妊娠カレンダー
Author: 小川 洋子 (Yoko Ogawa)
Page count: 202
Natively: Level 31
Summary
Japanese
姉が妊娠した。つわりに苦しみ、家族に八つ当たりし、 母となる不安に苦しむ姉と接するうち、妹の心に芽生える不思議な感情。姉を苦しめるモノから姉を妹は守りたいという気持ちと裏腹に、妹はやがて、めまいのするような悪意の中へすべりこんで行く。出産を控えて苦しむ姉の傍らで、妹は鍋でジャムを混ぜる、その中には、ひそかな「毒」が。
家族の妊娠をきっかけとした心理と生理のゆらぎを、きらめく言葉で定着した芥川賞受賞作「妊娠カレンダー」。
謎に包まれた寂しい学生寮の物語「ジミトリイ」、小学校の給食室に魅せられた男の告白「夕暮れの給食室と雨のプール」。透きとおった悪夢のようにあざやかな三編の小説。
English
A younger sister feeds her elder sister, who is approaching the time to give birth, grapefruit jam that may be tainted with poison. … “Pregnancy Calendar,” winner of the 104th Akutagawa Prize, beautifully depicts the delicate and subtle fluctuations in psychology and physiology triggered by pregnancy. Residents disappearing? “Dormitory,” a story of a lonely student dormitory shrouded in mystery, and “The School Lunchroom at Dusk and the Rainy Pool,” the confession of a man fascinated by the school lunchroom at an elementary school. All three stories, as vivid as a crystal-clear nightmare, are gems of short stories that allow you to enjoy the unique and serene world of Yoko Ogawa.
Availability
Physical: Amazon JP | Rakuten | Kinokuniya JP
Ebook: Amazon JP | Bookwalker | eBook Japan
Audiobook: Amazon Audible JP | Audible UK
Personal Opinion
I have read (and really enjoyed) two of Ogawa’s books in English translation: the Memory Police, and the Professor and the housekeeper. The latter was read previously in the IBC.
This set of three short stories looks interesting. They are said to be more straightforward and easier than the Professor and the Housekeeper. They are shorter than the Memory Police (which is above the upper page limit for the IBC). From @omk3 's review on Natively “Yoko Ogawa’s writing manages to take something commonplace and familiar, or even something joyful, like a pregnancy, and infuse it with a sense of eeriness. There is a vaguely unsettling atmosphere throughout all three of the novellas in this collection. The reader’s imagination does most of the work, and the text only feeds this imagination by highlighting slightly off details in an otherwise mostly familiar context.”
Pros and Cons for the Book Club
Pros
- Short stories - so potentially easy to break up in a book club
- Written for adults
- From Natively reviews: “the style is very clean and not too complicated or abstract, making it rather easy to follow along…” “I’d recommend it to people just starting out reading novels in Japanese. The sentences are generally short and straightforward, most of the vocabulary common.”
Cons
- Not that much furigana apparently (that might also be a positive)
