Hiroko OyamadaRezensionen

Odd but charming

I'd probably have to give this a 2.75, rounding up. I generally like stories told with multiple perspectives but it was very unclear as to which character was speaking for each new section until something specific was mentioned (moss, coworkers, birds, etc). None of the "chapter" breaks label which character we're following and they all read incredibly similar- making this kind of a difficult read for me. Otherwise though, I did like that perspectives started syncing up near the end, allowing you to get multiple interpretations of the characters interacting with each other. Too bad it was only for about 10 pages of the book.

As far as the story goes, I've noticed that I like the almost "surreal" novellas that a lot of Japanese authors seem to have, but this one is a little too abstract for me. Maybe I'm bad at reading between the lines or something, but the ending left me sitting there quite confused- it seemed rushed. I hope to have better luck with another book of hers, The Hole, that I plan to read soon.

Very interesting, Kafkan novel. I'm sure I'm missing some cultural context and reference (though that is the case with Kafka sure).

The human experience is universal. Period.

Most of Oyamada’s works are very short—100 pages or less. The Hole reads smoothly and easily and much of it is straightforward narrative. But there are mysteries: what was the animal she saw? Did she really see something at all? Does the brother-in-law even exist? Or the gang of kids at the convenience store? The family (the story is told by the young wife) has just moved to the countryside because the husband has transferred to a new job. The uninvolved/self-involved husband is a minor character and the wife tries to adjust to their new remoteness, exploring the area by herself. Everything speaks to isolation, both literal and figurative. She has far too much free time, one reason she is so intent on discovering what’s nearby. A series of bizarre experiences—inexplicable mysteries that are never solved or explained—raise far more questions than she can handle, leading her to question everything from her marriage to her family to her society. Fantasy-ish, magic realism-ish. Unsettling might be the best word. Not exceptional in my humble estimation but I should also point out that it won the Akutagawa Prize, so what do I know? In any case, I am intrigued enough to invest the time in another book or two of hers. I suspect that this will grow on me as time passes and I will recognize that despite the (intentionally) flat narrative voice, there is more going on here than I realize as I sit here today.

It's easy to dismiss this book if one is unaware of social pressures and societal change and a rapidly aging population in Japan (and most of East Asia). The heart of this brief collection of interrelated short stories is about childbirth -- the social pressure to have children, the changes in society (particularly with young adults) that diminish the desire for children, and the changes brought by having a child -- but the story is told obliquely. In some ways, each story is a small slice of life told as if a fable. It would be difficult to give a plot summary for each story or for the overarching story without telling the whole story. Suffice to say that the fish in the first story and the weasels in the second are real, but also serve as metaphors about childbirth and childrearing. I enjoy Oyamada's surreal writing, but if your expectations are for strong plot or character development, look elsewhere.

This short novel is about a factory in Japan. This factory dominates this region of the country and so many people work there, it is like a city unto itself. The reader is introduced to four characters, each speaking in first person in their respective chapters. First is a temp worker whose job is to shred documents. Second is a proofreader whose job is to correct documents. Third is a researcher who was hired to work green the roofs of the factory buildings. The last character is the factory, grounds, and evolutionarily questionable wildlife that lives there.

As each worker learns their jobs and roles within the community, the tone of the novel becomes more disorienting. The paragraphs are very long, and the dialogue is mixed in with characters’ thoughts so it can be difficult to decipher where one character ends and the next begins. As the days, months, and years go by, each worker must grapple with what they are really doing there. Their jobs are evermore pointless as the time goes and nothing comes of it. There are no fruits of their labors.

The writing style evokes a stronger feeling than the actual story. Not much really happens. The reader is led to be as confused and muddled by what is going on as the characters. Strong messages of Marxism leaves one questioning the meaning of labor.

Love how nothing's ever settled in this book. I offered some thoughts in an essay: https://walkingthewire.substack.com/p/you-have-always-been-the-bride

This was one of my Book Riot Tailored Book Recommendations, so I checked this out from the library.

I had mixed feelings on this one, honestly. There were parts of this that really worked for me and parts that did not. I enjoyed the creepiness of the massive, ineffable bureaucracy of it, the sense that the factory had become so large that the right hand no longer knew what the left hand was doing, and certainly none of the temp or contract workers did. I liked the weird ecology of the factory, the moss hunts, etc.

BUT.. there were certain plot points that felt like they were supposed to be twisty that I saw coming miles away. The conclusion felt a bit rushed. Most of the time I was reading it I was enjoying it, but I felt let down by the ending. I would definitely try another book by Oyamada in the future, though!

I liked The Hole, even more than I liked Oyamada's debut, The Factory. I think some of the protagonist's anxieties were intensely relatable in a world where one might not feel like they quite belong. The novella overall had really great spooky, absurdist vibes. At times, Oyamada's tendency to write in long, introspective paragraphs can be challenging to read, though with the novel being as short as it is, I wasn't too bothered by this

Yup: that's the workplace for you.

