lynne

Summer reading (2024)

Thought I'd revive this blog a little bit and put some more personal posts up. You'll have to forgive me for liking to yap. I've updated my About page and added a new page for a kind of masterlist of book recommendations -- take a look if you're so inclined.

My reading habit has returned with a vengeance in a way it hasn't in years and years this summer, so I thought I'd make some space to talk about it here. Consider this a lightning round of book reports before college starts back up for me next week. I'm hoping to continue doing this in in the future, hence the rather optimistic (2024) in the title.

All of these were originally in Japanese and (except for two) are wanting for translation, so the reviews may not be particularly valuable if you're looking for a new read, per se, but maybe they can offer a glimpse into an otherwise unknown literary landscape for you?

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such books in't.
The Tempest, Act I, Scene 5 (not really)

Anyway. Without any further ado: here's what I've read to completion this summer -- the good and the bad, in the order I finished them. I'll give an excerpt and a bespoke translation for each book to perhaps give you a feel for the style of each one.

Contents

My First Love's Kiss by Hitoma Iruma (top)
入間人間「私の初恋相手がキスしてた」全巻3冊（角川）
Finished July 23

This particular review contains some spoilers, unfortunately.

There is a sinister phenomenon in the yuri world that I like to call the "nightmare siscon switcheroo." It's more or less what it says on the tin. With a heavy heart, I have to admit that Hitoma Iruma executed it masterfully.

This light novel, split into three volumes, begins with an interesting enough premise; the protagonist, Takasora Hoshi, develops a crush on a girl, Umi Mizuike, who suddenly begins living with her one day, only to find she's dating a woman a couple years older than them. (The older woman piece did give me pause, but I held out hope that it would be more used for "interesting storycrafting" and not "weird creep shit," perhaps for longer than the story deserved.) The rest of the story depicts Takasora's gradually increasing misery as it becomes increasingly clear that Umi's attachment to this older woman is more or less unbreakable -- like a complex, even, one could say. It's a good thing they wouldn't jumpscare me in literally the last line of the second volume by revealing she was actually Umi's half sister, which she had known the whole time and kept from Umi.

Right?

Well, it's all downhill from there. The books are together about 700 pages of just absolutely ruining Takasora's life mercilessly. I admire Iruma's writing for his ability to depict girls who have some really important screws loose (cf. Adachi and Shimamura), but he really outdoes himself here. He turns this poor girl into the Joker and me along with her. That's not a plot I inherently have an issue with -- like half of the books on this list don't have happy endings -- but this is on like some weird NTR shit. I'll also call your attention to the nightmare siscon switcheroo again. This 17 year old girl is fucking her 21 year old half sister. I feel crazy.

Going back through the book to write this review and find a representative excerpt gave me a headache. Yen Press is apparently putting out an English release of this one. I don't think you should read it.

あの人と出会って感じていたものは……説明できない。悔しさや、苛立ち。そういうものは分かるけれど、他にもたくさんの感情が混ざっていて。その形を、私は知らない。
とりあえず。
私にとっての初恋は、苦しくて自分の肉を搔きむしりそうになることばかりだった。

What I'd felt after meeting her... I couldn't explain it. Bitterness, regret, anger. Those I could understand, but there were other feelings mixed among them, feelings whose shape I couldn't pin down.
In any case.
My first love had brought me nothing but an agony that felt like it would make me strip the very flesh from my own bones.

The Tower of Rain by Ayako Miyagi (top)
宮木あや子「雨の塔」（集英社）
Finished July 25

This novel is by far the best I read this summer, and perhaps one of the best I've ever read. It's also perhaps the book among all those I read this summer that most strives to be a standalone work of Literature writ large without leaning into any particular genre, to what I would argue is great success.

It's a heartwrenching story of four young women -- Yazaki, Ozu, Mishima, and Tsuoka -- living at a remote boarding school for heiresses essentially cut off from the outside world. Yazaki more or less fled to the school after a failed lovers' suicide attempt with a girl from her high school; Ozu used to be a child model, but grew estranged from her family after she stopped; Mishima, heiress to a particularly powerful family, and Tsuoka, who abandoned her dreams of pursuing music to follow Mishima to the school, are childhood friends with a deeply codependent relationship.

