Kitchen (Paperback)

by Banana Yoshimoto (Author) "The place I like best in this world is the kitchen..." (more)
Key Phrases: sailor outfit, Mikage Sakurai, Yuichi Tanabe

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
In this translation of a best-selling novel first published in Japan in 1987, the young narrator, Mikage, moves into the apartment of a friend whose mother is murdered early in the tale. What seems like a coming-of-age melodrama quickly evolves into a deeply moving tale filled with unique characters and themes. Along the way, readers get a taste of contemporary Japan, with its mesh of popular American food and culture. Mikage addresses the role of death, loneliness, and personal as well as sexual identity through a set of striking circumstances and personal remembrances. "Moonlight Shadows," a novella included here, is a more haunting tale of loss and acceptance. In her simple and captive style, Yoshimoto confirms that art is perhaps the best ambassador among nations. Recommended for all fiction collections.
- David A. Berona, Westbrook Coll. Lib., Portland, Me.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Two stories, "Kitchen" and "Moonlight Shadow," told through the eyes of a pair of contemporary young Japanese women, deal with the themes of mothers, love, transsexuality, kitchens, and tragedy. Reprint. NYT.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (March 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671880187
• ISBN-13: 978-0671880187
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #118,065 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious food for thought: two courses, June 4, 2004

By	bonsai chicken (United States) - See all my reviews

Kitchen contains two stories, both of which concern a different young woman living her life in the aftermath of a terrible loss. In the title story, Mikage has just been left alone in the world after the passing of her grandmother, who was her last living relative. She is generously taken in by an acquaintance, a boy named Yuichi who knew her grandmother, and his transsexual mother Eriko. Eriko lets her stay for free as long as she promises to cook for them from time to time, and the three of them build a new family of sorts. Eventually, though, Mikage finds herself confronted with another tragedy.

The second story is called "Moonlight Shadow." Satsuki has lost a boyfriend in a car crash which also claimed the life of his younger brother's girlfriend. One day she meets a mysterious woman with a secret she wants to share. This story has a slight element of fantasy to it, a touching piece of magical realism.

The author has a deceptively simple style of writing which enables her to deal with weighty issues without them feeling oppressive. These works are deeply affecting, but they are poetic rather than doom-laden. I preferred the second story, which is tighter and has a definite resolution, whereas the first is more of a slice of life and though longer, felt a little incomplete. As always, I enjoyed the look at Japanese daily life.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't underestimate Banana, November 1, 2001

By	Charles E. Stevens - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I think it would be a mistake to write of Kitchen or Yoshimoto as a literary lightweight, a common knock against her. Mikage and Yuichi's struggles in the aftermath of shocking and devastating deaths was incredibly moving. Their need to create a brighter, happier life together in a death-filled world, to discover how to continue to live in a cruel and uncaring environment ... isn't that what we all are trying to do to some degree or another? Kitchen is a 4.5/5 star book in my opinion. If you liked Kitchen, I'd recommend Haruki Murakami ... especially "Dance, Dance, Dance" which touches on some similar themes but deals with them in very different ways.

Moonlight Shadow was a little whimsical for my tastes. The characters deal with the same issues as Mikage and Yuichi, but with a science fiction touch. Yoshimoto seemed to be trying too hard to make her point about moving on after death, rather than developing a good short story. It was a disappointing follow-up to Kitchen.

This is the first book of Yoshimoto's that I've read ... thanks to Kitchen, I'll be sure it's not the last. But I can only hope that the rest of her work is as well-writen as Kitchen and not like Moonlight Shadow.

One last comment: I read the Japanese version first, and I think the translator did a good job of getting Yoshimoto's style into English. It felt like the ending of the translation was more abrubt than the Japanese version, but I'm not sure why. Not sure if I'm the only one who felt that way or not ... In any event, I would definitely recommend Kitchen- see for yourself if you like it and Yoshimoto's style.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Death and Learning to Live Again, September 14, 2001

By	Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

A couple of years ago, while waiting outside my Japanese teacher's office, I was flipping through a book of Yoshimoto Banana's essays paying particular interest to one titled Oyogu hitobito or "People Swimming." It was a simple essay concerning a drunken Yoshimoto and an outing that she had with her drunken friends. Anyway, while I was reading the book, a visiting professor from the Kyoto University bent down, I was sitting on the floor at the time, and he asked me what I was reading. I showed him the book, he laughed, and said that Yoshimoto was only for young women.

Oh well.

I read my first Yoshimoto novella during the summer of 2001 between readings of a couple of Murakami Ryu's novels and, of course, that novel was Yoshimoto's debut novella Kitchen. Judging the book by its cover, I can definitely agree that it looks like it belongs in the "chick-lit" section, as do the rest of her novels, but I believe that Kitchen carries a bit more weight than say the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.

Yoshimoto is often lumped with her fellow contemporary writer Murakami Haruki because their writings are quite well-received in the West and that they both weave fictional worlds threaded with magical realism. Another similarity is that the theme of death looms over the majority of their fictional landscapes. However, unlike the gloomy, Lacanian worlds of desire that Murakami weaves, one can never acquire again the object of one's desire because only substitutes for said desire exists, Yoshimoto's characters, although still in a melancholy state, are able to heal the emptiness left by the loss of a loved one.

Kitchen centers on Sakurai Mikage, a young woman whose grandmother has just passed away. In a state of shock, Mikage spends her nights sleeping in the kitchen next to the constantly humming fridge. However, the apartment is too big and too expensive for her to live in alone, so she must move out. Yet, because of her current situation she is unable to gain the motivation to do so. At that moment fate enters the story. One day while tidying up some magazines for recycling, Tanabe Yuichi rings her doorbell. A fellow student, Mikage knows little about Yuichi besides the fact that he works at a flower shop and that her grandmother favored him highly. Therefore, she is quite surprised when he asks her to move in with him and his mother... While quite shocked at first, Mikage soon falls in love with the Tanabes' couch and kitchen and slowly with Yuichi himself because she can see a lot of herself within him.

Yoshimoto's book is quite simple, but it does work its way into one's heart especially if one has recently gone through a loss similar to the one Mikage has suffered from. While she has written many more novels, novellas, short story collections, and essay collections, Kitchen, which she wrote at twenty-four, is still quite a slice of nostalgic sweetness enwrapped in almost dreamlike language. Easy to read in one sitting, and if liked or not, I believe that Kitchen should be read by most individuals interested in contemporary Japanese literature.