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Territory of Light
Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-year-old daughter. Its twelve, stand-alone fragments follow the first year of her separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and earth-shaking explosions. The seemingly artless prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and images remain seared into your retina for a long time afterwards.
122 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
About the author
Yūko Tsushima
48 books508 followersYūko Tsushima is the pen name of Satoko Tsushima, a contemporary Japanese fiction writer, essayist and critic. She is the daughter of famed novelist Osamu Dazai, who died when she was one year old. She is considered "one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation" (The New York Times).
She has won many major literary prizes, including the Kawabata for "The Silent Traders," one of the stories in The Shooting Gallery, and the Tanizaki for Mountain of Fire. Her early fiction, from which The Shooting Gallery is drawn, was largely based on her experience as a single mother.
Her multilayered narrative techniques have increasingly taken inspiration from the Ainu oral epics (yukar) and the tales of premodern Japan.
When invited to teach Japanese literature to graduate students in Paris, she taught the yukar, and her seminar led to the publication of Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’argent: Chants du peuple aïnou (1996), the first French edition of the epic poems.
Tsushima is active in networks such as the Japan-India Writers’ Caravans and dialogues with Korean and Chinese writers. Recent novels have been set in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule, among the Kyrgyz, in medieval Nara, and in post-3/11 Tokyo. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages.
She has won many major literary prizes, including the Kawabata for "The Silent Traders," one of the stories in The Shooting Gallery, and the Tanizaki for Mountain of Fire. Her early fiction, from which The Shooting Gallery is drawn, was largely based on her experience as a single mother.
Her multilayered narrative techniques have increasingly taken inspiration from the Ainu oral epics (yukar) and the tales of premodern Japan.
When invited to teach Japanese literature to graduate students in Paris, she taught the yukar, and her seminar led to the publication of Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’argent: Chants du peuple aïnou (1996), the first French edition of the epic poems.
Tsushima is active in networks such as the Japan-India Writers’ Caravans and dialogues with Korean and Chinese writers. Recent novels have been set in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule, among the Kyrgyz, in medieval Nara, and in post-3/11 Tokyo. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages.
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March 1, 2019
Mothering in Japan
Looking down at the stagnant green water, I could picture as in a dream or a film that spot as it had appeared back then, some fifteen years earlier: a spot clad in flowers and fruit trees, where the sunshine seemed to have congealed. It was bright and tranquil, disquietingly so. No one must ever know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly. I gazed at its stillness without once ever going through the gate.
By twelve short vignettes, Japanese writer Yuko Tsushima (1947-2016) conveys a year in the life of the nameless narrator, a young woman living in Tokyo after she has been abandoned by her husband and tries to build a new life with her daughter of three. The vista offered upon a life set mainly within the walls of the apartment the woman moves into after the break-up is unvarnished and ruthless – the sudden and unsolicited adjustment to single parenthood isn’t a bed of roses.
Tsushima poignantly depicts the teetering process of finding oneself again after the disruptiveness of a separation – lately I saw this process compared to a vanishing of the sunlight, and finding oneself overnight living in the dusk, no longer able to perceive oneself clearly. Vacillating between resentment for her spouse Fujino not taking his responsibilities as a father and her propensity to ban the half-hearty father from his daughter’s life, the young woman has to discover herself again and to find herself a new identity. Reviving her own voice and freedom while struggling to organise her new life, single motherhood consumes her. Evoking an emotional landscape of exhaustion, despair, anger and remorse, Tsushima paints how she tries and fails to cope with social isolation, loneliness and the incessant neediness of a young child – candidly showing the degeneration of the apartment, her drinking excessively, oversleeping for work, her neglecting and abusing the child.
However, the more of those gloomy, cramped apartments I looked at, the further the figure of my husband receded from sight, and while the rooms were invariably dark, I began to sense a gleam in their darkness like that of an animal’s eyes.
As the title clarifies, Tsushima plays with images and language evocating and symbolizing space, light and dark, weaving them ingenuously into the drifting moods of the protagonist. The woman’s life partially withdraws to the interior, an inwardness echoed by the many scenes of the novel set in the apartment. While the year starts off with the almost blinding light in which the apartment is flooded, apparently evocating a new hopeful as well as frightening start, this gradually dims over the year, when the woman sinks more and more into depression, is haunted by fear for falling apart and of the dark, by memories, erotic dreams and ghostly nightmares which like dreamscapes continue when she is awake. Luminosity however returns and the woman’s troublesome journey to autonomy and self-containment seems to bring about a fragile balance of lightness and darkness imbued with more tenderly playful and intimate moments and joys of motherhood.
Each vignette comes under a delicate poetic title which a few times starkly contrasts with the glum rawness of the slice of life depicted, almost like a poem in its own right (‘A dream of birds’, ‘The magic words’), just like the light that floods the apartment and pulses in various forms in the life of the characters emphasizes the darkness and gives it a silver lining.
Like the two short stories I have read by her (Of Dogs and Walls) just before reading Territory of Light, this novel draws on not even thinly veiled autobiographical elements; symbols and metaphors created out of natural elements (light, water), themes and motifs (abandonment, death, single motherhood), narrative components (memories, dreamscapes) seem recurrent components as well. Like in the story The Watery Realm water is an ominous, menacing and at the same time solacing element, reminiscing the death of Tsushima’s father, the writer Osamu Dazai, who drowned himself together with his lover when Yuko Tsushima was one year old – and she refers to him when she writes ’At the time, I had not yet taken in the reality of my father’s death, I understood that I would never see him again in this world, but because there was a room at home that was just as it had been when it was his. I had entered the world at more or less the same time as my father departed it’ .
Fathers - and maybe men in general – Tsushima seems to imply, are essentially characterized or defined by their absence and the void that they leave behind – and their untrustworthiness. Children, mothers, grandmothers live in an intimate, but fraught feminine world in which interpersonal warmth is mingled with cruelty, communication is almost impossible and autonomy perpetually threatened by the outside world and by family.
Tsushima’s prose is visually stunning, elegant, atmospheric, raw and subtle at once. Although a slender novel, it took me oddly long to read it. As a collection of fragmentary episodes (the twelve chapters were originally published in monthly instalments in a literary journal), the narrative lacked flow; there is some repetitiveness in the describing of the banalities of everyday domestic life. A peculiar cruelty in the mother’s treatment of her toddler alienated and disconcerted me in a way which reminded me of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring – also the straightforward description of self-destructive or immature conduct one takes heed to avoid as a single mother (like the reversal of roles in which the toddler takes care of the mother during sickness) was painful to read.
Motherhood might be transformative, it doesn’t turn women into saints – we remain all the same flawed and fallible human beings.
(Photographs by Issei Suda)
My thanks go to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy.
Looking down at the stagnant green water, I could picture as in a dream or a film that spot as it had appeared back then, some fifteen years earlier: a spot clad in flowers and fruit trees, where the sunshine seemed to have congealed. It was bright and tranquil, disquietingly so. No one must ever know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly. I gazed at its stillness without once ever going through the gate.
By twelve short vignettes, Japanese writer Yuko Tsushima (1947-2016) conveys a year in the life of the nameless narrator, a young woman living in Tokyo after she has been abandoned by her husband and tries to build a new life with her daughter of three. The vista offered upon a life set mainly within the walls of the apartment the woman moves into after the break-up is unvarnished and ruthless – the sudden and unsolicited adjustment to single parenthood isn’t a bed of roses.
Tsushima poignantly depicts the teetering process of finding oneself again after the disruptiveness of a separation – lately I saw this process compared to a vanishing of the sunlight, and finding oneself overnight living in the dusk, no longer able to perceive oneself clearly. Vacillating between resentment for her spouse Fujino not taking his responsibilities as a father and her propensity to ban the half-hearty father from his daughter’s life, the young woman has to discover herself again and to find herself a new identity. Reviving her own voice and freedom while struggling to organise her new life, single motherhood consumes her. Evoking an emotional landscape of exhaustion, despair, anger and remorse, Tsushima paints how she tries and fails to cope with social isolation, loneliness and the incessant neediness of a young child – candidly showing the degeneration of the apartment, her drinking excessively, oversleeping for work, her neglecting and abusing the child.
However, the more of those gloomy, cramped apartments I looked at, the further the figure of my husband receded from sight, and while the rooms were invariably dark, I began to sense a gleam in their darkness like that of an animal’s eyes.
As the title clarifies, Tsushima plays with images and language evocating and symbolizing space, light and dark, weaving them ingenuously into the drifting moods of the protagonist. The woman’s life partially withdraws to the interior, an inwardness echoed by the many scenes of the novel set in the apartment. While the year starts off with the almost blinding light in which the apartment is flooded, apparently evocating a new hopeful as well as frightening start, this gradually dims over the year, when the woman sinks more and more into depression, is haunted by fear for falling apart and of the dark, by memories, erotic dreams and ghostly nightmares which like dreamscapes continue when she is awake. Luminosity however returns and the woman’s troublesome journey to autonomy and self-containment seems to bring about a fragile balance of lightness and darkness imbued with more tenderly playful and intimate moments and joys of motherhood.
