My Name Is Sei Shōnagon, by Jan Blensdorf
My Name Is Sei Shōnagon
by Jan Blensdorf
152 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary
This book makes me so happy. Deliriously happy.
Look, ma--people of color! Mixed colors, even! "Sei," the unnamed protagonist, was born to a Japanese mother and American father. She lives in the United States at first, but when her father dies, she and her mother move back to Japan to live in the household of her dominating uncle. Her inability to assimilate into either culture is something with which I identify very, very much. I don't think the narrator/protagonist is ever named except for her pseudonym--Sei Shōnagon, tenth-century author of The Pillow Book--she is lying in a coma in the hospital, and the novel consists of her reminisces; it is slowly evocative of real life, like the best of literary fiction. Mainly set in Japan, the story stays true to that culture (at least as I understand it). Japan is still a patriarchal society, though constantly and gradually progressing. Blensdorf doesn't shied away from racism and abuse both physical and emotional.
Regarding technique, it's written in gorgeous prose, comparable to GGK but in a totally different style. Also nominally second-person narration that works, oh so well, with a wonderful twist of perspective at the end. The length fits the tale, for I don't think the structure could be maintained over a longer novel.
Everyone should read this. Really. It's not something that I would necessarily reread, but rather something that I can't imagine not having the pleasure to experience.
by Jan Blensdorf
152 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary
This book makes me so happy. Deliriously happy.
Look, ma--people of color! Mixed colors, even! "Sei," the unnamed protagonist, was born to a Japanese mother and American father. She lives in the United States at first, but when her father dies, she and her mother move back to Japan to live in the household of her dominating uncle. Her inability to assimilate into either culture is something with which I identify very, very much. I don't think the narrator/protagonist is ever named except for her pseudonym--Sei Shōnagon, tenth-century author of The Pillow Book--she is lying in a coma in the hospital, and the novel consists of her reminisces; it is slowly evocative of real life, like the best of literary fiction. Mainly set in Japan, the story stays true to that culture (at least as I understand it). Japan is still a patriarchal society, though constantly and gradually progressing. Blensdorf doesn't shied away from racism and abuse both physical and emotional.
Regarding technique, it's written in gorgeous prose, comparable to GGK but in a totally different style. Also nominally second-person narration that works, oh so well, with a wonderful twist of perspective at the end. The length fits the tale, for I don't think the structure could be maintained over a longer novel.
Everyone should read this. Really. It's not something that I would necessarily reread, but rather something that I can't imagine not having the pleasure to experience.