Prize y adaptada al cine con granéxito. En castellano se han publicado, además, Algo que brilla como elmar, El señor Nakano y las mujeres, Manazuru, Vidas frágiles, noches oscuras, Amores imperfectos, Los amores de Nishino (Alfaguara, 2017) y De pronto oigo la voz del agua (Alfaguara, 2021).
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Record of a Night Too Brief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nakano Thrift Shop: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Dragon Palace - Hiromi Kawakami
IF YOU turn where the guardrail breaks off and walk down the stone steps from the highway, you’ll come upon a rotting fishing boat lying on its side in the sand. On windy days, you can hear its net flapping. I call it a net, but it’s a net in name only, for it’s full of holes and beginning to unravel. Like the boat, it has been cast away, abandoned.
It has become my habit to walk down those steps to the beach on days when the wind whips up. The waves are rougher then, and higher. The orange trees planted along the highway sway in the gusts. When laden with fruit, their branches bow even more deeply, moving as one.
No one is on the beach. Tangled balls of fishing line and stray clumps of washed-up kelp, tossed to and fro by the gale, scrape across the sand.
Waves flash white as they crash against the rocks on the shore. I try to look at each wave as separate and distinct, but there comes a moment when they merge—each resembles the one that came before, while the one that follows is no different. When this happens, time grinds to a halt, and I feel as though I am reliving the same moment over and over again. If it’s six o’clock, for example, I can mentally board the wave that rolls in at that precise moment, travel the short distance from its belly to the crest, then repeat that movement with each six o’clock wave that comes after.
Hey, buddy!
It was shortly after noon on one of those stormy days when the man called out to me.
The wind was fierce, with a bit of rain mixed in. Not a soul should have been there. How could he have materialized out of nowhere?
Why so serious?
he asked.
I had fallen under the spell of the rough sea, enfolded in the kind of frozen moment I have just described.
The man was peering up into my face. He was half a head shorter than me, with hair about an inch long. Wet from the rain, it gleamed in the dull light. I guessed him to be about fifty years old.
Stand that close and the sea’ll sweep you away.
He was in my face, so I took a step back toward the water. He moved in again. I retreated further, but he followed me. I took a third step back and, for a third time, he crowded me.
Hey, watch out. You’re askin’ for trouble, gettin’ so near the waves!
You’re the one pushing me into the water, I wanted to say. But my tongue was like wood in my mouth.
My problem talking had grown more acute the previous year, when I had given up my company job and moved back home. My first job had lasted seven years. My next lasted less than a year. I had grown restless in a mere six months, after which there was no way to continue. Once I had quit that last job, though, I couldn’t find another, in part because the economy had gone downhill. Neither my father nor my mother lectured or criticized me, yet their grief at my present situation filled our home. I became more and more tongue-tied.
You got any money on you?
the man asked.
A little,
I managed to get out.
You can stand me for drinks, then,
he said, thrusting his clipped head up toward my nose. It looked like we were going to collide.
Stand you?
I repeated. I studied his face for the first time.
Compared to the forceful impression left by his crewcut, his features somehow lacked focus. His mouth and his nose were too far apart. His eyebrows drooped at the corners. The slackness of his mouth left him with a perpetual smirk.
You’ll have to stand me for the drinks. I’m flat broke,
he said, grabbing my arm. I was going to shake him off—he didn’t look strong—but then I changed my mind and decided to go with him.
The man headed up the stone steps to the highway. Trucks and motorbikes were roaring past. He and I stood there patiently, waiting for a gap in the traffic.
ALTHOUGH IT was still early afternoon, a red lantern hung from the eaves of the bar at the end of the alley, indicating it was open. The bar’s name was written on the lantern in hiragana: Minami. Usually, that means south,
but the fishing tackle shop next door had the same name written with the characters for beautiful
and ordinary.
I guessed the two businesses were run by the same owner.
The man flung open the door. Inside was dimly lit, and the figure of a beckoning cat perched on the counter. An oddly large beckoning cat. Two other customers sat facing each other on the raised tatami platform. Beside them was a cooler and fishing rods in carrying cases. It seemed the wind was too strong for boats to go out that day, so there wasn’t much for them to do.
Shochu,
the man said to the older woman behind the counter. How about you, buddy,
he asked, turning to me. Same for you?
When I nodded, he craned his neck back across the counter and said, Make that two.
Then, in a low voice, to me again, How much are you carryin’?
I checked my wallet. I had a few bills in my back pocket, but I wasn’t about to let him know about those. The coins in my wallet added up to 1,750 yen, with another 13 yen in small change.
I’ll look after the bill,
he said, quickly extracting the larger coins while casting a sidelong glance at the 13 yen. He jangled the money in his palm.
