When there are more direct encounters with death, often they're only partial -- in one particularly nicely turned story: "I shake it and out falls a tongue" -- or involve animals. As one character admits: "Everyone I know has died", and death does come to seem unsettlingly commonplace here -- even as it still comes as a surprise how and when it pops up in some of these tales.

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales: Ogawa, Yoko, Snyder, Stephen

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist for Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales (Japanese; trans. Stephen Snyder) [9] This is not without flaws, however, as the second half of the book is weaker than the first, and it becomes hard to tell the gender or age of the various voices because, at least in this translations, the voices are not as distinctly different. This can be a problem for a collection of stories so dependent on first person narratives. The fairy tale quality and even the meta-fictive overlapping, however, thematically justifies some of this deThe Memory Police (Hisoyaka na kesshō, 密やかな結晶, 1994), translated by Stephen Snyder, Pantheon Books, 2019. Feng, Rhoda (Student, Wellesley College). " Review: Yoko Ogawa's Revenge." Huffington Post. May 7, 2013. An eleven-year-old girl who was raped and buried in a forest. A nine-year-old boy abducted by a deviant and later found in a wine crate with both of his ankles severed. A ten-year-old on a tour of an ironworks who slipped from a catwalk and was instantly dissolved in the smelter. I would read these articles aloud, reciting them like poems. Revenge] Erupts into the ordinary world as if from the unconscious or the grave…. A haunting introduction to her work… the overall effect is [that of] David Lynch: the rot that lurks beneath the surface.” — The Economist

Ogawa - Wikipedia Yōko Ogawa - Wikipedia

Fruit Juice: A young woman meets her politician father as her mother is dying...a hapless friend tags along (4 stars)

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There was no sign of anyone in the shop, and after waiting a little while longer I considered giving up and leaving. But I had only recently moved to this town and I did not know of another good bakery. Perhaps the fact that they could keep customers waiting like this was a sign of confidence, rather than rudeness. The light in the glass display case was pleasant and soft, the pastries looked beautiful, and the stool was quite comfortable—I liked the place, in spite of the service. I could tell he was angry. But I did not understand why he would speak so harshly about our son's birthday cake. So I threw it in his face. Mold and crumbs covered his hair and his cheeks, and a terrible smell filled the room. It was like breathing in death. I also cannot forget the story or stop thinking about it. If I had the power to give awards to the author, I’d hand her all awards known to man for this masterpiece. And I won’t even hesitate in crowning her one of the best authors I have had the pleasure of learning from. This short story collection by Ms. Ogawa, published in 1998 was highly creative and somewhat bizarre. Themes of disconnection, hurt and various forms of revenge permeate this group of stories. Each story is linked to others and it is difficult and challenging to tease out which ones are based on reality and which are imaginal or perhaps even supernatural. All but one story ranged from excellent to superb. That in itself is a remarkable feat. In my usual fashion I will name the story, give a rating and state an impression or snippet. The bag-maker’s craftsmanship finds the ultimate test in a young woman who asks him to make something with which to hold her beating heart. Because of an apparent birth defect, it rests outside her chest, exposed and “cowering in fear, the blood vessels trembling with each contraction.” Almost instantly, the bag-maker becomes obsessed with the bag his client has commissioned, and, as he grows more and more engrossed in his work, gradually, with the client herself. Doom hangs over the entire project, but the final outcome of the bag-maker’s work remains hidden until a casual conversation in the next story.

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder | Waterstones

The conclusion, like so many others in Revenge is mesmerizing but elusive. Although Ogawa’s characters, scenes, stray artifacts, and memories overlap from story to story, their connections are opaque. The reader is left to the maddening task of resolving just how all the strands finally weave together. The only way to do so, of course, is to reread all eleven tales. It’s as though, upon completing Revenge, the reader is waved off with the parting words of the curator of the Museum of Torture to his newest visitor: “Whenever you feel the need, please come to see us. We’ll be expecting you.” Revenge, of course, suggests a crime novel, but these are short stories, albeit Dark Tales, as the book’s sub-title has it. Even so, the titles (apart from Welcome to the Museum of Torture, and a later story, Poison Plants) rarely suggest any kind of mayhem. The style too, introvert, precise, without flourish yet highly atmospheric, is almost entirely untypical of our genre. Whilst, just occasionally, there are erotic moments that recall the more obsessive style of some Edogawa Rampo ‘crime’ stories, Ogawa has nothing in common with other Japanese crime writers that I have read including Seicho Matsumoto, or any of the other pitifully few (20 or so authors) whose short stories have been translated in the West. Even Patricia Highsmith or Ruth Rendell, who can be said to operate at the edgier end of the crime spectrum, achieve their ends in a much more dramatic and extrovert manner. Nevertheless, crime readers who enjoy those writers are, I think, those who might respond most positively to this haunting and hallucinatory volume. Sinister forces collide---and unite a host of desperate characters---in this eerie cycle of interwoven tales from Yoko Ogawa, the critically acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. Frequently, she explores the theme of memory in her works. For instance, The Housekeeper and the Professor follows a mathematics professor who cannot remember anything for longer than eighty minutes, and The Memory Police is about a group of islanders who gradually forget the existence of certain things, such as birds or flowers. [4] Human cruelty features as another prominent theme in her work, as she is interested in exploring what drives people to commit acts of physical or emotional violence. [4] She often writes about female bodies and the woman's role in a family, which has led many to label her as a feminist writer. Ogawa is hesitatant about this label, stating instead that she "just peeked into [the world of her characters] and took notes from what they were doing". [4]As in Ogawa’s other writing, such as The Diving Pool, food becomes a focus for displaced love, but holds within it not a substitute for human affection and closeness, but excess without the possibility of satiety. In “Fruit Juice,” the narrator is invited by a classmate to have dinner in a French restaurant with her and her father, whom she has never met before. After the dinner, the two classmates come across an abandoned post office. They break in to find it filled with kiwis: You may be thinking that a bag is just a thing in which to put other things. And you’re right, of course. But that’s what makes them so extraordinary. A bag has no intentions or desires of its own, it embraces every object that we ask it to hold. You trust the bag, and it, in return, trusts you. To me, a bag is patience; a bag is profound discretion." Alison Flood (8 April 2014). "Knausgaard heads Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist". The Guardian . Retrieved April 10, 2014.

Revenge by Yōko Ogawa | Goodreads

No, it couldn't be," I said to the old woman nearby. "He's just sleeping. He hasn't eaten anything, and he must be exhausted. Let's carry him home and try not to wake him. He should sleep, as much as he wants. He'll wake up later, I'm sure of it." Almost no one is willing to speak out or go against the grain: life -- and death -- continue like always, even if or as they have been shaken to the core of their existence.

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At fifteen, I took an overdose of sleeping pills. I must have had a good reason for wanting to kill myself, but I’ve forgotten what it was. Perhaps I was just fed up with everything. At any rate, I slept for eighteen hours straight, and when I woke up I was completely refreshed. My body felt so empty and purified that I wondered whether I had, in fact, died. But no one in my family even seemed to have noticed I had attempted suicide. I couldn't hear anything, but I could see her shoulders trembling. Her hair had been gathered carelessly under a white cap. Despite some spots of cream and chocolate, her apron looked neat and pressed. Her slight frame seemed almost that of a little girl. The Japanese title, 寡黙な死骸みだらな弔い, also offers a bit more frisson than the simplistic English one; Google translate suggests as a literal translation: 'Indecent dead quiet funeral', which isn't any more insightful than 'revenge' but certainly is more suggestive of what's on offer here.]