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. What happens then?, Yeah. Go, Zoromi, go do it for her. He movedthe cat off the space beside him where shed been asleep, and beckoned to me. Men and women enter into romances with shape-shifters. 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. The husband-like thingpicked up the cocktail stick and popped a pear segment into themouth, which was positioned perilously close to his jawline. . I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I dont know now? 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. Excitement becomes execution. The course of that career certainly indicates a restless curiosity. These two stories stand out from the others, which, at times, are held back by traces of redundancy or ideas that are almost excessively legible. All rights reserved. Motoya won the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary prize, for AN EXOTIC MARRIAGE, the novella contained in THE LONESOME BODYBUILDER; this book offers the exciting opportunity to introduce Motoya to a U.S. audience. Husbands and Wives Magically Morph in a Japanese Story Collection, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/books/review/lonesome-bodybuilder-yukiko-motoya.html. 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. A married couple begin to look like each other, and the wife wonders how she can prevent it. . The Dogs avoids such risks by dint of its elusiveness and subtlety. Walker Rutter-Bowman received his MFA from Syracuse University. Men entered into me through my roots like nutrients dissolved in potting soil. Only when you begin reading, when the . But it only applies when the snakes consume each other at the same rate. analyse how our Sites are used. Touch one and see, he said, so I tried pressing on a browndisc with my finger. In the collections longest and scariest story, An Exotic Marriage, Motoya, through her narrator, lands a flurry of punches against the oppressive domesticity of marriage. 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. 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. . I was feigning calm, but my voice came outhigher than normal. "The Lonesome Bodybuilder", trans. [30], In 2013 Motoya married the poet, lyricist and film director Kite Okachimachi. Blurring the Obvious: Bluebeards First Wife by Ha Seong-Nan, Christopher R. Vaughan 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 addition to the thrills of its unexpected turns, The Lonesome Bodybuilder offers both an incisive critique of many small, domestic patriarchies and occasional glimpses of what life could be without them. You cant understand how men dont want to have to think about things when we get home., What is it you want to avoid thinking about that badly?. Or: What really would have happened if Id gotten on the roller coaster that day? The climate crisis demands a form of literary expression that lifts it out of the realm of intellectual knowing and lodges it deep in readers bodies. Infinite Entanglements in Allison Cobbs Plastic: An Autobiography, Elizabeth Bailey Do you know the story of the snake ball? . . When you did that, I knew youd probably eat up my poop with a smile too.. $16.95. During your trial you will have complete digital access to FT.com with everything in both of our Standard Digital and Premium Digital packages. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. I waited for something else to happen, but that was it. by Michael Heller and James Salzman, Zach Savich The Lonesome Bodybuilder Near But Not Touching: On The Naomi Letters by Rachel Mennies, Tracy Zeman On Pillar of Books by Moon Bo Young, Kyle Wang On The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy, Peter Campion personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to The other stories are trim and propulsive, itching to move forward, using their surreal elements to interrogate assumptions about intimacy and the complacency of partnership. No one in Yukiko Motoya's new story collection, . Sometimes the rules of the world change on the spot. In so many of these stories, possibilities stretch, and the abandonment of realism feels like having your eyes wrenched open. Bodybuilder is the best example, and in An Exotic Marriage, a familiar notion of couples starting to look alike turns eerie. In another, a man sees his girlfriends lips begin to bleed a lipstick hue he has fantasized about her wearing. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. He has received fellowships from the Edward Albee Foundation and the Ucross Foundation. 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. Exploring the struggle against alienation isnt new ground to tread in literature. $16.95. The title story is one of her best: "Fighters are so . The mass movement of a migrating flock of . Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. Asa Yoneda. She has won numerous Japanese literary and dramatic awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Noma Literary New Face Prize, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, the Kishida Kunio Drama Award, and the Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award. . The weird garbled messages?, No, but you can just tell these things sometimes., Huh. Motoya is restless among the halls of convention; she appreciates the classic elements of short stories, but is eager to deface them with a brightly colored . Youre talking about him a lot lately., Thats exactly what I told Uwano. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. At the end of a story with an aesthetic solution, the narrative action is suspendedrather than resolvedand the author leaves the audience with a natural image that resists interpretation. Uwano recommended this game, my husband said at last. Even as The Lonesome Bodybuilder approaches its conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl. She becomes the bulge in the curtain, the shadow on the other side of the glassthe strange one. Histeeth must have been in their right place, because they made achamping sound as he chewed. 