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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Off the Deep End, March 18, 2008
This review is from: The Diving Pool: Three Novellas (Paperback)
When in doubt, start at the beginning. It only makes sense then that the first book-length translation of fiction by Ogawa Yoko should include three short stories (or "novellas" [sic]) from the years 1990 and 1991, around the time her writing career was just kicking in. And while showing traces of a new writer just getting her bearings in the Japanese literary world, all three stories really stick with you. "The Diving Pool" and "Pregnancy Diary" are quietly chilling and enormously disquieting in their unsentimental and frank exploration of the streak of wanton cruelty and stifled but simmering resentment lurking in the psyches of ordinary, everyday people--a minister's teenage daughter with a girlhood crush and a part-time worker living with her pregnant sister and brother-in-law. Like a good writer, Ogawa shows rather than tells. She is incredibly adroit at using sensual data to get her point across and move the tale along, and the sicky-sweet and sometimes stomach-churning array of tastes, smells, and textures she weaves into her narrative communicates volumes to the attentive reader and lures them inexorably into a virtual synesthetic experience not so welcome in the final analysis.
After traipsing through the heart of darkness in humdrum urban Tokyo with these first two stories, you're then easily faked out by "Dormitory," which seems to be falling in the same direction but then throws you for a loop. An offbeat little sketch of a tale, not a single element is jarringly implausible in a discernibly empirical sense and yet the total effect is nonetheless unmistakably surreal. In this as well as a few recognizably typical tropes (inexplicable disappearance, for instance), it could almost be read as a homage to or parody of Murakami Haruki. And yet one can't shake the sense that Ogawa is pursuing similar themes of alienation and resentment in a slightly different register here in a way all her own.
As fiction goes, these are not great masterpieces, it must be said. There is something just a bit naggingly unsatisfying and unconvincing about each story, and the exaggerated cruelty Ogawa depicts seems just a tad over the top, as if she's maybe relying on shock value to make some waves. That said, these works show the enormous promise of an up-and coming author who has since established herself securely, and as such they should make quite a splash this side of the Pacific as well.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unfettered, graceful, seductive, soft, and simple, March 20, 2008
This review is from: The Diving Pool: Three Novellas (Paperback)
I have been dying for some more Ogawa ever since I read two of her short stories in The New Yorker over two years ago and instantly fell for her prose. A novel that was supposed to come out last year never arrived, and it's been one long tease.
Ogawa writes with unfettered, graceful prose that is seductive in its softness and simplicity, lending even more shock value to her dark subjects. In the title story, a young girl who grew up in the orphanage run by her parents has grown obsessed with the only boy to ever live there long enough to reach high-school age, and her unfulfilled passions start to emerge in acts of cruelty directed at the home's newest and youngest member. It's disturbing without being exploitative and grotesque.
Amidst the calm writing are often wonderful images, such as a snow storm inside the house or lines like "He reappears out of the foam, the rippling surface of the water gathering up like a veil around his shoulders...." Ahhhhh.
The second story, "The Pregnancy Diaries," tackles a somewhat commonplace subject in a unique way. A woman keeps a journal chronicling her sister's pregnancy, writing about it in terms evocative of science fiction and horror. Yet, Ogawa does so without straining the metaphor or using obvious language.
The final story, "Dormitory," details a woman's return to the spartan housing that was her college apartment, and the strange triple-amputee landlord that lives there. It's a mystery tale, a gothic horror story, and yet also a personal soliloquy. The final image shows her reaching directly in the complex patterns that connect all life.
Wonderful stuff. Deep, yet reads like a breeze. Loved it.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deadly Grapefruit and Moldy Apple Pie, June 4, 2008
This review is from: The Diving Pool: Three Novellas (Paperback)
Although virtually unknown in America, a few of her novels have been translated in Europe, Yoko Ogawa has been an important figure in the Japanese world of literature since she made her literary debut in 1988 and has won virtually all Japanese literary prizes including the Akutagawa Prize, for best literary fiction in 1990 at the age of 28, and the Tanizaki Prize in 2006 at the age of 44. Although some of her short works of fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope, The Diving Pool: Three Novellas marks the first time that a collected volume of Ogawa's works have been published in English.
The collection includes the title work, "Pregnancy Diary"--the work she won the Akutagawa Prize for--, and "Dormitory" all which were written in 1990 or 1991 marking them as some of Ogawa's earlier works that she wrote before the age of 30 during her budding years as a writer. Although young, Ogawa's writing is heavily tinged with melancholia and nostalgia and the mood of each piece is as cool and as sterile as her imagery of chlorinated pools and winter landscapes that punctuate her stories.
"The Diving Pool" concerns the life of Aya, a high school girl whose father is a preacher who runs a church and an orphanage called the Light House. Distant and feeling like an orphan who will never be adopted, Aya's sole interest is in watching her secret love, and orphan at her family's orphanage, Jun perform on the high dive. Unable to express her feelings to Jun, Aya lets her emotions turn into cruelty which she unleashes on a young girl less than two years old. "Pregnancy Diary" revolves around the triangular relationship amongst two sisters and the older sister's husband. It seems the older sister is pregnant, but the news does not seem to bring joy to the small household. The younger sister, a student, keeps a meticulous diary about her sister's eating habits which go from near nothing to huge amounts of near everything, especially her sister's homemade grapefruit jam. When the younger sister learns that some chemicals on American grapefruits can harm consumers, she makes sure she continues to buy American grapefruit. The final story in the collection is about a married woman who spends her days wrapped in the cocoon of her home making simple meals and making a patch quilt while waiting to hear from her husband to come join him in the cold, damp country of Sweden where his work had transferred. She would have probably remained in this cocoon if it had not been for a much younger cousin asking her questions about her old dormitory, a place ran by a manager missing one leg and both his arms and a place that is rotting from within because of its own desolation.
As I was reading The Diving Pool: Three Novellas, I felt myself entering a diaphanous, dreamlike state where everything was tinged with blue and gave off a cool dampness. However, it was not a good feeling. Each one of the female protagonists in the book seem to be trapped in positions that they do not desire and their powerlessness to change their positions radiate in cruelties to those more powerless than themselves such as when Aya in "The Diving Pool" traps a little girl in an urn and fantasizes about how she can further frighten the girl. The women seem to be trapped in a malaise where small respites of cruelty and interaction with even the most forlorn individuals pull them from their solitary natures to interact with the world thereby making the collection a sad, disturbing book.
With the release of The Diving Pool: Three Novellas and with another one of Ogawa's novels being released in the coming months, English readers will be able to read and enjoy one of Japan's most important female writers in the last thirty years. One who does rely on excessive sex or violence that has drawn attention to other Japanese female writers such as Hitomi Kanehara and Ami Sakurai.
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