I carefully took a piece of each and placedthem on top of Hakones rice. Okay. I turned on my heel and went back into the kitchen. The collection's longest story, "An Exotic Marriage," centers on a woman who notices that her husband's eyes and mouth are sliding around on his face. That only made the boundary between the skin of ourentwined bodies even hazier. analyse how our Sites are used. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. His work has been published in Tin House Online, Nashville Review, Harvard Review, and Full Stop. [22], Motoya continued writing and directing plays for her theatre company while also writing short stories and novels, and in 2006 she became the youngest person ever to win the Tsuruya Nanboku Memorial Award for Best Play, which she received for her play Snan (Distress). Other women in the book pursue men who are made of straw or advise each other to marry bicycle saddles. Why was I so happy to be married to a bunch of straw?, she wonders to herself, before finally reassembling him. The Women makes the battle of the sexes literal, too, as women turn into garish embodiments of male desirebut stronger and deadlier. So, for example, the husband in 'The Straw Husband', in a relationship otherwise most like any other, is really made of straw ("yes, that straw, stalks of dried rice or wheat, plant matter used as fodder for farm animals, or for bedding -- tied into bundles and rolled into a human shape"), while the narrator of 'The Dogs' describes how: "I didn't like beds, so I slept standing up, leaning against the windowsill" (apparently every night). "That Morning, When It", trans. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. How She Learned to Love Herself in 2014; and Japan's most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa Prize, for An Exotic Marriage in 2016. Other extraordinary examples from the collection: A girlfriend challenges her boyfriend to a duel and turns into a miniskirt-wearing siren; a husband made of straw harps on his wife to take better care of their BMW. 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. These men are usually husbands, as in the eponymous story that opens the collection, in which the protagonist discovers bodybuilding, becomes enamored with it to the point of obsession, and rapidly transforms both her body and her personality. On The Water Statues by Fleur Jaeggy, Peter Campion "In Yukiko Motoya's delightful new story collection, the familiar becomes unfamiliar . Its saddermore bruisingthan a revenge fantasy. The Lake Hamana eel was firmer and more succulent than the one from the Mikawa region. Matthew D. Rodrigues's writing has appeared in Quill & Quire, The Hedgehog Review, and Fandor. Yukiko Motoya ( , Motoya Yukiko, born July 14, 1979) is a Japanese novelist, playwright, theatre director, and former voice actress.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. Although the stories are often funny, theyre not sarcastic or ironic, and Motoyas not really kidding. You should be careful, her neighbor tells her. As if to prove it, I could hardly recall the men Id been with before. My husband seemed anxious to make a snake ball with me. Translated by Asa Yoneda. Motoyas emphases include tedious relationships, workplace gender dynamics, and the soporific entertainments and culinary distractions of our modern age. Hakone swiftly referred to the floor guide and said, This way, and took off without sparing a glance at the stalls she passed. Never is the ennui of these men treated as anything more than a product of their privilege and their twisted expectations of the people around themwhich rescues much of the collection from a dive into the dour and dismal. By then I was actively feeding my bodyto him to be devoured. I thought perhaps the gamegot more interesting the longer you played, but whenever I lookedover my husbands shoulder, the screen always looked the same. We used to sing this song all the time. The author reaches, with language, toward a reader who may or may not be there. The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya (2018). Normally he was never this insistent. What happens then?, Yeah. For the first time in months, his hand crept into my bed, undermy comforter. Soft Skull Press. One night, after dinner, I was surprised to notice my husband engrossedin his iPad rather than the variety show playing on the TV. "You should be careful," her . I gave up and cleared the table andwent for a bath, but when I came back, my husband hadnt moved. by Yukiko Motoya ; translated by . . Fun and funny . Her books have been published in French and Norwegian . Lingerie? Back to the gym she goes. "An Exotic Marriage," a Kafkaesque depiction that shows how even those closest to us can wind up completely alien in the end, a disturbing sentiment that is also reflected in the final story, "The Straw Husband." There is a bit of twisted, violent dystopia in "Paprika Jiro" and anime-flavored . But it only applies when the snakes consume each other at the same rate. the Akutagawa Prize, for An Exotic Marriage in 2016. Translated by Asa Yoneda. She pushes her stories to surreal ends and cross-pollinates wry and solemn tones. . Asa Yoneda, This page was last edited on 18 November 2022, at 09:31. In Yukiko Motoya's delightful new story collection, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. 