In fact their single voice is the key to the book’s form, and a vital clue to decoding its meaning. The shared flat affect of the unnamed narrators at first seems an oddity or a flaw. These eleven stories are really a single harrowing tale, told in one voice, though the eleven protagonists represent various ages and both sexes. Even a cursory reading indicates that these stories are connected, with characters, incidents, themes, images and even physical objects recurring and reverberating forward and backward through the linked narratives that make up the collection.Ĭloser study of the book reveals a more cohesive structure. Ogawa’s book, though it often crosses the minds of her characters. Active revenge figures only intermittently in Ms. The original title of Yoko Ogawa’s surreal novel in eleven stories was Kamoku na shigai, midara na tomurai, which might be translated as Unspeaking Corpse, Unsuitable Interment, a much more appropriate, or at any rate a less distracting, title.
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