Name: Territory of Light
Rating: 3.560483870967742 (62 reviews)
ISBN: 9780241312629

Yūko Tsushima

A Novel

Territory of Light

Yuko Tsushima

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-year-old daughter. Its twelve, stand-alone fragments follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The seemingly artless prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful, and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time afterwards.

Territory of Light was a slow paced, yet emotional tale of a woman trying to navigate the heartbreak of a divorce and motherhood as it changes as a result of it. 

The book doesn't have a rigid structure, it flows like the natural progression of time. The main character is hard not to root for, you can understand she's going through a very difficult time and she is suffering mentally a lot. Especially because her husband Fujino is a piece of work and completely useless. Sometimes her decision are horrible yet you still emphasise with her because despite it all shes in this alone now. 

I think territory of light continues to highlight the pressure on women to "keep the family together" even when the husband is at fault and hes the one who wants to leave. It also highlights how easily society passes judgement on and chastises single mothers. Throughout this short book we see various characters including the main character herself blame herself even though its obvious her husband is TERRIBLE. 

It was a frustrating read, especially because its not exactly action packed and I just wanted better for the main character. However I think its still worth reading because its honest. It doesn't glorify single motherhood, it doesn't portray the main character as exceedingly brave, it doesn't make the husband a cartoonish demon. It's just real. 

Marz 

Territory of Light was a slow paced, yet emotional tale of a woman trying to navigate the heartbreak of a divorce and motherhood as it changes as a result of it. 

The book doesn't have a rigid structure, it flows like the natural progression of time. The main character is hard not to root for, you can understand she's going through a very difficult time and she is suffering mentally a lot. Especially because her husband Fujino is a piece of work and completely useless. Sometimes her decision are horrible yet you still emphasise with her because despite it all shes in this alone now. 

I think territory of light continues to highlight the pressure on women to "keep the family together" even when the husband is at fault and hes the one who wants to leave. It also highlights how easily society passes judgement on and chastises single mothers. Throughout this short book we see various characters including the main character herself blame herself even though its obvious her husband is TERRIBLE. 

It was a frustrating read, especially because its not exactly action packed and I just wanted better for the main character. However I think its still worth reading because its honest. It doesn't glorify single motherhood, it doesn't portray the main character as exceedingly brave, it doesn't make the husband a cartoonish demon. It's just real. 

thya

made me think a lot about my mum and how much she must have struggled to raise me on her own. i often find it hard to view her outside of a pillar of strength, but i cannot imagine how difficult it must have been. i feel like maybe this helped me to understand a little 

geri chan 

got an idea with how yuko tsushima writes, and i think im starting to understand japanese authors and their choice of storytelling which they gravitate towards to when it comes to  depictions of depression.

this book handles depression in a very slow manner, not in terms of pace but more towards the feeling. not groundbreaking but very texturised, a lot of the mood in it’s storytelling focuses a lot on the survivals of depression and never about the dramatic effects of writing behind it or the emotional impact  of it. kinda of underlines the story in between those two, which i can understand and appreciate, but not a story i’d feel inclined to read it again. a lot of moody writing, emotional subtlety, where tsushima rejects most transformation and embraces survival as a non cinematic aspect of storytelling — feeling the sense of being in the story but not really moving through it psychologically. 

i like the underlying literary elements of light beng a core subject in the story and how it symbolises the slow illumination of the self and how healing happens in small, uneven bursts, and not in a straight line. of course, here, freedom is not romanticised, it is very fragile and i guess this is what the book was meant to convey. in a world where women rejoice on limitations of women and fighting for our freedom, the novel critiques gender expectations and shows how society pushes women back into traditional family roles even when those roles harm them.

got an idea with how yuko tsushima writes, and i think im starting to understand japanese authors and their choice of storytelling which they gravitate towards to when it comes to  depictions of depression.

this book handles depression in a very slow manner, not in terms of pace but more towards the feeling. not groundbreaking but very texturised, a lot of the mood in it’s storytelling focuses a lot on the survivals of depression and never about the dramatic effects of writing behind it or the emotional impact  of it. kinda of underlines the story in between those two, which i can understand and appreciate, but not a story i’d feel inclined to read it again. a lot of moody writing, emotional subtlety, where tsushima rejects most transformation and embraces survival as a non cinematic aspect of storytelling — feeling the sense of being in the story but not really moving through it psychologically. 

i like the underlying literary elements of light beng a core subject in the story and how it symbolises the slow illumination of the self and how healing happens in small, uneven bursts, and not in a straight line. of course, here, freedom is not romanticised, it is very fragile and i guess this is what the book was meant to convey. in a world where women rejoice on limitations of women and fighting for our freedom, the novel critiques gender expectations and shows how society pushes women back into traditional family roles even when those roles harm them.

