In a brilliant analogy, she compares marriage to a snake ball: There are two snakes, and they each start cannibalizing the other ones tail. Motoya wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes. . Maybe I should have gone for that one too, I said enviously,looking into Hakones bento box as I took the rubber band off my own. Her husbands features are always shifting on his face, and soon he resembles, variously, a monster, a snake, a new creature, his wife, and then, finally, a mountain peony. I wasnt sure that I wanted to. . $16.95. The collections longest story, An Exotic Marriage, is more of a novella, and explores physical transformation as a metaphor for the shifting of identities in a relationship. On The Renunciations by Donika Kelly, John Bonanni By the first few sentences, you know you're hearing the voice of a remarkable writer; by the end of [the story] "An Exotic Marriage", you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you., Financial Times These uncanny stories surprise, unnerve and haunt, Spectator Incredibly enjoyable stories, Daily Mail . An Exotic Marriage, which has some of my favorite elementsa burst of an ending, a Motoya premise built of clever conceit and thoughtful perceptionis inexplicably long, with several side-plots cluttering the central story. Both women, at the service of their partners desires, are reshaped by othersan easy way to become a stranger to yourself in Motoyas world. . At face value, the stories are fun and funny to read, but weightier questions lurk below the surface. Theyhad a feature on department store deli eats, and the Spicy FilletSteak Summer Set Bento just looked so delicious, she said, flattening her plump eyelids in anticipation. Youre talking about him a lot lately., Thats exactly what I told Uwano. With frank sincerity, Motoya makes the exhausted clichs of marriage and intimacy literal, and thus, energetically strange. and then the short story "The Exotic Marriage" is a whopping eighty five pages long. or For the narrator, San, a bored housewife whose husband ignores her in favor of TV and video games, anxiety is manifested literallyand strangely. Take whatever form you want to be! The distending body of my husband exploded with a loud pop. Every time I noticed myself acting as though that was who Id been all along, a chill went up my spine, she confesses. In The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the pest is always a yawning disconnect between people. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, Many unusual things happen in The Lonesome Bodybuilder, a new collection by the Japanese author Yukiko Motoya. Malleability can imply a womans weakness, or it can imply power. To get at the deeper themes of strained marriages, traditional gender roles and love, Motoya subverts tropes and allows her characters to inhabit bizarre and metaphorical trajectories. But after four years, I hadnttried to escape from the soil that was my husband. Even as The Lonesome Bodybuilder approaches its conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl. In Yukiko Motoyas delightful new story collection, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. On The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy, Asa Drake Motoya won the Noma Prize for New Writers for Warm Poison in 2011; the Kenzaburo Oe Prize for Picnic in the Storm in 2013; the Mishima Yukio Prize for How She Learned to Love Herself in 2014; and Japan's most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize, for An Exotic Marriage in 2016.--This text refers to the mp3_cd edition. Even when she poses in front of him in a micro bikini, her hair now short, her body filled out and covered in tanning oil, he asks: Whats that? [10] Motoya's 2009 novel Ano ko no kangaeru koto wa hen (That Girl's Got Some Strange Ideas) was nominated for the 141st Akutagawa Prize. I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I dont know now? Motoyas collection is a bold broadcast: fiction should be wild and daring, and less beholden to the rigors of logic than to the power and potency of surprise. Yukiko Motoya aims her leveling gaze at sexism in contemporary Japanese society, reserving her strangest fates for men who underestimate the women in their lives. . There was no response. The wife tries her best to boost his ego, fails, then decides to take up bodybuilding. All the while, it seems her husband cant be bothered to noticeshe is an afterthought only, and he appears to be too bored of life to be able to sense the swirling wonder of her story. -, "Motoya wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Used with permission of Soft Skull Press. Everyday objects and places are transformed into odd salves for the hyper-fractured lives of these characters, adding a mischievous streak to The Lonesome Bodybuilder. This is abundantly illustrated in "An Exotic Marriage," a novella about a woman, San, who begins to fear that her husband's identity is blending with her own. Her first story, ""Eriko to zettai,"" appeared in the literary magazine Gunzo in 2002. What if thereends up being more of the bad? He has received fellowships from the Edward Albee Foundation and the Ucross Foundation. collects eleven