Strangers by Taichi Yamada... A Review

A Japanese Ghost Story that will Haunt you...

One of the things I love about the Japanese Literature I've discovered this year is its ability to weave the present day with the spirits of the past so matter of fact. Spirits are accepted as existing. Strangers by Taichi Yamada is such a story. It's a ghost story, but more than that. There is an underlying layer that makes this a much more complex story, one that will have you questioning your own heart...

Imagine meeting your parents when they are a young married couple... The exact age they were the last time you saw them... That is what happens to our main character, Harada, who is 47, recently divorced and pretty jaded. His parents were killed in an automobile accident when he was 12, and he was raised by his grandfather. One night he is compelled to visit the part of Tokyo where he grew up. He visits a theatre there, where he meets a man that looks exactly like his long-dead father... He can't believe his eyes, but he is compelled and soon obsessed to find out who this man is... How could you not be curious? And then as Harada is invited to the man's home and meets his wife, who just so happens to look just like his dead mother, how can you not be compelled to stay... even if you know none of this can be real. Or is it real?

Taichi Tamada's prose is sparse but moving. He slowly builds the story around Harada, painting the story with a lost love & his divorce, new love, a demanding job, an estranged son and a strange building where Harada lives. But it also is a story about the love one has for ones parents. As Harada deals with life as we all know it, there is this other surreal world that is wrapping itself around him, pulling him away from everything else. How can Harada resist the love of his parents that he was cheated from as a small boy... even if it's slowly draining the life right out of him. The story is simply wonderful, with unexpected twists and turns that bring the story to a wonderful ending. It will haunt you after the last page...

I read this book is part of The Japanese Literature Challenge, which ends at the end of this month. I really enjoyed this book! What looked to be a simple story was not, and because of that it kept me turning the pages. Not to mention that Taichi Yamada writes well. It's a great introduction to Japanese Literature if you haven't read any yet, and at only 203 pages it's a reasonable time investment!

*BTW, Strangers, by Taichi Yamada, was awarded the first Yamamoto Shugoro Prize, for the best human-interest novel. Shūgorō Yamamoto ( June 22, 1903 - February 14, 1967) was the pen-name of a novelist and short-story writer active in Showa period Japan, noted for his popular literature. His real name was Satomu Shimizu. His literary legacy is the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, which was established in 1987 on the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Shinchō Society for the Promotion of Literary Arts. It is awarded annually to a new work of fiction considered to exemplify the art of storytelling.

The Sunday Salon... Banned Books, National Reading Group Month and some Books with Buzz!

What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake...

As a person who loves reading, it surprises me that there are stilled banned and challenged books. Most of the time, these challenges are to protect children from inappropriate material, but in some instances, such as the challenging of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White for the "unnatural" depiction of talking animals, I am left scratching my head. All this came to mind this week after I read that the annual celebration for your Freedom of Reading was coming! Banned Books Week (BBW): Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September and has been observed each year since 1982. "This annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted." The American Library Association (ALA) keeps track of all challenged and banned books. The ALA believes "Frequently, challenges are motivated by the desire to protect children. While the intent is commendable this method of protection contains hazards far greater than exposure to the "evil" against which it is leveled... Individuals may restrict what they themselves or their children read, but they must not call on government or public agencies to prevent others from reading or seeing that material." I think parents should have the right to restrict what their children read and that "adult" books shouldn't be in the children's section... But taking the books off the shelf for all of us? What do you think? This year Banned Book Week is Sept.26th - Oct.3rd. I plan on reading Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger... I mention all this ahead of time, to see if you want to participate in Banned Book Week!? If you have a blog, would you like to link up that week and post about Banned Book Week, either about a particular banned or challenged book, a review of a banned or challenged book, or just talking about the books you love? Here's the ALA list of the top 100 Classic Novels that were either banned or challenged. At the bottom of the page Here you can find links to the lists of the Banned or Challenged Books for the last 5 years. Let me know if you'd like to participate, send me a link to your blog and we'll link up.

In October, The Women's National Book Association celebrates National Reading Group Month! "Reading groups are proving that good books bring people together. National Reading Group Month salutes reading groups. It fosters their growth and promotes the love of literature. It's an opportunity for reading groups to reflect on their accomplishments and plan for the future — the perfect time to join or start a group." There will be nation-wide events, and reading group recommendations. Click on the highlighted link for more info. And next month we'll talk more about reading groups and the great things we get out of them! Do you belong to a reading group? I'd love to hear about i! Don't wait until next month, let me know what you're group is all about now!

Now that I've talked about the freedom to read what you want, and mentioned about next months celebration of Reading Groups... let's talk a little about some books with buzz..

The much anticipated book by Newbery Medal winner Kate DiCamillo,The Magician's Elephant, tells the tale of Peter Augustus Duchene, a ten-year-old orphan who receives an unbelievable piece of information from the local fortuneteller. Peter learns that his fate is tied to an elephant that has inexplicably fallen from the sky when a magician's trick goes terribly wrong. A small adorable 200 page hardcover book about the size of a trade paperback, written in chapters and peppered in beautifully dark pencil drawings by well known illustrator Yoko Tanaka, has generated a lot of buzz before and after it's recent release. Kate DiCamillo is known for her wonderful tales beautifully & simply written and this should be no different. A book for children, ages 8-13, I picked up a copy of this for myself... look for the review next week!

Next book with Buzz for us women... The Invisible Mountain by Carolina De Robertis. In the author's own words she describes her book... "The Invisible Mountain traverses ninety years of Uruguayan history and culture through the eyes of three generations of women. From rural gaucho life and Italian immigrant experiences at the turn of the 20th century, to the revolutionary 60’s and the dictatorship that followed." Provocative, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming, The Invisible Mountain is a poignant celebration of the potency of familial love, the will to survive in the most hopeless of circumstances, and, above all, the fierce, fortifying connection between mother and daughter. I love stories with strong women and this looks like it will be a wonderful read! Not only for the story, but the writing of Carolina De Robertis is also getting high praise... I can't wait to start reading this!

And finally, I have to admit buying another book for The Japanese Literature Challenge! Gnoe who I met thru The Japanese Literature Challenge, and who has a wonderful blog called Graasland, recommended Strangers by Taichi Yamada. A haunting tale of middle-aged, jaded and divorced, TV scriptwriter Harada who returns one night to the old dilapidated downtown district of Tokyo where he grew up. There, at the theatre, he meets a man who looks exactly like his long-dead father. And so begins Harada's ordeal, as he's thrust into a reality where his parents appear to be alive at the exact age they died so many years before... Thanks Gnoe for the recommendation! Another book I am really looking forward to reading! So many books in the TBR pile!

What are you reading this week!? Any books you want to recommend? I'd love to hear about them! And don't forget about Banned Book Week! Let me know what you think!

Happy Reading.... Suzanne