Readings 11/04 Alla

I liked how The Cage of Zeus explored the theme of gender in Chapter 2. Sayuri Ueda contrasts the Rounds with Monaurals by introducing us to Dr. Tei, a character who is neither a Monaural nor a Round. As Rounds are isolated in a separate district, Monaurals project their expectations of gender onto Tei. Within the first moments of meeting Tei, the narrator's colleagues refer to Tei as a female doctor. The doctor reflects on that tendency as Tei mentions that "nothing was as inconvenient or as baffling as the Monaural concept of gender." It's interesting how a binary society tries to put Tei into one of two existing categories within their own society instead of accepting another reality outside of the female-or-male boundaries. I found the translator's choice of dropping the th from plural pronouns interesting and slightly confusing. I wonder if the translator did that to highlight that Tei has nothing similar to humans at all.

I found the Japanese chapter from Toh Enjoe's Self-Reference Engine quite confusing. In this story, it felt like the Japanese language was perceived as code or data to be processed, rather than a human language. With around twelve billion unique characters with almost no repetition, Japanese doesn't have the "mathematical" logic the story talks about finding. Maybe this was Enjoe's message: that language doesn't really have any logic and that humans can't fully control it.

I really enjoyed Matsuda Aoko's short stories! I liked how both of them explore the theme of loneliness and isolation. In The Missing One, the protagonist shares her difficulties that come with running a business as a woman. She even has to prepare for the worst when writing a simple email. In the end, Kikue meets Yuta, and their interaction seems to be very gentle. The inspiration for this story was quite the opposite. I liked that Matsuda made her short story end on a positive note. Similarly, On High follows the story of Tomihime who takes care of the Himeji Castle. Just like Kikue, she feels isolated, thinking that she has been reduced to a tourist attraction. When she meets Shigeru, her reaction mirrors the shift we see in Kikue's story. Tomihime simply wants to be recognized and heard. In the end she walks around the castle and realizes that the castle is hers. Tomihime ended up destroying that barrier of isolation after building a connection with Shigeru. I think this gives us hope that so many barriers can be destroyed with the power of human empathy and care. 

Mai Ishizawa's The Place of Shells slightly reminded me of one of the earlier readings about a family running a mushroom business that suffered the consequences of the 2011 earthquake in Japan. Both texts explore how natural disasters affect human lives moving forward. In The Place of Shells, the tsunami didn't just kill people; it completely swallowed people and houses, leaving behind no physical traces of their lives or memories. The saddest part of this story for me was the fact that Nomiya once lived alongside the sea. It was something so comforting and familiar. But this element ended up turning against him, causing Nomiya to vanish from the face of the earth.

In A First-Rate Material, Sayaka Murata continues to explore the themes of societal pressure and what we consider "normal." I liked that Murata used a very casual tone to make such a surreal idea feel so ordinary. Naoki’s disgust reflects the struggle of anyone trying to go against society. He simply wants his feelings of discomfort to be recognized and heard. In the end, the story really makes us look at our own real-world traditions and realize they might seem just as strange. I wonder if Naoki was willing to make a compromise because of the societal pressure, or if it had something to do with his dad?