Banana Yoshimoto

Banana Yoshimoto has a magical ability to animate the lives of her young characters, and here she spins the stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by another woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is an enchanting book from one of the best writers in contemporary international fiction.

Asleep

Marie

No, I just wanted to recapture the incredibly vivid love we'd had at firt—the love I'd shared with the tall man standing next to me, with the man I adored. I wanted to hold everything in place with my thin little arm and my weak spirit. I wanted to do what I could with my unreliable body to try and deal with all the many scary things that were going to start happening to us from now on. I wanted to try.”

“I'd absorbed the darkness of his exhaustion-I liked acting that way. There was something lonely between us, and we protected that ever so carefully in the way we loved each other. And so things were fine as they were. For the time being this was fine.”

“Because when you're sleeping next to all these exhausted people, it's like you start matching your breath to theirs, slowly, those deep breaths… maybe you're breathing in the darkness they have inside them.”

“The only thing I'd understood right rom the very beginning was that our love was supported by loneliness. That neither one of us could haul ourselves up out of the deady numbness we felt when we lay together, so silent, in darkness so isolating it seemed to shine.

“I don't know how to explain it, but when I was with her it was like, you know, like those times when life starts weighing down on it felt like that weight had been reduced by half.”

"Even travelers who brush sleeves on the road are bound by ties from a former life’…”

“and I’d start feeling as nothing really mattered, like I wouldn’t really care at all even if I were to lose everything I had.

This wasn’t resignation, or desperation. It was a much more natural form of acceptance, a feeling that arose from a sweep of emotion that was quiet and cooland crystal-clear.”

"I often got pretty depressed myself back then. It felt like I was standing at the very edge of this world, that's the kind of mood I was in, the kind of emptiness I felt."

I feel like just being with him makes it possible for me to keep changing, turning into something new, like I'll be able to make my way to someplace really far away, but in a way that's totally natural."

May every sleep in this world be equally peaceful. 

I was much too tired. My thoughts kept changing directions, heading one way and then circling back, like someone wandering around at dusk, no destination in mind. 

Because when you’re sleeping next to all these exhausted people, it’s like you start matching your breaths to theirs, slowly, those deep breaths…maybe you’re breathing in the darkness they have inside them. 

The harder I would try to make him understand the more my words would turn to dust, the more they’d get caught up in their own momentum, a wind that would blow them out of existence—this much was clear to me, and so I said nothing. All those words I’d thought up wouldn’t communicate a thing. 

No doubt the coming of the storm had made her feel lonely. 

Each time I looked out on that scenery with drunken eyes I’d be overwhelmed by the unbelievable purity of these colors, and I’d start feeling as if nothing really mattered, like I wouldn’t really care at all even if I were to lose everything I had. This wasn’t resignation, or desperation. It was a much more natural form of acceptance, a feeling that arose from a sweep of emotion that was quiet and cool and crystal-clear. 

She talked to me about her heart, how it closed up as she waited. 

Maybe I was trying to make amends for having thought it wouldn’t matter if she died. 

Three extraordinary novellas narrate the individual stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep--a sleepwalker mourning a lost love, a woman unable to remain awake who is involved in an affair with a man whose wife is in a coma, and a woman whose dreams are haunted by a woman she once confronted in a love triangle. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.

related way too much to the last story 😓

flor 

Finished this before I’m going off to bed feels like you just wake up from a  foggy dream. I was enchanted of how Banana Yoshimoto speaks so directly yet so beautifully illustrated. You read one line, and begging for yet another line afterward - wishing for it to never reach the end. 

The last story “Asleep” resonate so deep within me, I’ve known people who have trouble sleeping but to avoid yourself to face reality, you choose to sleep; and I felt that — right to the bone. 

shuf

Finished this before I’m going off to bed feels like you just wake up from a  foggy dream. I was enchanted of how Banana Yoshimoto speaks so directly yet so beautifully illustrated. You read one line, and begging for yet another line afterward - wishing for it to never reach the end. 

The last story “Asleep” resonate so deep within me, I’ve known people who have trouble sleeping but to avoid yourself to face reality, you choose to sleep; and I felt that — right to the bone. 

renni

”It occurred to me how splendid it was to be able to look around at this night - this night, when we could do all these things - with a mind and a spirit so marvelously clear. It felt almost like I was praying. May every sleep in this world be equally peaceful.”

charisa

oh, banana. you somehow write so directly, yet convey a sense of faraway feelings every time. i liked this collection better than Lizard; the bleary, half-asleep roaming of each main character felt startlingly familiar and relatable. yes, the relationships were a bit uhhH... unconventional, but i felt like they provided a deeper sense of disorientation and a blurring of reality. 

an aside: for fun, i've been working on a short story drawing somewhat from banana's literary voice and it's been e n l i g h t e n i n g. some defining characteristics that i've observed in her writing: matter-of-factness, tension between beauty and sadness, colloquialism, meditative snapshots of nature or nostalgic scenes, random superlatives (awesome, fantastic, etc.). i just wish i could read her writing in the original japanese bah

Rowan Myers

I always say that sometimes the books you really need to read find you. I was a fan of Banana Yoshimoto's before I read this, having read her sublime "Kitchen", and had purchased this the next item from her bibliography to read. And I needed to read it. I connected with every character, understood every moment, and it just sang to me.

I'm very thankful I found this book and shared quiet hours with it, listening to the characters and empathizing with their pain. Thank goodness for Banana Yoshimoto.

Finn Salter

literally could not put it down. felt like a dream that you’re half awake for, just following in your mind. i loved it.

Angela Miramontes

Alice Ierace 

I finished this book and immediately felt like it wasn’t enough. It’s so easy to get caught into Banana Yoshimoto’s characters that it’s always a sudden and much too quick goodbye.

Morgana

** spoiler alert **
           Io capisco che il sonno nel racconto sia solo un modo per rappresentare la situazione della protagonista, ma mettendomi nei suoi panni non ho potuto non trovare le sue azioni veramente assurde.
Vai a dormire prima di mezzanotte, dormi fino alle 2 del pomeriggio e già wow, che dormita e la cosa non ti stupisce? No, lei se ne stupisce veramente poco. Esce, non riesce a svegliarsi nemmeno dopo due caffè, e cosa pensa? "muoio di sonno, meglio se torno a casa a dormire" ma hai dormito fino ad ora! Torna a casa e ovviamente dorme, ma fino a quando? Le cinque del mattino. Si sveglia e "ops" ma non ti viene il dubbio di avere qualcosa di grosso che non va? No, lei piuttosto pensa che la ex moglie del suo amante le abbia mandato qualcosa, assurdo.

Altra assurdità nell'altro racconto,come fa Marie a sapere sempre tutto? come mai nessuno si spaventa? Lei incontra il probabile ( sicuro per me!) figlio del fratello morto e quando incontra Marie la tocca e pensa che abbia incontrato il fratello e sa anche dove ( nella hall di un albergo ) solo che ovviamente poi si corregge dicendo che "ah giusto, è morto era solo una sensazione" ma la protagonista sa che questa sensazione è in realtà vera perché lei ha incontrato il presunto figlio e come potrebbe saperlo marie? ma per lei è una cosa normalissima.

Tolte alcune assurdità il libro è carino e si legge bene.

Asleep

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