Reading Log 107 | How many versions of yourself exist in this one book? A short story collection of "painful empathy" | "Dreams Without Keys" by Mizuki Tsujimura
Good evening.
When you're living your life, you can't always have quiet, beautiful emotions, can you?
The work I'm introducing today is about other people, yet it doesn't feel like someone else's business.
It's a book that, while reading, repeatedly gives you the sensation of being confronted with the parts of yourself you don't want to see.
Since it's fiction, why not enjoy it as if it were someone else's story, feel a little creeped out, and then, perhaps, take a moment to re-examine your own attitude?
Note: Everything below the table of contents contains spoilers.
▶ About the contents of this book
The protagonist happens to join a bus tour guided by a former elementary school classmate. From there, memories are slowly wound back to childhood—"The Thief of Nishino Town."
Why is it that only men like this ever approach me?
I reunited with a dull man I met at a mixer at the scene of an arson. Did he set the fire to meet me again?—"The Arson in the Fukinominami District."
While shopping at a large shopping mall, I realize the stroller that should have been in my hand is gone, and the blood drains from my face.
With the help of the staff, I search for my ten-month-old daughter, Sakura, but...—"The Kidnapping of the Kimoto Family."
This is a collection of five short stories that quietly gouge into the depths of our hearts.
▶ My thoughts on this book
In all five stories, the "parts we don't want to look at" in human relationships and the depths of the human heart are depicted with great care.
While reading, emotions I recognize in myself surface, and I feel an indescribable discomfort, as if someone is poking at a sore spot and making me wince.
However, on the other hand, precisely because it is fiction, I was also able to keep some distance and enjoy it as if it were someone else's business, thinking,
"Yeah, that happens,"
"Oh boy..."
(I know, that's a bad personality trait).
The first story, "The Thief of Nishino Town," leaves behind an indescribable sadness and complexity at the end.
The emotions I held for a friend from elementary school—
Sympathy, envy, resignation, and affection.
I look at the protagonist from those days, when those emotions were all mixed together, and I feel a complex mix of feelings.
The second story, "The Arson in the Fukinominami District," focuses on the arrogance of women in love.
I felt a connection to the author's other work, "Arrogance and Kindness."
Her high self-consciousness and her estimation of her own value.
Reading her narrative, I am struck by a strong sense of shame that makes me want to cover my ears and say, "Ahhh, stop it already..."
To varying degrees, I think everyone has memories of similar feelings.
That is precisely why it left a lingering aftertaste like a thick, unpleasant sensation in my mouth.
The third story depicts a girl in her teens who gets obsessed with romance due to a mismatched sense of rivalry with her female friends.
Who will get a boyfriend first?
Who will "experience it" first?
Trying to become an adult before others, or feeling a sense of superiority in the fact that "I have a boyfriend," no matter what kind of man he is.
Even when friends give advice, she looks down on them somewhere, thinking, "That girl doesn't understand his good qualities."
That precariousness and immaturity were so realistic that I couldn't look away.
"We used to play Jiangshi when we were in elementary school, didn't we?"
Even though I tried to start a conversation about memories, Shikiko and Sayuri feigned ignorance, asking if we really did. It's no wonder. Among the girls who were always made to play the Jiangshi, I was the only one who had ever played the human role. Both of them insisted they didn't remember well, but it was surely a lie.
They didn't want to admit it. The conversation didn't take off.
(Omitted)
The day Atsuko lost her virginity, she came to my house looking happy. "I'm just coming back from the place of the senior at my part-time job," she said. Her hair was still damp, and the smell of what seemed to be conditioner wafting from it was so detestable I wanted to turn my face away.
(Omitted)
How it happened today, the procedure. What he said, where he touched, and what he did to me. Seeing Atsuko proudly talk about her first experience made me furious.
The print club photos she showed me several times and the way he looked when I actually saw him at the store could hardly be called handsome. He had a playboy-like atmosphere, used to women, but that was it. I wasn't envious at all. However, she said to me, "Mi-i, you should do it soon, too."
I had met people from dating sites several times before that. They were all older men, and we would go to karaoke, have tea, and play on their dime. Sometimes I would call friends like Atsuko, but it felt good to be seen by classmates while meeting a man one-on-one, and to have rumors spread that "Mi-i seems to have an older boyfriend," "She's popular," or "She has a man."
I had never been to a hotel, but spurred on by Atsuko's bragging, I went to a hotel that same day with a man I met on the site. Just as I had heard, the first time was painful and a struggle, but the man, although using brute force, was patient and saw it through to the end. When I thought that now I could talk back to Atsuko, the cloudiness in my chest cleared up.
After that, when I called Sayuri and told her I had lost my virginity, including the part about being angry at Atsuko's bragging, she opened her eyes wide in surprise. She answered, "Oh, I see," as if she felt intimidated.
It is chilling to see how she gradually moves in a dangerous direction due to vanity and bravado.
The fourth story is a tale depicting the romance between a man and a woman chasing their dreams.
The man's dream is very big, and his words are equally big.
His high pride and his words and actions suddenly brought back memories of a peer from my university days, and I felt somewhat embarrassed.
I couldn't help but nod, thinking, "Yeah, people like this exist."
The fifth story is a bit different in tone from the others.
While it shares the commonality of depicting the "parts of humans we don't want to see,"
the situation of a baby suddenly disappearing causes the tension to rise all at once.
I couldn't stop turning the pages, and the final act was like being on an emotional roller coaster.
A child's crying, breastfeeding that follows immediately after it ends, accumulated fatigue and lack of sleep.
As the mother's background is revealed, I think there are many scenes that anyone with child-rearing experience will strongly empathize with.
What left a personal impression on me was the way she was always planning her life "further and further ahead."
While that is a strength, it might also be making it harder for her to notice her "current happiness."
If you are alive, anxieties about the future never end.
However, the "happiness of this very moment" is something that can only be savored now.
I don't want to be caught up only in the future; I want to cherish the happiness right in front of me.
It was a story that made me think that.
While Ms. Tsujimura's works are very easy to read, they mercilessly confront you with the inner self you usually turn away from.
Honestly, there are parts that are a bit "heavy to take."
Even so, I love Ms. Tsujimura's works precisely because they give me the opportunity to face myself, thinking, "I want to be careful" or "I want to re-examine things a little."
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