'These arresting, hyper-real stories linger in the imagination . On Places Ive Taken My Body by Molly McCully Brown, Art Edwards This normalization gives the stories their irony and their sense of being just a bit off, like a lingering scent of formaldehyde. Motoyas is the perfect book for the reader whos seen it allwho is tired of predicting endings and hankers for a surprise. One of Mocketts main foci is an introduction to Hayao Kawais suggestion of an aesthetic solution common in Japanese literature. The unpredictable narratives pair with curious and compelling imagery to create a palpable and inexplicable sense of wonder. I dont remember where I read it. Why was I so happy to be married to a bunch of straw?, she wonders to herself, before finally reassembling him. While not explicitly feminist, her female protagonists share a capacity for small rebellions, sudden twitches against life-long habits of conformity. On The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy, Asa Drake The ride can be anxious but never dull. English translation copyright 2018 by Asa Yoneda. Lying on the couch, they prompt the strange impression of a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. There is acid in Motoyas surrealism: these women will put up with anything! By the first few sentences of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, you know you're hearing the voice of a remarkable writer; by the end of "An Exotic Marriage," you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you." --Financial Times "Motoya [has a] gift for making the ordinary magical." --Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture What are you doing on there? I peered over his shoulder. I finished towel-dryingmy hair and stepped out onto the balcony to bring in the laundryId hung out that afternoon. [6][7], In 2002, prompted by a magazine editor's invitation, Motoya made her fiction debut with the short story Eriko to zettai (Eriko and Absolutely). Unearthing Memory and Reclaiming the Feminine in Shanta Lee Ganders GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA, Chris Via Motoyas women exist most vividly in their own heads, a state of being that often leaves them feeling alone in a crowd. offers FT membership to read for free. John Scioli, the owner of the Community Bookstore, in Brooklyn, prepares to shutter a neighborhood institution. I think?. and other data for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. On If by Song by Marcia Karp, Brian Chander Wiora (Several tales allude to Kwaidan, a ghoulish anthology compiled by the folklorist Lafcadio Hearn, in 1904.). From The Lonesome Bodybuilder. 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From Apocalypse to Apocalypso: On An Ecotopian Lexicon, Ryan Lackey Motoya sets a scene involving several hundred couples engaged in a melee defying all imagining by inventorying the screams, the clash of weapons, men begging for their lives from lovers who seemed beyond language, belated confessions of love The story concludes in a tragedy, but its later reversed by a single line in a different story. On Midwest Gothic by Laura Donnelly. Yukiko Motoya's The Lonesome Bodybuilder is a refreshing reminder that fiction is an elastic medium, capable of stretching into new and surprising shapes. Its also the collections penultimate entry. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya (2018). [4] That same year she visited the United States as part of a Japan Foundation-sponsored exchange program for playwrights. The Lonesome Bodybuilder (published as Picnic in the Storm in the UK .) Many of the characters seek lives yet unlived, or lives once lived but later forgotten. You don't always know what you're getting into when you pick up a book. The 11 stories in the collection follow individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces, are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, and the alien, and are ultimately led to liberation. In the wonderful title story, the narrator returns from the grocery store to find her husband sitting on the couch, watching a boxing match. The World Owes You Nothing: A Review of Mine! . He says his ex-wifes been sending him strange garbled emails recently, I said. 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. ISBN: 9781472154354. was published in 2005. Published in English by Soft Skull Press. . (That may be an additional appeal of the gym: in a precarious world, a weight lifter looks exactly like what she is.) Each time I looked at my husband lying on the couchshe thinks to herselfI had the strange impression I was living with a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. His laziness alarms her more than the migration of his features to new regions of his face. In The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the pest is always a yawning disconnect between people. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. He is villainous without even the dignity of intention. Theres a Jungian undercurrent in Motoyas writing, which seems to prize self-actualization as a way to mendor endtroubled relationships. 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 . The answers to questions like that, for example. Asa Yoneda. The narrator is surprised, but not at the transformationshe just never knew he wanted that. Asa Yoneda. Eine Hausfrau wird zur Bodybuilderin, aber ihrem arbeitsschtigen Ehemann fallen die neuen Didnt that explain why I didnt much mind whether it was a husbandI was living with or something only resembling a husband? 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. Her quickly buried feelings recall Sans mutating features. Fun and funny . Motoya's stories tend to include a few odd details and features -- often contrasting with the seeming normality of the narration, a mix of the absurd and matter-of-fact mundane. What if thereends up being more of the bad? My husband looked up from the iPad for the first time in awhile, and what I saw nearly made me shriek and run from theroom. 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 'Delightful . Okay. I turned on my heel and went back into the kitchen. In a brilliant analogy, she compares marriage to a snake ball: There are two snakes, and they each start cannibalizing the other ones tail. "Why I Can No Longer Look at a Picnic Blanket Without Laughing", trans. . We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. He probably thought that once he and I became one,he would never again have to worry about being judged by others. Motoya locates a venerable sense of ancestry and inherited duty in the storys young market trader. 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. At first, The Lonesome Bodybuilder appears most interested in chills and moods; I needed time for its feminism and its political threads to catch the light. Each story begins unsuspectingly a clerk helps a woman in a changing room, a wife decides to go to the gym and, from these seemingly realistic setups, the magical and the surreal unfold. Solution common in Japanese literature touch one and see, he said, so I tried pressing a... T always know what you & # x27 ; s new story Collection.... The characters seek lives yet unlived, or lives once lived but forgotten... The ride can be anxious but never dull notion of couples starting to alike... Ancestry and inherited duty in the curtain, the pest is always yawning. 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The answers to questions like that, for example so happy to married! Turned on my heel and went back into the kitchen visited the United States as part of a Foundation-sponsored!