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Title: Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich ISBN: 0-8021-3820-9 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 09 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.58 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Somnambulism
Comment: Slumber, Drunkenness, Death and Love are the topics explored in Banana Yoshimoto's "Asleep." As with "Kitchen," there are three novellas linked thematically but not by characters or plot. Three women, all in love with someone emotionally of physically dead, all troubled sleepers, all drinkers, try to find rest and quietude that is not found in sleep. Each aspect is a metaphor for the unconscious, where perhaps the answers lie. For in this sleep of death, who know what dreams may come? Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know it's really serious. Drink, don't think. Seeking answers, the women look to their friends, their family, magical dwarfs or anyone who can help.
"Asleep" is told in Yoshimoto style, like a story overheard with half-open eyes while drifting off to sleep. It is semi-magical and dreamy, but still in touch with the real world. The pacing, the narrative are all influenced by classical Japanese literature. Her writing is very gentle, very feminine. And poetic.
An enjoyable, lazy book. Good for seekers of love and those who cannot sleep at night.
Rating: 5
Summary: The master storyteller is back!
Comment: Banana Yoshimoto's novels have touched me in so many ways. Her lucid, subtle and disarming writing style is a work of art. She is a tour de force in contemporary fiction. I have waited a long time for the release of Asleep, and I am not disappointed.
The three novellas in Asleep are earnest, sensuous, eccentric, and extremely surreal. The three female characters in the book are bewitched into a spiritual and magical sleep. In Night and Night's Travelers, the first story, a woman finds herself sleepwalking at night. In Love Song, a woman's sleep is haunted by a rival whom she once competed with in a love triangle. And in Asleep, a woman loses her best friend to suicide. Also, she is having an affair with a man whose wife is in a coma. Things take a strange turn when she finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. The stories are very ambiguous; you have to pay attention to every detail in order to grasp their meaning. The magical realism in the stories is as mystical as a ghost story and the language is deceptively simple -- it is meant to play with the reader's mind.
I am awed by this incredible piece of fiction. The stories are very well done and interestingly nuance. This is her most creative work since Kitchen and her best collection of stories since Lizard. Powerful and spooky, Asleep will capture your heart. I strongly urge you to read this one!
Rating: 3
Summary: Ugh
Comment: The works of Banana Yoshimoto have long been an important feature of my bookshelf. I tell everyone I know to pick one of her works up and read it, to experience the sheer captivation that is reading her fabulous stories. I cried for all different reasons through Kitchen and N.P., and Goodbye Tsugumi is also wonderful. I even tried reading Lizard in Japanese. They all have the ability to transport the reader into a new, but familiar world and delve deep into the human psyche.
Then I read "Night and Night's Travelers" in the Asleep collection. At the completion of this story I wanted nothing more than to throw the book to the ground and jump on it with all possible force. Perhaps this piece was not quite as compelling in English as in the original, but it nonetheless left a taste of disappointment in my dry, cynical mouth. The death in the story was not handled well, and the overuse of hyperbole and cliche is something to cry into one's brandy over. I hope the rest of this book proves to be back to her original, interesting self.
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Title: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto ISBN: 0671880187 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1994 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, Michael Emmerich ISBN: 0802139914 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: NP by Banana Yoshimoto ISBN: 0671898264 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: AMRITA by Banana Yoshimoto ISBN: 0671532855 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto ISBN: 0671532766 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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