Synopses & Reviews
A tale of twisted love, from the author of
The Diving Pool and
The Housekeeper and the Professor In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for. The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast. A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator. As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged.
Hotel Iris is a stirring novel about the sometimes violent ways in which we express intimacy and about the untranslatable essence of love.
Yoko Ogawa's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Since 1988 she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, and she has won Japanese's most literary awards. In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for. The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast. A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator. As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged. Hotel Iris is a stirring novel about the sometimes violent ways in which we express intimacy and about the untranslatable essence of love. Hotel Iris is a striking achievement. Ogawas evocative, minimalist prose carries the story along at a luxurious pace and adds a quiet beauty to unsettling scenes. Dark and seductive, this book will stay with you long after the first page.”Bust magazine
Hotel Iris is a striking achievement. Ogawas evocative, minimalist prose carries the story along at a luxurious pace and adds a quiet beauty to unsettling scenes. Dark and seductive, this book will stay with you long after the first page.”Bust magazine
"A young Japanese hostess becomes the object of a dangerous man's obsession. Minimalist Ogawa trades the eccentric relationships of her debut novel for a much darker affair in her latest plumbing of human experience. In an overgrown inn in a sedate seaside town, 17-year-old Mari tries to keep the peace between the customers and her abrasive mother. She's startled one night when her family has to eject a customer for abusing a local prostitute. But the town is too small not to notice the man, and soon Mari strikes up a conversation with the guy, a translator of Russian novels. Their written correspondence is charged and soon so is their sadomasochistic relationship, captured in Ogawa's arid prose . . . Ogawa diverges from her primary story near the end with an equally odd interlude between Mari and the translator's mute nephew, but a sorrowful and artful ending wraps up the girl's story, thoughnot neatly. A spare, disquieting fable."Kirkus Reviews
"Ogawa explores the power of words to allure and destroy in this haiku-like fable of love contorted into obsession. One rainy evening, Mari, a downtrodden 17-year-old who helps her demanding mother run a seedy seaside hotel, overhears a middle-aged male guest ordering an offended prostitute to be silent. In the days that follow, every wordboth spoken and conveyed in surreptitious lettersfrom this man, a hack translator who may have killed his wife, gradually and inexorably leads Mari to submit to his every sadistic desire. Ogawas relentlessly spare prose captures both Maris yearning for her lost father and the translators bipolar oscillation between insecure tenderness and meticulously modulated rage. As this savage novel drives to its inevitable conclusion, Maris world collapses around her in both a terrifying bang and a pitiful whimper."Publishers Weekly
Review
"Ogawa is original, elegant, very disturbing."—Hilary Mantel, author of WOLF HALL Praise for The Housekeeper and the Professor: "I've been telling everyone about this book. . . . It's a story about love, which is quite different from a love story. It's one of the most beautiful novels."—Junot Diaz "Gorgeous, cinematic. . . This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe, and the whimsy of Murakami."—Los Angeles Times "Strangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout."—The Washington Post Book World Praise for The Diving Pool: "Still waters run dark in these bright yet eerie novellas, whose crisp, almost guileless prose hides unexpected menace."—The New York Times Book Review "Exquisitly disturbing . . . Ogawa steadily builds the tension to an unexpected crescendo."—Elle "Ogawa writes in a lean, muscular way that goes deep, exploring how malevolence coexists with everyday impulse. . . . She creates a memorable unease."—Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
A tale of twisted love from Yoko Ogawa--author of The Diving Pool and The Housekeeper and the Professor.
In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for.
The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast. A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator. As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged.
Hotel Iris is a stirring novel about the sometimes violent ways in which we express intimacy and about the untranslatable essence of love.
Synopsis
A tale of twisted love from Yoko Ogawa—author of The Diving Pool and The Housekeeper and the Professor. In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for. The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast. A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator. As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged. Hotel Iris is a stirring novel about the sometimes violent ways in which we express intimacy and about the untranslatable essence of love.
Synopsis
In this trade paperback original, Yoko Ogawa, beloved author of The Housekeeper and the Professor, returns with the twisted tale of a young girls affair with a mysterious translator on an island off the coast of Japan.
Synopsis
A tale of twisted love from Yoko Ogawa—author of The Diving Pool and The Housekeeper and the Professor. In a crumbling seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother tends to the off-season customers. When one night they are forced to expel a middle-aged man and a prostitute from their room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a single long seduction. In spite of her provincial surroundings, and her cool but controlling mother, Mari is a sophisticated observer of human desire, and she sees in this man something she has long been looking for. The man is a proud if threadbare translator living on an island off the coast. A widower, there are whispers around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him on his island, and he soon initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, a place in which she finds herself more at ease even than the translator. As Mari's mother begins to close in on the affair, Mari's sense of what is suitable and what is desirable are recklessly engaged. Hotel Iris is a stirring novel about the sometimes violent ways in which we express intimacy and about the untranslatable essence of love.
About the Author
Yoko Ogawa's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Since 1988 she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award.
Reading Group Guide
1. Mari first encounters the translator when he is expelled from the hotel. What exactly fires her attraction, why do you think she is initially drawn to him, even before seeing what he looks like?
2. Why does Maris mother so carefully groom her? Is she like a fixture in the hotel that must be polished? Or is the hotel is her domain, and Mari her subject? Why does she assert such strict control over her daughter?
3. Discuss the translators impassioned letters to Mari. Does he assume a different role in the letters than when they are physically together? Do you agree that letters bear more emotional weight than email? Are they inherently more romantic?
4. The idea of translation - of words and ideas borne into another language -- is woven throughout the novel. What does Hotel Iris have to say about how love is expressed? Is intimacy like a language artfully translated by another person? A secret language between two people?
5. Why is the translator unnamed? Does it lend a shade of mystery to his character, does it signal that he is in some way symbolic? Why is Mari the only character with a name?
6. The translator is working on a book in which the heroine has an affair and is brutally punished for it. Is this a personal fantasy of his? Does Mari act it out for him intentionally? Do you believe that books offer a way for people to engage safely with their more adventurous desires?
7. Can the characters in Hotel Iris be divided into dominant and submissive personalities? Where does Maris mother fall? The housekeeper? The translators nephew?
8. It is commonly assumed that an affair between a young woman and a much older man is driven partly by the womans desire for a paternal relationship. Do you think that such is the case in Hotel Iris? If so, how does Ogawa subvert this stereotype?
9. How would Maris relationship with the translators nephew be different if he could speak? Is he merely a pawn in their relationship? Discuss the ways in which his character is important to the story.
10. Is the relationship between Mari and the translators only physical, or do they relate to one another on intellectual and emotional levels as well? They have both suffered tragic, violent loss of a loved one - do you think the parallel currents of their pain converge? How do their personal histories make the relationship possible? Do they truly relate to one another?
11. How much power does Mari have over her circumstances? Although she is submissive to the translator, she does find the will to defy her mother. Does she have some control over the translator as well? Consider how the translator responds when she does not show up to meet him at the flower clock.
12. In Hotel Iris, pain and shame are gateways to pleasure. Do you believe that pain can be perceived simply as a powerful sensation in the service of intimacy? The sexual tastes of the characters may be unusual, but what does Ogawa do in order to help the reader understand their origins?
13. Is Hotel Iris ultimately a love story?