The Flying Tobita Sisters by Erika Kobayashi: This story was really interesting as it forces you to imagine a world that is simultaneously similar and very different to our own. Kobayashi writes about a world where, because of our obsession with the skies, humans begin to sprout wings and be able to fly. However in this evolution, we lose the ability to run as legs become more and more obsolete. I think this is a message to value the journey, and the curiosity within life rather than solely focusing on reaching a final destination or discovery. She seems to warn that upon reaching this ability to fly, we would be left with a sense of longing for what we had before, thus urging us to not take even the simple things for granted.
I Chase the Moneky… by Masatsugu Ono: Between the almost comically long sentences and the descriptions of breasts that were painfully obviously written by a man, this one was hard to read. While I wasn’t really a fan of Ono’s writing style, the story seems to have a very deep and convoluted meaning. To me it seemed as though the protagonist was a victim of some sort of sexual assault, and I wondered if the monkey was the representation of a baby that was the result of an assault, thus it being something that was inside of her but wasn’t really hers. The final scene in the train with the strange large women seemed like it might be a metaphor for an abortion. Overall I’m not really sure if what I gathered from this story makes any sense, and if this really was Ono’s intention I would be curious what grounds he has to write about a woman’s experience in this way.
A Peddler of Tears by Yoko Ogawa: This story felt similar to some of the ones we had previously read about women who are expected to sacrifice something for their husbands. This is especially poignant towards the end when she is literally cutting herself up to produce the magic “tears of pain” that work the best on her lover’s joints. And throughout all of this, it seems like none of the band members, not even the maestro, offer any sort of thanks to her. The maestro doesn’t even speak to her. I feel like this story could also be about throwing yourself into your work without taking care of yourself, shown as the protagonist literally loses her body parts to perform as best as she can.
Mogera Wogura by Hiromi Kawakami: The humans in this story are struggling from a very common dilemma of what it means to live vs to survive. I think Kawakami’s story depicts a capitalist society that is so far lost that people no longer have any sort of opinion or imagination or will to create anything. The line “humans no longer seem so sure of what they hate and what they like” was really interesting to me, as it is used in the context that the protagonist feels much less out of place in his workplace, but one would think that people not ostracizing others based on their looks would be a good thing. Overall the story seems to be urging us to have opinions and ideas and act on them, as inaction will result in a loss of the will to live.
My Baby by Meiko Kawakami: The conversations between the wife and husband are based around the conflict of people who are stuck in anxiety about the past vs people who want to be living in the present. However, this idea is flipped on its head when it turns out the wife’s fears were actually correct. I thought that in this story, the baby hadn’t actually been born yet and the date where it received its “electrical current” was the actual due date. Thus the story is actually about a woman who has a miscarriage, and had anxieties about her pregnancy going awry, which ultimately end up being true as it unfortunately is for so many women. I really liked the imagery of the peeling. The protagonist kept talking about the baby’s teeth even though it would be very strange for a newborn to have teeth, another reason why I don’t think the baby was “real.” The idea of “peeling” to me seemed like a metaphor for gathering memories as we grow, but since babies don’t have teeth to start they aren’t able to gather their own memories, the parents will collect the memories for them until they are old enough to remember/have teeth and peel for themselves.
Paprika Jiro by Yukiko Motoya: I found this story to be charming, it takes an unexpected perspective on a very common movie trope that makes you reconsider what kinds of consequences these movie star’s actions could have had. The absurdist tone of the story almost makes it seem like you shouldn't be satisfied with the ending of the story. Paprika Jiro was only happy/satisfied when he accepted the situation he was in and enjoyed it in his own way. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however his grandfather was killed for having the same passiveness. I think the story could be about how we SHOULD question the things around us and take action on it, rather than being passive or “going with the flow” because ultimately there could be terrible consequences.
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