Each vignette comes under a delicate poetic title which a few times starkly contrasts with the glum rawness of the slice of life depicted, almost like a poem in its own right (‘A dream of birds’, ‘The magic words’), just like the light that floods the apartment and pulses in various forms in the life of the characters emphasizes the darkness and gives it a silver lining.
Like the two short stories I have read by her (Of Dogs and Walls) just before reading Territory of Light, this novel draws on not even thinly veiled autobiographical elements; symbols and metaphors created out of natural elements (light, water), themes and motifs (abandonment, death, single motherhood), narrative components (memories, dreamscapes) seem recurrent components as well. Like in the story The Watery Realm water is an ominous, menacing and at the same time solacing element, reminiscing the death of Tsushima’s father, the writer Osamu Dazai, who drowned himself together with his lover when Yuko Tsushima was one year old – and she refers to him when she writes ’At the time, I had not yet taken in the reality of my father’s death, I understood that I would never see him again in this world, but because there was a room at home that was just as it had been when it was his. I had entered the world at more or less the same time as my father departed it’ .
Fathers - and maybe men in general – Tsushima seems to imply, are essentially characterized or defined by their absence and the void that they leave behind – and their untrustworthiness. Children, mothers, grandmothers live in an intimate, but fraught feminine world in which interpersonal warmth is mingled with cruelty, communication is almost impossible and autonomy perpetually threatened by the outside world and by family.
Tsushima’s prose is visually stunning, elegant, atmospheric, raw and subtle at once. Although a slender novel, it took me oddly long to read it. As a collection of fragmentary episodes (the twelve chapters were originally published in monthly instalments in a literary journal), the narrative lacked flow; there is some repetitiveness in the describing of the banalities of everyday domestic life. A peculiar cruelty in the mother’s treatment of her toddler alienated and disconcerted me in a way which reminded me of Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring – also the straightforward description of self-destructive or immature conduct one takes heed to avoid as a single mother (like the reversal of roles in which the toddler takes care of the mother during sickness) was painful to read.
Motherhood might be transformative, it doesn’t turn women into saints – we remain all the same flawed and fallible human beings.
(Photographs by Issei Suda)
My thanks go to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy.
May 16, 2020
CONTAINS SPOILERS
This is the story of the struggles of a single mother in Tokyo. (I have a single-mother shelf.) After she has separated from her husband (she wants a divorce) she chances upon an opportunity to rent the entire fourth floor of a small office building, all windows, that she often leaves wide open. Thus the tie-in with the title.
She has a 3-yeard-old daughter who loves to hang out at the unguarded windows and toss things on the single-story rooftops below. The mother has nightmares of her daughter falling out the windows and hears of a schoolmate of her daughter’s, an older boy, who fell to his death from a window. Yet she takes no precautions. She thinks: “I can’t watch her all the time.” She leaves her daughter asleep to run to the neighborhood bar. She seems to blame herself for an unusual number of neighborhood deaths. We begin to wonder if she has a touch of mental illness.
She is overwhelmed by her work in an office (her child goes to daycare) and yet she won’t accept help from either her husband or her mother. Her husband claims he can’t help her financially, but he would take the daughter at times. Her nearby mother is anxious to help and even offers to have her daughter move back in with her. The woman’s treatment of her daughter occasionally borders on abuse. She has no real friends.
She drinks to excess at times and has strange behaviors, such as calling up a married man she hardly knows, the PTA president, and inviting him to spend the night. He comes over. After that one night he pretends he doesn’t know her.
She’s constantly exhausted; obviously depressed. Her over-sleeping gets her in trouble with her job and with the day care center for failing to follow her child’s schedule. She’s so disorganized that when she gets a letter about a divorce hearing she’s puzzled until she remembers she was the one who requested it.
She thinks back to high school days when one of the cool girls said to her “Why are you such a loser?” We come to realize a lot of these struggles are with herself.
A good story that does a good job of putting us into to the mind of this woman. We feel sorry for her and even more so for her daughter.
Wikipedia tells us about the author (1947-2016): Tsushima's work is often characterized as feminist, although she did not apply this label to her own work. Her writing explores the lives of marginalized people, usually women, who struggle for control of their own lives against societal and family pressures. Tsushima wrote about women who had been abandoned by family members. Her stories, several of which draw on her own experience as a single mother, focus on the psychological impact of abandonment on those left behind.
Top photo from borgenproject.org
Middle from abc.net.au
The author from .googleusercontent.com
This is the story of the struggles of a single mother in Tokyo. (I have a single-mother shelf.) After she has separated from her husband (she wants a divorce) she chances upon an opportunity to rent the entire fourth floor of a small office building, all windows, that she often leaves wide open. Thus the tie-in with the title.
She has a 3-yeard-old daughter who loves to hang out at the unguarded windows and toss things on the single-story rooftops below. The mother has nightmares of her daughter falling out the windows and hears of a schoolmate of her daughter’s, an older boy, who fell to his death from a window. Yet she takes no precautions. She thinks: “I can’t watch her all the time.” She leaves her daughter asleep to run to the neighborhood bar. She seems to blame herself for an unusual number of neighborhood deaths. We begin to wonder if she has a touch of mental illness.
She is overwhelmed by her work in an office (her child goes to daycare) and yet she won’t accept help from either her husband or her mother. Her husband claims he can’t help her financially, but he would take the daughter at times. Her nearby mother is anxious to help and even offers to have her daughter move back in with her. The woman’s treatment of her daughter occasionally borders on abuse. She has no real friends.
She drinks to excess at times and has strange behaviors, such as calling up a married man she hardly knows, the PTA president, and inviting him to spend the night. He comes over. After that one night he pretends he doesn’t know her.
She’s constantly exhausted; obviously depressed. Her over-sleeping gets her in trouble with her job and with the day care center for failing to follow her child’s schedule. She’s so disorganized that when she gets a letter about a divorce hearing she’s puzzled until she remembers she was the one who requested it.
She thinks back to high school days when one of the cool girls said to her “Why are you such a loser?” We come to realize a lot of these struggles are with herself.
A good story that does a good job of putting us into to the mind of this woman. We feel sorry for her and even more so for her daughter.
Wikipedia tells us about the author (1947-2016): Tsushima's work is often characterized as feminist, although she did not apply this label to her own work. Her writing explores the lives of marginalized people, usually women, who struggle for control of their own lives against societal and family pressures. Tsushima wrote about women who had been abandoned by family members. Her stories, several of which draw on her own experience as a single mother, focus on the psychological impact of abandonment on those left behind.
Top photo from borgenproject.org
Middle from abc.net.au
The author from .googleusercontent.com
January 28, 2021
*Ganadora del Premio Noma*
Esta es mi primera lectura de 2021 y no puedo sentirme más afortunada. Yuko Tsushima, la autora de este libro, me ha acompañado en unos momentos muy difíciles. Consiguió transmitirme algo de la luz de la que habla en su novela, reconfortándome de una manera que aún no llego a entender del todo. Llegué al final del libro con paz, al igual que ella. Así que este viaje lo hemos hecho juntas.
Yuko Tsushima, pseudónimo de Satoko Tsushima, nació en Tokio en 1947, el mismo lugar en el que fallecería en 2016. Fue novelista, ensayista, crítica literaria y profesora, entre otros. Margaret Drabble la equiparó con Virginia Woolf y fue considerada por The New York Times como «una de las más importantes escritoras de su generación». Su obra es considerada feminista, pero por razones que desconozco, ella no era partidaria de caracterizarla como tal. Así que respetaré sus deseos y diré que su literatura explora las vidas de la gente que vive en los márgenes de la sociedad. Sí, habitualmente esa gente… son mujeres. Mujeres apartadas, mujeres que habían abandonado su núcleo familiar, mujeres divorciadas, madres solteras (esto último, probablemente basándose en su propia experiencia).
Territorio de luz, publicado entre 1978 y 1979, cuenta la historia de una bibliotecaria a la que su marido decide abandonar. Esta al principio no se toma el asunto en serio, pero conforme pasa el tiempo se da cuenta de la realidad: el divorcio. Es ella la que se ve obligada a llevar una vida diferente con su hija de dos años, confusa ante la situación. En medio de Tokio decide alquilar un piso lleno de ventanas y mucha, mucha luz.
Es un libro sobre la construcción (o reconstrucción) de la propia identidad. Hay una clara evolución de la dependencia hasta el querer quitarse de encima un apellido que no es suyo. Territorio de luz habla de maternidad, soledad y abandono. También de la bendita conciliación, que sigue siendo una auténtica utopía (en el 2020 lo comprobamos). Vemos cómo el cuidado de la niña recae en ella, que debe enfrentarse además de a los prejuicios sociales, a una enorme carga de trabajo tanto en la biblioteca como en su casa. No esperéis el manido estereotipo de madre incansable, todoterreno, siempre con una sonrisa en los labios para su hija y para el mundo entero. Aquí tenéis a una madre feliz y también triste, en ocasiones enérgica, en ocasiones cansada. Compleja, contradictoria. Es su experiencia con luces, sí, pero también con sombras. Eso hace que sea muy real y crudo. Sin adornos, sin caer en el drama o en la autocompasión. Es además elegante y casi onírico, todo un viaje. Gracias Yuko.
