Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchin, Kitchen (1987)
(adapted from web page of Kumiko Sato:
Summary
The narrator, Mikage, is a college
student living with her grandmother in Tokyo. Her Grandmother is her
only family member after her parents died, but she has also died
three days prior to the narrative present. Mikage, left alone,
cannot believe this reality. She starts to sleep in the kitchen,
which is her most favorite, and conformable, place in the house. One
day, a boy Mikage has never seen visits her house. He is Yuichi
Tanabe, a student of the same university. He invites Mikage to live
with him and his mother, and tells her that he knew Mikage's
grandmother very well at the flower shop he works for and that her
Grandmother was always worried about what would become of Mikage
after her death. Mikage moves to Yuichi's house, where a huge sofa
becomes her favorite place (and her bed). Yuichi's mother, Eriko, is
surprisingly beautiful, but Mikage learns that she is actually a
"he," originally Yuichi's father. After his mother's death, he had
plastic surgery and has lived as a woman. Yuichi is a boy who does
not know how to love people, but very, very kind. He can only love
people in the way he loves a fountain pen (which means he can love
things very sincerely as well). Mikage finds one form of family at
this Tanabe residence, especially through cooking. Mikage cooks
porridge for Eriko. Yuichi and Mikage cook ramen after they had the
same dream of cleaning a kitchen together. Mikage thinks that a
kitchen, anywhere, will be the location of the "family."
Comments
Soon after its publication, Kitchen became quite
popular among young girls. The atmosphere, the language, and the use of food
in Banana's works were catchy to women of her generation. Banana's stories use
both the language and story line that might be typical in culture of shojo
manga, or comics for young girls. The most eminent characteristic of Kitchen
as shojo culture is, I think, the lack of the sense of reality, which
is exactly "realistic" to girls. When I first read Kitchen, I was surprised
to find my reality, the reality I belong to, in narrative (although her narrative
sounded rather childish). Whether written by men or women, whether realism or
fantasy, I had not found that kind of reality I lived in expressed in fiction,
and Banana's narrative seemed successful in reconstructing this reality of shojo
culture. What are those characteristics? In terms of the form, or narratology,
there are no realistic descriptions of facial traits or clothes, except for
the kitchen.
Mikage looks like "non-chan," a dog
Yuji had years ago. That's all we know about her looks. There is
also the lack of emotional waves in narrative. How does Mikage
describe her emotion after her grandmother's death? She writes,
"Senjitsu nanto soboga shindeshimatta. Bikkuri shita."
Bikkuri shita, "surprised," is the only word that describes
Mikage's emotion. This is a narrative that recountss incidents and
emotions with such nonchalance that death and cooking have the same
weight, in other words, they have equal (non-)reality. There is no
climax, no ending, of course. Banana's language flattens and
disembodies reality.
The content in relation to culture
of shojo. Like Banana's many other stories, Kitchen centers
on the absence of family. I think it is off the point to say that
the loss of family conditions the shojo culture. To the
contrary, it seems that family relationships are precluded from the
shojo culture, which necessitates the loss of family in the
plot of Kitchen. Since family as blood relations must be
disembodied in shojo culture, an empty, clean sign replaces
"family"-- the sign is "kitchen." Kitchen is a vacuous sign
that circumscribes the hole left by "family" in the conventional
sense. Like "kitchen" and "family," the disembodiment of human
relationships such as "friendship" and "love," takes place as their
replacement by signs of inorganic objects. A sofa and kitchen at
Yuji's house substitute for affection among Mikage, Yuji and his
mother.
Cucumber salad replaces Mikage and Eriko's friendship,
ramen replaces Mikage and Yuji's love. Cleaning a kitchen together in
dream is the only expression of the relationship between Mikage and Yuji. When
Mikage says that Yuji can love people only in the way he loves a fountain pen,
she may also mean that we recognize our reality, our relationship to reality,
only in the vacuous signs of inorganic materiality.
For more explanation of shojo, go to
"What is shojo?"
Kumiko Sato
10/24/1999
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