The personal circumstances of the four protagonists and the relationships that form among them become intricately woven together over the course of the story (I had to draw a chart to figure it out about halfway through), and the rich, complex characters are paired with Ayako Miyagi's deft style and vivid imagery. The setting is one specifically designed to feel distant from reality -- a boarding school for the über-wealthy cut off from the outside world -- yet the plot remains deeply grounded and distinctly human. The girls are desperately, tragically alive.

I can't recommend this book enough. There are a number of pieces (mostly short stories) Miyagi has put out since taking place in the periphery of the world of the story, each of which are worth checking out in their own right:

さくらの心にひずみが生じたとき、矢咲はその悲しみや怒りや絶望を受け止めてあげるだけの器を持っていなかったのに、受け止めようとした。熱を出してさくらの夢を見つづけながら、そのときの自分のあさはかさを鞭打つように責めた。
ねえ実、この先ずっと光のあたるところにいるには、どうすれば良いんだろう。
くちづけを交わしても、その身体を抱いても、矢咲はさくらの光にはなれなかったのに。一緒に死のうよ、と言われて、それでさくらが幸せになれるのならばと命を差し出してみたけれど、結果は考えうる最悪の事態になってしまった。

When cracks began to form in Sakura's heart, even though Yazaki had no hope of being able to bear the burden of her sorrow, her anger, her despair, she had tried to bear it anyway. Now she kept seeing Sakura in her feverish dreams, and the shame of her foolishness then felt like the crack of a whip.
How wonderful would it be? To be somewhere full of light, to stay there forever?
Even if she kissed her, even if she embraced her, Yazaki couldn't become Sakura's light. Still, when she said, "Let's die together" -- if it would make her happy, Yazaki had tried to tender Sakura her very life. But in the end, things arrived at the worst possible conclusion.

ベッドの上。床の上。机の上。窓の外は雨だけれど、足元に広がる青空は、大きかったり小さかったり、青かったり薄かったり、時々茜色だったりする。単純に、綺麗だからほしかった。綺麗な継ぎ接ぎの空は白い紙の上に隙間なく埋まり、一部の空白もない。綺麗だけど、悲しい。たぶんバスの中で言っていた「気象関係の雑誌」の記事も、この一部なのだろうと三島は思う。
降り止まない雨と、埋まらない三島の心と、作り物の空と、執拗なまでに隙間を埋めて空を作り上げてきた小津の気持ちを思うと、三島の喉の奥から嗚咽が漏れた。
作り物の空は、日の光を降らせてくれないんだよ、小津。

On the bed; on the floor; on the desk. Rain was falling outside the window, but the blue skies at Mishima's feet were sometimes large and sometimes small, sometimes azure and sometimes pale, sometimes a dusky red. She'd wanted them simply because they were pretty. The patchwork collage of beautiful skies buried the white wallpaper, leaving not even the smallest gap. They were beautiful, but they were sorrowful, too. Mishima wondered if the article from the meteorological journal Ozu had talked about that day on the bus was a part of the collage, too.
Mishima thought about the endless rain, about her own aching heart, about the imitation skies and how Ozu must have felt assembling them, obsessively filling every empty space in the wall, and a sob wrenched itself from her throat.
Don't you understand? The sun won't shine down on you from an artificial sky, Ozu.

Empire Women by Ayako Miyagi (top)
宮木あや子「帝国の女」（光文社）
Finished July 30

I read this right on the heels of The Tower of Rain (among a bunch of Ayako Miyagi's short stories, which I didn't include in this post because if I also included short stories this would get twice as long). It's a short novel about women working in the entertainment industry, centered around the fictional broadcasting company Empire Television. It's a lighthearted (in sharp contrast to Tower) and endearing story about working women trying to make ends meet while also exploring the unique aspects of both the creative and administrative areas of TV. It's a story where you can't help but root for basically every character, and I enjoyed it a lot.