Esta es mi primera lectura de 2021 y no puedo sentirme más afortunada. Yuko Tsushima, la autora de este libro, me ha acompañado en unos momentos muy difíciles. Consiguió transmitirme algo de la luz de la que habla en su novela, reconfortándome de una manera que aún no llego a entender del todo. Llegué al final del libro con paz, al igual que ella. Así que este viaje lo hemos hecho juntas.
Yuko Tsushima, pseudónimo de Satoko Tsushima, nació en Tokio en 1947, el mismo lugar en el que fallecería en 2016. Fue novelista, ensayista, crítica literaria y profesora, entre otros. Margaret Drabble la equiparó con Virginia Woolf y fue considerada por The New York Times como «una de las más importantes escritoras de su generación». Su obra es considerada feminista, pero por razones que desconozco, ella no era partidaria de caracterizarla como tal. Así que respetaré sus deseos y diré que su literatura explora las vidas de la gente que vive en los márgenes de la sociedad. Sí, habitualmente esa gente… son mujeres. Mujeres apartadas, mujeres que habían abandonado su núcleo familiar, mujeres divorciadas, madres solteras (esto último, probablemente basándose en su propia experiencia).
Territorio de luz, publicado entre 1978 y 1979, cuenta la historia de una bibliotecaria a la que su marido decide abandonar. Esta al principio no se toma el asunto en serio, pero conforme pasa el tiempo se da cuenta de la realidad: el divorcio. Es ella la que se ve obligada a llevar una vida diferente con su hija de dos años, confusa ante la situación. En medio de Tokio decide alquilar un piso lleno de ventanas y mucha, mucha luz.
Es un libro sobre la construcción (o reconstrucción) de la propia identidad. Hay una clara evolución de la dependencia hasta el querer quitarse de encima un apellido que no es suyo. Territorio de luz habla de maternidad, soledad y abandono. También de la bendita conciliación, que sigue siendo una auténtica utopía (en el 2020 lo comprobamos). Vemos cómo el cuidado de la niña recae en ella, que debe enfrentarse además de a los prejuicios sociales, a una enorme carga de trabajo tanto en la biblioteca como en su casa. No esperéis el manido estereotipo de madre incansable, todoterreno, siempre con una sonrisa en los labios para su hija y para el mundo entero. Aquí tenéis a una madre feliz y también triste, en ocasiones enérgica, en ocasiones cansada. Compleja, contradictoria. Es su experiencia con luces, sí, pero también con sombras. Eso hace que sea muy real y crudo. Sin adornos, sin caer en el drama o en la autocompasión. Es además elegante y casi onírico, todo un viaje. Gracias Yuko.
June 18, 2023
I was fascinated by this quietly told, subtle tale about control and the demand to function. When a young woman is left by her husband, she becomes the only provider for her 2-year-old daughter and has to juggle numerous, often contradictory expectations: She has to hold down her job at a library where she is expected to perform her tasks no matter what happens in her private life, she has to find her own way of being a single mother while defending herself against the ideas others - the employees at her daughter's day care center, her ex-husband, neighbours, strangers - impose upon her, and she has to develop her identity as a young woman living apart from her husband in hectic Tokyo. Some demands she is confronted with are reasonable, even if it is hard for her to live up to them, while others seem like misogynistic strategies to put pressure upon her - it's this complicated web the protagonist gets entangled in, always juxtaposed with the impulsive emotions of a small child who doesn't know about the constraints of the grown-up world yet, that makes this text so captivating. Although first published in 1978, this still reads as relevant and fresh.
While all of this makes for a dramatic tale (that these things happen to many people doesn't mean that they aren't profound personal crises), Tsushima finds a meditative language to tell the story from the woman's perspective. Descriptions are provided in a way that allows the reader to draw his own conclusions. For instance, we learn about the ex-husband (who says he cannot afford to pay child support) that "he didn't want to let people down by abandoning his dreams of making a movie and creating a small theatre company." No further judgement necessary - this is excellent writing. The whole book is infused with symbolism of light and darkness, which gives the rather sober voice of the first-person narrator an additional dimension.
Multi-award-winning author Yuko Tsushima (who died in 2016) was the second daughter of Osamu Dazai, her father committed suicide when she was one year old. "Territory of Light", which was awarded the Noma Literary Prize 1998, is inspired by her own experiences as a single mother and feelings of abandonment. Originally, the short novella was published in twelve installments in a Japanese magazine (1978-79), representing the timeframe of twelve months over which we follow the protagonist and her daughter - which also mean that the chapters can be read individually, they are self-contained. The novella is part of a Japanese genre called "I-novel", which aims to combine the Western realist mode that focuses on the inner thoughts of characters (Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola etc.) with Japanese diaristic traditions (other famous "I-novelists" are Osamu Dazai or Kenzaburō Ōe).
Fortunately, there is a lot more of Tsushima's writing to translate and discover - I'm glad that recently, Japanese literature has gained a lot of international attention, because this country has so many fantastic authors that deserve to be read.
While all of this makes for a dramatic tale (that these things happen to many people doesn't mean that they aren't profound personal crises), Tsushima finds a meditative language to tell the story from the woman's perspective. Descriptions are provided in a way that allows the reader to draw his own conclusions. For instance, we learn about the ex-husband (who says he cannot afford to pay child support) that "he didn't want to let people down by abandoning his dreams of making a movie and creating a small theatre company." No further judgement necessary - this is excellent writing. The whole book is infused with symbolism of light and darkness, which gives the rather sober voice of the first-person narrator an additional dimension.
Multi-award-winning author Yuko Tsushima (who died in 2016) was the second daughter of Osamu Dazai, her father committed suicide when she was one year old. "Territory of Light", which was awarded the Noma Literary Prize 1998, is inspired by her own experiences as a single mother and feelings of abandonment. Originally, the short novella was published in twelve installments in a Japanese magazine (1978-79), representing the timeframe of twelve months over which we follow the protagonist and her daughter - which also mean that the chapters can be read individually, they are self-contained. The novella is part of a Japanese genre called "I-novel", which aims to combine the Western realist mode that focuses on the inner thoughts of characters (Gustave Flaubert, Émile Zola etc.) with Japanese diaristic traditions (other famous "I-novelists" are Osamu Dazai or Kenzaburō Ōe).
Fortunately, there is a lot more of Tsushima's writing to translate and discover - I'm glad that recently, Japanese literature has gained a lot of international attention, because this country has so many fantastic authors that deserve to be read.
August 13, 2021
Videorecensione: https://youtu.be/n167Cp1KZOI
Da tempo volevo leggere qualcosa di Yuko Tsushima, autrice ritenuta tra le penne più potenti del Giappone pre-Murakami, nonché figlia dello straordinario Osamu Dazai. Conosciuta per i suoi ritratti di donne che spesso si ritrovano sole e abbandonate in una società alienante, è un'autrice scandalosamente inedita in Italia (se non per il suo "Il figlio della fortuna", pubblicato ormai trent'anni fa da Giunti e ovviamente fuori catalogo). Per questo mi sono recuperato la sua bibliografia in inglese.
Dopo aver letto "Of Dogs and Walls", due suoi racconti brevissimi, mi sono quindi lanciato con "Territory of Light", vuoi per lo splendido titolo e vuoi che è riconosciuto come uno dei suoi lavori più importanti. CHE SPLENDORE. CHE GIOIELLO.
Scrive divinamente Tsushima e riesce a far trasparire una potenza inenarrabile da pochissimi elementi.
Il romanzo si basa su pochissimi ingredienti: una donna, appena lasciatasi con il marito, affitta un nuovo appartamento spazioso e luminosissimo a Tokyo per sé e per la figlioletta di tre anni. La seguiremo interfacciarsi/ scontrarsi con il (ex) marito e la seguiremo nel suo lavoro di bibliotecaria o quando porterà la bambina all'asilo. Fine.
Fine? Anche no.
Quello che sulla carta potrebbe essere uno slice of life, la cronostoria di una donna ordinaria che si ritrova a crescere una figlia da sola si tinge costantemente di onirico e scava a fondo a livello psicologico quello che si nasconde dietro la banalità della vita.
Naturale è dunque passare dalla tenerezza dell'intimità di casa allo shock ineccettabile di aver desiderato per un secondo e istintivamente la morte di una figlia. Naturale è quindi odiare l'uomo che credevi al tuo fianco per tutta la vita e poi perdonarlo, o forse toglierlo di mezzo come se non facesse più parte del nucleo famigliare in toto (non è un caso che madre e figlia non abbiano nome ma siano identificati con il ruolo famigliare, mentre il marito/padre è sempre Fujino, ovvero il suo cognome, quasi un marchio simbolico).
La banalità può essere poetica come i corpuscoli di polvere che si intravedono attraverso la luce o spaventosa come la morte accidentale del compagno d'asilo di tua figlia.
Tsushima scava nell'ordinario con un coltello, lasciando emergere paura e sogno, dolcezza e disperazione.
Nei momenti migliori riesce veramente a giocare con il lettore e a disorientarlo.
C'è un momento splendido in cui madre e figlia vengono svegliate da dei botti improvvisi che colorano di rosso il cielo.
Il lettore intuisce che siano semplicemente fuochi d'artificio, ma le due protagoniste ne sono terrorizzate.
