Customer Reviews

The Lake

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Banana Yoshimoto is unique. I don't know of any other writer who explores the spaces in the human heart with such delicacy and accuracy. This book, which was published in Japan in 2005, follows the love affair of Chihiro, a young girl whose mother's death both freed her from the censorious small town in which she grew up and also cast her adrift, rootless, in Tokyo; and Nakajima, a very secretive and tightly wound young man who endured something terrible as a child. Both of them are damaged; both of them are needy but in many ways unwilling to risk opening up to anyone. Chihiro, an artist, is hired to paint a mural on the wall of an elementary school that is in danger of being torn down, and as Nakajima's story unfolds, Chihiro translates elements of it into art, in the lighthearted form of monkeys painted especially for children's eyes. I don't know of another writer in the world who would come up with such pitch-perfect alchemy, not only bringing fear out of the shadows but painting it in primary colors in bright daylight. From KITCHEN on, I've devoured every book Banana Yoshimoto has written, and this is no exception. My only complaint is that we had to wait six years to read THE LAKE in English.

The lovers in this story are walking on eggshells towards a fragile intimacy.

Chihiro is the illegitimate daughter of the flashy Mama-san of a club and a conventional businessman. Nearing thirty, she's become a fairly successful painter of murals.

Nakajima is a brilliant graduate student doing genetic research at a prestigious university. He's definitely odd. Something terrible happened in his past.

Their Tokyo apartments face each other diagonally across a street. They begin by nodding to each other and progress to reading greetings on each other's lips. Eventually they make contact, and this is the beginning of a cautious, complex coupling of psyches.

Despite the gentle tenor of Yoshimoto's prose, there are some shocking revelations in store for the reader.

Banana Yoshimoto has a nice unpretentious way of describing life's cruel twists and turns. She tosses off bits of wisdom that, if she were a mountain ascetic, would cause her to be revered. It's no wonder she's engendered Banana-mania among millions of fans around the world.

The Lake has a small cast of characters, but among them is one of the oddest and most poignant psychics I've ever encountered in literature.

It's easy to get so relaxed and pleasantly pensive reading Banana Yoshimoto that you miss her artistry. She manages to be utterly non-threatening, even comforting, while dealing with heavy subjects like alienation, loss and death. She offers a very contemporary take on the traditional Japanese theme of ephemeral existence.

I loved everything about The Lake - the style, the story, the ambience and the offbeat characters. I devoured it in a day.

Alright..this is another review I have been dreading, truthfully because I don't have a lot to say. And it's hard, because I hate when that happens. I feel like I'm doing the author a disservice. But here's the thing. This was a fairly short novel and to me it read more like a short story. Which would have been fine if I had been prepared for that going in. But I wasn't. This also the first Yoshimoto I have ever read and I did like it, but not as much as I thought I would. I'm going to try and articulate why.

I like a certain amount of detail in my reading and I felt like that was lacking in The Lake. There were hardly any place descriptions and it was very hard to picture exactly what was going on. I know that doesn't matter to some people, but it matters to me.

I also felt that there was an emotional disconnect. I didn't particularly care what happened to the characters, especially Nikajima, who I think the author intended me to have a lot of sympathy for. I just felt a complete lack of emotion for anything that was going on, and I found that to be a shame because the story had a great deal of potential.

The idea of the plot and the summary of the story really drew me in and was what initially made me want to read the book. It sounded a bit scary and mysterious. Plus the cover is absolutely mesmerizing. I wish it had been as good as i thought it was going to be.

The reason why I gave it three stars? I really enjoyed the writing style. I just wish it had been a little more detailed. She really does write beautifully. It's a very simple writing style, but manages to be quite poetic. And like I said, I really loved the plotline. I just feel the story would have been so much more if I felt emotionally invested in the characters, even if it was just a little bit.

I am very interested in reading another Banana Yoshimoto though, and I have added a few of her books to my TBR list. Maybe I will have better luck with another book. I hope so, because I really appreciate what she was trying to do here.

Imagine two birds sitting on the edge of their nest. One has a broken wing. The other, two broken wings. Now imagine these birds getting ready to take flight. What is going through your mind? Hope? Fear? Desperation? Anxiety? Probably all of these things, but I would imagine primarily Hope. Those are exactly the feelings I experienced while reading THE LAKE.

