Banana Yoshimoto: Night and Night’s Travellers

Banana Yoshimoto is one of the better-known Japanese writers in the west. She’s often been described as the female counterpart of Haruki Murakami, though the comparison doesn’t quite ring true – primarily because Murkami is far more successful, but also because their works differ significantly in style and content. I’ll probably get to Murakami at some point on the blog, as he is one of my favourite writers, but for now let’s look at this Yoshimoto short story.

This is the first story in a collection called Asleep, published in 2000 and translated by Michael Emmerich. It’s about the death of Yoshihiro, a vibrant young man whose life is sadly cut short by a car accident, and his family’s reaction to his death. The story is narrated by his sister, Shibami, but it is really the story of Mari, their cousin and Yoshihiro’s lover, and the depression that she suffers after his death. It’s a Yoshimoto trademark to have the story narrated by someone other than what would conventionally be considered the main character, and it’s for this reason that her stories are often difficult to pin down: people are looking centre stage, when they should be looking at the wings. The story also includes Yoshihiro’s earlier affair with an American student, a part of the story which gives it a marvellous, poignant pay-off and validates Yoshimoto’s choice of Shibami as the narrator.

Death is evidently the main theme here, but more specifically, those who have to go on living after someone has died. It’s by no means an original subject, but Yoshimoto has a knack for mingling these potentially life-changing traumas with dull, day-to-day activities, basing them in a very real, often mundane world and making the events more touching as a result. While her prose style has often been described as ephemeral because her stories often take the form of vaguely recalled memories, its beauty is in its simplicity, which reflects a much more grounded aspect of the stories; while these are certainly cloudy memories, they nonetheless took place as real-life events and are presented as such. It’s an interesting dichotomy which works incredibly well for her here and elsewhere.

Yoshimoto’s a good writer, and those dubious of Japanese literature because you fear it’ll be indecipherable don’t need to worry. While Yoshimoto’s novels are set in Japan, her themes of love, death, memory and longing are universal, and even the most sceptical reader should find something to enjoy in her work. Night and Night’s Travellers is a strong example of exactly what she does well, and an excellent introduction to it if you haven’t been inducted yet.