'Hardboiled & Hard Luck'

I have forgotten about this Japanese writer Mahoko Yoshimoto 吉本真秀子. She uses her pen name of Banana Yoshimoto 吉本ばなな on her works. I think she has some sort of cult status among book clubs, and hailed as an example of contemporary Japanese literature. But I didn't have a strong impression of her books, nor did I chase down her stories after 'Kitchen' (1988) published in English in 1993, translated by Megan Backus.

I honestly couldn't remember if I had read 'Hardboiled & Hard Luck' (1999), translated into English by Michael Emmerich and published in English in 2005. As I read on, nothing seemed familiar to me, so I guess I didn't. Heh. This collection holds two novellas, literally 'Hardboiled' and 'Hard Luck'. Both stories hold unnamed narrators. Both touch on grief and loss, making for a depressing read. 

'Hardboiled'

Our narrator is plagued by unresolved conflicts in her relationship with her partner, Chizuru, who died in an apartment fire. Although the narrator didn't kill Chizuru or had any part to play in her death, she still felt guilty about it. And Chizeru kept appearing in her dreams. There's this trail of black stones in the story that I didn't feel like trying to decipher their significance. The black stones seemed to herald misfortunes or ghostly happenings in said venues.    

The narrator went on a road trip, reached a country town, met a kind innkeeper and also met a ghost in her room. She met Chizuru in her dream again before she left the inn, and in that dream, all was resolved.

It's true that I'd had nowhere to live, that I used her. And the fact is, I never planned to stay with her, a woman like myself, for the long haul. We were living together, and she liked me. So when she got physical, I responded. That's all there was to it. But before long, I realized that she saw things differently. Or rather, some part of me realized it, and I kept pretending I hadn't noticed. I felt horrible about what I had done. She was still there inside me now, just as she always was: a life put on hold, a memory I didn't know how to handle. 

'Hard Luck'

In 'Hard Luck', the narrator's sister Kuni collapsed from (work) exhaustion, had a massive cerebral hemorrhage, laid in a coma in the hospital and eventually was taken off life support after being declared brain dead. We grieve with Kuni as she grapples with saying goodbye to her sister.

Kuni's fiancé had simply disappeared because he didn't know how to handle this. Oddly, it was the fiancé's brother Sakai who dutifully came to visit Kuni and showed concern to the narrator and her parents. The narrator was preparing to leave for Italy for her studies after Kuni's funeral. It also suggested a romance developing between the narrator and Sakai.

Slowly everyone in my family came to understand that no miracle would occur, and after that life became somewhat easier. 

.....................

That strange period we all lived through before my sister finally departed from this world forced us all to do a lot of thinking.

.....................

None of this mattered to my sister, who was dying. This was a sacred time set aside for us survivors to think about issues we didn't usually consider.

To focus on the unbearable only marred what was sacred.