Banana Yoshimoto

Japan’s internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life First published in Japan in 2003 and never-before-published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Among the women we meet in Dead-End Memories is a woman betrayed by her fiancé who finds a perfect refuge in an apartment above her uncle’s bar while seeking the real meaning of happiness. In “House of Ghosts,” a daughter of a yōshoku restaurant owner encounters the ghosts of a sweet elderly couple who haven’t yet realized that they have been dead for years. In “Tomo-chan’s Happiness,” an office worker who is a victim of sexual assault finally catches sight of the hope of romance. Yoshimoto’s gentle, effortless prose reminds us that one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with and that happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to pause and reflect. Discover this collection of what Yoshimoto herself calls the “most precious work of my writing career.”

Stories

Dead-End Memories

c. y.

I started to feel that the two of us had been cut off from everything good—things like the lights of the world, the transparentness of dragonfly wings, perfect seasons expressed in wagashi, the luminous pale pink of cherry blossoms along the river, the way you look forward to going on vacation, the delightful feeling of knowing you're about to eat something good—and that dawn would never come.

"If I stay home, with my family, for the rest of my life, I'll just get more and more nice." 

"It's fine, except the way I see it, it's not real. Anyone can be kind when they've got enough money and free time, and no problems, don't think? What I'm saying is, if I stay at home, that's all my niceness will ever be. And either something dark and unpleasant starts building up inside me, or I'm stuck with that superficial niceness until I die. I'm lucky to be easygoing by nature, and I want to make sure that's what I feed. Not the dark stuff."

This was what it took, I realized, to be something that survived. 

But — like the ever-flowing river — to engulf everything that came your way and move swiftly on as though it had never been.

Francesca

Happiness descends on you suddenly, regardless of circumstance, and so indifferently that it seems cruel. It doesn't care where you are, or who you're with. 

You can't make it happen. It might arrive with your next breath, or you might never get to experience it no matter how long you wait. Like the movements of waves, or shifts in the weather, the miracles lie in wait for everyone.

People like him only see the world through assumptions. Just because they know someone who doesn't get to go outside, or leave their hometown, or has a life that looks boring... To then think that person's mind must be captive, too, or placid and simple? It's such a failure of imagination. But that's how most people think. They don't realise that your mind can be as spacious and wide-open as you want. Most people don't even try to see the treasure that lies inside the people they know.

grace

Iwakura waved and rode off on his moped. It was old, but looked expensive, and had been lovingly maintained. You can tell when people have been cared for, I thought.

Why, there's no need to be afraid of them. They don't mean to be dead. They'll simply keep on living the way they always did, forever.

‘cause you’re just a man, it’s just what you do

 wen

"But us guys, we only see holes. No matter how pretty a girl's makeup looks, or what she's wearing, or what ordinary thing we're talking about, all we can think of is how somewhere deep inside this person, there's a hole-a wet hole, and that's all we can see. Once the thought comes into your head, it’s all there is.”

karina

It’s not the working with my hands that I want to get away from, or the baking. Dessert gives people a moment to dream. It makes people happy.

Here I was, with a body, looking up at the sky. I existed. As beautiful as the sun setting in the distance, life lived inside this, the only body I would ever have.

Dead-End Memories quotes

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