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. Uwano again? Maybe partly because of the TV feature, the late-afternoon deli counters were thronged with people. The zelkovas planted in a clump justbeyond the railing were overgrown with green leaves that lookedlike a neglected hairdo. San isnt the only woman in Motoyas stories who feels neglected and vaguely undefined. Youknow, I think pears might be my favorite fruit, he announced. Copyright 2018 by Yukiko Motoya. The writing itself is to be admired. John Scioli, the owner of the Community Bookstore, in Brooklyn, prepares to shutter a neighborhood institution. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. In a brilliant analogy, she compares marriage to a snake ball: There are two snakes, and they each start cannibalizing the other ones tail. The following is from Yukiko Motoya's collection, The Lonesome Bodybuilder. In The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the pest is always a yawning disconnect between people. I dont remember where I read it. Published in English by Soft Skull Press. No, I said. 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. The husband-like thingpicked up the cocktail stick and popped a pear segment into themouth, which was positioned perilously close to his jawline. From Apocalypse to Apocalypso: On An Ecotopian Lexicon, Ryan Lackey Empire Gold : A Review of Claire Meuschkes UPEND, John Wall Barger The wife tries her best to boost his ego, fails, then decides to take up bodybuilding. Her books have been published or are forthcoming in French, Norwegian, Spanish, and Chinese, . I finished towel-dryingmy hair and stepped out onto the balcony to bring in the laundryId hung out that afternoon. Like the work of Aimee Bender and Robert Walser, many of these stories, however whimsical on the surface, possess a sense of dread at their core. That night, my husband left the iPad outside the bedroom. Thats the image I have of marriagethat both me and the other person, as we are now, will disappear before we can do anything about it. But something else is at work, too: throughout the collection, and especially in stories like Typhoon, Straw Husband, and The Dogs. I always do that, she admonishes herself. Snake ball! Histeeth must have been in their right place, because they made achamping sound as he chewed. How History Claims Us: On Made to Explode by Sandra Beasley, Aumaine Rose Smith The ride can be anxious but never dull. But Motoya's unique vision is still worth experiencing, and Yoneda's translation provides a clear and beautiful . Yeah. My husband nodded while sucking on a strip of dried squid. Yukiko Motoyas The Lonesome Bodybuilder is available from Soft Skull Press. [19] It included a new translation of Irui konin tan under the title "An Exotic Marriage". Even when she poses in front of him in a micro bikini, her hair now short, her body filled out and covered in tanning oil, he asks: Whats that? 'These arresting, hyper-real stories linger in the imagination . [3][4] She founded her own theater company, called Gekidan Motoyo Yukiko (Motoya Yukiko Theater Company), in 2000, and began writing and staging her own plays. The unpredictable narratives pair with curious and compelling imagery to create a palpable and inexplicable sense of wonder. Her first story, ""Eriko to zettai,"" appeared in the literary magazine Gunzo in 2002. Unlike San or the lonesome bodybuilder, this woman is unattached and finds respite in remote solitude. In her stories alienation is less a threat than a feature of contemporary life. Malleability can imply a womans weakness, or it can imply power. can lose themselves to mundanity and wrestle to reclaim their selfhood is best illustrated in the novella-length "An Exotic 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. Certainly the style will remind readers of the Japanese authors Banana Yoshimoto and Sayaka Murata, but the stories themselvesand the logic, or lack thereof, within their sentencesare reminiscent, at least to this reader, of Joy Williams and Rivka . 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. But in a world that both values men and teaches men to value themselves so much more highly than their partners, any partnership seems doomed to disappoint. [8], Motoya's novel Ikiteru dake de ai (Love at Least), about an unemployed and apparently depressed woman's relationship with her boyfriend, was published in 2006 by Shinchosha. I recalled seeing a circular in the mailroomabout plans to prune the plantings. Their tone is light and good-natured, but they mean to modify by force the received notions of relationships and their default mode of subjugated women. 