その思いの終点はどこなの、何があれば満足するの。
芸能人のファンをやったことのない人からよく訊かれる質問、私にとってはその答えが与えられた瞬間だった。終点なんてなかった。あのとき私は闇の中をひた走る永遠に停まることのない電車が、あるひとつの駅に臨時停車したのを見た。それはとても綺麗な、光に満ちた広々とした駅だった。車掌は「辛かったらここで降りても良いんだよ」と私にアナウンスした。けれど私は降りなかった。どこへ連れてゆかれるのか判らなくても、たとえその果てが地獄だったとしても、やがて電車が砕け散り、幾多の星となった最後のひとかけらが光を失うまでは、意地でもこの座席にしがみつきつづけようと思った。

What's the last stop for this love of yours? When will you be satisfied?
This was a question I got a lot from people who hadn't ever been a proper fan of a celebrity before, and only in that very instant did I find my answer to it. There was no last stop. The train running through the darkness of my mind, driving full speed ahead with no sign of stopping, had made a temporary stop at a station once before. It was a beautiful station, spacious and full of light. The conductor said to me, If it's too painful, it's alright to get off here, over the train's PA system. But I didn't get off. Even if I didn't know where the train was headed, even if it was to the very pits of hell, even if the carriage was to be smashed into a million tiny stars, I was stubbornly determined to keep clinging to my seat until the very last of those fragments of light finally twinkled into oblivion.

The Mimosa Confessions by Mei Hachimoku (top)
八目迷「ミモザの告白」全巻5冊（小学館）
Finished August 17

This is a light novel serialized in five volumes about a teenage boy living in rural Japan, Sakuma Kamiki, and his childhood best friend, Ushio Tsukinoki. In June of their second year of high school, Ushio comes out as transgender; the story traces how Sakuma and Ushio, along with the rest of their small-town community, navigate Ushio's transition alongside their own personal issues.

The breadth of Japanese fiction dealing with transgender characters is incredibly slim -- I'd be hard-pressed to think of another one off the top of my head, much less one that depicts it in such explicit terms. The author, Mei Hachimoku, expresses hesitation in the afterword of the first volume on using specific categorical labels for Ushio in the interest of making the narrative as accessible as possible; by the end of the fifth and final volume, however, the characters more explicitly use the terms "coming out" and "transgender" (borrowed directly from English) -- chalk that up to a change in heart or social climate, perhaps, but I think it speaks to the fact that Hachimoku was handling the subject with no small amount of prudence and a willingness to rethink his stance as the characters developed over the three years of serialization, which I appreciated.

It's a shame that there's not a huge amount of mass-market fiction that tackles topics of gender like this in Japanese, since it, as a language, presents some fairly unique challenges and quirks that are refreshing to explore, in a way, as an Anglophone trans person such as myself.

The books walk the line of presenting a more comedic Youth Story writ large while also treating the more serious parts of trying to transition in a somewhat conservative environment with care, and they've become dear to me having finished them. There's an English translation in the works being done by Seven Seas, and the first volume's already out -- By all means check it out!

I'd recommend these books.

汐は今もすうすうと小さな寝息を立てている。呼吸に合わせて肩が小さく上下していて、その顔は穏やかそのものだ。
──魔が差した、ってやつなのかな。
訥々と語る汐を思い出すと、木枯らしに吹かれたような悲愴感に襲われた。
汐が女の子として登校してくる日まで、俺は何かと汐に対して劣等感を抱いていた。内心、嫉妬もしていた。だがそれは羨望の裏返しに過ぎない。俺は、汐に憧れていたのだ。だから、さっきの──まるで謝罪会見のように汗を浮かべて弱々しく言葉を発する汐の姿は、見ていて辛かった。
別に、汐が女子としてやっていくのはいい。けど、汐には高潔なままでいてほしかった。俺なんかに心を乱されてほしくなかった。

Even now, Ushio was letting out long, slow, whistling breaths in her sleep. Her shoulders rose and fell in the rhythm of her breathing, and her face was the picture of serenity.
"It was like... I'd been possessed."
When I remembered Ushio, faltering and stuttering through her words, pity swept through me like a cold winter wind.
Until the day Ushio had first come to school as a girl, I'd held a kind of inferiority complex towards her. In my heart, I was jealous of her. But that envy was nothing more than a reflection of the fact that I'd always deeply admired her. So seeing Ushio like that -- sweating and frail as she struggled to speak, like she was holding an apology press conference -- hurt like nothing else.
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Ushio continuing to live as a girl. But I had wanted her to stay lofty, out of reach -- I didn't want her heart in tatters because of some nobody like me.

