kitchen (banana yoshimoto): a review

 Kitchen (a review)

kitchen

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read this book two months ago and did not understand it. 

"This book is actually a novella and an unrelated short story. I did not realize the short story was a different entity until I was well into it. So that's fun.

I didn't understand the novella at all. I understood, like, the plot. I think I'm missing something. I'm going to read reddit posts about this book and then I'll probably reread it because it's so short. I loved the short story. I am going to reread the short story because I liked it so much." - me, two months ago.

I am very glad I reread it because this book is actually really beautiful both in terms of the writing and the themes.

So there is this girl named Mikage who is maybe 20 years old, and she was raised by her grandmother, and her grandmother dies. Mikage goes to live with her friend Yuichi and his mother Eriko (a trans woman). Mikage enjoys kitchens and learns to cook. She and Yuichi try to connect with each other after they both experience loss. It is maybe the ultimate book about nice people being nice to each other, my favorite genre!

This is basically a book about the value and impermanence of human connection. People die, people lose touch with other people, and someone you love will eventually no longer be in your life. The kitchen represents human connection. Mikage cooks in a lot of kitchens throughout the book (and food is an important part of some of her relationships) and she loses multiple relationships. But she still loves kitchens and cooking much like how she learns that she just has to keep going through life knowing that most connections are impermanent, but still valuable. She holds on to whatever and whomever she can.

There is some discussion in Kitchen about how one much experience great despair to experience great happiness. This idea is facially questionable, but I do think it's a really good representation of how lost love is painful, but an inevitable consequence of human connection.

I really enjoyed the author's writing. There are a lot of moments that are just described so beautifully. I also liked the protagonist's internal monologue. A lot of positive qualities all around. This book is so good.

moonlight shadow

no rating it's a short story

This book also has an unrelated short story at the end which is called Moonlight Shadow. There's another twenty-ish years old woman and her boyfriend has died. She meets an interesting woman while on a run and then some weird stuff goes down. The first time I read this book, I did not realize this was a separate entity from Kitchen. I did not have that problem this time. I am constantly learning, growing, and improving as an individual.

This short story has very similar vibes to Kitchen. It has some similar themes of death and loss, and some of the plot elements are vaguely similar. I can see why they were put in the same book.

Ordinarily I don't like short stories, but this one was very nice. The author said in the acknowledgements that it was inspired by a song (called Moonlight Shadow) and that song is also very good and I have listened to it at least a dozen times since reading this story. There are a lot of reasons you should read this book.