Siamo convinti che siano fuochi d'artificio, quando la madre ironizza sul loro facile spavento sussurrando alla figlia: "asciugati le lacrime, guarda che cielo bellissimo".
Salgono quindi sul tetto e, in un tenero abbraccio di famiglia, si sentono più unite che mai.
Solo nel paragrafo dopo si scopre che, in verità, quella bellezza non consisteva in fuochi d'artificio. Era una fabbrica che è esplosa. Della gente è morta.
Eppure quel cielo così rosso continua ad avere lo stesso significato per loro due.
Io dico solo, leggetelo.
Se masticate l'inglese (o meglio il giapponese), leggetelo.
Finché non lo traducono.
Perché DEVONO TRADURLO.
Punto.
Da tempo volevo leggere qualcosa di Yuko Tsushima, autrice ritenuta tra le penne più potenti del Giappone pre-Murakami, nonché figlia dello straordinario Osamu Dazai. Conosciuta per i suoi ritratti di donne che spesso si ritrovano sole e abbandonate in una società alienante, è un'autrice scandalosamente inedita in Italia (se non per il suo "Il figlio della fortuna", pubblicato ormai trent'anni fa da Giunti e ovviamente fuori catalogo). Per questo mi sono recuperato la sua bibliografia in inglese.
Dopo aver letto "Of Dogs and Walls", due suoi racconti brevissimi, mi sono quindi lanciato con "Territory of Light", vuoi per lo splendido titolo e vuoi che è riconosciuto come uno dei suoi lavori più importanti. CHE SPLENDORE. CHE GIOIELLO.
Scrive divinamente Tsushima e riesce a far trasparire una potenza inenarrabile da pochissimi elementi.
Il romanzo si basa su pochissimi ingredienti: una donna, appena lasciatasi con il marito, affitta un nuovo appartamento spazioso e luminosissimo a Tokyo per sé e per la figlioletta di tre anni. La seguiremo interfacciarsi/ scontrarsi con il (ex) marito e la seguiremo nel suo lavoro di bibliotecaria o quando porterà la bambina all'asilo. Fine.
Fine? Anche no.
Quello che sulla carta potrebbe essere uno slice of life, la cronostoria di una donna ordinaria che si ritrova a crescere una figlia da sola si tinge costantemente di onirico e scava a fondo a livello psicologico quello che si nasconde dietro la banalità della vita.
Naturale è dunque passare dalla tenerezza dell'intimità di casa allo shock ineccettabile di aver desiderato per un secondo e istintivamente la morte di una figlia. Naturale è quindi odiare l'uomo che credevi al tuo fianco per tutta la vita e poi perdonarlo, o forse toglierlo di mezzo come se non facesse più parte del nucleo famigliare in toto (non è un caso che madre e figlia non abbiano nome ma siano identificati con il ruolo famigliare, mentre il marito/padre è sempre Fujino, ovvero il suo cognome, quasi un marchio simbolico).
La banalità può essere poetica come i corpuscoli di polvere che si intravedono attraverso la luce o spaventosa come la morte accidentale del compagno d'asilo di tua figlia.
Tsushima scava nell'ordinario con un coltello, lasciando emergere paura e sogno, dolcezza e disperazione.
Nei momenti migliori riesce veramente a giocare con il lettore e a disorientarlo.
C'è un momento splendido in cui madre e figlia vengono svegliate da dei botti improvvisi che colorano di rosso il cielo.
Il lettore intuisce che siano semplicemente fuochi d'artificio, ma le due protagoniste ne sono terrorizzate.
Siamo convinti che siano fuochi d'artificio, quando la madre ironizza sul loro facile spavento sussurrando alla figlia: "asciugati le lacrime, guarda che cielo bellissimo".
Salgono quindi sul tetto e, in un tenero abbraccio di famiglia, si sentono più unite che mai.
Solo nel paragrafo dopo si scopre che, in verità, quella bellezza non consisteva in fuochi d'artificio. Era una fabbrica che è esplosa. Della gente è morta.
Eppure quel cielo così rosso continua ad avere lo stesso significato per loro due.
Io dico solo, leggetelo.
Se masticate l'inglese (o meglio il giapponese), leggetelo.
Finché non lo traducono.
Perché DEVONO TRADURLO.
Punto.
March 15, 2020
One spring, a young mother who has been left by her husband, Fujino (no first name given), starts again in a Tokyo apartment full of windows (thus the title), but she struggles and must come to terms with the past, and look forward to the future.
This is a story that first appeared as a magazine series in 1978-79. Neither the mother nor the daughter (who turns three during the book) are given names in the book. They spend a . I feel the novel's home would be a bit too noisy for me, as it is described in the first pages.
There's some themes I can find in this story. One of course is of accepting the separation, another of how she imperfectly raises her daughter, and one could also make themes of the shapes in these little stories (trees, stars, sparklers...) but especially of the colors happening in this story (red, silver, colorful birds, origami paper spread on a roof, blue mesh on windows, black mud, yellow sandal of , red berries, pink-hulled ship, a factory explosion, and the flowers).
There are also all the dreams, some connected to what she's experiencing during the year, but she also recalls her dreams about her father who died too early for her to know him - they are very eerie, and I couldn't help but think there a small connection to the author's own life, in that her father, author Osamu Dazai, died when she was just a year old. I think something of you does sometimes end up in the stories you write. Death is also part of the book: there is .
This year of change makes the mother's life feel fearful, unbalanced and dreamlike, yet there is also hope, good times, and lots of contemplation happening. This series of stories also has its bookends: at the start I like this balance. Although I could feel her moments of imbalance, frustration and shame, I still enjoyed the story, its light, colors and nature, making it an uplifting reading experience for me.
This is a story that first appeared as a magazine series in 1978-79. Neither the mother nor the daughter (who turns three during the book) are given names in the book. They spend a . I feel the novel's home would be a bit too noisy for me, as it is described in the first pages.
There's some themes I can find in this story. One of course is of accepting the separation, another of how she imperfectly raises her daughter, and one could also make themes of the shapes in these little stories (trees, stars, sparklers...) but especially of the colors happening in this story (red, silver, colorful birds, origami paper spread on a roof, blue mesh on windows, black mud, yellow sandal of , red berries, pink-hulled ship, a factory explosion, and the flowers).
There are also all the dreams, some connected to what she's experiencing during the year, but she also recalls her dreams about her father who died too early for her to know him - they are very eerie, and I couldn't help but think there a small connection to the author's own life, in that her father, author Osamu Dazai, died when she was just a year old. I think something of you does sometimes end up in the stories you write. Death is also part of the book: there is .
This year of change makes the mother's life feel fearful, unbalanced and dreamlike, yet there is also hope, good times, and lots of contemplation happening. This series of stories also has its bookends: at the start I like this balance. Although I could feel her moments of imbalance, frustration and shame, I still enjoyed the story, its light, colors and nature, making it an uplifting reading experience for me.
April 9, 2019
A woman in Tokyo is left by her husband, alone she must raise her two year old daughter. There are twelve segments, and each covers a glimpse into their lives. They find an apartment, she still needs to work do her daughter attends daycare. We are privy to her personal thoughts as she draws us into their lives. She loses her temper, she gets depressed, wondering how she can go on, keep doing all she is doing. Her husband shows up at the unlikliest of times, though he is living with another woman, he still refuses to leave them alone. This novel is about the struggle for women to make a new life for themselves when they still have responsibilities and feeling from the old. It is simply about life.
The writing is spare, elegant, and it lifts the novel from the mundane. It is a short book, but a beautifully done one.
"I could not conclude that every sheet in the pack of origami paper I had bought my daughter a few days earlier had floated down, need after the other, taking its time and enjoying the breeze, onto the tiled roof below. I pictured a small hand plucking one square at a time from the pack. My daughter, who had just turned three, would have been laughing out loud with pleasure as she watched the different colors waiting down."
One of the delightful images within.
The writing is spare, elegant, and it lifts the novel from the mundane. It is a short book, but a beautifully done one.
"I could not conclude that every sheet in the pack of origami paper I had bought my daughter a few days earlier had floated down, need after the other, taking its time and enjoying the breeze, onto the tiled roof below. I pictured a small hand plucking one square at a time from the pack. My daughter, who had just turned three, would have been laughing out loud with pleasure as she watched the different colors waiting down."
One of the delightful images within.
January 3, 2019
I enjoyed Territory of Light and found it sufficiently absorbing, but now I'm finding that I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It's a simple story about motherhood told from the perspective of a newly single woman coming to terms with the failure of her marriage - it's a quiet, meditative work that was originally published in Japanese in 1979, and while I felt that this story's cultural context was readily apparent as I was reading, it does have an introspective universality in its depiction of isolation that I think will resonate with a lot of modern, non-Japanese readers.
I will say, one thing about the fragmented narration started to grate on me - though this takes place over the course of a year and we are theoretically seeing events unfold in real time, the narrator would often say something like 'just two weeks ago, I got a call from my daughter's daycare,' and then we would rewind two weeks and she would tell us the daycare story... even though we were technically with the narrator at the time those events happened? It fractures the chronology in a way that doesn't totally make sense to me and adds an unnecessary level of telling rather than showing.
But still, I thought this was a good introduction to Yuko Tsushima, and I'll definitely look into reading more from her.
Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
I will say, one thing about the fragmented narration started to grate on me - though this takes place over the course of a year and we are theoretically seeing events unfold in real time, the narrator would often say something like 'just two weeks ago, I got a call from my daughter's daycare,' and then we would rewind two weeks and she would tell us the daycare story... even though we were technically with the narrator at the time those events happened? It fractures the chronology in a way that doesn't totally make sense to me and adds an unnecessary level of telling rather than showing.
But still, I thought this was a good introduction to Yuko Tsushima, and I'll definitely look into reading more from her.
Thank you to Netgalley and FSG for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
May 5, 2023
3.5 Stars
Originally published in monthly installments in a literary Japanese magazine in the late 1970s, in twelve sections over the course of a year, Yuko Tsushima is considered one of the most noteworthy Japanese writers of her generation. The English translation is by Geraldine Harcourt.
”The apartment had windows on all sides.
“I spent a year there, with my little daughter, on the top floor of an old four-storey office building. We had the whole fourth floor to ourselves, plus the rooftop terrace.”
As this begins, the narrator is a newly separated mother with a two-year-old daughter soon to be three, and she is struggling with all of the ins and outs of single parenting, along with the struggles she is having trying to co-parent her child with a somewhat elusive and contrary soon-to-be-ex. The focus in this story is on this woman and her life, and the life of her child through the year that follows.
”I could picture as in a dream or a movie that spot as it had appeared back then, some fifteen years earlier: a spot clad in flowers and fruit trees, where the sunshine seemed to have congealed. It was bright and tranquil, disquietingly so. That was the sight that presented itself just beyond the historic old gate.”
”No one else must know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly.”
Where this story shines is in some skillfully descriptive writing, which not only expresses the beauty of the light that seems to fill these pages, but the waning of her light within, as well. As she and her young daughter go through the emotions of their ravaged world, filled as it is with water, light, dreams and nightmares, may be torn apart, but they may, in time, rebuild.
Pub Date: 12 FEB 2019
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
April 6, 2021
Ik ben niet op zoek naar spiegels in een boek. Ik vind de maatstaf ‘herkenbaar’ om een roman goed te vinden er eigenlijk niet toe doen. Toch valt het me op dat ‘Domein van licht’ van Yuko Tsushima me tot mijn verbazing al een paar maanden heeft achtervolgd. Waarschijnlijk heb ik in dat boek een paar keer in de spiegel gekeken, of ik het nu wilde of niet.
Het moet december zijn geweest toen ik ‘Domein van licht’ uitlas, en op dat moment voelde ik niet de behoefte er hier over te schrijven. Ik keek op de leeservaring niet terug als ‘een aanrader’. De afgelopen week, net nu ik op de drempel sta om de sleutel van mijn eerste eigen appartement aan de nieuwe eigenaar te geven, blijk ik weer vaker terug te denken aan Tsushima’s boek.
‘Domein van licht’ opent met een schitterende scène, als een jonge moeder met haar tweejarige dochtertje haar intrek neemt in een zonovergoten appartement op de derde verdieping van een oud pand in Tokio. Met mijn voorliefde voor Japan dacht ik meteen te zien waar het huis zich bevond, wat ijdel is van mij, maar het zorgde er wel voor dat ik in mijn verbeelding meteen bij ze introk.
De vrouw heeft het moeilijk als alleenstaande moeder. Niet alleen omdat ze — ja, herkenbaar — een echtscheiding verteert, maar ook omdat de maatschappij om haar heen op ingebakken tradities steunt. Papa, mama, kindje. Het licht van het begin maakt al snel plaats voor tegenslag, met lastige buren, papieren die op zich laten wachten. Het dochtertje moet het af en toe ontgelden. (Het zijn scènes die ik me herinner zonder het boek open te slaan. Ik weet dat ik dacht: Tsushima constateert. Ze oordeelt niet. Dat is juist zo confronterend voor de lezer.)
Maanden nadat ik het boek heb gelezen, sla ik het nu in gedachten weer open. En dat wil wat zeggen. (Ondertussen geef ik de sleutel van mijn voorbije jaren af.)
‘Domein van licht’ is uit het Japans vertaald door Noriko de Vroomen-Kondo en Han Timmer.
Het moet december zijn geweest toen ik ‘Domein van licht’ uitlas, en op dat moment voelde ik niet de behoefte er hier over te schrijven. Ik keek op de leeservaring niet terug als ‘een aanrader’. De afgelopen week, net nu ik op de drempel sta om de sleutel van mijn eerste eigen appartement aan de nieuwe eigenaar te geven, blijk ik weer vaker terug te denken aan Tsushima’s boek.
‘Domein van licht’ opent met een schitterende scène, als een jonge moeder met haar tweejarige dochtertje haar intrek neemt in een zonovergoten appartement op de derde verdieping van een oud pand in Tokio. Met mijn voorliefde voor Japan dacht ik meteen te zien waar het huis zich bevond, wat ijdel is van mij, maar het zorgde er wel voor dat ik in mijn verbeelding meteen bij ze introk.
De vrouw heeft het moeilijk als alleenstaande moeder. Niet alleen omdat ze — ja, herkenbaar — een echtscheiding verteert, maar ook omdat de maatschappij om haar heen op ingebakken tradities steunt. Papa, mama, kindje. Het licht van het begin maakt al snel plaats voor tegenslag, met lastige buren, papieren die op zich laten wachten. Het dochtertje moet het af en toe ontgelden. (Het zijn scènes die ik me herinner zonder het boek open te slaan. Ik weet dat ik dacht: Tsushima constateert. Ze oordeelt niet. Dat is juist zo confronterend voor de lezer.)
Maanden nadat ik het boek heb gelezen, sla ik het nu in gedachten weer open. En dat wil wat zeggen. (Ondertussen geef ik de sleutel van mijn voorbije jaren af.)
‘Domein van licht’ is uit het Japans vertaald door Noriko de Vroomen-Kondo en Han Timmer.
November 11, 2021
4,5. La protagonista de "Territorio de Luz" ve como la vida que hasta entonces tenía empieza a desmoronarse. Su marido desea divorciarse, ha conocido a otra persona y esto provocará que ambos decidan mudarse por separados a otro lugar. Junto a su hija de dos años, se mudará a un piso que rápidamente atrapara a ambas, y es que esta vivienda está llena de luz. En cada rincón hay grandes ventanales que iluminan toda la estancia. Será en este lugar donde, durante todo un año, nuestra protagonista tratará de recuperarse del duelo provocado por la separación.
"Territorio de luz" fue publicado en 1979 y está basado en una época similar. Más de 40 años han pasado, pero las dificultades y problemas a los que la protagonista deberá enfrentarse al divorciarse en una sociedad machista que trata a la mujer como un ser indefenso y perdido sin un hombre, pero que por otra parte presiona a la mujer para que recaiga en ella el cuidado y manutención de los hijos, no han cambiando demasiado. La opresión que sufré la joven a través de todos estos personajes que la presionan para que recupere a su marido, pues sola no es nadie, es tan real que duele. La palabra impotencia se queda corta.
El libro nos presenta a una protagonista triste y deprimida, a la que desde chica le han enseñado que una mujer no es nada sin un hombre, pero que pese al vértigo inicial, descubre que empieza a sentirse bien consigo misma, se cree más válida, más independiente. Empieza a valorar no estar con su marido y poder empezar a decidir sobre su vida, pese a que todo el mundo quiera presionarla hacia la reconciliación. Digamos que después de casi treinta años de vida, por fin está empezando a conocerse a si misma.
Pero el libro no solo toca la opresión de la mujer en un sistema con unos roles tan marcados e injustos, también habla de un tema muy interesante, que no muchos libros suelen tocar de esta forma y que en lo personal me parece imprescindible: "Territorio de luz" desmitifica la maternidad. No todo es bonito, no todo es fácil ni sencillo. Y cuando todo depende solo de la madre, en un periodo de su vida donde no está bien mentalmente, todo se le hace cuesta arriba. Y puede equivocarse y tiene el derecho a hacerlo, porque las madres no son perfectas. Aún así, la sociedad la tilda de una madre de"dudoso" ejemplo, pese a ser ella la que sustenta a su hija. Nuevamente el machismo asomando la patita. Tan real que asquea.
En definitiva, "Territorio de luz" es una obra impecable, que habla sobre el duelo de una mujer que lucha por reconstruir su vida y buscar la identidad y la personalidad que un hombre había encerrado entre cuatro paredes. Tenía una expectativas altísimas con la hija del grandísimo escritor Osamu Dazai, y puedo decir bien alto que la hija es igual de buena que el padre. Curiosamente ambos tienen una visión de la sociedad y el ser humano bastante cruda y pesimista, cosa con la que coincido completamente. Espero que Impedimenta siga publicando la obra de esta gran autora.
"Territorio de luz" fue publicado en 1979 y está basado en una época similar. Más de 40 años han pasado, pero las dificultades y problemas a los que la protagonista deberá enfrentarse al divorciarse en una sociedad machista que trata a la mujer como un ser indefenso y perdido sin un hombre, pero que por otra parte presiona a la mujer para que recaiga en ella el cuidado y manutención de los hijos, no han cambiando demasiado. La opresión que sufré la joven a través de todos estos personajes que la presionan para que recupere a su marido, pues sola no es nadie, es tan real que duele. La palabra impotencia se queda corta.
