People from my Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami

 

Translated from the Japanese by Ted Goossen

⭐⭐⭐ 3.5 stars

This was part of my reading around the world challenge because Kawakami is Japanese.

I think I probably should have started with one of Kawakami's longer novels because this book was so strange and disjointed. However, I did enjoy this for being a lovely and whimsical quick read on the train when I was travelling to Brighton this week. It was one of those books where you can pick it up and have forgotten where you left off because the story will start anew anyway but also gives a calm and quiet feeling to it.

The book is a collection of microfiction about the people and happenings from a fantastical neighbourhood. Each chapter is about a different character or event that happens in the town, some of which are eccentric and others are plain impossible. For example, there is a small child who lives under a sheet near his neighbour's house for thirty years and an old man who has two shadows, one docile, the other rebellious.

“According to him, the best remedy for loneliness was a medicine made from a combination of antibiotics eye and boiled broccoli. A prescription was required for the antibiotics, but Dr Miranda said he could give me one whenever I needed it.”

Microfiction definition

"Traditionally short stories are over 1,000 words long and are found in many magazines and newspapers. Microfiction tends to tell a story in much less than this word count, sometimes even containing no more than 50 words - which is quite a feat in which to tell a whole story.

Originally this genre was called flash fiction but as word counts became shorter and guidelines grew tighter, the term microfiction was created and has found its place quite comfortably in the modern circles of literature." Credit.

“He tried to convince them that, since he was already in his late forties, their marriage might be more of a tea-drinking relationship.”

This book has a similar feeling to other Japanese translated works which I have read recently, like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. There seems to always be a strangeness and oddity in the characters and what happens with some magical or fantastical elements added in and these strange things are written as if they are normal. It gives for a group of books with a really similar atmosphere with fantasy in a homely and quiet sense.

I have The Nakano Thrift Shop by Kawakami and after getting a taste for her writing in this book, I am intrigued as to how this will translate to a novel which is my preferred form of literature. I would recommend this book as a quick and quiet read but maybe wouldn't suggest as your first look in at Japanese translated fiction.