Customer Reviews

Naoko: A Novel

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Naoko is a tale of metempsychosis--the transference of the mind or spirit of one person into the body of another. Heisuke Sugita is a blue color worker in Japan, assembling fuel injectors in an auto parts factory in suburban Tokyo. One morning while watching tv, he sees a news report about a bus accident near the sky resort town of Nagano. It takes several minutes before he realizes that it is the bus his wife Naoko and eleven year old daughter Monami were taking to visit relatives.
Naoko dies in the bus crash, while Monami is left in a coma. When Monami regains consciousness, she tells Heisuke she is Naoko, that the spirit of the mother has taken over the body of the daughter.
What follows are the social and psychological consequences of this apparently supernatural event, for Heisuke, and for Naoko/Monami. They decide to tell no one, to keep it a secret. In fact, the Japanese title of the book, Himitsu, means Secret. Once Heisuke becomes convinced that the metempsychosis is real, and permanent, he grieves because he has lost his daughter, while all those about him think he has lost his wife. For "Naoko" to maintain their secret, she must continue Monami's life as an elementary school student.
The author, Keigo Higashino, carefully and skillfully works out the logical consequences of this event. How would a married man, of normal sexual desires, deal with a situation where the spirit of his wife is inhabiting the body of his young daughter? Higashino does deal with the issue of conjugal relations, although briefly, and in a non-salacious way. Most of the book dwells on the development of Naoko/Monami, as she matures socially. In a sense, it is answering the question, what would you do if you were a middle aged housewife, and you suddenly and unexpectedly got to live your life over again, from the age of eleven? What would you do differently? Could you, in fact, correct your life's mistakes? Could you become a better person? And in a question fraught with tragedy and irony, what do you do when your husband is now, physically, your father?
I read this book in two days. My basic impression is that it is interesting and thoughtful. It's not exciting, it's not gripping, but it is satisfying. Not a great book, but a pretty good book. Worth buying, if you like that kind of thing.
One quibble: The English translation, by Kerim Yasar, consistently writes "all right" as "alright." Perhaps this was done to reflect Heisuke's lack of education, paralleling something in the underlying Japanese, but it's jarring, and ineffective.

I was surprised I had such a visceral reaction to the story, and strongly recommend this book. The story is very deep, and the events made me think all the time about myself and the characters. This would be a great book club book because it makes you think about and want to discuss your personal relationships, your own emotions and feelings, and how you would handle situations in the book.

The characters and what happens to them brought out very real emotions in me. I unconsciously made faces as I reacted to what was happening. This was one of those books that really touched me and I can't recommend it enough. I feel like I have had, or could have, the same feelings and fears that are displayed in this book. That helped me identify with the characters and I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a deep, personal, and very interesting story.

A tragic bus accident causes the spirit of a woman, Naoko, to take over the body of her daughter, Monami. Naoko's body dies, and Monami's essence appears to be lost forever. Naoko and her husband, Heisuke, decide to deal with this situation in secret. After all, who would believe them? So, to the world, it appears that Heisuke is a widower living with his daughter, when in fact his daughter has died and he is living with his wife--although, really, he has lost them both.

When author Keigo Higashino is focused on this complex relationship, his novel is quite involving and even moving, although it is not as suspenseful or edgy as the cover copy would have us believe. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of extraneous material to slow down a narrative that is already rather relaxed and subdued. I kept waiting for Heisuke's investigation into the circumstances of the bus crash and the driver's background to tie in with the main narrative, but it never did. I also couldn't help thinking that, given Naoko's detailed knowledge of her own life, they probably could have convinced members of Naoko's family about what had happened, thereby sharing the burden. However, the end of the novel is quite touching and satisfactory.

In the vein of Murakami, Naoko's author revealed a world that is not quite real, but is decidedly on the brink of Japanese change. Welcome a bus accident and switching of personalities and, well, the mystery develops from there. I can't wait for the next book by this author!

After a terrible accident, Naoko switches bodies with her daughter who dies after the tragic event. All of the sudden she needs to adjust to the life of an elementary school girl again. Heisuke, her husband, must get used to the idea of never sexually touching his wife again, since she is "trapped" in his daughter Monami's body. What I enjoyed about this book is the fact that ordinary people are forced to face an extraordinary situation in a most realistic way.It is very easy to identify oneself with the characters and their predicament since one would probably end up reacting the same way.
However, the story towards the end was a bit predictable: I knew what was going to happen, so the final "twist" wasn't that shocking. Nevertheless, I recommend this book since it is entertaining and thought provoking.

What an interesting concept. I love the story. I read a previous work The Devotion of Suspect X and was looking forward to reading NAOKO. I was not disappointed. Since I am far freom Japan, it was interesting to get a glimpse of the Japanese way of life. I hope we get more English translations of this young writer's books.

This book was not difficult to read, but leaves you thinking about several REAL questions. I read it several weeks ago and I'm STILL thinking about the questions it raised. I know there's a movie adaptation of this book, but it misses on several levels dealing with the book. Changing the location from Japan to the US negates some cultural differences. Read the book first, then see the film.

I read about half of Naoko (Himitsu in Japanese) in my Japanese class at Language House in NYC and read the second half in the English-language translation. (Class ended for the summer when we were about halfway through. The book is the easiest Japanese novel we have yet read in class unless you count the "cell phone novel" we once read, but it was still easier for me to finish it in English.). At first, I did not like the book at all. I thought the writing was cliched (the author uses the same expressions repeatedly) and too often "told" rather than "showed." I decided it was worth reading solely as an example of a best-seller in contemporary Japan. However, about a third of the way, the plot became more interesting;by the time I realized that a major theme was "how would you live your life over if you had the chance" I had to concede that there was more to the book than I had initially realized. Also, I thought the plot twists at the end were clever.

A word of caution however: in class, I and others in the class frequently found errors in the translation. (Typically, I would read the English after reading the Japanese as a check on my comprehension and, I confess, occasionally to find the meaning of a word or phrase that I was unable to find in my dictionary.)

In sum, this novel is not a literary novel. But it is worth reading.