11.Jul.2008 Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto

The books is titled 蜥蜴 (とかげ, tokage) in Japanese, literally means lizard.

This is the second collection of short stories that I read. First was Interpreter of Maladies. Again, I’m still not sure if I like short stories. With Lizard, I didn’t keep looking to see how many pages I had left, like I did with Maladies. But I felt the stories were shallower and had little substance.

Yoshimoto explores the Yuppies life in these 6 short stories. Twenty-something people trying to find the meaning of life and their past. I can imagine to like it more if I were at that point of life, searching and exploring, not really knowing what you want and where you want to go, wondering why you’re on earth, why you’re doing certain stuff, bitching about and questioning the past…

But I’m not so much at that stage anymore, so it fell a bit flat for me. Moreover, the characters all felt a bit similar. Confused young women or men who ramble a lot in melancholy setting. I kept forgetting which character I read about.

The 6 stories are: Newlywed, Lizard, Helix, Dreaming of Kimchee, Blood and Water, and A Strange Tale from Down by the River. Newlywed was first serialized on posters aboard Tokyo’s Higashi Nippon Japan Railway commuter trains from January to March 1991.

Pages: 180 (but with super big letters)
Rating: 3 out of 5 [Okay]