Of Stasis and Loss

In 1988, Banana Yoshimoto (吉本 ばなな) announced her arrival into the Japanese literary scene with her debut novel Kitchen (キッチン). The book received favorable reviews from literary pundits across the world. Kitchen is the quintessence of contemporary Japanese literature, Kitchen was a resounding debut, the announcement of the arrival of a promising voice in the ambit, not only of Japanese literature but of world literature as a whole. Yoshimoto’s writing inclinations manifested at a young age. She was, after all, born to a family with writing and artistic talent flowing through their bloodstreams; her father Takaaki Yoshimoto was a critic and poet while her mother Kazuko was a haiku poet. Meanwhile, her sister Yoiko Haruno is a manga artist. Yoshimoto also liked drawing but she was cognizant that her sister drew better. Nevertheless, she credited her sister’s artwork for inspiring her as a young girl to pursue writing.

Getting to the zenith of success, however, was no easy task as many can attest to. She had to work her way up to the top. After earning her degree majoring in Japanese literature from Nihon University’s College of Art, Yoshimoto earned a living as a waitress. Her break times were often spent writing. It didn’t take long before she would arrive in the literary scene. Her dissertation, Moonlight Shadow won the Izumi Kyoka Prize from Nihon University’s faculty; the short story is often published together with Kitchen as a companion piece. Kitchen’s success turned Yoshimoto into a household name; the book also catapulted her to global recognition. She has earned quite the reputation in her native Japan that shrines were dedicated to her. Born Mahoko Yoshimoto, she adopted the pseudonym Banana while studying at University. Her choice was influenced primarily by her love for banana flowers.

For Yoshimoto, the rest, they say. was history. She built on her early success, publishing more equally critically and commercially successful novels. Among her novels is Asleep which was originally published in 1989 in Japanese as 白河夜船 しらかわよぶね・しらかわよふね (Shirakawa yofune or yobune). It was eventually made available to anglophone readers in 2000 with a translation by Michael Emmerich. Deviating from the conventional novel structure, Asleep is a collection of three thematically connected novellas. The overriding theme, as the English title suggests, is sleep. The first of the three stories is Night & Night’s Travelers. At the heart of the story was twenty-two-year-old Shibami. Narrating the story from her point-of-view, Shibami was mourning the recent loss of her brother Yoshihiro who perished in a car accident.

In that very brief period of time I was made abundantly aware of the extent to which various things inside me had degenerated without my even knowing it. I’d always hated working, and I’d never cared much about the kinds of jobs I took or whether I had one or not or anything like that, and none of that had changed at all, it wasn’t that… it was something like guts, the ability to move on to the next thing when I had to, it was something like hope, like anticipation… I can’t explain it very well. But I feel sure that this something I’d unknowingly cast aside was the same thing that Shiori had lost, was what she’d cast aside herself, also without noticing. Maybe if she’d been lucky she could have gone on living anyway, just as she was. But she was too weak, she couldn’t endure a life like that. The flow was so strong that it swallowed her whole.

Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

Yoshihiro’s death was a hard pill to swallow for Shibami. Shibami practically worshipped her charismatic brother. After stumbling upon a letter she wrote but never sent to her brother’s ex-girlfriend Sarah, Shibami shares her memories of her brother. Yoshihiro was a romantic who fell in love with Sarah, an American exchange student. When Sarah returned to Boston, Yoshihiro joined her. However, Sarah’s parents were against their relationship. An act of betrayal prompted Yoshihiro to return to Japan sans Sarah. Upon his return, he resumed a childhood romance with Mari, his and Shibami’s cousin; when Yoshihiro was in the United States, Mari realized that she had always been in love with Yoshihiro. Mari would be Yoshihiro’s lover until the accident that claimed his life.

Yoshihiro’s death was the catalyst for the story but, as the story moves forward, Yoshihiro fades into the background. The story’s focus is on the tender bonds that connect the two women who loved him. His death left a gaping hole in the lives of his sister and lover. Shibami found herself on a trip down memory lane. Through her memories of him, Yoshimoto painted a vivid portrait of Yoshihiro. Yoshihiro’s death, however, had a more lasting impact on Mari. Following her lover’s death, Mari became a somnambulist. She walked numbly through snowy landscapes barefooted. She was a specter of her old self, a “resident ghost” walking through life. Her destinations, however, were rarely without sentiment. Her sleepwalking led her to places that reminded her of Yoshihiro and there she slept.

