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. Youknow, I think pears might be my favorite fruit, he announced. Her books have been published in French and Norwegian . (He will no doubt be prepared to be swung as hard as it takes to protect your honor.) The husbands are oppressively thoughtless, moody, domineering. Do you remember, on our honeymoon, how I chewed up allthe fruit for you so you could eat it?, Sure. The title story is one of her best: "Fighters are so . In so many of these stories, possibilities stretch, and the abandonment of realism feels like having your eyes wrenched open. There is something pareidolic about the writing process. 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. Our Final Words: A Review of Eternal Sentences by Michael McGriff, Katherine M. Hedeen Even the missteps attest to Motoyas fictive mandate: to be unburdened by rules and restraints. Its saddermore bruisingthan a revenge fantasy. Idplanned to just wait for her, but I saw a banner for the SpecialSelection Four-Eel Taste Test Bento and was tempted into gettingone. Or: Weeping, I swung at her head with a club Id taken off a man Id kicked to the ground? Previously, her translated stories have appeared in GRANTA and CATAPULT . Asa Yoneda, This page was last edited on 18 November 2022, at 09:31. My husband the snake opened hismouth and swallowed me headfirst, and I desperately resisted hissticky, moist membranes, but soon the inside of his body becamea pleasurable place to be. Characters change; literally, their facial features move, morph, disappear. 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. 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. Where does Motoya find lines like When I woke up and looked in the mirror, I saw that my face had finally begun to forget who I was? 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. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. -, "Many of the stories, deftly translated by Asa Yoneda, are arresting with their strong female lead characters, starting with the mundane before venturing deep into the rabbit hole with surreal twists and turns. 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 Sharpie. The husband-like thingpicked up the cocktail stick and popped a pear segment into themouth, which was positioned perilously close to his jawline. Many of the characters seek lives yet unlived, or lives once lived but later forgotten. It also indicates the range of Motoyas storytelling style by unveiling additional powers of suggestion and atmospheric description. At face value, the stories are fun and funny to read, but weightier questions lurk below the surface. My body was startingto coil, and I tried to stop thinking by closing my eyes even more tightly. 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 For the first time in months, his hand crept into my bed, undermy comforter. Some changes render you, paradoxically, more yourself. Other women in the book pursue men who are made of straw or advise each other to marry bicycle saddles. I wanted to pretend I was asleep, but then he wentto switch on the light, so I reached out and caught his hand almostby reflex. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. Motoyas eerie touches allow the characters to embrace inconvenient and irrational parts of themselves; at moments when self-doubt is making them flounder, these otherworldly intrusions act as a corrective force. Infinite Entanglements in Allison Cobbs Plastic: An Autobiography, Elizabeth Bailey On The Curious Thing by Sandra Lim, Diana Whitney Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. The zelkovas planted in a clump justbeyond the railing were overgrown with green leaves that lookedlike a neglected hairdo. MEDIA REVIEWS. Youre accommodating, San, and before you know itshe breaks off, as Sans features rearrange themselves to mirror her partners. When I did finally manage to look up from this wonderful constellation of stories, I felt myself looking for the unexpected in all sorts of mundane places. It featured eel sourced from the Shimanto River, Lake Hamana,the Mikawa region, and Miyazaki Prefecture, grilled bothwith sauce and without. Her husband, who bears the brunt of these jabs, deserves it all (and more). On Pillar of Books by Moon Bo Young, Kyle Wang Id brought her to the store, promising to buy her something new to wear, or anything else she wanted, but Hakone had headed straight for the escalator down to the basement food hall and asked for a bento. 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. [30], In 2013 Motoya married the poet, lyricist and film director Kite Okachimachi. You can still enjoy your subscription until the end of your current billing period. "Life's not worth living if you're not tending to the whims and demands of a high-maintenance lover!". Paper, $16.95. He's a founding member of Literary Starbucks (2016) and a recovering poetry editor with a chronic crush on nouns that get used as adjectives. Motoya Yukiko, general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author. Like that actress from the movies., How did he split up with a person like that and end up marrying you?. 2023 Cond Nast. I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I dont know now? The Kenyon Review is supported in part by The National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. By suggesting the need for a shield within marriage, Motoya conveys the dysfunction she sees in the coexistence of men and women. Her varied work has resulted in numerous accolades, and, most recently, the release of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the first book-length English translation of her fiction. Id expected marriage to be an even more constricting flowerpot than my previous relationships. Strangely, too, the men Id been with had all wanted me to grow in them. . . After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. 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! We support credit card, debit card and PayPal payments. Each time I looked at my husband lying on the couch, I had the strange impression I was living with a new kind of organism that would die if it exerted itself in any way. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. She has glimmering pink hair, shes an unstoppable ninja, she fights bad guys in the garden every day. While not explicitly feminist, her female protagonists share a capacity for small rebellions, sudden twitches against life-long habits of conformity. There was no response. Eine Hausfrau wird zur Bodybuilderin, aber ihrem arbeitsschtigen Ehemann fallen die neuen The unsettling stories in The Lonesome Bodybuilder are deeply preoccupied with the yawning disconnect between people. Weight: 196 g. Dimensions: 196 x 126 x 26 mm. This is abundantly illustrated in An Exotic Marriage, a novella about a woman, San, who begins to fear that her husbands identity is blending with her own. Unearthing Memory and Reclaiming the Feminine in Shanta Lee Ganders GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA, Chris Via That night, my husband left the iPad outside the bedroom. Motoyas book beguiles with its reversals: the bodybuilders husband may be unobservant to the point of eeriness, but, as it turns out, she is the shape-shifter, the trickster. 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. In The Women, the eponymous characters are transformed into blood-thirsty warriors through the escalating fantasies of their partners. Premium access for businesses and educational institutions. personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to On Stardust Media by Christina Pugh, Jehanne Dubrow Malleability can imply a womans weakness, or it can imply power. If the reader has trouble picturing this, there is a cartoon diagram to assist. The wife tries her best to boost his ego, fails, then decides to take up bodybuilding. His work has been published in Tin House Online, Nashville Review, Harvard Review, and Full Stop. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. Yukiko Motoyas The Lonesome Bodybuilder is available from Soft Skull Press. At face value, the stories are fun and funny to read, but weightier questions lurk below the surface. But Motoya's unique vision is still worth experiencing, and Yoneda's translation provides a clear and beautiful . 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