The story of two broken almost-thirty somethings, one more so than the other, in the big city of modern-day Tokyo takes us on a quiet thrill ride that doesn't let up until the final page. Not a ton actually happens in this interesting little book, but the characters are so finely drawn that it almost doesn't matter. You will find yourself rooting for them both to succeed and find what they are missing in life while the whole time it is right there in front of them.

I thought this was a great book. I liked the author's use of simple, profound phrasing and her ability to say a lot without saying much. What I didn't like was the description on the back of the book which is, in essence, a HUGE spoiler. The whole time we are trying to figure out why Nakajima is so averse to opening himself to others. Yet the description on the back jacket gives the answer before one even can draw his or her own conclusions or make assumptions. Had I not already known the answer I probably would have come up with something completely different and then been shocked at the outcome. This would have been a much more fitting way to market THE LAKE.

That said, this was a book that will appeal to many different people for a vast variety of reasons. I finished this book in two sittings, which is unheard of for me...a notoriously slow reader. That probably says quite a bit about this book on its own. I highly recommend Yoshimoto's latest book. I now plan to go and seek out her earlier novels. Plus, anyone with the name "Banana" is okay in my eyes. 4 solid stars.

A very tender book that I absolutely couldn't put down. Spare in words, but very big in imagery and emotion.
I finished it too fast and am now waiting for the arrival of Yoshimoto's "Kitchen.
I wish all her books were transated and all were available on Kindle. Maybe soon?

OK, so this may be the first comparison of Yoshimoto to Austen, but hear me out. Both understood the human heart in a deep and lovely way, both were capable of portraying the most painful emotional turmoil in the lives of people who could otherwise have been ordinary. Both write beautifully, lyrically. Both have strong heroines who get into your heart and won't leave your memroy. No, Banana does not write like Jane Austen, but yes, I think that they are both thoughtful, beautiful writers who write from and about the storms in the soul.

This is a lovely book. Chihiro finds herself floating along, empty after her mother's death, finding her way in a city of lost souls. She is searching for connection, and finds it in her art, and in the heart of a troubled young man. If you have never read Kitchen, then please, buy that book. It is perfect. I'm not sure that Banana will ever reach that level of heartrending simplicity again, but Lake comes awfully close. Beautiful prose in a masterful translation by a genuinely wondrous authoress. I love Banana, I love the Lake. Welcome it into your heart.

The heroine and her rather odd love affair with the damaged Nakajima is told with beautiful precision in this elegant tale. The author captured everything beautifully, from the start of the love story to the end when each main character has an epiphany and is able to move on from the past more confidently into the future. The nature of love and the discernment of lust from love is a central theme, as is the issue of whether or not it is possible to ever truly know and understand someone else. The heroine's own loss of her mother leaves her grief stricken, but also prises open her heart to allow her to absorb the lessons of her childhood and learn to love on her own terms, rather than what her family or society tell her is love. The portrait of the artist as a person of integrity is also a central theme in the novel, and the narrative unfolds with great and often painful truthfulness. My only quibble is the ending seemed very rushed, without any really clear sense of exactly what was so traumatic to Nakajima in his past, but there is certainly a great sense of hope for the future. If you can deal with the quirkiness and a bit of the supernatural from time to time, you will enjoy the lush sparseness of this lyric novel.

I've read some excellent reviews for books written by Banana Yoshimoto, so I wanted to experience this author for myself. It was a different experience, but not an unpleasant one.

Chihiro is a 30-something Japanese woman whose mother had recently died. Chihiro's father was a Tokyo businessman, and son of rich, prominent parents. The kind of parents who would not have approved of a marriage between the two. Chihiro sees her mothers death in some ways as a blessing, but then she has not had time to deal with what the loss really means. Now that her mother has passed on, she sees herself as free. She is anxious to leave the small town she grew up in and see what the big city has to offer.

In Tokyo, her graphic artist background lands her a job painting a mural on an elementary school that was to be torn down. In her free time, she finds herself staring out of the window of her second floor apartment. In the building across the way, also on the second floor, a young man about her age is staring back at her. On a daily basis an unspoken friendship among two strangers begins until the two finally meet. The young man is, Nakajima, and before long the two begin a somewhat unusual relationship; he too has lost a mother. Nakajima is smart, studying genetics, yet he is emotionally cold, distant and definitely a bit odd. At first Chihiro thought he might even be gay, when in fact his painful past has affected his present self. As Chihiro learns more about the mysterious Nakajimi, she finds her art begins to reflect what she has learned about her new romantic interest. As the couple begins to find a comfortable rhythm together, the secrets of the past are brought to the forefront, disturbing the couple's new found peace.