One Day, You Will Reach the Sea by Maru Ayase (top)
彩瀬まる「やがて海へと届く」（講談社）
Finished August 18

This is a novel about a woman named Mana struggling to accept the loss of her best friend, Sumire, three years after she went missing following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. It's relatively short, but in its few pages beautifully, achingly depicts Mana's shifting bonds with the people around her, centered around her grief for the relationship she once shared with Sumire. The point of view alternates each chapter between Mana going through her daily life and vivid, surreal dream sequences that illuminate Sumire's circumstances prior to her disappearance.

I enjoyed this book a lot -- there's a level at which I can't fully connect with the work considering how it's built squarely on top of the cultural connotations associated with the 3/11 earthquake, a tragedy with which my personal connection is dim, but it can still very much be appreciated even from an outsider's empathetic perspective.

I'd recommend this book.

痛みは、ぬくもりに似ている。痛い痛い痛い、こんなに痛いんだから、きっと意味があるはずだ。こんなに苦しいのなら、どこか特別な場所へつながっているはずだ。繰り返し思ううちに、痛みは死者の体温へと変わっていく。痛ければ痛いほど良い。苦しければ苦しいほど、死者を近くに感じられる。忘れないでいられる。
静かな目をした男の子は、それが幻だと知っていたのだ。だからここから去っていった。

The pain was a sensation similar to warmth. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts -- for it to hurt this much, there must be some meaning to it. If it's this painful, it must be connected to some special somewhere. As I thought about it, over and over, the pain gradually began to shift into the body heat of the dead. The more painful, the better. The harder things became, the closer I could feel to her. I didn't have to forget.
That boy with the sad eyes had known that was nothing more than an illusion. That's why he left from here.

To Drown in Summer by Yoru Aoba (top)
青葉寄「夏に溺れる」（小学館）
Finished August 20

This is a light novel about 18-year-old Rin Yonagi and the last week of her summer as she spends it with her former classmate, Hikaru Natsuno. Rin is a loner who stopped going to school after being harassed by her ex-best friends, and she forms a strange quasi-friendship with Hikaru when she has a chance meeting with him that June on the day she goes to submit the papers to drop out of high school. The two decide to run away together the last week of August after Hikaru confesses to Rin that he has murdered his mother. They then embark on a week-long journey, deciding to add (in Hikaru's words) a little spice in the form of a game -- a game where they kill one more person every day.

I picked this one up actually the day it came out after Aoba won the grand prize in Shougakukan's contest for debut light novel authors. Some parts of the plot annoyed me a little (mostly due to my fairly low tolerance for Sad, Troubled Men, one of whom features prominently in the form of Hikaru), but I found myself nevertheless captivated by Aoba's style and Rin's character, and it ultimately made for a fascinating read with a distinct psychological allure. It draws heavily from the atmosphere of so-called youth novels and cult classic movies that adds a kind of cinematic flair to the narration, which complements Rin's detached personality excellently.

I'd recommend this book.

人生をかけてまで殺す相手ではないと思われるだろうが、私の場合、かける人生がそもそも重くない。たとえ死刑になったとしても、両親への申し訳なさは多少あるが、まあそれでもいいかと思えるような軽い人生だ。夏の暑さでおかしくなった理性に任せて、たまたま思い浮かんだ昔ちょっと嫌いだった人の胸にナイフを突き刺すくらい、どうってことない。 私にそう教えたのは、紛うことなく光であった。

It was hard to think of him as a person worth risking my life to kill, but in my case, I didn't have much of a life worth keeping in the first place. If it got me the death penalty, I might feel a little bad for my parents, but even that wasn't enough to make me take pause -- that's how trivial my life was. It wasn't a big deal at all, really, to give in to my senses, warped by the summer heat, and plunge a knife into the chest of a man I might've hated once; a man who had just happened to come to mind. Without a doubt, Hikaru had taught me that much.

#personal