El libro nos presenta a una protagonista triste y deprimida, a la que desde chica le han enseñado que una mujer no es nada sin un hombre, pero que pese al vértigo inicial, descubre que empieza a sentirse bien consigo misma, se cree más válida, más independiente. Empieza a valorar no estar con su marido y poder empezar a decidir sobre su vida, pese a que todo el mundo quiera presionarla hacia la reconciliación. Digamos que después de casi treinta años de vida, por fin está empezando a conocerse a si misma.
Pero el libro no solo toca la opresión de la mujer en un sistema con unos roles tan marcados e injustos, también habla de un tema muy interesante, que no muchos libros suelen tocar de esta forma y que en lo personal me parece imprescindible: "Territorio de luz" desmitifica la maternidad. No todo es bonito, no todo es fácil ni sencillo. Y cuando todo depende solo de la madre, en un periodo de su vida donde no está bien mentalmente, todo se le hace cuesta arriba. Y puede equivocarse y tiene el derecho a hacerlo, porque las madres no son perfectas. Aún así, la sociedad la tilda de una madre de"dudoso" ejemplo, pese a ser ella la que sustenta a su hija. Nuevamente el machismo asomando la patita. Tan real que asquea.
En definitiva, "Territorio de luz" es una obra impecable, que habla sobre el duelo de una mujer que lucha por reconstruir su vida y buscar la identidad y la personalidad que un hombre había encerrado entre cuatro paredes. Tenía una expectativas altísimas con la hija del grandísimo escritor Osamu Dazai, y puedo decir bien alto que la hija es igual de buena que el padre. Curiosamente ambos tienen una visión de la sociedad y el ser humano bastante cruda y pesimista, cosa con la que coincido completamente. Espero que Impedimenta siga publicando la obra de esta gran autora.
October 16, 2018
A slim novel taking place over the course of a year and narrated by a recently separated mother who is struggling to adjust to solo parenting her adorably naughty three year old daughter. The writing in this caught my attention immediately, it is beautiful especially her descriptions of light. There is something very similar here to the way Robin Robertson writes about the play of light only in this book it is often full of colour. The images of the bright red kitchen floor, the silver painted roof reflecting dazzling light, the buzzing neon signs and the sparklers will all stay with me.
What also comes through strongly in this otherwise gauzy, dream-like book is the intense mother daughter relationship. This is certainly no primer on ideal parenting and many things made me squirm yet this book seemed an honest portrait of a woman just trying to get through the days.
While at times perplexing and lacking a satisfying resolution, I was held in a trance by this little family unit and their light-filled apartment on the 4th floor.
What a great introduction to the work of Yūko Tsushima.
What also comes through strongly in this otherwise gauzy, dream-like book is the intense mother daughter relationship. This is certainly no primer on ideal parenting and many things made me squirm yet this book seemed an honest portrait of a woman just trying to get through the days.
While at times perplexing and lacking a satisfying resolution, I was held in a trance by this little family unit and their light-filled apartment on the 4th floor.
What a great introduction to the work of Yūko Tsushima.
June 5, 2022
Territory of Light is a sparsely written novel divided into twelve chapters, each one capturing a specific moment or period of its unnamed narrator's life. Our narrator, the mother to a three-year-old, has recently moved into a new apartment as her husband, the father of her daughter, left her for another woman. Territory of Light details through a series of fragmented snapshots the way our narrator's everyday life has been affected by her husband's decision. Tsushima shows how a single-mother is viewed by Japanese society, and of the pressure, she feels to be a good and capable mother. Her three-year-old has temper tantrums, she acts out, she creates problems with their neighbors and at her preschool, in short, she does not make things easy for the narrator. At times her husband reappears to recriminate her, accusing her of being a bad mother, alcoholic and refuses to concede her a divorce. The narrator also receives unwelcome advice from her colleagues and other people around her, who often warn her that to divorce her husband would be a huge mistake.
While I cannot comment on the author's prose as I read a translation of it, I can't say that I was drawn in by either the characters or their stories. I found the narrator's passivity frustrating and her flashes of temper to be a bit too melodramatic. Her daughter was annoying to the extreme. She was spoilt, rude, and so very annoying. Her presence in a given scene would be detrimental to my engagement in said scene. The husband was pathetic and one-dimensional while many of the dialogues seemed to exist only to emphasize how hard life as a single-mother is for the narrator.
While I did not necessarily dislike the novel, I did not particularly care for it either. This is the kind of novel that once 'digested' is soon to be forgotten.
ps i much preferred woman running in the mountains by this author, which explores similar themes in a much more satisfying way
November 30, 2018
This is a quick translated work from Japan, about a woman who has separated from her husband and is trying to raise her child. A lot of focus is on the buildings where they live - the rooms, the light, the water, the sounds, the neighbors, the space, the tatami.
February 23, 2022
Yuko Tsushima, publicó en 1979, “Territorio de luz”; una novela valiente por la época en la que fue publicada en su país de origen, Japón. Allí y a pesar de todos los años que han pasado debemos ser conscientes de la sociedad machista que reinaba, donde el divorcio suponía la pérdida de identidad de la mujer. Es difícil encontrar las palabras adecuadas o justas para hablar sobre esto pero debo describiros lo mejor posible esta emocionante y angustiosa novela.
En esta historia, conoceremos a una mujer que es abandonada por su marido, que busca desesperadamente separarse de ella; esta decide pues emprender una nueva vida con su hija pequeña de apenas dos años. Es entonces cuando alquila un piso donde la luz entra a raudales, allí se refugiará y vivirá unos meses tensos, plagados de la más absoluta oscuridad, en los que se perderá y deberá enfrentar la maternidad y el sufrimiento del divorcio completamente sola e incomprendida. Esta buscará por todos los medios buscar un brote de felicidad en una vida que se le presenta sumamente difícil con una hija que no entiende ese repentino cambio.
La opresión y la soledad que vive la protagonista y que es descrita en este libro es acongojante. Ella, que está deprimida, debe afrontar la realidad, ser valiente y salir adelante ante presiones de terceras personas, y valores sociales que resultan terribles y dolorosos. Pero también estamos ante un relato que muestra la cara oculta y realista de la maternidad, aquella que cuesta ver reflejada sobre el papel, en la que nada es sencillo y en la que las madres tenemos la opción de equivocarnos, de ser personas y no precisamente perfectas y dichosas como se espera.
Yuko, nos hace partícipes de una obra sobre: el abandono, el deseo, la crudeza de la soledad y de la depresión, un testimonio doloroso e intenso sobre la separación y las tristes consecuencias que tienen. Sobre todo quiero destacar esa terrible hipocresía del ser humano, que sonríe y te tiende la mano cuando todo va bien pero que cuando realmente necesitas esa mano amiga, te da la espalda. Un torbellino de sensaciones, de desmitificaciones que enaltecen el poder narrativo de esta prodigiosa escritora.
Para concluir solo debo resaltar el principal motivo del libro, esa búsqueda progresiva de la identidad que no han permitido tener a la protagonista, esa liberación que resulta incómoda en un principio pues es totalmente dependiente a su ex marido. Este es un reflejo una vez más de la visión pesimista de las personas y de su conducta tan juzgable. Una novela que os recomiendo visitar, que supone un punto y aparte en la literatura japonesa y que tan maravillosamente bien está narrada por una escritora de la que espero que nos traigan más de su obras.
En esta historia, conoceremos a una mujer que es abandonada por su marido, que busca desesperadamente separarse de ella; esta decide pues emprender una nueva vida con su hija pequeña de apenas dos años. Es entonces cuando alquila un piso donde la luz entra a raudales, allí se refugiará y vivirá unos meses tensos, plagados de la más absoluta oscuridad, en los que se perderá y deberá enfrentar la maternidad y el sufrimiento del divorcio completamente sola e incomprendida. Esta buscará por todos los medios buscar un brote de felicidad en una vida que se le presenta sumamente difícil con una hija que no entiende ese repentino cambio.
La opresión y la soledad que vive la protagonista y que es descrita en este libro es acongojante. Ella, que está deprimida, debe afrontar la realidad, ser valiente y salir adelante ante presiones de terceras personas, y valores sociales que resultan terribles y dolorosos. Pero también estamos ante un relato que muestra la cara oculta y realista de la maternidad, aquella que cuesta ver reflejada sobre el papel, en la que nada es sencillo y en la que las madres tenemos la opción de equivocarnos, de ser personas y no precisamente perfectas y dichosas como se espera.
Yuko, nos hace partícipes de una obra sobre: el abandono, el deseo, la crudeza de la soledad y de la depresión, un testimonio doloroso e intenso sobre la separación y las tristes consecuencias que tienen. Sobre todo quiero destacar esa terrible hipocresía del ser humano, que sonríe y te tiende la mano cuando todo va bien pero que cuando realmente necesitas esa mano amiga, te da la espalda. Un torbellino de sensaciones, de desmitificaciones que enaltecen el poder narrativo de esta prodigiosa escritora.