This book was translated from the Japanese, so for me I had a little trouble with the flow. For most part, it was not a huge problem. Although the story held my interest, in that I wanted to find out the terrible thing that Nakajima had experienced in childhood, I was only able to read about 40 pages at a time of this less than 200 page novel. When all is finally revealed, and the final page had been turned, I was satisfied with what I had read. The Lake, is definitely different, a style that is not for everyone, but one you might enjoy, especially if you are a fan of author Haruki Murakami.

First of all, don't read any of the praise for this novel before you have the chance to actually read it. A big secret, one that isn't uncovered until nearly the end of the novel, is completely spoiled by reading the back of the book. It's baffling to me that they went this route, because some of the novel's intriguing atmosphere is created by the mystery surrounding one of the central characters. I hate the fact that I actually flipped the book over and read the information on the back. I'm surprised that I didn't do it at the beginning, but about halfway through reading I decided to read the back cover and had all the mystery stripped away.

Now that I have that out of the way; my review.

Banana Yoshimoto is an acclaimed writer that I had never heard of before `The Lake'. I honestly purchased this novel on the cover art alone, which was mesmerizing and held an air of glacial eeriness to it. I wanted to `know more'. As I delved into the novel I found that it was a breezy read (its light to the touch) and yet it felt deeper than that. It carried with it a weight that I was really aching to uncover.

The story centers around a young woman named Chihiro, an artist living in Tokyo. After the death of her mother she begins to spread her wings, separating herself from her father's family and trying to establish herself independently. She begins to fantasize about a young man, Nakajima, living in the building next to her. She watches him through her window, and he her, and soon the two meet and begin an odd sort of relationship. They are both wounded souls, wounded for varying reasons and some of which are dark secrets. As Nakajima begins to trust Chihiro he starts to let her in, slowly, and she starts to nurture him like a mother would a child. She can't differentiate the feeling of love she has for him for the feeling of being in love with him, but she knows that she wants to be with him, and he her.

I have a few issues with the novel. The first of which is the writing style. While it is breezy and very easy to read, there are times where it feels amateurish and repetitive. Chihiro isn't a great protagonist in my opinion because she seems almost too scattered emotionally and so she ponders the same things over and over. Some of the dialog, especially in the beginning, seemed underdeveloped and overly wordy. That said, I think that Banana can write very well, she just seemed a little lost in her own ideas here; as if she didn't know how to make them work like she wanted them to. I do admit that some of this confusion may be in the translation, and this book may read wonderfully in the tongue with which it was written.

My other complaint, and the bigger issue here, is that the novel really doesn't seem to go anywhere until the very end, when Nakajima's big secret is revealed, and once that happens the novel closes up shop rather abruptly and doesn't elaborate on what could have been the most intriguing and interesting part. I want to know how Nakajima and Chihiro develop as a couple AFTER the cat was let out of the bag, but `The Lake' doesn't approach that.

The novel ends just as it was truly beginning.

If Banana decides to revisit this story and write a sequel to it I will be first in line to check it out, because she created characters that, while not truly three-dimensional (they needed some more focus), have the potential to be and I really want to see what she'd do with them post-`The Lake'.

Despite the three-star rating, I recommend this novel...just with reservations.

The Lake, the latest novel by well-known Japanese novelist Banana Yoshimoto, is an enigmatic love story told from the first-person perspective of Chihiro, a muralist and "going on thirty" daughter of unmarried parents. Chihiro's unconventional childhood and the recent death of her mother contribute to her sense of isolation and unrest, and she spends hours staring out of the window of her Tokyo apartment. Eventually she notices a man (Nakajima) across the street engaged in the same activity, and they forge a window-to-window relationship made up of shy glances, waves, and smiles. As the connection grows, the couple spends increasing amounts of time together in Chihiro's apartment, and Chihiro learns Nakajima is haunted by a terrible past experience. Ultimately, Chihiro must decide whether to commit to a relationship with the mysterious and damaged Nakajima.

In her typically compact style, Yoshimoto creates a relationship of ever-increasing power with minimal words. The conversational casualness of the prose keeps the story rocketing along. While the overall effect is potent, the story is marred by too many clichés ("sleep like a log," "bored me to death"). It's difficult to know whether such imperfections arise out of the translation or from a conscious choice by Yoshimoto to give Chihiro a naïve and relatively uneducated voice, but, either way, the resulting prose is often uninspiring. Nevertheless, The Lake is a unique love story and a quick, entertaining read.