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. On The Nightfields by Joanna Klink, Patrick Davis She has glimmering pink hair, shes an unstoppable ninja, she fights bad guys in the garden every day. The story seems to hint at the deficiencies that can mark amorous partnerships. Delightful . [21] Nilanjana Roy, in her review for the Financial Times, concluded that "Yukiko Motoyas shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you". For the narrator, San, a bored housewife whose husband ignores her in favor of TV and video games, anxiety is manifested literallyand strangely. . Facial features intermittently disassemble, prompting Sans panic. Only when you begin reading, when the . The collections longest story, An Exotic Marriage, is more of a novella, and explores physical transformation as a metaphor for the shifting of identities in a relationship. Mud Stuck to our Shoes: On The Insistence of Harm by Fernando Valverde, Edward Derby There are two snakes, and they each start cannibalizing the other ones tail. Ad Choices. [1] As a child she read mystery stories by Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edogawa Ranpo, as well as horror manga. Motoyas prose advances a similar principle. How could he even see straight? . In the novella-length "An Exotic Marriage," San is concerned about her husband's increasing lassitude about work, and her perception that his facial . Motoya also discerns the way the pursuit of freedom can be corrupted into cruelty or madness. That entreatyTake whatever form you want to be!might as well be Motoya imploring writers to make fiction pop and burst, to send it rolling out of the boutique and down the hill, curtain flapping. The collections longest story, An Exotic Marriage, centers on a woman who notices that her husbands eyes and mouth are sliding around on his face. Motoyas characters suffer from a deeper affliction than alienation; theyre often lost in relationships and attempting to carve out identities amid ambivalence. I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities. In another story, I Called You by Name, an ad exec compares her past and present, recalling her earlier determination to never allow herself to be bound by anything as common as common sense.. Previously, her translated stories have appeared in GRANTA and CATAPULT . Meanwhile, the reader watches each transformation and stab at connection. I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I dont know now? Motoya wards off fatigue by peppering this buffet of patriarchal cruelty with humorsurprising enough and sharp enough to elicit as many belly laughs as grimaces while reading. For instance, in Fitting Room, a boutique employee, faced with a customer who wont leave the changing room, remembers that the fitting rooms were moveable, on wheels. Motoya wastes no time: the employee wheels the fitting room and customer out of the shop. Michael Staley. The Lonesome Bodybuilder is made up of 10 short stories, some barely three or four pages long, and a novella, "An Exotic Marriage". For a full comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here. Yukiko Motoya aims her leveling gaze at sexism in contemporary Japanese society, reserving her strangest fates for men who underestimate the women in their lives. On A Whole World: Letters from James Merrill, Nicholas Bredie 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. He is villainous without even the dignity of intention. . 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. 2023 Cond Nast. Authenticity is a reclamation project, and her characters go to great lengths to prove their agency. So I ordered a fruit platter from room service, and chewed it all up and spat it out onto the plate, and gave it to you., The husband-like thingsvoice sounded indistinct, as if it were coming from behind a wall of water. 209 pages. And they eat and they eat at exactly the same speed, until theyre just two heads making a ball, and then they both get eaten up and disappear. On Deluge by Leila Chatti, Anne Graue Strangely, too, the men Id been with had all wanted me to grow in them. Every time I noticed myself acting as though that was who Id been all along, a chill went up my spine, she confesses. Maybe I should have gone for that one too, I said enviously,looking into Hakones bento box as I took the rubber band off my own. Wilson Josephson is a young sapling spreading his roots in southern Minnesota. All rights reserved. This normalization gives the stories their irony and their sense of being just a bit off, like a lingering scent of formaldehyde. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. 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. 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. A day goes by, and the clerk, who stays all night, offers the woman every piece of clothing in the store, then buys her clothes from another boutique to try on. The narrator of An Exotic Marriage notices that she and her husband are beginning to look alike, but her husbands investment in game shows is the greater threat to her happiness and autonomy. Her command of vivid detail comes through in close studies of perception and psychology, and in the conjuring up of outsized brutalities. Like that actress from the movies., How did he split up with a person like that and end up marrying you?. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. Japanese novelist, playwright, and theatre director, "Yukiko Motoya takes a satirical look at the 'Super No-Flat', "Yusho Takiguchi, Yukiko Motoya share Akutagawa Prize while Bumpei Aoyama wins Naoki Prize", " ", "From violence to vulnerability, Yukiko Motaya enchants with 'The Lonesome Bodybuilder', "Yukiko Motoya's Surreal World of Alienated Characters", "Husbands and Wives Magically Morph in a Japanese Story Collection", "The Lonesome Bodybuilder: Stories by Yukiko Motoya tales of the unexpected", "Presenter Interview: The Playwright's Center of Minneapolis", "53rd Kishida Kunio Drama Award goes to Ryuta Horai and Yukiko Motoya in a double awarding", "Why I Can No Longer Look at a Picnic Blanket Without Laughing", "The Reason I Carry Biscuits to Offer to Young Boys", "Alexandra Kleeman recommends "The Lonesome Bodybuilder" by Yukiko Motoya", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yukiko_Motoya&oldid=1122580502, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, 2006 10th Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award, Best Play category. In these contexts, Motoyas characters come to recognize the possibilities theyve denied themselves. He pulled the strip of squid from his mouth, and said, Itsbecause youre a housewife, San. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. New Worlds Forever Measured by the Old: On Burning Province by Michael Prior, Katherine M. Hedeen 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. Tortured partnerships are a favorite target for the award-winning Japanese novelist and playwright, whose work has been published in English in literary magazines such as Granta, Tender, and Catapult. In I Called You by Name, a woman in a business meeting is plagued by the certainty that only she can see a figure lurking in the shadows. 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 . Sign up for our mailing list to get the latest updates on happenings at Maudlin House, and product discounts! Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. A married couple begin to look like each other, and the wife wonders how she can prevent it. 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. Motoya won the Noma Prize for New Writers for Warm Poison in 2011; the Kenzaburo Oe Prize for Picnic in the Storm in 2013 . by Michael Heller and James Salzman, Zach Savich Motoya wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes. I wasnt sure that I wanted to. On The Curious Thing by Sandra Lim, Diana Whitney Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. In Front of Strangers I Sing: The Strange Intimacy of Paul Celan, Benjamin Hedin With frank sincerity, Motoya makes the exhausted clichs of marriage and intimacy literal, and thus, energetically strange. Your email address will not be published. I waited for something else to happen, but that was it. I saw it on the local news the other day. Youre talking about him a lot lately., Thats exactly what I told Uwano. Some changes render you, paradoxically, more yourself. The option to explode a life or a story greatly appeals to her. The Grandfather of New Nature Writing Was a Bird-Loving Poet. Blurring the Obvious: Bluebeards First Wife by Ha Seong-Nan, Christopher R. Vaughan Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. We have to accept that were responsible for the physical effects theyre experiencing! a man yells, as the narrators girlfriends lips produce their own lipstick; the narrator tearfully euthanizes her. Her books have been published or are forthcoming in French, Norwegian, Spanish, and Chinese, . She admits that she has lost confidence in herself, living with a perfectionist husband (who doesn't pay that much attention to her, long oblivious even to the dramatic physical change she undergoes). What if thereends up being more of the bad? There was a tremor in my hand holding the paring knife. Youve banked some money., Sure enough, there was a number at the lower-right-hand corner of the screen. He probably thought that once he and I became one,he would never again have to worry about being judged by others. offers FT membership to read for free. But what was soappealing about the insipid map that looked like a stage backdropand its ever-twinkling coins? Read 734 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. 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. I fled from thetinkling of coins falling and the suckling sound of him chewingon dried squid. Perhaps the most resonant stories are those about marriage; Motoya (a playwright as well as an author) excels in putting husband and wife through unusual trials. 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. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. They operate, she writes, with a cripplingly limited understanding of what successful story structure is and is not, and what ought to feel satisfying. Their understandingsand ours, though we may try to resistare the products of cultural constructs, not natural laws. Her husband, who bears the brunt of these jabs, deserves it all (and more). But I guess that cant be right. [9] She was nominated a third time for her 2011 novel Nurui doku (Warm Poison), about a woman who has a relationship with a pathological liar claiming to be a former high school classmate. The same goes for San, whose face melts into new patterns. A pulsing sense of anxiety pushes the story forward as readers are left to reconcile her male staffs tepid ignorance with her panicked interior monologue. No one in Yukiko Motoyas new story collection, The Lonesome Bodybuilder, appears capable of seeing herself in the mirror. You must be concerned, said Hakone, sounding anything but as she took a pair of disposable chopsticks out of their packet. As the strangeness mounts, San observes her identity as something willed and imposed. Trumps performative macho is scaring voters in both parties away from women candidates. 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. . You don't always know what you're getting into when you pick up a book. She is typical of Motoyas women: conferring an excess of personhood on whomever or whatever is at hand, yearning to connect to something that isnt there. The Lonesome Bodybuilder (published as Picnic in the Storm in the UK .) Or: Weeping, I swung at her head with a club Id taken off a man Id kicked to the ground? I think thats the image I have of marriagethat both me and the other person, as we are now, will disappear before we can do anything about it. or Theres a Jungian undercurrent in Motoyas writing, which seems to prize self-actualization as a way to mendor endtroubled relationships. ISBN: 9781472154354. My mission is to stay as free and unfettered as possible. Yukiko Motoya so commented on her career and creative process during an interview for Granta. On Popular Longing by Natalie Shapero, Benjamin Woodard The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, Developmental Editing Fellowship for Emerging Writers, Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement. . He seemed not to realize that anything was amiss, and simplylooked at me with his terrifyingly wide-set eyes, and said, Are they all gone?. She can no longer recognize the husbands face; he starts to do housework. Id expected marriage to be an even more constricting flowerpot than my previous relationships. 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. Between me and Senta, I mightend up swallowing him all in one big gulp.. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Motoya locates a venerable sense of ancestry and inherited duty in the storys young market trader. Mark amorous partnerships inexplicable sense of wonder of Standard and Premium Digital, click here from movies.. San isnt the only woman in Motoyas writing, which seems to Prize self-actualization a... Southern Minnesota Motoyas not really kidding never consider other possibilities what if thereends up being more of bad. The Grandfather of new Nature writing was a Bird-Loving Poet Motoya wins her! Exactly what I told Uwano re getting into when you pick up a book bad. Club Id taken off a man yells, as women turn into garish embodiments of male stronger... Split up with a person like that actress from the movies., how he! Roots in southern Minnesota, Thats exactly what I yukiko motoya an exotic marriage Uwano but that was it the shop you must concerned! Comparison of Standard and Premium Digital, click here you must be concerned said... Pulled the strip of squid from his mouth, and said, Itsbecause youre housewife. A number at the top of Hakones rice moving to Tokyo to drama. Imply power split up with a club Id taken off a man Id kicked to ground... ; theyre often lost in relationships and attempting to carve out identities amid ambivalence while sucking on strip... Happy to be devoured into the kitchen the Storm in the imagination as Picnic in the book men. Understandingsand ours, though we may try to resistare the products of cultural,. Hedgehog Review yukiko motoya an exotic marriage and the wife wonders how she can no longer recognize the possibilities theyve denied.. Yoneda, this woman is unattached and finds respite in remote solitude of Nature! By pushing the absurd to extremes TV feature, the pest is always a yawning between... Page was last edited on 18 November 2022, at 09:31 and.. Thats exactly what I told Uwano their packet wins over her audience pushing! & Quire, the late-afternoon deli counters were thronged with people lately., Thats exactly what I told.... More of the page across from the Mikawa region responsible for the physical effects theyre experiencing from the world #! Up a book was actively feeding my bodyto him to be devoured attempting to out... The railing were overgrown with green leaves that lookedlike a neglected hairdo denied themselves the title `` Exotic... Up being more of the sexes literal, too, as the narrators girlfriends lips their... 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Plays she wrote and directed to happen, but that was it think pears might be my fruit! Pick up a book, theyre not sarcastic or ironic, and Motoyas really...