Toddler-Hunting & Other Stories [Hardcover]

Taeko Kono (Author), Lucy North (Author, Translator), Lucy Lower (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996

FROM BOOKLIST: An intriguing new voice is introduced in this selection of Kono Taeko's stories written in the 1960s. Most focus on middle-class women in their thirties, married, but with no children. Although firmly rooted in the realist tradition, the stories have a surreal, dreamlike quality. Several of them deal with obsession; in the title story, for example, Akiko is repulsed by little girls but obsessed with little boys. In "Crabs," Yuko is 91 and consumed with the task of finding a particular kind of crab for her nephew when he comes to visit her at the seaside resort where she is recovering from tuberculosis. Physical pain is another common element; very ordinary objects and activities can also be important signifiers, especially when they are described in such meticulous detail that they become hyperrealistic, like eating oysters on the half shell in "Bone Meat." All the stories display a highly developed visual sense that gives them a cinematic quality and may remind readers of the work of other Japanese authors, such as Abe Kobe. Mary Ellen Quinn

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

An intriguing new voice is introduced in this selection of Kono Taeko's stories written in the 1960s. Most focus on middle-class women in their thirties, married, but with no children. Although firmly rooted in the realist tradition, the stories have a surreal, dreamlike quality. Several of them deal with obsession; in the title story, for example, Akiko is repulsed by little girls but obsessed with little boys. In "Crabs," Yuko is 91 and consumed with the task of finding a particular kind of crab for her nephew when he comes to visit her at the seaside resort where she is recovering from tuberculosis. Physical pain is another common element; very ordinary objects and activities can also be important signifiers, especially when they are described in such meticulous detail that they become hyperrealistic, like eating oysters on the half shell in "Bone Meat." All the stories display a highly developed visual sense that gives them a cinematic quality and may remind readers of the work of other Japanese authors, such as Abe Kobe. Mary Ellen Quinn

Review

Reminiscent of Flannery O'Connor's works, Kono Taeko's disquieting stories explore the dark side of human nature with an original voice and a strange, powerful beauty. -- Translation Review, July 1999

Though virtually unknown in the States, the 70-year-old Kono Taeko has won many of Japan's top literary prizes. This collection of her stories from the '60s offers Americans a rare voyeuristic peep into the private lives of the famously guarded Japanese. Most of the protagonists (all female) have a penchant for sadomasochistic sex. One story tells of a young woman, estranged from her husband, who becomes entangled in the master/servant games of a hunchback and his beautiful wife, while in two others, the heroines express their conflicts over being childless by fetishizing little boys (hence the collection's title). And "Snow" is a beautiful account of a woman who gets migraines whenever it snows, the legacy of a childhood trauma. Taeko's intimate descriptions of unhappy relationships are not only unexpectedly frank, but often genuinely shocking.
Copyright © 1996, Boston Review. All rights reserved. -- From The Boston Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 266 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811213056
• ISBN-13: 978-0811213059
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,273,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars engrossing, off-beat stories, April 11, 2004

By 

avoraciousreader (Somewhere in the Space Time Continuum) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories (Paperback)

I'm about a third to half way through this collection, and just wanted to enter an enthusiastic "thumbs up" in case I don't get a chance to do a fuller review later. The longish stories mostly take place in post-war Japan (maybe post-post-war is better, after the effects of WWII have largely died down and modernization is in full swing), and reveal an interesting society and women's place in it. [One, 'Full Tide', is set at the beginning of the war.] The prose is simple and straightforward, at least in translation, but the stories are surprisingly powerful and take some odd twists, with characters who often have a twist or quirk of their own. This will be enjoyed not just by 'literery' fiction fans -- my own tastes run to nonfiction or 'genre' fiction, but I've found it engrossing with rests between stories to absorb them.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, but not intentionally, November 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Toddler-Hunting & Other Stories (Hardcover)

Although, at first sight, her work does not seem to be appealing, it immediately led me to read through these rather haunting stories. Her writing style is quite eloquent and inspiring. Different from other rather self-centered novelists (e.g., Dazai, Mishima, Natsume, etc.), she stays as a objective narrator in her work, and her structiring ability of plot is almost astonishing. Probably she is a natally most talented writer in modern Japan.