I’m a sucker for bookshops, I struggle to leave one without buying something – so much so that I now try to avoid even going inside one if I can help it. A few years ago, before I became so disciplined, I was browsing randomly through a London bookshop when I happened upon a table stacked high with all manner of books. They were part of a three-for-two or buy-one-get-one-free or some other offer I couldn’t resist so I started digging through the piles of books, looking for something that might pique my interest. Nestled among the thrillers and crime novels were a handful of strange little books by a Japanese author called Banana Yoshimoto.
Apart from the name, the books stood out because they were very simply designed – mostly a solid colour, pink or yellow or maroon, with a single Japanese character on the front. They were also quite expensive for such small books. I’ve got a soft spot for Japanese literature so I took advantage of the offer to pick up a handful of these strange little books, along with a couple by Haruki Murakami that were in the same sale. When I read them, I was immediately hooked (on both authors) and I’ve been snapping up anything the two of them produce ever since.
I read Banana Yoshimoto’s latest, The Lake,
The book tells the story of a young artist, Chihiro and her slowly developing romance with Nakajima, a strange but intelligent young man with a traumatic past. Like many of Banana Yoshimoto’s books, The Lake is haunting in its simplicity and although the cast of characters is small, they’re quirky and memorable. Yoshimoto’s prose has a sparse, lyrical precision that I find irresistible and I was hooked from the first page. So hooked in fact that I ended up reading the whole book in a single sitting – a perfect way to spend Christmas afternoon.
Highly recommended.