Authors sometimes see renewed interest in their old work, especially if they’ve made a name for themselves. These older titles may not be as good as their most popular books (though occasionally, they’re better). Yet it’s always interesting to dip into an author’s back catalog to see how they’ve evolved. Early attempts often have a freshness that embodies what we love about an author in the books we know best.
Such is the case with Banana Yoshimoto. If you’re familiar with the Japanese writer, it’s likely due to her 1988 book “Kitchen.” Megan Backus’ 1993 translation introduced English readers to Yoshimoto’s unique sensibility. This lively pair of stories features offbeat characters (including a transexual mother) propelled by grief and guided by dreams, gut feelings and a longing for love. It was an international best-seller.
Yoshimoto has published several books since, but not all have been available in English. Counterpoint Press has recently released a translation by Asa Yoneda of another work Yoshimoto published in 1988, “The Premonition.” Like “Kitchen,” it’s focused on a family and the fluid relationships within and around it. But while “Kitchen” is endearingly kooky, “The Premonition” is almost offputtingly strange.
The novel revolves around 19-year-old Yanoi. Dad’s a doctor, Mom’s a nurse, and Yanoi has a close relationship with her younger brother, Tetsuo. They live in a comfortable home and are preparing to welcome a new puppy. Yet Yanoi feels weighed down by things she can’t remember. Searching for the root cause of her malaise, she realizes she has no clear memories of her childhood and a persistent feeling that she doesn’t belong.
Periodically, she runs away. One place she’s drawn to is the rundown house where her eccentric aunt, Yukino, lives. Cultivating her spinster reputation, the 30-year-old dresses plainly and lives alone, shunning the rest of the world. Yet when Yanoi shows up unexpectedly at her door one night, Yanoi pushes aside her messy piles to make room for her.
In close quarters, Yanoi observes Yukino’s strangeness up close. Yukino works as a music teacher yet refuses to leave the house on rainy days. She endlessly watches the “Friday the 13th” movies, paying close attention to the gruesome scenes. She stays up late drinking and eats only if and when she feels like it, sleeping wherever the urge strikes her. Often, she drifts through the house like a sleepwalker, sitting down at her dusty piano to play a haunting melody.
Despite the chaos, Yanoi starts to feel at home. Yukino’s total acceptance of herself invites Yanoi to begin acknowledging things about herself, including her powers of extrasensory perception. As a child, she knew who was calling when the phone rang. But she senses other kinds of things as well. Taking a bath in an unfamiliar house, Yanoi feels something bumping up against her back. She discovers it to be a rubber ducky, which soon vanishes. She later learns that a woman had drowned her baby there.
“The Premonition” is full of things like that rubber ducky: almost comical yet connected to something dark. Central to the novel are two kinds of forbidden love: incest and a relationship with a minor. Yet Yoshimoto’s sensibility is such that she doesn’t take a moral stance. She treats taboo topics with respect and compassion, doodling her scenes with little romantic flourishes like “darkly sparkling raindrops.”
Yoshimoto lets her characters come to terms with discovering what’s right for them, however unconventional. In some way, this journey to self-awareness and self-acceptance is ultimately what all her stories are about. In “The Premonition,” when Yanoi finally uncovers the truth about her background, she releases long-held beliefs about how life is “supposed” to be. The future, she realizes, is “a dream belonging to my other self. But that me had already lost her chance in this life.” Reading Yoshimoto helps us understand that it’s not just life that changes—it’s us.