I featured a brief discussion of the book in a piece I did on anger and/vs comedy: https://walkingthewire.substack.com/p/to-laugh-or-to-rant

This relatively short work follows three characters: a guy who got laid off from his job working with computers and has taken a job as a temp proofreader at the factory; a woman who gets a temp job at the factory shredding documents; and a moss researcher hired to spearhead the factory's efforts at green-roofing. Each of them are doing what turns out to be meaningless jobs with no accomplishments, but they're being paid decently. As we learn about the three employees, we also learn about three not-quite-normal factory fauna.

Well, that was weird. Unfortunately, weird is pretty much all it was. There are no answers here, just questions.

I have no idea what I was supposed to get out of this. The author seemed to be making some kind of statement about meaningless work, but I couldn't figure out what. It seemed to tie in with the weird factory fauna somehow, but I couldn't really figure that out either. The best I was able to come up with was that Furufue, the moss guy, probably had some connection to the washer lizard, Ushiyama (the shredder woman) was connected to the factory shag, and the proofreader guy (who I eventually realized didn't seem to have a name) was maybe connected to the grayback coypu somehow. But did any of that tell me anything? Not really.

There were a bunch of intriguing things in this book - in addition to the animals, the passage of time was weird and inconsistent. It didn't feel like much time had passed at all for the proofreader or the woman who shredded documents, but somehow 15 years went by for the moss guy. Unfortunately, it all came to nothing, and my reading experience felt about as pointless as the characters' work.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

Haunting novella of a man, his friend, his friend's friend, the women in their lives and babies.

what the fuck

The Hole was rather disappointing. There was very little story here other than what was in the synopsis. I think some elements might have been lost in translation. A woman quits her job to move to the country with her husband. They move into a house next to his parents. She starts to question everything, especially the ordinary things.

It was also odd how all the dialogue was written in one big clump with no differentiation on who was speaking.

I picked this up because this won the Akutagawa Prize. Quite a rapid page-turner, finished it in barely 2 seatings, only interrupted by natural business. Not sure what genre this belongs to. A slice of life / quick suspense / supernatural realism? A bit of a freakshow. It has some.. questionable apparitions and occurrences, which were hardly explained in the last 4 pages or so. Was she hallucinating? Were there ghosts? What about the strange semblances? Were the holes real? Dunno. Not everything has closure, I'm still wondering what the heck was all that about now.

Tbh it's not outstanding, but it was an entertaining read. The atmosphere setting game was strong. The scorching heat, eeriness, and confusion kinda made me throb with incoming nausea. The pacing kept me on edge in a quiet way the whole time if that makes sense. The background was relatable for me as a girl in my late 20's who also just underwent some big changes in life. It also features some commentaries/reflections about housewives' live and maybe gender roles; made me think a bit. 3.5/5

The family dynamic seemed foreign to my experience and I'm not sure I got all the symbolism beneath the surface-level.½

What a fantastic book! I couldn't put it down.

In The Hole, Asa's husband transfers jobs to a location near where his parents live. His parents just so happen to have an empty house on their lot that the couple can move into rent free. Asa quits her job and during a downpour on an otherwise hot summer, the young couple moves in. Asa does her best in her new role as housewife, but with no children, no car, and a husband who is rarely there, she quickly stops looking at the calendar as her days are largely empty.

One day, while running an errand for her mother-in-law, she sees a strange creature, and since she's in no hurry whatsoever, follows it to the river and ends up falling, feet first, into a hole that seems like it's made just for her. After that, a series of strange and bizarre experiences happen to Asa that make her question herself more and more.

When I first finished this book, I sat it down and had the thought of, "I missed something." It wasn't until I read a few reviews that I actually started to understand--I didn't really miss anything, I just hadn't fully turned the key to make things click. Hiroko Oyamada's writing is often described as strange, some reviews have even said "Kafkaesque." I love Kafka and once I read that, it seemed to open that door in my mind a little wider and I was able to understand it a bit more.

Oyamada sets the story in a fairly normal setting, a family in a small town. There's no serious crisis in the story; Asa runs errands, lightly looks for a job, makes dinner for her husband, and meets a few neighbors. And yet, there is a feeling of blurred lines and things being just a tad bit off and you're never really able to put your finger on it.

It's not until Asa falls in the hole, a hole that seemed to fit her perfectly, that the metaphors really begin...
“It was probably four or five feet deep, but I’d managed to land on my feet … Trying to move, I realized how narrow the hole really was. It almost felt as though the hole was exactly my size—a trap made just for me.”

The Hole looks at the "hole" society creates, especially for women, that is narrow and restrictive, and that before you know it, you've fallen into and you can't get out of it. Oyamada displays a study of the pressures and expectations placed on women by Japanese society. For example, the neighbors refer to Asa only as "the bride," reducing her to her marital status and husband, and make pretty rude assumptions when they find out she doesn't have children. Her husband, when he is home and semi-attentive, complains about her cooking. Her mother-in-law, though friendly and caring, asserts her dominance over Asa even before she moves in.

Overall, I will say you may need a bit of an understanding of Japanese society, but even without, you can still pick up on what Oyamada is writing. This book just creeps you out in the slightest way and it sticks with you... did it all even happen?