Two glasses of shochu comes to 460 yen,
he said, counting out the money and placing it on the counter. The woman swept it up with a practiced hand.
They don’t trust me here,
he said. We sipped our drinks, shochu cut with hot water. The woman behind the counter was smiling.
Is it true?
I asked. You don’t trust him?
Not for a moment,
she shot back.
We drank there for an hour while nibbling on shiokara, fermented and salted squid innards. After our third glass of shochu, only 20 yen remained in the man’s palm. The disappointed fishermen were long gone, while at some point the woman had retreated to the back of the shop. The man hadn’t drunk all that much, but his face was scarlet. He sat there clutching the 20 yen in his left hand and his glass in his right.
Want to hear a cool story?
he said all of a sudden.
A cool story?
I asked. He nodded. He had turned into a squishy, blurry thing that undulated before my eyes. Was I drunk? His whole body was acting bizarre—his arms stretched and shrank, while the top of his head went from round to square, then back to round again.
First, you’ve gotta sit down,
said the shape-shifting man. I’m already sitting, I protested. He cleared his throat.
Now listen carefully, and don’t talk back,
he said, adopting a schoolteacher’s tone. I stood up and then sat down again. He cleared his throat one more time. Then he launched into his cool story.
I WAS an octopus back then,
he began. "So, my story could be called an octopus’s great adventure.
At the time I was living on the ocean floor. Small fish made their home there as well, and shrimp and baby crabs, so I had everything I needed. Every so often, humans would lower an octopus pot down to where we were and one of my unluckier comrades would crawl in, but I never fell for that cheap trick. You know what makes a good octopus pot?
No,
I said. The man cleared his throat again.
It has to be spotless, no sea anemones or brown algae or anything like that.
Cleanliness was key, the man said. I did my best to look impressed.
Anyone would be tempted when something so big and shiny and sweet-smellin’ comes floatin’ down from the surface, even yours truly. I fought off the temptation time and time again, but one day I finally crawled in. That was my big mistake.
The man glared at me. I didn’t see why I deserved to be glared at, but there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
They pulled the trap up, and were about to rip me out and bash me over the head. But at the last moment, I managed to stick one leg out and grab hold of the side of the boat. I slithered out of the pot and used my suckers to cling to the boat’s bottom. The humans tried everything they could think of to make me let go—yanked my legs and my head, pelted me with curses—but they were no match for my suckers, so in the end they gave up. Patience and focus—those are the only things that really count.
I was being lectured to by an octopus! Nevertheless, I meekly nodded.
I held on like that all the way to port, and after they moored the boat. Then at night I slipped away. An octopus is a lot quicker than you might think. I’d heard that sweet potatoes were great eating, so I headed straight for a sweet potato patch.
Were they really that good?
I asked. Did they give you strength?
Their flesh was hard. But they filled my belly. I didn’t care if they were nutritious or not. There was a woman there in the field who I found strangely seductive. So, I went and wrapped myself around her.
Wrapped yourself around her,
I parroted.
Yeah, and she really got into it. Seducin’ a woman is child’s play, really. As long as you have the legs for it, that is. Now I’ve got only two, so it’s a tad more difficult. Even so, I know what I’m doing—when it comes to women, prithee leave it to me.
Prithee? Give me a break! Yet come to think of it, there was something octopus-like about the man’s face. And the way his soft, malleable body was constantly changing shape made me feel that, yes, he just might be the real deal. As he talked, the tips of his arms and legs changed, sprouting small suckers and turning transparent—now they truly resembled the legs of an octopus.
Have you seen that picture of the octopus twining itself around a naked pearl diver? That was me. It was made by Katsushika somebody. Know what I’m talking about?
Yes, I’m familiar with Hokusai’s print,
I answered.
He beamed with pride. That’s great—I can see you’re an educated man. But let’s give the story a rest for now. I can always pick it up again later. Bear that in mind!
The wind had become even more fierce. The short curtain hanging at the entrance of the bar was flapping madly. Almost no shochu remained in our glasses. The man was clutching the two 10-yen coins that remained. When he relaxed his grip, I could see them glittering in his sweaty palms.
Hey, buddy, don’tcha have any more money?
he asked. Now that the octopus story was over, he was back to his old way of speaking. When I answered yes, I have a little, his body got all soft and blurry again. Then let’s move on. Still your treat,
he said.
We left Minami and went on to the next establishment.
THAT TURNED out to be an izakaya near the train station. It was some distance away. The man staggered on ahead. I followed, wondering how on earth I could ditch him.
The man and I were the first customers of the day. The place could seat about fifty people. One of the waiters tried to show us to a table for two, but the man headed straight for the counter.
’Tis important to see the chef at his craft,
he said. The man’s manner of speaking seemed to be in constant flux. And what was this about the chef
and