This is a translated piece. I haven’t read much in Japanese literature. Breasts and Eggs is a strange, moody novel examining womanhood and bodily autonomy. Originally two separate books, it is now published in translation as one novel of two parts. The book tries to give a different perspective on childbirth. There is a mix of comedy and realism, I personally feel that.
Kawakami has made her name articulating womanhood in Japan better than any living author. Breasts and Eggs, originally written as a blog in the punchy dialect of her native Osaka, yanked working-class women off the literary sidelines, published in 2008.
Two book into one
These are two different books stuck together as one novel. Those two books separately reference the title through their narration. In ‘Book One’, Natsuko is visited by her sister, Makiko, who has come to Tokyo for a boob job with her preteen daughter in tow. In ‘Book Two’, Natsuko, nearing forty, contemplates having a child via anonymous sperm donation.
Sandwiching these two books together, the resulting novel seems overlong and disjointed. Stylistically, the journal entries, occasional hallucinatory episodes, and general slipperiness of Book One are mostly absent from the more conventional Book Two, which is also longer and more meandering.
A proper title justification has been tried in these two books. Midorika’s Journal in Book 1 is absolutely brilliant. I loved book 1 because of those letters. In a few places, the novel seems to be crap to me. It’s dragging on a few things, kept on repeating and so on… Book 1 final pages were crucial and clumsy.
Toward the end of the novel, many moral issues are explored with erudition and insight. Kawakami is an astute observer, and very confident in her ability to wrangle emotion out of the reader. She doesn’t shirk or bow politely, she cooks up charm and smarm and really goes for broke sometimes.
I can assure you one thing, take this book and read it. I am pretty sure anybody would love and learn something from this book. Meiko just weaved the novel with beast implantation, childbirth, sperm donation and pain faced by women during childbirth with a fictional character. Learning or intake from a fictional work is important. This book provides that kind of learning.
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