Una de las sensaciones de la narrativa japonesa actual. Un tríptico que parece sacado de un relato de Murakami o el argumento de un film de Miyazaki. Al marido de Asa le han ofrecido un trabajo en una zona remota de Japón, junto al hogar en que nació. Durante un verano excepcionalmente cálido, la pareja se instala junto a la casa de los suegros, entre el ensordecedor e invasivo rugido de las cigarras. Hasta que un día Asa se topa con una extraña criatura, que no se parece a nada. La sigue hasta el terraplén de un río y cae en un agujero que parece haber sido creado para ella, y en el que queda atrapada para siempre. Casas asoladas por plagas de comadrejas. Niños fantasma. Pasillos que nos transportan «al otro lado», como si Alicia reviviera en el Japón de la tecnología punta. Oyamada firma un tríptico narrativo literariamente puro sobre la idea de que el entorno que nos rodea puede anticipar nuestras emociones y hasta nuestro destino.

Atmospheric but odd

Al marido de Asa le han ofrecido un nuevo trabajo en una zona remota de Japón, próxima al hogar en que nació. Durante un verano excepcionalmente cálido, la pareja se instala junto a la casa de los suegros, entre el ensordecedor rugido de las cigarras, que todo lo invaden. Mientras su marido se entrega al trabajo, ella comienza a explorar el entorno por su cuenta. Hasta que un día se topa con una extraña criatura que no es un perro ni un mapache ni un ser humano. Asa la sigue hasta el terraplén de un río, entre altos pastos que le llegan por las rodillas, y cae en un agujero que parece haber sido creado para ella, y en el que, en cierto modo, queda atrapada para siempre. ¿Está viendo niños fantasma? ¿Se ha convertido lo sobrenatural en parte de su vida?

The factory is a sprawling institution in a parklike setting in an unnamed Japanese town at which many of the townspeople work. This novella follows three workers who are hired at the factory at about the same time. Yoshiko is a college graduate, but this is her fifth job, which doesn't bode well for her career path. Instead of a permanent position, she is offered a contract position in "staff support." She will spend her days shredding paper. ("document destruction"). Furfue was a post-grad student studying mosses when his faculty advisor practically forces him to take a position at the factory. He is hired to convert the roofs of all the buildings at the factory into "green roofs," something he insists he knows nothing about. He advises his superiors that he only knows how to classify mosses, and doesn't know any practicalities. He is told to take his time and learn. He is the only employee in his department, and spends his days walking around the campus identifying different mosses. He is well-compensated. The final employee we meet is a temporary employee in the document division whose job is to proof read documents. The documents are inane, don't appear to relate to anything (no one knows what the factory makes) but the job must be done.

Although Kafkaesque and absurdist, this is all related in a straightforward manner, at least until the end. I actually quite enjoyed this.

Some quotes:

"Maybe it's not such a bad thing to have a job you can master from the first day."

"From my second day on the job,...I never had to use a single brain cell."

"Who wrote this stuff? For what audience? To what end? Why does it need to be proofread at all? If these are all factory documents, what the hell is the factory? What's it making? I thought I knew before, but once I started working here, I realized I had no idea. What kind of factory is this?"

3 stars

This book is just as unusual as [book:The Factory|43862305], and has some of the same themes: work, animals, and long walks. It also has the same cadence and it feels like the same narrator (is this Oyamada's style, or is it the translation?). This one didn't quite come together for me though. After finishing The Factory I understood what was happening, though not the how or why. Here though, I'm lost--who are the kids? What is the animal? Is there really a man living in the shed? Are the children and animal related to grandfather's confusion and watering, somehow? And the centipedes? What about the extra money Asa uses to cover for her mother-in-law--or was that storyline just to introduce the children and sensei?

Great creepy atmosphere, but it didn't quite work for me.

Ganadora del premio Shincho para escritores noveles y del prestigioso premio Akutagawa, Hiroko Oyamada es una de las escritoras con más talento de la literatura japonesa actual. Su escritura rebosante de imaginación combina el estilo surrealista e inquietante de Haruki Murakami con la elegancia satírica y antagónica de Franz Kafka.

La fábrica narra la vida de tres trabajadores (dos hombres y una mujer) en un gran complejo industrial que se extiende como una ciudad. Cada trabajador se concentra exclusivamente en la tarea concreta que se le ha asignado: revisar documentos, estudiar el musgo que crece en los alrededores y triturar papeles. Sus vidas se rigen por el trabajo y lentamente los días adquieren una extraña lógica. Poco a poco, los márgenes de la realidad comienzan a disolverse.

La fábrica presenta un retrato vívido, muy original y no exento de humor negro, del absurdo y la falta de sentido del trabajo actual.

El libro se completa con otros dos relatos, La aflicción de los peces disco, que nos cuenta la historia de una pareja formada por un joven adinerado que se dedica a criar peces y su mujer, notablemente más joven que él; y El insecto paria, en el que los insectos toman protagonismo en la vida de una joven empleada cuya mente está cada vez más desligada de la realidad. En estas tres historias, la autora ahonda en la incertidumbre y lo absurdo de nuestras vidas.