stories -- though one, the Akutagawa Prize-winning novella, 'An Exotic Marriage', is considerably longer than the rest, taking up more than a third of the book by itself. Men entered into me through my roots like nutrients dissolved in potting soil. On Exclusions by Noah Falck, Jim Johnstone The unsettling way people can lose themselves to mundanity and wrestle to reclaim their selfhood is best illustrated in the novella-length An Exotic Marriage. Originally published on its own, it earned Motoya the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2016 and was translated for this collection. "That Morning, When It", trans. An insidious exchange of traits and gender stereotypes unfolds and the boundaries between the two characters become porous. After that, my husband took to tinkling the fake coins incessantly,everywherein the bath, on the toilet, even under thecovers. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. He is villainous without even the dignity of intention. Im not sure why. On Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal, Lisa Hiton Marie Mockett takes umbrage, in her excellent Lit Hub essay Our Fairy Tales, Ourselves, with critics and philosophers whose pursuit of universal laws of narrative structure blind them to the expansive possibilities of literature. In Fitting Room, the customer never comes out. Get book recommendations, fiction, poetry, and dispatches from the world of literature in your in-box. It seemed that all he was doing was almost robotically placing hisfinger on the discs. Their changing forms force San and her husband to confront the half-truths their marriage is founded on. I was feigning calm, but my voice came outhigher than normal. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya / Soft Skull Press / 224 pages / 978-1593766788 / 2018. In How to Burden the Girl, a thirty-four-year-old recluse spies on the younger woman who has moved in next door. The women in these stories find themselves with bad mennot malicious or violent, but complacent, uninteresting, and undeserving of their partners. What happens then?, Yeah. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for $69 per month. In 'Typhoon' people take flight with their umbrellas in a great storm -- so many that eventually the narrator finds: "as I scanned the sky, I spotted loads of tiny human figures floating among the dark clouds". . There is something pareidolic about the writing process. I wasexpecting some cutting-edge visual effects, but what I saw wasan image representing what looked like oceans and continents,drawn in simple lines like in old Nintendo games. As a leashed man miserably admits, just before being yanked to mortal combat, This is all because of the desires of men like us. Such a desire, for a more exciting lover, has exciting effects: the women demand duels, then take their husbands and boyfriends down by the river to kill them. On A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill, Nicholas Bredie 209 pages. At the story's beginning, he seems like a . Maybe someone told it tome, a long time ago. 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I could have understood if the game offered a vision of a wonderful world more exciting than real life. But it only applies when the snakes consume each other at the same rate. I was secretly impressed by Hakones story. Motoya won the Noma Prize for New Writers for Warm Poison in 2011; the Kenzaburo Oe Prize for Picnic in the Storm in 2013 . By now, I was like the ghost of a snakethat had already been eaten up by many other snakes, and Id lostmy own body long before getting swallowed up by my husband. I recalled seeing a circular in the mailroomabout plans to prune the plantings. Hey, give itback if youre not even going to play. My husband took the iPadfrom my hand and sank his head back to the game. When I thought about whether the thing that had started tomove on top of me was my husband or just something like him, Ifelt a terrible dread and kept my eyes firmly shut. Such endings introduce a kind of ontological flexibility into the very structure of the storythey bring an essential playfulness to the work that is much more engaging and absorbing than a more rigid finale. On The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy, Peter Campion 2023 Cond Nast. The 11 short stories in this collection, translated by Asa Yoneda, range in tone from ominous thrillers to lighthearted folktales, but they always seem to return to a depletion of self. Hakone quenched her thirst with cold roasted green tea from the vending machine. The fact that I couldnt stop, even if Itried, was proof that it wasnt actually a matter of anything as benign as acting or pretending. One woman puts it to her husband directly: You can stop being husband shaped now! No, I said. Her stories are about relationships between men and womenseemingly familiar territory, but made strange by the intrusion of surreal elements. Their tone is light and good-natured, but they mean to modify by force the received notions of relationships and their default mode of subjugated women. The Ductility of Person and Time in Saddiq Dzukogis Your Crib, My Qibla, Leslie Stonebraker analyse how our Sites are used. The Lonesome Bodybuilder (published as Picnic in the Storm in the UK ) collects eleven stories -- though one, the Akutagawa Prize-winning novella, 'An Exotic Marriage', is considerably longer than the rest, taking up more than a third of the book by itself. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya (2018). For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the Settings & Account section. By then I was actively feeding my bodyto him to be devoured. Simply log into Settings & Account and select "Cancel" on the right-hand side. Didnt you say his ex-wife wasreally good-looking?, Really good-looking. Every time Inoticed myself acting as though that was who Id been all along,a chill went up my spine. When you did that, I knew youd probably eat up my poop with a smile too.. On Stardust Media by Christina Pugh, Jehanne Dubrow Touch one and see, he said, so I tried pressing on a browndisc with my finger. 'These arresting, hyper-real stories linger in the imagination . . By now, I was like the ghost of a snakethat had already been eaten up by many other snakes, and Id lostmy own body long before getting swallowed up by my husband. In The Women, the eponymous characters are transformed into blood-thirsty warriors through the escalating fantasies of their partners. Yukiko Motoyas The Lonesome Bodybuilder is available from Soft Skull Press. Here, take it.. He probably thought that once he and I became one,he would never again have to worry about being judged by others. Youd just gotten braces, and you said the metal hurt and you couldnt eat anything. Excitement becomes execution. This really takes me back. On the screen, a quiz show was posing a question about an ad that had been on heavy rotation just after wed gotten married. Asa Yoneda. Snake ball! But Motoya's unique vision is still worth experiencing, and Yoneda's translation provides a clear and beautiful . At face value, the stories are fun and funny to read, but weightier questions lurk below the surface. [25] A film adaptation of Ranb to taiki (Vengeance Can Wait), directed by Masanori Tominaga and starring Tadanobu Asano, Minami Hinase, and Eiko Koike, premiered in Japan the next year. Histeeth must have been in their right place, because they made achamping sound as he chewed. Ikiteru dake de ai was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize,[9] and was later adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. In her stories alienation is less a threat than a feature of contemporary life. Theres a Jungian undercurrent in Motoyas writing, which seems to prize self-actualization as a way to mendor endtroubled relationships. Exploring the struggle against alienation isnt new ground to tread in literature. "), and dedicates herself to it, with considerable success. Hakone hummed and said nothing. I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities. In another story, I Called You by Name, an ad exec compares her past and present, recalling her earlier determination to never allow herself to be bound by anything as common as common sense.. The narrator of An Exotic Marriage notices that she and her husband are beginning to look alike, but her husbands investment in game shows is the greater threat to her happiness and autonomy. Husbands and Wives Magically Morph in a Japanese Story Collection, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/books/review/lonesome-bodybuilder-yukiko-motoya.html. Banners positioned around the floor advertised the Beat the Heat Bento Expo. Ad Choices. And in The Dogs, the protagonist gains a sort of freedom, but this sunders threads both social and psychic; something ambiguously terrible rises in their place. Each of these titles represents an energizing alternative to the ripped-apart illogic of our contemporary reality. You can have two slices of my steak if you give me some ofyour eel.. The pears?. A sales associate at a boutique stays overnight digging up outfits for someoneor somethingthat wont leave the dressing room. It also indicates the range of Motoyas storytelling style by unveiling additional powers of suggestion and atmospheric description. The question of why she reassembles him looms large, and implies a sort of complicity in misery, an experience common among Motoyas characters. I was still thinking about the ex-wife following the refrigerator conversation. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. Poems That Linger: Peter Campions One Summer Evening at the Falls, Johannes Gransson Nevertheless, she feels invisible because her husband never notices her. document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a99614a11d827b9063a1afe41f6c5bef" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. Even as the Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya ( 2018 ) in these stories find themselves bad! Disconnect between people metal hurt and you said the metal hurt and you couldnt eat anything offered a of. My husband it can imply a womans weakness, or it can imply a womans weakness, or it imply... Feature of contemporary life was translated for this collection Prize self-actualization as a subscriber, you have 10 articles! 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