Para concluir solo debo resaltar el principal motivo del libro, esa búsqueda progresiva de la identidad que no han permitido tener a la protagonista, esa liberación que resulta incómoda en un principio pues es totalmente dependiente a su ex marido. Este es un reflejo una vez más de la visión pesimista de las personas y de su conducta tan juzgable. Una novela que os recomiendo visitar, que supone un punto y aparte en la literatura japonesa y que tan maravillosamente bien está narrada por una escritora de la que espero que nos traigan más de su obras.
May 30, 2022
56th book of 2022.
3.5. Tsushima is the daughter of Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai, writer of No Longer Human. This short novel was published in 1978 about a woman struggling to cope as a single parent in Tokyo. The story is particularly poignant given her biography, as Dazai committed suicide when she was only a year old. The novella is structured into 12 vignettes that show the narrator's time with her daughter over a single year struggling with mental health problems, alcoholism, loneliness and the process of a divorce. The writing is slow and tender and nothing ever really takes off, it's all very hazy and quiet. From this sort of fog, there are sad, sometimes disturbing scenes. One of my favourites moments is when the narrator and her daughter see a sick drunkard and go to him to rub his back in the street where he has collapsed. They stand there, the two of them, rubbing his back, until he suddenly gets up and staggers away. Her three-year-old daughter appears pleased, saying they made him better. If anything the novel explores the struggles of parenthood, the expectations, the pressure, and how involved the self is, and the stability of the self. It reminded me of Plath's The Bell Jar in some instances and other books dealing with complicated motherhood such as recent Man Booker International longlister, The Book of Mother.
3.5. Tsushima is the daughter of Japanese novelist Osamu Dazai, writer of No Longer Human. This short novel was published in 1978 about a woman struggling to cope as a single parent in Tokyo. The story is particularly poignant given her biography, as Dazai committed suicide when she was only a year old. The novella is structured into 12 vignettes that show the narrator's time with her daughter over a single year struggling with mental health problems, alcoholism, loneliness and the process of a divorce. The writing is slow and tender and nothing ever really takes off, it's all very hazy and quiet. From this sort of fog, there are sad, sometimes disturbing scenes. One of my favourites moments is when the narrator and her daughter see a sick drunkard and go to him to rub his back in the street where he has collapsed. They stand there, the two of them, rubbing his back, until he suddenly gets up and staggers away. Her three-year-old daughter appears pleased, saying they made him better. If anything the novel explores the struggles of parenthood, the expectations, the pressure, and how involved the self is, and the stability of the self. It reminded me of Plath's The Bell Jar in some instances and other books dealing with complicated motherhood such as recent Man Booker International longlister, The Book of Mother.
May 18, 2018
'Territory of Light' primarily takes place in a small Tokyo apartment where the narrator's dark descent into mental instability contrasts with the constant flood of light which variably dazzle and disorientate the narrator and her young daughter. Darkness and lightness eventually combined and coalesce as the narrator, at the height of an epiphany, seeks to dissolve into light, drowning her grief and solitude into the perpetual stream of sunlight;
"No one must ever know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly. I gazed at it's stillness without once ever going through the gate."
The story of 'Territory of Light' is ostensibly somewhat straightforward; the narrator has recently divorced from her husband and taken on sole custody of her daughter. This has led to her daughter behaving uncontrollably and sometimes violently as her mother tries to cope with the breakdown of her marriage and leads to her mental disintegration as her dreams become increasingly violent and disturbing. However it is the atmosphere which Tsushima is able to create, the sense of gentleness and ethereality of the flat mixed with the emotional turmoil which the narrator and her daughter are experiencing which are the real meaning behind the story; the beams of sun-light on the pavement, the flood of light in the apartment, the gleam of berries against the morning sky-these are the images which forms the emotional back-drop within which the story is set.
"No one must ever know about this place that made me yearn to dissolve until I became a particle of light myself. The way that light cohered in one place was unearthly. I gazed at it's stillness without once ever going through the gate."
The story of 'Territory of Light' is ostensibly somewhat straightforward; the narrator has recently divorced from her husband and taken on sole custody of her daughter. This has led to her daughter behaving uncontrollably and sometimes violently as her mother tries to cope with the breakdown of her marriage and leads to her mental disintegration as her dreams become increasingly violent and disturbing. However it is the atmosphere which Tsushima is able to create, the sense of gentleness and ethereality of the flat mixed with the emotional turmoil which the narrator and her daughter are experiencing which are the real meaning behind the story; the beams of sun-light on the pavement, the flood of light in the apartment, the gleam of berries against the morning sky-these are the images which forms the emotional back-drop within which the story is set.
February 5, 2022
Not gonna lie, glad this ordeal is over. A very short book about a single mom struggling to stay afloat. A universal story. But so meandering and dire for such a tiny book.
I also think that will be the end of my journey into Japanese literature. While I appreciate its brevity and clarity of language, I am yet to read one that doesn't have emotionally repressed, unhappy characters. Not one person in all the Japanese fic I've read has made a joke or experienced happiness. Everyone is sad and lonely and works WAY too much. Nobody has friends or strong family connections. There is a lot of quiet and subdued suffering, never examined and expressed, which, in more dynamic and pulpy novels, erupts into madness. I am not really here for it.
I also think that will be the end of my journey into Japanese literature. While I appreciate its brevity and clarity of language, I am yet to read one that doesn't have emotionally repressed, unhappy characters. Not one person in all the Japanese fic I've read has made a joke or experienced happiness. Everyone is sad and lonely and works WAY too much. Nobody has friends or strong family connections. There is a lot of quiet and subdued suffering, never examined and expressed, which, in more dynamic and pulpy novels, erupts into madness. I am not really here for it.
April 6, 2019
This is a quiet, subtle piece of fine literature, but it just wasn't for me. I think this is one of the books you have to be in the right mood, moment or phase of your life in to fully cherish it. In my case, I couldn't really connect with it.
The unnamed narrator and her adorable young daughter start a life on their own after the seperation of their husband respective father. The story is told via twelve vignette-like chapters, which were originally published over the course of a year. I tried to accomodate as good as I could by not reading more than one or two chapters a day (until the finale, I read the last four parts yesterdays because I wanted to finish it). It didn't help any, I couldn't bond with the book.
The characters seem detached, cold and distant, and the somewhat unconnected vignette-style only added to that. Of course this all underlines the lonelyness and suffering of the main character, her alienation as a single mother in a partiarchial society that favours "regular" families, very well. Still, the narration couldn't catch me. This might be a very enjoyable read for others, though, I can see its appeal - sadly, I didn't feel it that much.
The unnamed narrator and her adorable young daughter start a life on their own after the seperation of their husband respective father. The story is told via twelve vignette-like chapters, which were originally published over the course of a year. I tried to accomodate as good as I could by not reading more than one or two chapters a day (until the finale, I read the last four parts yesterdays because I wanted to finish it). It didn't help any, I couldn't bond with the book.
The characters seem detached, cold and distant, and the somewhat unconnected vignette-style only added to that. Of course this all underlines the lonelyness and suffering of the main character, her alienation as a single mother in a partiarchial society that favours "regular" families, very well. Still, the narration couldn't catch me. This might be a very enjoyable read for others, though, I can see its appeal - sadly, I didn't feel it that much.
February 2, 2021
Ha sido una delicia de lectura. Pero no nos engañemos, es un libro duro. Está escrito maravillosamente y tiene momentos muy entrañables, pero las luces sobre los objetos y sobre las personas proyectan sombras. La protagonista se dará cuenta de que era ella quien siempre tiraba del carro, de que ser madre sola el el Japón de los años 70 es muy duro y de que no sólo ella y su hija deben adaptarse a las nuevas circunstancias, sino también deberá hacerlo la sociedad que las rodea: no es una mujer viuda, está separada y eso producirá rechazo, prejuicios, acusaciones y, sobre todo, consejos que nunca se han pedido “Vuelve con él”, “Qué vas a hacer tú sola con la niña”, “Necesitas a tu marido”… cuando siempre fue ella quien puso dinero en casa, ella quien se hacía cargo de todo y él, el que la abandonó.
A eso se añaden temas como la sexualidad y el deseo después de una separación, la búsqueda de la propia identidad y de la independencia, luchar contra las inseguridades, el sacrificarse por una hija intentando no renunciar a una misma.
Y al final se trata de tirar para adelante como sea, porque no hay alternativa.
December 30, 2020
Territory of Light is the story of a mother at a crossroads. She decides to separate from her husband, taking their daughter and move into a building that shares his last name. Their new apartment on the fourth floor of the building has amazing natural light, but there are challenges that come with living in it. The descriptions of the apartment and the rooftop were beautiful.
Having gone through a divorce there are many aspects of the story that I could relate to or understand: trying to find time for yourself, balancing schedules, what to do when someone gets sick, providing consistency and a safe place for your child.
Divorce is a kind of death, the death of a marriage, and from the ashes, rebirth and building a new life. The author uses many literary techniques to convey this. The apartment building is one representation of her journey to her new life. Water, as a flood, is another symbol that is used.
The mother herself notices she is surrounded by death. The author does a nice job explaining how the mother has a connection to the people that die in the story and how it impacts her. The author captures the struggles of a single mother raising a young daughter while going through a divorce. If you enjoy stories with metaphors for transformation threaded throughout the narrative, then this book might be a good fit for you.
