Always really enjoy the writing of Banana Yoshimoto. Her stories are simple, but deep, and always somewhat off center.

This is the first book I've read by Banana Yoshimoto and I absolutely fell in love!

I often read collections of short stories when I'm in a reading stump (which is almost always). I enjoy reading about snippets of people's lives- no beginning, middle or end. The characters in her story yearn to put an end to existential pain, lost their direction in life and learn secrets of their past. Society can be unforgiving and Yoshimoto's characters have to deal with finding their place in such a society. The characters are easy to like and quite relatable. All stories were centered around the dynamics of relationships and had a touch of magical realism.

Yoshimoto's writing style is very warm and inviting. I read the entire book while listening to Haruka Nakamura and that really set the tone. Women writing women really makes a difference and despite the simplicity of her language, her sentences unfold subtle and graceful visuals.

"I liked just watching Lizard - the way she threw her coat over her shoulders, the way she bowed her head when she crouched down to tie her shoes, the way her eyes glittered in the mirror when she took a peek at herself. I loved watching Lizard in her different poses. The cells of her body dying and coming into being, the curve of her cheeks, the white half-moons on her fingernails. I felt her brimming with the fluid of life, flowing with the universe. Her every gesture, every move, brought life to me, a man who had been dormant for so long."

Yoshimoto's writing may not resonate with everybody, but it sparked my enthusiasm for reading, and I was glued to her book.

No sé si es la mejor aproximación a Banana Yoshimoto, pero como puerta de entrada me ha gustado mucho. Los relatos se sienten frescos, nostálgicos, con un punto del mood japonés más melancólico, no son especialmente largos y el libro dura un suspiro, pero sirve como presentación de qué más puedes esperar de la autora.

Me ha gustado la narrativa y la forma de llevarlos, al ser un compendio de relatos siempre hay altibajos pero el estilo, los personajes y demás se notan todos de la misma mano, y para mi intención este año de leer a más autoras es una novela ideal.

Yoshimoto has a talent for knowing and dropping in small observations of the everyday in a way that makes them sound as beautiful and delicate as they are. Every story in this collection is the same story, but that doesn't bother me.

Often the narrator gets too expositional or the dialog comes off as overly pointed and abrupt. But maybe this is just accurate to Japanese conversational structure, I can't know.

Initially,I had thought I would enjoy this book out of all the others that I've read. But I don't. I think I enjoy it the least. While I like the concepts of time and healing and spirituality, there is something that is missing from these short stories that I've enjoyed so much in her other pieces of fiction. Though, I can't quite pin point what it is that is missing or different here.

Initially I thought I would enjoy it the most out of the other works I've read because there is a level of maturity in these short stories that are missing in Kitchen and Hardboiled and Hard Luck. Though, that maturity could just really be attributed to the fact that it's a different translator. As oppose to Yoshimoto's voice changing with time.

Because I don't feel like her voice has been lost within these short stories but I feel like this maturity, that when I began reading I loved became something that didn't work. There is almost an absurd playfulness in Kitchen and Hardboiled and Hard Luck or a young woman's voice that I think I missed here.

It isn't to say that these short stories aren't good because they are. My favorite being Helix. It is magical. And perhaps that's it. Her stories always have these sense of magic or lack of reality. I don't want to use the word unreal because that doesn't fit exactly, but more like on a realm of the impossible being possible.

And while the short stories in Lizard do hold some aspect of impossible possibilities it doesn't take over the stories as much as in the other works I've read.

I think the most successful pieces here are: Helix, Dreaming of Kimchee, Newlywed and then Lizard. But even then I think the first three I've mentioned are the most memorable. If you like her work, then you should read this book. It's short and quick. But if you are curious about her work, I'd start with Kitchen and work your way from there.