Breasts and Eggs

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Natsuko's language, as translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, is actually quite polite. I had the feeling of listening to someone speaking in the dark: casual intimacies interspersed with fanciful, terrifying and dreamlike interludes. (...) Section one is compact and ferocious. (...) Section two, the bulk of the book, is digressive and reflective." - Madeleine Thien, The Guardian The man Aizawa always thought was his father -- long dead -- was actually also a good guy, but in Japan the biological bond still counts for a great deal, and Aizawa's life is marked by what he sees as this gaping void. Poverty, and the cycle of poverty, are a significant theme especially in this first part of the novel. In an interview with Hitomi Yoshio for Wasafiri Magazine, Kawakami discusses her philosophical approach to life and death, how she could never bring herself to sing ‘happy birthday’ as a child because, “I couldn’t get my head around the idea of celebrating birthdays when we were becoming one year closer to death and saying goodbye to our loved ones.”

a b "Kawakami Mieko: Amplifying the Voices of Japanese Women Through Fiction". Nippon.com. 20 November 2020 . Retrieved 8 February 2021. Breasts and Eggs ( Japanese: 乳と卵, Hepburn: Chichi to Ran) is a short novel by Mieko Kawakami, published by Bungeishunjū in February 2008. It was awarded the 138th Akutagawa Prize. [1] The original work has not been translated into English. My monolithic expectation of what a woman's body was supposed to look like had no bearing on what actually happened to my body.She will not be controlled by her biology and the fact that she cannot control it in turn — such as stopping her breasts from growing or her periods from happening — is crushing for her. Both Rika and Aizawa inspired and encourage Natsuko to consider, reconsider, and re-reconsider her approach to giving birth, raising a child, writing fiction, and simply how she looks at the passage of life and time. The novel Breasts and Eggs, originally published in Japanese in 2019 as Natsu Monogatari and in English translation in 2020, was written by Mieko Kawakami. Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006 and published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World, in 2007. Kawakami is known for her ability to discuss complex and sensitive subjects, ethical questions and the dilemmas of modern society in an honest and sensitive manner.

Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator.” Fiction Book Review: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, trans. from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd". Publishers Weekly. 19 March 2020 . Retrieved 22 October 2020. Yuriko’s philosophy is similar to that of real-world philosopher David Benetar, an anti-natalist who believes that, since life is so difficult and painful, we should not force our children to have to go through it themselves. Breasts and Eggs was translated by men. One cannot help but wonder how different it would have been if a woman had translated it. What all these authors share is a mastery over the interior voice. Time is languorous in their work; secondary characters come and go. Narratives are rarely straightforward, either in terms of plot or chronology. Everything is rendered secondary to development of the main character, and the process(es) they are dealing with — healing, growth, change, reconciliation.The book is also a meditation upon desire, the yearning of women to have agency over their bodies. As a female student interested in gender studies, I found it powerfully articulates women’s innermost trepidations and desires in a format that I have not encountered before. It forced me to delve deeper and introspect about what I, as an individual, owe the people I love. More importantly, what I owe those I was forced to associate with because of actions not my own.

Not every character is so directly philosophical, however; for most characters, it is their actions, and the way in which their words and behaviours affect Natsuko, which drive the plot. This philosophical thinking, especially about the road from birth to death, certainly comes out in Breasts and Eggs. Most aggressively and vividly, it’s seen in the words of Yuriko, a character who exists almost as a philosophical plot device, obsessed as she is with the idea that giving birth is an unforgivably cruel act.

October 2015

One friend of Natsuko is leaving Tokyo to join her husband in his family's home because he couldn't continue working, but she loathes the over-indulged (by his mother) father of her child; another friends sums up what seems to be the prevailing opinion: "I find all men repulsive".