Having gone through a divorce there are many aspects of the story that I could relate to or understand: trying to find time for yourself, balancing schedules, what to do when someone gets sick, providing consistency and a safe place for your child.
Divorce is a kind of death, the death of a marriage, and from the ashes, rebirth and building a new life. The author uses many literary techniques to convey this. The apartment building is one representation of her journey to her new life. Water, as a flood, is another symbol that is used.
The mother herself notices she is surrounded by death. The author does a nice job explaining how the mother has a connection to the people that die in the story and how it impacts her. The author captures the struggles of a single mother raising a young daughter while going through a divorce. If you enjoy stories with metaphors for transformation threaded throughout the narrative, then this book might be a good fit for you.
March 17, 2019
So ähnlich hätte vielleicht Sylvia Plath die Trennung von Ted Hughes in Prosa beschrieben.
September 24, 2019
This has been one of my favorite reads this year and can only give thanks to Geraldine Harcourt for such a lovely translation of Tsushima's wonderful novel. The book, originally released in the late 1970's as a twelve chapter serialization, recounts the actions, thoughts,and feelings of a young woman starting an independent life for her and her nearly three year old daughter during the initial year of a separation from her husband. Two things made this novel stand out. The first was Tsushima's open portrayal of her narrator. We have an empathy for the character but Tsushima also depicts her in ways where we can judge her and feel disapproval, thus offering a more honest picture. Second, I liked the conciseness of Tsushima's prose and her strong imagery that proved to be metaphorical for the mixed emotional states of the narrator. This was a clear, enlightening, and memorable rendition of the experience of a woman seeking independence from the male dominated Japan of the time.
May 27, 2020
Primera incursión en la literatura japonesa, temía el choque cultural. No ha sido así, libro muy interesante, muy bien escrito y traducido. Japón, años 80, una madre se separa y se enfrenta a su nueva vida con una hija de 3 años. La narración comprende poco más de 1 año de esta nueva vida, repleta de aislamiento social, momentos de desesperación ante la dificultad de compaginar el trabajo y la crianza de su hija.
Toca fondo, sin dormir, agotada, no da abasto, su marido no la ayuda en nada, ni quiere divorciarse (ella tampoco sabe si lo quiere, esta perdida), no la ayuda económicamente. Todo ello desemboca en episodios etílicos, momentos de indiferencia o incluso rechazo frontal hacia su propia hija. Todo ello acompañado de escenas oníricas, fogonazos de deseo insatisfecho, destellos de luz, que permiten a nuestra protagonista avanzar a trompicones y salir de este episodio más o menos indemne.
¿Puede el agotamiento y la desesperación llevarte en un momento dado a desear que no exista lo que más quieres en el mundo? No me esperaba tales arranques de sinceridad, me ha sorprendido para bien.....
Toca fondo, sin dormir, agotada, no da abasto, su marido no la ayuda en nada, ni quiere divorciarse (ella tampoco sabe si lo quiere, esta perdida), no la ayuda económicamente. Todo ello desemboca en episodios etílicos, momentos de indiferencia o incluso rechazo frontal hacia su propia hija. Todo ello acompañado de escenas oníricas, fogonazos de deseo insatisfecho, destellos de luz, que permiten a nuestra protagonista avanzar a trompicones y salir de este episodio más o menos indemne.
¿Puede el agotamiento y la desesperación llevarte en un momento dado a desear que no exista lo que más quieres en el mundo? No me esperaba tales arranques de sinceridad, me ha sorprendido para bien.....
March 15, 2023
Indeed, I'm relieved that it's over. Far too monotonous and boring
July 29, 2024
reading even more japanese literature so that i am, at least mentally, still in japan
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penguin clothbound classics, 2024
1. territory of light, yūko tsushima
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penguin clothbound classics, 2024
1. territory of light, yūko tsushima
March 1, 2021
I just spent an entire year with a character I'd be hard-pressed to entertain over tea and have only myself to blame.
This arrived as a "bonus gift" with Volume 75 of the Indiespensible Club Selection from Powell's Books. When I read that
It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzō, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time.
I thought it would be smashing to read it according to season. This proved to be a very misguided decision and clearly sapped this slim book of any power it may otherwise have held over me. I'm an even bigger fool for having doggedly stuck to plan long after it became clear that it would not be successful. It did not escape me that ritual suicide would be a poetic and effective exit strategy from this self-imposed purgatory, but I chose to marshal on and live to read better novels.
I can't really recommend Territory of Light. It is basically one woman's existential fever-dream and there are several good alternatives, including:
Catherine House
Down the Rabbit Hole
Fever Dream
If, however, you simply must read this one, for goodness' sake just set aside that tea-time and get on with it!
2.5 stars
This arrived as a "bonus gift" with Volume 75 of the Indiespensible Club Selection from Powell's Books. When I read that
It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzō, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time.
I thought it would be smashing to read it according to season. This proved to be a very misguided decision and clearly sapped this slim book of any power it may otherwise have held over me. I'm an even bigger fool for having doggedly stuck to plan long after it became clear that it would not be successful. It did not escape me that ritual suicide would be a poetic and effective exit strategy from this self-imposed purgatory, but I chose to marshal on and live to read better novels.
I can't really recommend Territory of Light. It is basically one woman's existential fever-dream and there are several good alternatives, including:
Catherine House
Down the Rabbit Hole
Fever Dream
If, however, you simply must read this one, for goodness' sake just set aside that tea-time and get on with it!
2.5 stars
August 10, 2021
3.5* rounded up.
August 13, 2022
Me ha gustado mucho, una delicia de libro.
March 5, 2018
Territory of Light was originally published in the Japanese literary monthly magazine between 1978 and 1979 with each chapter marking the months in real time. It is now being published in English translation in one instalment of multiple chapters. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize and Tsushima subsequently won many awards in her career. She died in February 2016.
The novel tells the story of a young woman separating from her husband and setting up a new life in a Tokyo apartment with her two-year-old daughter. The apartment has windows on every side and is filled with light, but the woman herself gradually falls into darkness.
I imagine reading this in monthly instalments would be a very different experience to reading it all in one go. Each instalment is only about 10 pages long and therefore does not take long to read. But reading the whole thing feels, to me at least, rather disjointed: there are jumps between the chapters that you probably would not notice if it was 4 weeks since you last read the book but which feel odd when coming in quick succession. And there are repetitions that are probably useful when reading over a year but not necessary when reading over a day. It has the feel of a book that should be edited a bit to give continuity and remove redundancy if it is to be sold as a single novel.
The writing style also seems to change as the story progresses. I am not sure if this is deliberate. It is very functional at the start, simply relating the story to the reader. But as the year progresses, it becomes more and more poetic. It could well be that this is purposeful and somehow reflects the unraveling of our protagonist’s mental state, but I am not sure about that. At times, I was reminded of more recent book like Eileen and Sorry To Disrupt The Peace. Those books contain far more in terms of bodily fluids/functions and it is not that the protagonist here is unlikeable in the same way, but there is something about the feel of the book that reminded me of these newer works.
I have to say that I did not really enjoy the first half of the book as I couldn’t engage with it and it seemed, quite frankly, rather dull. But the second half was far more absorbing so I am glad I did not give in to the temptation to put it down. But, overall, I can���t see my way to giving it more than 3 stars. Those who liked Eileen and Sorry… might enjoy this as a sort of retro, slightly more innocent version of those (think of how horror movies nowadays compare with horror movies of 50 years ago and it’s that kind of difference: those older ones were probably scary at the time but not to most people looking back from today).
My thanks to the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
The novel tells the story of a young woman separating from her husband and setting up a new life in a Tokyo apartment with her two-year-old daughter. The apartment has windows on every side and is filled with light, but the woman herself gradually falls into darkness.
I imagine reading this in monthly instalments would be a very different experience to reading it all in one go. Each instalment is only about 10 pages long and therefore does not take long to read. But reading the whole thing feels, to me at least, rather disjointed: there are jumps between the chapters that you probably would not notice if it was 4 weeks since you last read the book but which feel odd when coming in quick succession. And there are repetitions that are probably useful when reading over a year but not necessary when reading over a day. It has the feel of a book that should be edited a bit to give continuity and remove redundancy if it is to be sold as a single novel.
The writing style also seems to change as the story progresses. I am not sure if this is deliberate. It is very functional at the start, simply relating the story to the reader. But as the year progresses, it becomes more and more poetic. It could well be that this is purposeful and somehow reflects the unraveling of our protagonist’s mental state, but I am not sure about that. At times, I was reminded of more recent book like Eileen and Sorry To Disrupt The Peace. Those books contain far more in terms of bodily fluids/functions and it is not that the protagonist here is unlikeable in the same way, but there is something about the feel of the book that reminded me of these newer works.
I have to say that I did not really enjoy the first half of the book as I couldn’t engage with it and it seemed, quite frankly, rather dull. But the second half was far more absorbing so I am glad I did not give in to the temptation to put it down. But, overall, I can���t see my way to giving it more than 3 stars. Those who liked Eileen and Sorry… might enjoy this as a sort of retro, slightly more innocent version of those (think of how horror movies nowadays compare with horror movies of 50 years ago and it’s that kind of difference: those older ones were probably scary at the time but not to most people looking back from today).
My thanks to the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
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