Her command of vivid detail comes through in close studies of perception and psychology, and in the conjuring up of outsized brutalities. Then you collect those, so you can bank money again. Where does Motoya find lines like When I woke up and looked in the mirror, I saw that my face had finally begun to forget who I was? . Other nuances arrive in Paprika Jiro, a story that conveys a fondness for mercantile traditions. When something akin to freedom is gained, its often vague or ostensible, but the impediments to that freedom are surveyed in great detail. Uwano recommended this game, my husband said at last. Hakone hummed and said nothing. Is a Woman Ever Going to Win the White House? [20] Writing for The New York Times, Weike Wang praised Motoya's stories, noting that Motoya "wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes". . [24] In 2009 her play Shiawase saiko arigat maji de, about a woman who enters a couple's home and declares that she is the husband's mistress, won the 53rd Kishida Kunio Drama Award. An insidious exchange of traits and gender stereotypes unfolds and the boundaries between the two characters become porous. My husband looked up from the iPad for the first time in awhile, and what I saw nearly made me shriek and run from theroom. But Motoya's unique vision is still worth experiencing, and Yoneda's translation provides a clear and beautiful . I shivered, then looked up and saw there was an AC ventembedded in the ceiling right above my head. By now, I was like the ghost of a snakethat had already been eaten up by many other snakes, and Id lostmy own body long before getting swallowed up by my husband. Characters change; literally, their facial features move, morph, disappear. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [10] Motoya's 2009 novel Ano ko no kangaeru koto wa hen (That Girl's Got Some Strange Ideas) was nominated for the 141st Akutagawa Prize. Many of the characters seek lives yet unlived, or lives once lived but later forgotten. Read 734 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. She admits that she has lost confidence in herself, living with a perfectionist husband (who doesn't pay that much attention to her, long oblivious even to the dramatic physical change she undergoes). On Places Ive Taken My Body by Molly McCully Brown, Art Edwards What if thereends up being more of the bad? New Worlds Forever Measured by the Old: On Burning Province by Michael Prior, Katherine M. Hedeen The mass movement of a migrating flock of . Motoyas prose is earnest and casual, as if the writer is trying to convince a friend of a persistent but invisible pest. I was secretly impressed by Hakones story. There is something pareidolic about the writing process. I think?. and then the short story "The Exotic Marriage" is a whopping eighty five pages long. It also indicates the range of Motoyas storytelling style by unveiling additional powers of suggestion and atmospheric description. When I did finally manage to look up from this wonderful constellation of stories, I felt myself looking for the unexpected in all sorts of mundane places. She finds a trainer, and a good deal at a nearby fitness club (a rather unlikely "100 Free Sessions Until You See the Results You Want ! Number of pages: 224. The same goes for San, whose face melts into new patterns. Idplanned to just wait for her, but I saw a banner for the SpecialSelection Four-Eel Taste Test Bento and was tempted into gettingone. On Midwest Gothic by Laura Donnelly. personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to Then I felt skinslacken, and bodies start to yield, and then I could no longer tellwhose sensations I was feeling. Her husbands jealousy is another form of misperception. The narrator, reasoning that she must be lonely, what with her entire family having been killed by an evil gang, asks her out, only to find that his new girlfriend is psychotic and in love with her dad. [9] She was nominated a third time for her 2011 novel Nurui doku (Warm Poison), about a woman who has a relationship with a pathological liar claiming to be a former high school classmate. At other points, the couple are recast as ravenous snakes. I waited for something else to happen, but that was it. Her coach's admiration for bodybuilders suggests the reason she was drawn to it, even if she wasn't initially aware of it: 2019-2021 the complete review Between me and Senta, I mightend up swallowing him all in one big gulp.. Go, Zoromi, go do it for her. He movedthe cat off the space beside him where shed been asleep, and beckoned to me. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya / Soft Skull Press / 224 pages / 978-1593766788 / 2018. Snake ball! Perhaps the most resonant stories are those about marriage; Motoya (a playwright as well as an author) excels in putting husband and wife through unusual trials. On The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy, Asa Drake Bodybuilder is the best example, and in An Exotic Marriage, a familiar notion of couples starting to look alike turns eerie. At first, The Lonesome Bodybuilder appears most interested in chills and moods; I needed time for its feminism and its political threads to catch the light. