村田沙耶香, Ginny Tapley Takemori: Earthlings (Paperback, en-Latn-US language, 2020, Granta Books)
Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. Together with her cousin Yuu, she spends her summers in the wild Nagano mountains, hoping a spaceship will take her home. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the cousins for ever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
Now, Natsuki is grown. She lives quietly in an asexual marriage, pretending to be normal, hiding the horrors of her childhood from her family and friends. But dark shadows from Natsuki’s past are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains …
Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. Together with her cousin Yuu, she spends her summers in the wild Nagano mountains, hoping a spaceship will take her home. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the cousins for ever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
Now, Natsuki is grown. She lives quietly in an asexual marriage, pretending to be normal, hiding the horrors of her childhood from her family and friends. But dark shadows from Natsuki’s past are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki prepares herself for a reunion with Yuu. Will he still remember their promise? And will he help her keep it?
A dark and magical reckoning with what it might take to survive a shattered life, Earthlings is an exhilarating cosmic flight that will leave you reeling.
Taschenbuch, 256 Seiten
Sprache: en-Latn-US
Am 1. Januar 2020 von Granta Books veröffentlicht.
En oikein osaa sanoa oliko tämä liian absurdi, vai samaan aikaan ei ihan tarpeeksi absurdi. Ei tarpeeksi absurdi siinä mielessä, että kirja ikäänkuin liian myöhään nosti lukijan pois kaiken normaaliuden tuomasta tulkinnasta. Ihan tykkäsinkin, mutta toisaalta aika varovaisesti lähtisin suosittelemaan kenellekään.
Inhaltswarnung cw: child abuse (incl. sexual), incest, murder, cannibalism
OK. Weirdest thing I've read in a long time. Not really sure how/why I finished it, especially as the first third-or-so, in which Natsuki is eleven, is a distinctly uncomfortable read. The CWs I've listed aren't even all the topics I'd probably mention, but I've forgotten some and others... I'm not even sure how I'd describe them. When you strip out all of the dialled-up-to-eleven weirdness, what you're left with is a novel that might have interesting things to say about how people (particularly Japanese women) deal with societal norms, expectations, and pressure, and about how the construction of a fantasy world can make sense as a way of dealing with childhood trauma. For me, though, it all felt a bit too heavy-handed -- the constant invocation of 'the Factory' felt a bit much after a while. Note: I haven't given a star rating because I just don't know how to rate it.
Amongst the awful verbal and emotional abuse from a parent and sibiling, sexual assault from a teacher, and depictions of incest and child sex within the first third of the book, I couldn't make myself keep reading. After reading Convenience Store Woman, I don't anticipate that the circumstances are going to get any better for the protagonist...
