by Ruth Ozeki
Unbelievable. No, inconceivable. Why doesn't this woman win a Pulitzer prize?
I started this book and, after a couple of chapters, put it aside in favor of a nonfiction book about mystery novels. Did I sense, somehow, that Ruth Ozeki was going to do it to me again? Did I unconsciously flash back to the torture that A Tale For the Time Being applied to my soul?
Okay, that's a little overdone. In any event, she has a rare gift for making you feel suffering as intensely as you would feel watching a tiny, helpless child alone on a battleground. The child cringes away, covering its ears from the pain of explosions. It scurries into unsafe shelter when the only right thing to do would be to run far, far away...and that's the one thing it can't do. And you're powerless to help!
She doesn't hit you over the head first thing out of the box. Things start out normal-ish, maybe a bit uneasy, enough to make you keep reading...to scratch that niggling itch. If her books didn't start off slowly, you would ever read another. It's like the way women decide to have a second baby as soon as they forget the agony of the first. Remembering only the joy of the ending, they jump in a second time...and find themselves in the same horrible mess all over again.
My Year Of Meats has a few themes in common with A Tale, but the people and plot are totally, marvelously unique. Jane Takagi is our American hero, strong and determined and maybe able to save the day...but can she save herself? Akiko seems to be waiting for permission to break loose from her passive position as the dutiful wife, but will she ever get it?
I'm shutting up now. I can't talk any more without giving away secrets. All I can say is, I cried at the end.
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