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. Marie Mockett takes umbrage, in her excellent Lit Hub essay Our Fairy Tales, Ourselves, with critics and philosophers whose pursuit of universal laws of narrative structure blind them to the expansive possibilities of literature. . At the end of a story with an aesthetic solution, the narrative action is suspendedrather than resolvedand the author leaves the audience with a natural image that resists interpretation. [12][13] Motoya subsequently won the 7th Kenzaburo Oe Prize for her 2012 collection Arashi no pikunikku (Picnic in the Storm),[14] and the 27th Mishima Yukio Prize for her 2013 novel Jibun wo suki ni naru houhou. By emphasizing a characteristic nimbleness in Japanese storytelling, Mockett draws attention to these often-invisible constructs; she shows, using examples from a number of childrens stories, the ways in which the rigid archetypes that we learn to recognize as we grow upexpectations of character or plot; the solid demarcations of good or evilcan be blurred into something more delightfully nebulous than the western canon prepares us for. She is typical of Motoyas women: conferring an excess of personhood on whomever or whatever is at hand, yearning to connect to something that isnt there. I didnt say what I was thinking, but he must have sensed it. I thought perhaps the gamegot more interesting the longer you played, but whenever I lookedover my husbands shoulder, the screen always looked the same. When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. So you collect the money, and then what?, When youve collected enough, you can buy your own land., You buy your own land, and then? Other women in the book pursue men who are made of straw or advise each other to marry bicycle saddles. Husbands and Wives Magically Morph in a Japanese Story Collection, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/books/review/lonesome-bodybuilder-yukiko-motoya.html. The husband . On Popular Longing by Natalie Shapero, Benjamin Woodard His face was barely maintaining a form that could even berecognized as human. In another, a man sees his girlfriends lips begin to bleed a lipstick hue he has fantasized about her wearing. Trumps performative macho is scaring voters in both parties away from women candidates. "The Reason I Carry Biscuits to Offer to Young Boys", trans. In How to Burden the Girl, a thirty-four-year-old recluse spies on the younger woman who has moved in next door. Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. Asa Yoneda. Soft Skull Press. That night, my husband left the iPad outside the bedroom. We used to sing this song all the time. I guessed hemust be feeling needy. by Michael Heller and James Salzman, Zach Savich Poems That Linger: Peter Campions One Summer Evening at the Falls, Johannes Gransson These two stories stand out from the others, which, at times, are held back by traces of redundancy or ideas that are almost excessively legible. "That Morning, When It", trans. Nevertheless, she feels invisible because her husband never notices her. collects eleven stories -- though one, the Akutagawa Prize-winning novella, 'An Exotic Marriage', is considerably longer than the rest, taking up more than a third of the book by itself. March 2021 Micro-Reviews, Amy Hassinger April 2021 Micro-Reviews, Amanda Auerbach Snake ball, huh? I poked at a piece of grilled eel laid on the rice, and pictured a bright white ball covered in scales. Motoyas protagonists feel quietly radical in a literary moment that seems particularly interested in unpacking various forms of narcissism. . -, "Many of the stories, deftly translated by Asa Yoneda, are arresting with their strong female lead characters, starting with the mundane before venturing deep into the rabbit hole with surreal twists and turns. Was that the fault of the soil, or did the problem lie in the roots? In the opening story, a meek saleswoman whos taken up bodybuilding practices flexing, but drops the pose without having been able to look my mirror self in the eye. In another, a bored housewife notes that sometimes she looked in the mirror and was reminded of a blank postcard. Marriage, she concludes, has made her resemblance to paper even more notable than before. On Exclusions by Noah Falck, Jim Johnstone 209 pages. On Deluge by Leila Chatti, Anne Graue Motoya won the Noma Prize for New Writers for Warm Poison in 2011; the Kenzaburo Oe Prize for Picnic in the Storm in 2013 . cookies As if to prove it, I could hardly recall the men Id been with before. They confront their stifled independence: velleities give way to keen yearnings, desires twist toward violence. Longenbachs Forever, Noah Warren Each story begins unsuspectingly a clerk helps a woman in a changing room, a wife decides to go to the gym and, from these seemingly realistic setups, the magical and the surreal unfold. Small discs ofdifferent colors twinkled all across the map. These pastiches, parodies, and hauntings are all brilliantly translatedwith all their uncanny intactby Asa Yoneda. Id brought her to the store, promising to buy her something new to wear, or anything else she wanted, but Hakone had headed straight for the escalator down to the basement food hall and asked for a bento. Its also the collections penultimate entry. Copyright 2018 by Yukiko Motoya. I carefully took a piece of each and placedthem on top of Hakones rice. The Lake Hamana eel was firmer and more succulent than the one from the Mikawa region. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. The characters featured in them arent particularly good at intimacy, even if they live in close proximity to spouses, old friends, and co-workers. Look at the bottom of the screen. A draft blows through the talesloneliness, the most spectral emotion. One woman puts it to her husband directly: You can stop being husband shaped now! The option to explode a life or a story greatly appeals to her. These stories are pointed, possessed by a defiant and often violent spirit. The course of that career certainly indicates a restless curiosity. We have to accept that were responsible for the physical effects theyre experiencing! a man yells, as the narrators girlfriends lips produce their own lipstick; the narrator tearfully euthanizes her. Men and women enter into romances with shape-shifters. Most of the central characters are female, with many of the stories strongly influenced by the relationships -- both intimate and more casual and distant -- they are involved in. The titular bodybuilder lives what seems to be a structured, self-contained life (I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities); bodybuilding is an exciting new discovery that expands her world. Histeeth must have been in their right place, because they made achamping sound as he chewed. Asa Yoneda. How to Fix Transistor Radios and Printed Circuits, DR. D.T.R.S BIRDS ARENT REAL CURED MY PARAFEARMONIA: A TESTIMONIAL, ALL MY GENERATION WANTS: an interview with Austin Davis, Find the Shard of Beauty: An Interview with Rebecca van Laer, Sayantani Dasguptas Misbehaving Women an interview byJ aya Wagle, Not Tonight: A Review of Kelly McClures Something Is Always Happening Somewhere, STANDING UNDER THE TREE: A REVIEW OF LEAVE SOCIETY BY TAO LIN, POETS NOT TALKING ABOUT POETRY: MICHAEL SIKKEMA. Yukiko Motoya ( , Motoya Yukiko, born July 14, 1979) is a Japanese novelist, playwright, theatre director, and former voice actress. The Lonesome Bodybuilder One night, after dinner, I was surprised to notice my husband engrossedin his iPad rather than the variety show playing on the TV. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. Delightful . Banners positioned around the floor advertised the Beat the Heat Bento Expo. It featured eel sourced from the Shimanto River, Lake Hamana,the Mikawa region, and Miyazaki Prefecture, grilled bothwith sauce and without. In Front of Strangers I Sing: The Strange Intimacy of Paul Celan, Benjamin Hedin Translated by Asa Yoneda. There are two snakes, and they each start cannibalizing the other ones tail. I always do that, she admonishes herself. Even the missteps attest to Motoyas fictive mandate: to be unburdened by rules and restraints. Reverberations and Divinations in Kazim Alis The Voice of Sheila Chandra, Peter Campion Her quickly buried feelings recall Sans mutating features. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Maybe I dont really know, myself. [3][4] She founded her own theater company, called Gekidan Motoyo Yukiko (Motoya Yukiko Theater Company), in 2000, and began writing and staging her own plays. I thought. The Lonesome Bodybuilder is made up of 10 short stories, some barely three or four pages long, and a novella, "An Exotic Marriage". These stories, tinged with magical elements, see characters toeing the line between independence and isolation: A teardrop of blood or a shape-shifting rock can unmask deep-seated realities that theyre tempted to ignore in favor of unfulfilling marriages and quotidian chores. The 11 short stories in this collection, translated by Asa Yoneda, range in tone from ominous thrillers to lighthearted folktales, but they always seem to return to a depletion of self. By the first few sentences, you know you're hearing the voice of a remarkable writer; by the end of [the story] "An Exotic Marriage", you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you., Financial Times These uncanny stories surprise, unnerve and haunt, Spectator Incredibly enjoyable stories, Daily Mail . But she doesnt want the menshe wants the muscles. Our Final Words: A Review of Eternal Sentences by Michael McGriff, Katherine M. Hedeen Motoyas characters tend to be housewives and service workers, and her tales revolve around intimate or faux-intimate relationships. . Youknow, I think pears might be my favorite fruit, he announced. The Ductility of Person and Time in Saddiq Dzukogis Your Crib, My Qibla, Leslie Stonebraker What are you doing on there? I peered over his shoulder. And like so many arbitrary signifiers of taste, style, or quality, they are focused exclusively on a western tradition. Her stories are about relationships between men and womenseemingly familiar territory, but made strange by the intrusion of surreal elements. The course of that career certainly indicates a restless curiosity. I was still thinking about the ex-wife following the refrigerator conversation. Youve banked some money., Sure enough, there was a number at the lower-right-hand corner of the screen. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. Lying on the couch, they prompt the strange impression of a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. There is acid in Motoyas surrealism: these women will put up with anything! Or: Weeping, I swung at her head with a club Id taken off a man Id kicked to the ground? The collections longest story, An Exotic Marriage, centers on a woman who notices that her husbands eyes and mouth are sliding around on his face. . I was folding laundry on the living room floor. Youd just gotten braces, and you said the metal hurt and you couldnt eat anything. I wasnt sure that I wanted to. She has won numerous Japanese literary and dramatic awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Noma Literary New Face Prize, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, the Kishida Kunio Drama Award, and the Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award. Mud Stuck to our Shoes: On The Insistence of Harm by Fernando Valverde, Edward Derby [4] That same year she visited the United States as part of a Japan Foundation-sponsored exchange program for playwrights. Blurring the Obvious: Bluebeards First Wife by Ha Seong-Nan, Christopher R. Vaughan One of Mocketts main foci is an introduction to Hayao Kawais suggestion of an aesthetic solution common in Japanese literature. 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