Late at night the trees in my garden seemed to shine. In the second story, Love Songs, sleep remains a primary theme. However, the path diverges. At the heart of the story is Fumi who was in a relationship with Mizuo, a businessman. Mizuo’s uneven working hours prompted him to suggest to Fumi that she quit her daytime job and simply stay at home. Fumi agreed but the plan backfired as she doused herself in alcohol. During her drunken episodes, she hears a faint song before falling asleep. The song reminded her of an old acquaintance, Haru, who she had lost contact with. Before Fumi met Mizuo, Haru and Fumi once fought over a man they both loved, a boisterous sort of guy, something of a thug. It was a bizarre love triangle and Fumi and Haru were at odds with each other. Interestingly, this animosity developed into a strange but interesting bond.

The last story carries the book’s English title. Asleep introduces Terako, a chronically exhausted woman. She was in a complicated relationship with Mr. Iwanaga who she met at her office job. Mr. Iwanaga was a married man but his wife has long been in a coma. His wife’s family, however, permitted Mr. Iwanaga to amicably divorce their daughter but he ultimately decided to stay in their marriage. The event that set the story in motion, however, was the death of Terako’s best friend, Shiori. Shiori was a “sleep prostitute” who committed suicide. Following her friend’s death, Terako fell into an unusual pattern of involuntary and excessive slumber. Her case was exacerbated by her joblessness. All of these weighed heavily on Terako who increasingly found herself falling deeper into a state of total unconsciousness

I’ve no idea how many young women like this there are in the world, but I kind of wonder if those oddly vague people you see in department stores during the day, women who don’t quite seem to be students or people who work on their own, might not be the same. I know very well that I used to be like that myself, that I used to walk around with the same utterly unfocused look in my eye.

Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

Despite the stark dichotomies in the stories, their parallels link them together. It is the quintessential Yoshimoto, with all three stories containing recurring elements and themes in Yoshimoto’s works. Particularly, all three stories revolved around female protagonists who found themselves grieving after the loss of a loved one. For Mari and Shibami, it was Yoshihiro. For Fumi, it was Haru. For Terako, it was Shiori. Each character was haunted by their past and the people they cherished, or at least the people who had a profound impact on them. In their own way, they were all coping with their losses. They wanted to make up for the past. Interestingly, their primary coping mechanism, as the title suggests, was sleep, whether it was voluntary or not. Sleep, after all, provides a respite from the pain that lingers following a tragic event. It comes as a form of escape from the realities surrounding us.

Yoshihiro’s death left a gaping hole in Mari’s world and she eventually became a somnambulist. Her unconscious mind led her to places with sentimental value. It was as if her heart was leading her to these places that held so much value to them. Fumi’s experience, on the other hand, requires a little suspension of belief. Through her boyfriend’s prodding, she tried looking for Haru only to learn about her friend’s passing. Fumi, however, remained restless as she wanted to make peace with her past. The Love Songs she heard, Mizuo recognized, were akin to calls from the dead. To make up for the past and reconnect with her friend, Fumi commissioned a clairvoyant named Tanaka. Their story underlines the lengths we go to connect with the people we love through whatever means. Fumi and Haru’s relationship was unusual but it was a bond that they both cherished.

Bond and authentic connection, particularly between women, were prevalent in the stories. The stories navigated the intricacies of female friendships, some more complicated than others, like in the case of Fumi and Haru. Terako also had a special bond with Shiori. Terako confided everything to Shiori. She even deferred to her friend on her relationship with Mr. Iwanaga: That’s why he’s so nervous. As soon as he starts thinking of the two of you as a unit, his situation becomes extremely dangerous, you see? So for the time being you’re nil, you’re being held in reserve, the pause button is pressed down, you’re stacked in the stockroom, you’re life’s special bonus. Meanwhile, Shibami harbors a maternal feeling toward her cousin Mari. Interestingly, Shibami rarely talks about herself. Rather, Night & Night’s Travelers was about her impressions and her perceptions about the complex relationship between her brother and cousin.

