In Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, published in 1988 and translated into English in 1993 by Megan Backus, we encounter attachments.
When I was a young child, I was very attached to stationary stuff—paper clips, markers, compasses, gum, pens, paints, and a lot of other things I have come to forget. Whenever I had a chance at things like these, I would cut pages from my notebooks and start crafting things. This one time, I made a small envelope, wrote a cute letter to my father, and posted it in a nearby post office. It was not so long ago. Unfortunately, the letter never reached my father (but the envelope did). That’s for another story. It may be about 15 years ago. And I was very young then.
And every time I bought a new compass box, there was a certain sense of comfort. This belongs to me. Of all things in the world, this one thing I can call mine. But, just as time passed by, and now I think of it, I no longer desire stationary stuff—of course, this is despite me carrying a pouch full of sticky notes, colourful pens, highlighters, and sharpener—as much as I desire books. I now look at books on my desk and know they belong to me.
There is a sense of attachment to things and people we never let go—and are forced to let go. These attachments follow through to comfort when you are sad and in anguish.
“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen”. This is the first line of this novel. And as one sifts through pages in this book, you return to the kitchen again and again. Mikage Sakurai, the protagonist, loves kitchen—immaculate tea towels to vegetable dropping all over, and “if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me”. Her ex, Sotoro, loves greenery—parks, gardens, and all things green.
Yuichi, her companion friend and later love interest, loves fountain pens, and his girlfriend complains more about his love for fountain pens than she does. “Perhaps there are people in this world who love their fountain pens with every fiber of their being—and that’s very sad. If you’re not in love with him, you can understand him.” Eriko, Yuichi’s father and (now) mother, loves beauty stuff—all things that make her look beautiful.
But the story is not about Kitchen per se. It follows Mikage, in her voice, the grief and sorrow of losing people she loves—and having to live with it. As a young child, Mikage had lost both her parents and was living with her grandmother. But now, the grandmother is dead, and she feels lonely and understandably sad about being all alone in the world.
Mikage thinks: “No matter how dreamlike a love I have found myself in, no matter how delightfully drunk I have been, in my heart, I was always aware that my family consisted of only one person… [And] someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time. I’ve always lived with that knowledge rooted in my being.”
Yuichi, the boy who worked in the flower shop of Mikage’s granny, invites her to his home for dinner—and, perhaps, to stay with his family until she figured out her things. Yuichi was kind—just the reserved kind who spoke little. His father-turned-mother, Eriko, loved him immensely and raised him well.
What follows in the story is about the time Mikage, Yuichi, and Eriko, spend together and apart from one another. In the first instance, Mikage loves the kitchen. And, in the following days, she stays on the sofa in the hall next to the kitchen. That she loves. She is close to the kitchen once again. The kitchen is big, neat, and tidy, and the aprons are clean.
In the kitchen, Mikage found her comfort and hope: “When the time comes to die, I want to breathe my last in a kitchen.” Elsewhere, she thought, “Why do I love everything that has to do with kitchens so much? It’s strange. Perhaps, because to me a kitchen represents some distant longing engraved on my soul.” This love for the kitchen reminds us of things we truly hold close to us, despite the loss, the suffering, the good, and the bad.
Despite the book revolving around themes of loss, loneliness, and mourning, there is a sense of hope all through. And that is why, as one sifts through the pages, they are left feeling deeply sad once, joyous at others, and grateful at the end. Therefore, Eriko tells Mikage once: “But if a person hasn’t ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. I’m grateful for it.”
In Yoshimoto’s novel, people are reeling through a loss, are lonely at once, and are sad and mourning, but, at the same time, they are kind and hopeful. In the end, Mikage and Yuichi naturally share love-like feelings for each other and expect ways and words to express them. So, they hang out with each other. Cook food. Do crazy stuff, like climb walls, and buy food to escape Tofu’s onslaught on their lives.
In all, Kitchen is a cute story. The book is translated with immense care for the language. It reads well. And just as I did, this 150-odd-page book can be read in one go. Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen tells a beautiful story about loss, love, hope, and gratitude in those few pages.