4 Stars
Forty years
after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Amaterasu Takahashi, now living
in the U.S., is visited by a badly scarred man who claims to be her grandson
Hideo. Amaterasu is skeptical having
been convinced that her grandson and his mother, her daughter Yuko, died on
August 9, 1945. Yuko’s diaries, which
she finally reads, and letters from Hideo’s adoptive parents force her to
revisit her past: her life before,
during and after the war and her relationship with her daughter. A lot of family secrets are revealed.
Each
chapter begins with a thematically relevant Japanese word; each adds to the
cultural context of the novel. The
reader learns the cultural influences which affect the behaviour of the
characters. For example, one of the first
words is haji with the explanation
that “the Japanese live in a typical
shame culture” and “the Japanese have
internal behavioural standards and a deep sense of conscience regarding
personal conduct.” Other words are seken-tei (decency) and yasegaman (endurance) and kenkyo (humility), all concepts of
virtue to which Amaterasu adheres.
Amaterasu
is a very complex character. She has a
great deal of regret and intense guilt.
She believes that she is responsible for her daughter’s death because
she insisted on meeting Yuko at what became the epicentre of the bombing: “my daughter might be here today if it had
not been for me. I tell myself I acted
out of love and a mother’s selflessness but how important is the motivation when
you consider the consequence?” She
admits that she has tried to forget the past so she can have “a bearable life”
and “to ease the guilt just enough to function.” She doubts that the man on her doorstep is
Hideo: “my grandson was too pure for any
world that would keep . . . me alive but claim my daughter. Only scavengers and liars and cheats
survived. The best of us died young back
then.”
The book is
an emotional roller-coaster ride. There
are times when the reader will be so angry with Amaterasu but then later will
cry for her. The same is the case for
Sato, a family friend with whom Yuko has a relationship. Sato is a villain and yet he has redeeming
qualities. In reality, humans are
complicated with both positive and negative traits, and the characters in the
novel are very realistic.
There are a
number of themes. Obviously, the book examines
why people make certain decisions and how they live with the repercussions of
those decisions. Amaterasu must try to
find some peace when there may be no definitive answers to her questions: What was Yuko going to tell her on the day of
the bombing? Is the man who claims to be
her grandson related to her? In her
treatment of her daughter, was she motivated by love for her or by “hurt fossilised
to anger, of rejection turned to hate”?
When I reached
the end of the book, I promised myself that I would re-read it. There is undoubtedly much I missed in my
first reading. I found this title on the
longlist of the 2016 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, and I certainly
understand why it appears there.
