Kitchen

Banana Yoshimoto

Kitchen is a thin book with a lot of depth. It contains two novellas, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow. They both deal with coping after the death of loved ones. Yet there is more to them. The stories are about connections between people. They include young adults and their families, transsexuals, mysterious strangers, tennis players, and students.

Yoshimoto doesn't use lots of description in the surroundings, but focuses on emotions and feelings instead. This excerpt is from Kitchen. Mikage's grandmother who raised her just died.

Three days after the funeral I was still in a daze. Steeped in a sadness so great I could barely cry, shuffling softly in gentle drowsiness, I pulled my futon into the deathly silent, gleaming kitchen. Wrapped in a blanket, like Linus, I slept. The hum of the refrigerator kept me from thinking of my loneliness. There, the long night came on in perfect peace, and morning came.
But . . . I just wanted to sleep under the stars.
I wanted to wake up in the morning light.
Aside from that, I just drifted, listless.

This is an insightful description of deep depression. Later, as Mikage is recovering and getting on with her life, she is watching some contented women in a cooking class.

Those women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best.

Kitchen is easy to read. The undercurrents are powerful. It's about death and love and loneliness and connections. It's tell a couple of good slice of life stories as well.