Banana Yoshimoto

Goodbye Tsugumi

☁️

this is what people mean by "nostalgia": the pain of knowing that this powerful yearning will eventually fade.

heather

For me the summer had been the concentrated essence of everything in the past that I loved and missed.

This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the nextand I didn't want to forget a single one.

It occurs to me that perhaps this is what people mean by "nostalgia": the pain of knowing that this powerful yearning will eventually fade.

Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, anda chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.

Perhaps the word "illusion" would have meant more or less the same thing, but to me "performance" seemed closer to the truth.

I think I'm good at running away from the pain that comes with these ordinary emotions.

We continued walking. Even when we had stepped into some scrunched-up side street where you couldn't see the ocean, the roar of the waves would follow us. Just as the mnoon followed us. There beyond and beyond the rows of old roofs, always-the moon.

The whiteness of the flowers seemed to levitate in the dark. Every time the crowd of petals bobbed under a puff of wind you were left with an afterimage of white that had the texture of a dream. And just beside that dream the river continued to flow, and off in the distance the dark nighttime ocean stretched the glow of the moon into a single gleaming road. The black waters before us swelled up and fell back again, glimmering with tiny flecks of light, the dark motion extending all the way to infinity.

Whenever you get something in this world, you lose something too-that's just the way things work. 

Because the ocean had always been there, in the good times as well as the bad times of my life, when it was sweltering out and the beach was filled with people, and in the dead of winter when the sky was heavy with stars, and when we were heading to the local shrine on New Year's Day ... all I had to do was turn my head and it would be there, the same as always.

Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto captures the delicate interplay of beauty, nostalgia, and the impermanence of life. Tsugumi, with her sharp, often cruel exterior, contrasts her inner vulnerability, shaped by her fragile health and awareness of her own mortality. This complexity makes her both fierce and delicate, embodying a rebellious spirit against the limits of life. I find myself relating to Tsugumi’s defiance and the way she navigates a world that can feel indifferent to her struggles, understanding her need to live fully despite knowing that life is fleeting and uncertain.

The novel portrays life through a lens of tenderness, finding beauty in the small, ephemeral moments that make up our existence. The seaside setting, with its quiet rhythms and crashing waves, mirrors the transient nature of time, evoking a sense of nostalgia not just for places but for the emotions tied to them. Yoshimoto’s writing, filled with subtle details, emphasizes that it’s in these fleeting moments of connection and reflection where we often find the deepest meaning. I connect with the way this story lingers on the softness of life, finding beauty even amidst tension and sorrow.

In Goodbye Tsugumi, there’s an acceptance of life’s impermanence and an understanding that the most meaningful experiences are often the simplest ones—moments that slip through our fingers as time moves forward. Tsugumi’s stubbornness, her longing, and her fight to assert control over her life resonate deeply with me. Her struggle to be seen and understood in a world that often overlooks her complexity mirrors the universal human experience of grappling with vulnerability and the desire for recognition, making her journey profoundly personal.

Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto captures the delicate interplay of beauty, nostalgia, and the impermanence of life. Tsugumi, with her sharp, often cruel exterior, contrasts her inner vulnerability, shaped by her fragile health and awareness of her own mortality. This complexity makes her both fierce and delicate, embodying a rebellious spirit against the limits of life. I find myself relating to Tsugumi’s defiance and the way she navigates a world that can feel indifferent to her struggles, understanding her need to live fully despite knowing that life is fleeting and uncertain.

The novel portrays life through a lens of tenderness, finding beauty in the small, ephemeral moments that make up our existence. The seaside setting, with its quiet rhythms and crashing waves, mirrors the transient nature of time, evoking a sense of nostalgia not just for places but for the emotions tied to them. Yoshimoto’s writing, filled with subtle details, emphasizes that it’s in these fleeting moments of connection and reflection where we often find the deepest meaning. I connect with the way this story lingers on the softness of life, finding beauty even amidst tension and sorrow.

In Goodbye Tsugumi, there’s an acceptance of life’s impermanence and an understanding that the most meaningful experiences are often the simplest ones—moments that slip through our fingers as time moves forward. Tsugumi’s stubbornness, her longing, and her fight to assert control over her life resonate deeply with me. Her struggle to be seen and understood in a world that often overlooks her complexity mirrors the universal human experience of grappling with vulnerability and the desire for recognition, making her journey profoundly personal.

Banana Yoshimoto's ability to emphasize the tenderness and beauty of life gives me so much comfort 

Mariam Arif

Kate

Haritlak Thawikasikam

I believe that every girl has Tsugumi, sleeping in their mind, somewhere deep down.

Jeremy Wang

“Something in her had continued protecting that feeling, had nurtured that loneliness, taking special care to keep it safe. I suppose she didn’t want to lose it.”

banana has a talent for writing about singular people, those “truly great people who emit a light that warms the hearts of those around them.” though the frequent (and sometimes even tiresome) philosophizing would have you believe that she cares primarily about nostalgia and determination and love, the recurrence of these special people in her work gives the sense that she cares about those concepts particularly as created by the truly great people in our lives. tsugumi is my favorite of these special banana characters. in any other character, i would absolutely despise her callousness and selfishness, but somehow tsugumi makes it work. 

and, if i may say, i really do buy banana’s idea! while the nostalgia afforded by a particular place or time is powerful, there’s no doubt in my mind that the purest nostalgia i’ve felt, the most indelible memories, are always driven by the few truly singular people i’ve met in my life. cheers to them, and thank you to banana for making me realize just how important they are.

charisa

4.5 even. 

nothing will ever top kitchen for me, but banana's endearingly oddball characters make it into all of her writing, it seems! this was the perfect portrayal of nostalgia — from the iconic festival environment to descriptions of the bright seaside, i was escorted to a summertime that felt faraway and familiar at the same time. the relationship between tsugumi and maria made sense to me in some roundabout way. once you get to know someone so deeply, you can know their true thoughts without any words exchanged. 

“Love is the kind of thing that's already happening by the time you notice it, that's how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn't change."

Ken Yuen

It's been decades since I read Banana Yoshimoto, but she's still good! I really enjoyed the style of writing, the translator did a good job in conveying all the details.

A contemplative and thoughtful slice of life, until tragedy changes everything at the end. It really is every dog owner's worst nightmare. And Tsugumi, being the irrepressible force of nature that she is, dials the stakes up to 11. You'll feel some emotions and you'll never forget the impression that Tsugumi leaves on you.

The first half was a fun nostalgic trip to a coastal town of your childhood, the second half becomes a matter of a burning sense of justice.

Mario Menti 

This was wonderful, possibly my favourite (although that might be a tough call) Banana Yoshimoto book.

♱ zuzanna 

nico

Arin

Jasmine

junginie

Sam Ehret

In this “witty, perceptive novel”, a young woman moves to Tokyo and encounters the world of university enrollment and impending adulthood (Elle). Banana Yoshimoto’s novels of young life in Japan have made her an international sensation. Goodbye Tsugumi is an offbeat story of a deep and complicated friendship between two female cousins that ranks among her best work. Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled, and occasionally cruel. Now Maria’s father is finally able to bring Maria and her mother to Tokyo, ushering Maria into a world of university, impending adulthood, and a “normal” family. When Tsugumi invites Maria to spend a last summer by the sea, a restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth as Tsugumi finds love and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront both Tsugumi’s inner strength and the real possibility of losing her. Goodbye Tsugumi is a beguiling, resonant novel from one of the world’s finest young writers.

Goodbye Tsugumi

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