Revenge

Chanced upon this in the same bookstore I purchased GOTH, on the same day six years ago.

Author: Yoko Ogawa

"Six. He'll always be Six. He's Dead."

The festival of Qingming (清明節) 2007 was where I first discovered Otsuichi. After cleaning and honoring my grandfather's grave, my dad and I made a quick stop in the town of Ipoh, where I stumbled upon a copy of GOTH in a local Popular bookstore. That was my first encounter with Otsuichi, and the start of my eventual descent into Japanese literature.

This year, we stopped by the same bookstore again, and by chance I happened upon Yoko Ogawa's Revenge being displayed in the new arrival list. A quick scan of the book brought many familiar vibes - both were compilation of short stories, considerably dark in nature penned by Japanese authors I was unfamiliar with at the time of purchase. I bought the book without hesitation.

Revenge consists of eleven short stories that are eventually revealed to be tied to each other, though not in a way you might expect. The first story, Afternoon at the Bakery, tells the story of a woman buying Strawberry Cakes for her dead son. The next story, Fruit Juice, is about the sobbing cashier in the same bakery finally meeting her real father whom she has never met in her life. The story ends with her devouring kiwis in an abandoned post offices, kiwis that are left there by an old woman who is a character in the next story, Old Mrs J. 

Just when you thought you had the general pace of the book down, Ogawa-sensei hits you with the first curveball. The main character in the fourth story (The Little Dustman) reveals that his mother was a writer and her best-selling book was about an old woman who grew carrots and kiwis in her garden. This gives you the first impression that what you read might not exactly be real - what if the third story was really just a story, and not part of the actual timeline?

As if on cue, the next story, Lab Coats, is seemingly unrelated and narrates the story of a hospital secretary having an affair with one of the surgeons in the hospital. The said surgeon is scheduled to operate on a cabaret singer, who takes center stage in the next story Sewing for the Heart. When the affair turns sour, the surgeon is eventually killed, but his murder is overheard by his neighbor, the central character for following story Welcome to the Museum of Torture. The curator of the museum is then featured in The Man who Sold Braces, and the aforementioned surgeon's wife takes the lead in The Last Hour of the Bengal Tiger.

Just when you've started to get comfortable with the pace again, the penultimate chapter, Tomatoes and the Full Moon, suddenly kicks you back to the first arc, with the writer featured in Old Mrs J. and mentioned in The Little Dustman suddenly making an appearance and revealing Afternoon at the Bakery was one of her works. More questions arise as her sanity is called into question, and just as abruptly the book ends with Poison Plants. The ending does not feature long and detailed explanations, but enough is subtly hinted at that you should be able to draw conclusions regarding the final tale.

Ironically, Ogawa-sensei best describes this book herself. "There was an icy current running under her words, and I found myself wanting to plunge into it again and again" is how the main character of Tomatoes and the Full Moon describes the book Afternoon at the Bakery, and it eerily echoes how I feel about Revenge as a whole. Ogawa-sensei excels at turning fiction into reality, and then quickly back to fiction again. She keeps you second guessing the nature of each story and its place in the narrative timeline, with no definite end note but enough hints for you to come to your own conclusions.
 

Where to savor:

Somewhere quiet and semi-deserted, like the corner of a library before closing hours would be ideal. I read the book in a small, quiet cafe located in a rather deserted mall bazaar, a pity the cafe was rather brightly lit - if they had used dimmed incandescent bulbs the atmosphere would have been perfect.

Most notable quote:

"There was an icy current running under her words, and I found myself wanting to plunge into it again and again"

 - Unnamed writer in the story Tomatoes and the Full Moon

Overall thoughts and score:

I am immensely satisfied with Revenge. Yoko Ogawa is another author I definitely have on my watch list now, her surreal brand of storytelling makes her comparable to the likes of Murakami, but memorable enough to carve an impression of her own. A solid read. 

Overall score: 9/10