The narrator’s sister comes to visit Tokyo for a breast implant consultation. Travelling with her is her pubescent daughter, who has stopped talking, and instead writes her thoughts on a notebook. The older sister is on a mission to change both colour and size of her breasts. The younger two – the narrator, still single, and the daughter, both disapprove. They don’t understand her motives. Why make them beautiful? To achieve an aesthetics of patriarchally leaning? Or out of regret for having a child that sucked at the yolk of her youth? The question is fascinating! Mostly because in the current celerity struck social media driven culture, the desire to look bountifully bestowed is seldom questioned. And while I am weary of menstrual cycle shout-outs to receive the red stamp approval of ‘feminist’ writing, the novel offers a thoughtful look at breasts – of its aesthetics and function.
Throughout a woman’s lifetime, the functionality of the breast ebbs and flows. Its swelling is a harbinger to the inevitable monthly dash to stock up on feminine hygiene products. Thirteen-year old’s, you can now have babies – we say. Soon after the terrifying initiation into the woman’s club, we start to notice the breasts’ effect on cute boys (and pervs). And from that point onwards, our breasts no longer belong to ourselves. Its function is to attract, to please, to goad over – others. Then come the babes. The breasts sprout once again, heavy with milk now. We are transformed into beautiful figureheads of a fountain, or so its promised. Herein lies a breasts’ true function – we cry! But ideals are bliss for a moment (and likely the trick of an Instagram filter). Gravity takes all, and breasts fall heavy on our shoulders and stretched out skin.
If you ever need to know what stage you are in, just check your bra. Training bra, push-up bra, red see-through lace, tee-shirt bra, nursing bra, get back into shape sports-bra, or the fuck it bra – made for the army with thick-straps and hard wire for extra support that comes in a colour that reminds you of a dimly lit corridor of a hospital. Dust off the lacey bra in the off chance of a flyby lover.
The novel is an honest example – of how judgmental we are of ourselves, how unimaginative and unsympathetic we are of others in different stages of life – what it means to change so much you don’t recognize your own body, and how quickly we move to forget the turbulent storms of hormonal rage. The story’s climax is beautiful. It is quiet and loud at the same time – with words said to wound, with words unsaid that would heal. The ending leaves many things unresolved. Yet there is a lightness attained not through an arc or epiphany, but through compassionate love. And that was more than enough – even better than resolution. Because it felt real.
I should note I read the novel in Japanese, and have no idea how it translates into English! In the Japanese there is a heavy Osaka dialect, so I am very intrigued by how that was carried over, and also if what I felt from the book remains the same in English. I shall revert back!
JohannaAirth 