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In this haunting, richly woven novel of modern life in Japan, the author of the acclaimed debut One for Sorrow explores the ties that bind humanity across the deepest divides. Here is a Murakamiesque jewel box of intertwined narratives in which the lives of several strangers are gently linked through love, loss, and fate.
On a train filled with quietly sleeping passengers, a young mans life is forever altered when he is miraculously seen by a blind man. In a quiet town an American teacher who has lost her Japanese lover to death begins to lose her own self. On a remote road amid fallow rice fields, four young friends carefully take their own lives—and in that moment they become almost as one. In a small village a disaffected American teenager stranded in a strange land discovers compassion after an encounter with an enigmatic red fox, and in Tokyo a girl named Love learns the deepest lessons about its true meaning from a coma patient lost in dreams of an affair gone wrong.
From the neon colors of Tokyo, with its game centers and karaoke bars, to the bamboo groves and hidden shrines of the countryside, these souls and others mingle, revealing a profound tale of connection—uncovering the love we share without knowing.
Exquisitely perceptive and deeply affecting, Barzaks artful storytelling deftly illuminates the inner lives of those attempting to find—or lose—themselves in an often incomprehensible world.
Review:
One of the virtues of "serious" literature is that besides opening up unexpected worlds to the reader, it offers a way for generations to communicate. The oldest of the main characters in this collection of linked short stories (labeled as a novel) is in her 30s, elderly in this context. Another is 16, and the rest are in their 20s. About half of them are Japanese; the others are Americans who have... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) postponed or avoided their lives by deciding to teach English in the little town of Ami, about an hour outside of Tokyo. The Americans have many reasons for leaving home: 9/11, the Iraq war or more personal motivation. They want to explore their own sexuality; they wish to take off their American masks and find out what — if anything — lies beneath. These are mainly the concerns of youth. "The Love We Share Without Knowing" would make an excellent gift from a beleaguered youth to his or her parents, an indirect way of saying, "This is what I'm going through! Try to understand!" Or, conversely, a great gift from a parent to a disaffected 20-something who seems to have lost his or her way in life: "Yes. I know what you're going through. That's at least one thing you don't have to worry about." The 16-year-old here is a brokenhearted boy transported to Japan because his father has a job with a company whose name rhymes with "phony." The boy runs in the countryside near his house in a futile attempt to shake off his despair. One day he discovers a tiny shrine and a beautiful fox who (we know) is actually a fox spirit. When he goes to Tokyo without telling anyone, it's the fox spirit — this time in the shape of a beautiful girl — who gets him on the right train home. We find out that she used to be a human named Midori, who lived on a nearby cabbage farm and committed suicide. (There's no point in dismissing this as "magic realism." The fox spirit, the dusty cabbages all are treated realistically in Barzak's book.) The other characters line up on a spectrum between the spirit and the teenager. One Japanese young woman, who used to be Midori's best friend in high school, has hit that youthful wall so few of us in either country talk about. She's gone to school, gotten a stupid job, married a cheating boor. She could go on with this charade, or she could kill herself. She collects a few acquaintances who form a suicide club; they attempt to asphyxiate themselves in a rented van. Four young Americans teach English as a second language at a school for upwardly mobile Japanese kids: Hannah, over 30, mourning a mysterious lost love; Ted, who has apparently come to Japan to womanize; Jules, a young girl just wasting time; and Laurie, who has fallen for a Japanese girl who's left him flat. And — if I read correctly, and he's not one of the original four — there's a nameless American guy who has unexpectedly fallen for a Japanese gay man. The American is passionately in love, but his partner's neediness eventually revolts him. He thinks more and more that he needs to go home. They are all so foreign here! Stuck in a world they can't begin to understand. They never get the joke or comprehend the nuance. They haven't the foggiest idea why acquaintances or even strangers should decide to commit suicide in groups. They're new to "love hotels" rented by the hour, where lovers inscribe their sentiments in scrapbooks for the lovers who come after. They hang out at the local 7-Eleven, spend hours at karaoke bars, drink more than is good for them and ponder the meaning of their lives. They're stranded. They want to go home; they don't want to go home. They don't know where their real home is. The strongest narratives in these entwined tales concern a wannabe Japanese musician who's mean once too often to a woman and is dealt an awful punishment, and the love story of the gay couple, who refer to themselves as "sleeping beauties." One of them will also receive an unexpected comeuppance. Love withheld is the greatest sin here, whether in the Japanese or American culture; love freely given would seem to be the ultimate redemption. The only badly drawn character here is an American mother (depicted as a crone at the great age of about 45), who makes a cameo appearance and mouths every philistine platitude imaginable. The author, obviously, wants to be understood, but, in the old phrase, he himself doesn't trust any American over 30. That's normal. Not one of us wants to grow up. We don't want a mortgage. We want a glimmering shrine and a fox spirit. And no matter how old we grow, it's almost impossible to forget that. Reviewed by Carolyn See, who can be reached at www.carolynsee.com, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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Synopsis:
From the author of the beautiful, honest and heartbreaking ("Washington Post") debut novel "One For Sorrow" comes a haunting tale about the intertwined lives of foreigners and locals in modern-day Japan.
After two years as an English teacher in Japan, Christopher Barzak returned to his home state of Ohio, where he teaches writing at Youngstown State University. His stories have appeared in the anthologies Trampoline, The Coyote Road, Salon Fantastique, Interfictions, and The Years Best Fantasy and Horror, as well as in the publications Lady Churchills Rosebud Wristlet, Realms of Fantasy, and Nerve, among others. He is also the author of One for Sorrow, his debut novel.
psyche7363, January 12, 2011 (view all comments by psyche7363)
I love the down to earth writing in this book; it makes it accessible to a wide range of readers. The connections between the stories are wonderful. Sometimes it’s really obvious, and others something seemingly inconsequential becomes the main focus. This is a book I want to loan to everyone I know.
Becky Laney, April 14, 2009 (view all comments by Becky Laney)
Have you seen Because of Winn Dixie? Do you remember the scenes where the librarian is sharing hard candy with Opal? And Opal is then sharing this candy with others? How every single person has a different way of describing how the candy tastes? That's what this novel was like. That's what this novel was trying to do, in my humble opinion, capture the 101 different flavors of life itself.
This isn't your traditional novel. If you know that going in, I think you will appreciate it more. Think of it more as a collection of loosely woven short stories. Some stories are more 'connected' than others. The stories share a common thread or two--mainly that of theme. To sum it up in one word: Humanity. What it means to be human, to experience the ups and downs, highs and lows of being human. Love. Loss. Pain. Anger. Bitterness. Frustration. Disappointment. Heartache. Homesickness. Loneliness. Some stories are darker than others. Some seem to be without hope or redemption. Others are more uplifting. What they all have in common, however, is the Barzak touch. He, quite simply, has a way with words. Even if you don't like where the story is going, he keeps you so in love with the words on the page, that you just have to keep reading.
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
From the author of the beautiful, honest and heartbreaking ("Washington Post") debut novel "One For Sorrow" comes a haunting tale about the intertwined lives of foreigners and locals in modern-day Japan.
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