Your night
Your night ( Japanese 彼女 に つ い て , Kanojo ni tsuite ) is a novel by Banana Yoshimoto . It was first published in Japanese in 2008, and in 2012 in a German translation by Diogenes Verlag.
content
The first-person narrator Yumiko meets with her cousin Shōichi. Her parents were twins, with Shōichi's mother recently dying. In contrast to Yumiko, Shōichi leads a successful life, but she lives in a simple apartment and is precariously employed. In the conversations with Shōichi it becomes clear that their grandmother carried out occult practices and that this influenced the family history. Yumiko had a good relationship with her aunt, while her mother was mainly interested in her work.
Together with Shōichi, Yumiko sets out on a journey to places where her parents have been. They visit a psychiatric hospital where they have stayed and where Yumiko's mother had a relationship with the clinic director. The events merge more and more with dreams in which Yumiko is killed by her own mother.
At the end, Yumiko Shōichi's mother appears in a dream and tells her Shōichi's life story and that the magical powers are in a small goblin figure.
criticism
“One wonders what intentions Yoshimoto pursues when she infiltrates feminist positions in the“ night ”and admonishes good mothers for Japan's sons and daughters - the better mother is that of a son anyway. To compensate for this, the author expresses some criticism of the power and property thinking of modern civilization. Should the post-bubble society really strive to revitalize the “healthy family” and reject a performance ideology that has been declared western and that deforms people? But then please with a cool beer in hand and an Italian delicacy within reach. "
literature
- Banana Yoshimoto. Your night. Translated by Thomas Eggenberg. Zurich, Diogenes 2012 ISBN 978-3-257-06816-0