Goodbye Tsugumi [Library Binding]

Banana Yoshimoto (Author), Michael Emmerich (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled and occasionally cruel. Now Maria's father is finally able to bring Maria and her mother to Tokyo, ushering Maria into a world of university, impending adulthood, and a 'normal' family. When Tsugumi invites Maria to spend a last summer by the sea, a restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth as Tsugumi finds love, and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront both Tsugumi's inner strength and the real possibility of losing her.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Yoshimoto favors short novels that gradually reveal thin, almost translucent layers of her characters' personalities. Her latest, following in the style of earlier books such as Kitchen and Asleep, is a careful examination of the relationship between two teenage cousins in a seaside Japanese town. Maria Shirakawa is a thoughtful young woman thrown by family circumstance (her parents never married; with her mother, she is waiting for her father's divorce from his current wife) into growing up with her cousin, Tsugumi Yamamoto, in her aunt and uncle's small inn. Tsugumi, who is chronically ill, possesses a mischievous charm that both maddens and amuses her family. As Maria describes Tsugumi: "She was malicious, she was rude, she had a foul mouth, she was selfish, she was horribly spoiled, and to top it all off she was brilliantly sneaky." Tsugumi's tenuous health seems to free her from the behavioral norms that govern Maria and Tsugumi's long-suffering older sister, Yoko, allowing her to curse, flirt with boys, concoct elaborate pranks and shock adults in a way Maria resents, envies and admires. Eventually, Maria's parents are united and she leaves to attend university in Tokyo, returning for a final summer during which the inn is being demolished, and this provides Yoshimoto with all the plot she needs to explore the difficult but affectionate bond between the cousins. Emmerich's translation overcomes the occasional awkward moment to render the frank yet understated language that animates this modest story.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Novelist Yoshimoto (Kitchen, etc.) is a sensation of sorts in Japan and wherever her fiction has been available and for good reason. Her portrayal of life in Japan from a young and contemporary perspective is refreshing and hopeful, albeit in strange ways. Her latest, however, seems nothing more than an indulgence. Maria is the daughter of an unmarried woman who works at a seaside resort hotel run by relatives. She is close to her two female cousins, one of whom, Tsugumi, has suffered her entire life from an unnamed illness. Tsugumi is mean-spirited, antisocial, and cruel, and Maria is often the only person who can get through to her. When Maria's mother finally marries her father, he takes them away to Tokyo, where Maria begins college and a tenuous new social life. She returns to the seaside resort for one last summer before it is to be sold and discovers that the lives of everyone there, especially Tsugumi, have changed. These changes are, however, neither remarkable nor plausible. The dialog is stilted and often cartoonish, and the plot is missing almost entirely. Recommended only for libraries that own Yoshimoto's other works and would like to have everything she has written. Michelle Reale, Elkins Park Free Lib., PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Library Binding
• Publisher: San Val (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1417818433
• ISBN-13: 978-1417818433
• Shipping Information: View shipping rates and policies
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Prose, November 30, 2002

By 

Timothy Haugh (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Goodbye Tsugumi (Hardcover)

Reading Yoshimoto is a good counter to the Philip Roth I've been reading lately. Whereas Roth's prose is energetic and in-your-face, Yoshimoto's flows like a gentle stream. Even the little tirades of Tsugumi, Yoshimoto's bratty title character, has nothing of the unsettling energy of a character like Roth's Portnoy. Instead, Yoshimoto's stories have a beauty that is almost ethereal. Granted, I have yet to be moved as much as I was by Yoshimoto's first novel, Kitchen. Still, this novel came close.

It is the story of a young woman, Tsugumi, who has been dying since the day she was born from some unnamed illness. Except that she continues to live despite occasional lapses into sickness. But her seeming physical weakness and poor health has made all those around her cater to her relentlessly and she has grown into a spoiled and mean young woman. The story is told by Maria, a friend of Tsugumi's. Through Maria's eyes we see Tsugumi's petty cruelties but also her capacity for love and an incredible inner strength that keeps her alive, inspiring Maria to accept the challenges of her own life.

In some ways, Tsugumi is one of the most interesting characters Yoshimoto has created. And she avoids many of the cliches that often seem to inhabit books where a key character is facing death. Once again, Yoshimoto has created a slim volume of incredible beauty.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A delicate character study, September 16, 2002

By 

Debbie Lee Wesselmann (the Lehigh Valley, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Goodbye Tsugumi (Hardcover)

Yoshimoto's novels have often been called "charming," and GOODBYE TSUGUMI is no different. Maria, the illegitimate daughter of a Tokyo businessman, grew up in a Japanese seaside resort alongside her two cousins, Yoko and Tsugumi. While Yoko is sensitive and gentle, Tsugumi is everthing but. Frail of health, delicate in beauty, Tsugumi is an abrasive, selfish girl whom, oddly, Maria understands. Most of the novel takes place during a particular summer, when the girls have become young women and their lives have begun to take different directions.

This slim novel is mainly a character study, but I found the scenes within quietly engaging. I never once considered putting this book aside to start another. Although you won't find much plot here, the often uneasy relationship between Maria and Tsugumi holds the story together. The only false note Yoshimoto hits comes in the closing pages. This novel may not be the author's best, but its delicacy and skill must still be admired.

I recommend this novel for those who enjoy contemporary Asian literature - particularly Yoshimoto's earlier works - as well as for readers of character driven fiction. Because of its brevity and ease of reading, it makes a good rainy afternoon or commuter book. You won't find the complexity of Murakami or the stark emotion of Oe. Instead, Yoshimoto's strength lies in the exploration of the often quiet connections between people.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Summer by the Sea, May 16, 2007

By 

Anne Parker "lifelong book lover" (Rockford, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Goodbye Tsugumi (Paperback)

The plot of this slim novel is deceptively simple: a young woman spends a last summer at the inn by the sea where she was raised. She lives at the inn with her aunt, uncle and cousins Yoko and Tsugumi, knowing that, in the autumn, the family will be moving away to the mountains. After the summer is over she will return to her new home in Tokyo. Much happens during that last summer.

I often found myself reading lines, even whole paragraphs, twice, to be sure I had really caught the meaning. The many descriptions of the qualities of light and dark gave the novel a sense of the eternal usually found in poetry. For example: "The dusk surrounding us was a mass of any number of colors piled one on top of the other, and everything around us seemed to hover in space, deeply blurred, as if we were in a dream.". On the other hand, the character of Tsugumi had an immediacy that exploded like a punch to the gut.

It is a remarkable book, one that I doubt could have been written by an American author. To me, it had the feel of a haiku: succinct, focused, intense, beautiful.