The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto

I first heard about Banana Yoshimoto back in 1995 when her novel Kitchen was translated into Finnish. I read Kitchen and liked it a lot. It was different from what I usually read at the time. It might also have been the first book written by a Japanese author that I ever read. A year later N.P. came out in Finnish. I read that, too, and liked it, but somehow, after that, I kind of lost contact with her writing. It might have been because after those two no others were translated into my language and back then I usually only read in English books that were originally written in English. Then some time ago, during my three month hiatus from blogging, I was lurking on some of my favorite book blogs and stumbled upon Eva's thoughts about The Lake. The book sounded intriguing and the cover looked so cool :), and I could get it from the library right way. I simply had to borrow it.

I was not disappointed. The Lake is a love story, a story about loss and a story about healing. Chihiro is a young woman, who has recently lost her mother. She spends a lot of time staring out of her window and one day she notices a young man across the street doing just the same. They meet and form a somewhat hesitant relationship. Nakajima, the young man in question, seems emotionally very fragile and soon Chihiro understands that something horrible have happened to Nakajima in the past.

Reading The Lake made me remember all over again why I liked Kitchen and N.P. so much. Yoshimoto is a wonderful writer! Her style is simple and pure, like Japanese architecture, yet very vivid, and in it's simplicity it is also something very familiar to me as a Finn. We too like simplicity. I read her description of the lake and it's surroundings and not only could I see the picture in my head very vividly but her words also made me think about Finnish nature, very different from Japanese landscapes, but somehow I still felt a connection.

With its 188 pages The Lake is a quick read, but you might not want to read it too quickly. It's better to give the story some time. It deserves that. Reading the book slowly makes you appreciate the beauty of Yoshimoto's writing better. She has the enviable skill to say a lot with very few words. I must say that I enjoyed every page of the book. I loved the writing and I think the story was very well constructed. The relationship between Chihiro and Nakajima was portrayed perfectly. This was no sugarcoated romance, this was real life, and yet all the more sweeter in all its angst and hesitations.

After sort of a reading slump I was happy to find such a well-written, engaging novel to get myself back on track with my reading. The only problem is, now I want to read more Banana Yoshimoto and my TBR list is already a mile long... :)