Indeed, interesting character dynamics permeate the stories. This also stems from the complex profiles each character was imbued with. Fumi and Haru’s story, for instance, provided a different dimension to the stories. There were hints of a lesbian relationship. Fumi’s story also explored alcoholism and how it alters one’s reality, almost similar to being stuck in the space between consciousness and sleep. This further underscores how the stories, despite being thematically linked, individually explored other subjects. Beyond the grief that Shibami and Mari experienced due to Yoshihiro’s death, their story involves secrets left behind by those who passed away which have the potential to impact the people closest to them. Shiori’s occupation was an interesting one as she was commissioned to sleep with people who have trouble sleeping.

That’s why he’s so nervous. As soon as he starts thinking of the two of you as a unit, his situation becomes extremely dangerous, you see? So for the time being you’re nil, you’re being held in reserve, the pause button is pressed down, you’re stacked in the stockroom, you’re life’s special bonus.

Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep

Through Yoshimoto’s dexterous and astute writing, all three stories blended well together as a cohesive whole. This was despite the stories not having any overlapping plots or characters. Nostalgia and melancholy flowed from the narrative voice. There also exists a symbiosis in how Yoshimoto set up the stories, complimented by the themes and tone that bound all of the stories together. Each story gave interesting layers to the book. These layers were captured by the delicacy of Yoshimoto’s writing and wove it into a lush tapestry. Her writing was accessible and her writing reverberated with poetic quality although, at times, the repetitiveness such as the expression of sadness can be banal. Nevertheless, Yoshimoto managed to capture the spaces and boundaries between the different levels of consciousness. The intricacies of dream state, hypnosis, stasis, and hallucinations and their interrelation with loss and grief made for a compelling read.

Banana Yoshimoto is certainly one of the most influential voices in the ambit of contemporary Japanese literature. With Asleep, she consolidated her status among the upper echelons of Japanese writers. She wrote evocative stories that captured a plethora of subjects dealing with grief and loss, akin to her highly-heralded debut novel. The stories of her female characters capture the profound impact of the loss of a loved one. Sleep was the vessel upon which this subject was captured. It, after all, provides an escape from the bleak realities that surround us. On the other hand, it creates a sense of detachment from the rest of the world. Asleep, however, expands further. The three stories captured the intricacies and the beauty of female relationships while, at the same time, capturing the complexities of love. As always, Yoshimoto did a splendid job of conveying emotions through her prose and unflinching gaze.

Sometimes I’m thinking to myself You mustn’t go to sleep even as I’m dozing off, having some terrible dream. All these surreal things. Dreams where I’m on a boat that’s going under, dreams where I’ve lost some coins I was collecting, dreams where the dark comes in through the window and blocks up my throat – my heart is pounding, I’m so scared, and then I wake up. It’s really frightening. The person beside me is still asleep, and I look at them and think, Yes, of course, what I’ve just seen is how this person feels inside, so lonely it hurts, such desolation. Yeah, it really scares me.

Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep
Book Specs

Author: Banana Yoshimoto (吉本 ばなな)
Translator (from Japanese): Michael Emmerich
Publisher: Grove Press
Publishing Date: 2000 (1989)
Number of Pages: 177
Genre: Literary

Synopsis

In Asleep, Banana Yoshimoto, the internationally best-selling author of Kitchen, gives us three dazzling stories of young women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is a delight.

About the Author

To learn more about one of the most influential voices of Japanese literature, click here.

It was only after my head started reeling and my body started weaving and I tumbled into bed that I’d hear that soothing voice singing…The reverbations of that voice wandered sweetly, softly, working like a massage on the area of my heart that was the most tightly clenched, helping those knots to loosen. It was like the rush of waves, and like the laughter of people I’d met in all kinds of places, people I’d become friendly with and then separated from, and like the kind words all those people had said to me, and like the mewing of a cat I had lost, and like the mixture of noises that rang in the background in a place that was dear to me, a place far away, a place that no longer existed, and like the rushing of trees that whisked past my ears as I breathed in a scent of fresh greenery on a trip someplace… the voice was like a combination of all this.

Banana Yoshimoto, Asleep