This book compared to Of Dogs and Walls is a better example of the author's capacity to construct luminous te restrained proses. It is a novel about a newly single mother in 1970s Tokyo as she navigates loneliness, parenthood, and the fragile boundaries of self. Her apartment flooded with light becomes a metaphor for both exposure and fleeting solace. It is written in this fragmented structure that gives an atmospheric depth of deliberate ambiguity as if a dream half-remembered.

It is a haunting description of isolation and unspoken questions. I am very satisfied with this read and I look forward reading more books from her in the future.

Inkwell

This book compared to Of Dogs and Walls is a better example of the author's capacity to construct luminous te restrained proses. It is a novel about a newly single mother in 1970s Tokyo as she navigates loneliness, parenthood, and the fragile boundaries of self. Her apartment flooded with light becomes a metaphor for both exposure and fleeting solace. It is written in this fragmented structure that gives an atmospheric depth of deliberate ambiguity as if a dream half-remembered.

It is a haunting description of isolation and unspoken questions. I am very satisfied with this read and I look forward reading more books from her in the future.

may seem like an easy read, but i feel that the prose can be difficult for some. i do appreciate the vivid imagery, but the plot does get frustrating at times. very lovely representation of a young mum struggles as she grows up while being a mother too

there’s something dazzling about the way japanese authors write, even though the work might be translated by someone else. they always seem to capture a frank, almost off-putting reflective snapshot of the everyday that brings in an oppressive sensation, yet still tinged with a dream-like hazy glow, held in a heat haze, with light pouring over their words. how these worlds and lives become alive, gleaming, glistening warmly, savoring avidly, hurting vividly. 

yuko tsushima described how this type of writing feels to me, through the narrator’s dreams: “a scene constantly on the point of altering or melting away.” this writing is exactly what i like and am drawn to the most. think satoshi kon. 

i feel connected to narrators who are written this way. they expand truth by speaking/thinking it so fearlessly, because of course the pain that comes after is only imagined, fictive. in a sense this “brings together our solitudes.” 

the way tsushima writes is what i admire most. the way she paints every corner, every feeling – how she associates it with light, warmth, heat, all blazed in the narrator’s memory as a particle of light, permeating her (and my) body. the “soft light suffusing…” tinged with the world’s glow…

“quick now, give up this idle pondering!

and let’s be off into the great wide world!”

“it cheered me up to expand the bounds of what i could think of as not impossible.”

Alyanna

there’s something dazzling about the way japanese authors write, even though the work might be translated by someone else. they always seem to capture a frank, almost off-putting reflective snapshot of the everyday that brings in an oppressive sensation, yet still tinged with a dream-like hazy glow, held in a heat haze, with light pouring over their words. how these worlds and lives become alive, gleaming, glistening warmly, savoring avidly, hurting vividly. 

yuko tsushima described how this type of writing feels to me, through the narrator’s dreams: “a scene constantly on the point of altering or melting away.” this writing is exactly what i like and am drawn to the most. think satoshi kon. 

i feel connected to narrators who are written this way. they expand truth by speaking/thinking it so fearlessly, because of course the pain that comes after is only imagined, fictive. in a sense this “brings together our solitudes.” 

the way tsushima writes is what i admire most. the way she paints every corner, every feeling – how she associates it with light, warmth, heat, all blazed in the narrator’s memory as a particle of light, permeating her (and my) body. the “soft light suffusing…” tinged with the world’s glow…

“quick now, give up this idle pondering!

and let’s be off into the great wide world!”

“it cheered me up to expand the bounds of what i could think of as not impossible.”

azliana aziz

melancholic, gorgeous play with the lights as props for the myriad of emotions and the passing of times.

bearing in mind this was written in 70's obviously should be heralded as classic masterpiece long before.

farah farooq

not me reading books about divorce simultaneously with my mother rishta hunting ✌️

From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth “Yuko Tsushima is one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation.” —Foumiko Kometani, The New York Times I was puzzled by how I had changed. But I could no longer go back . . . It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Yuko Tsushima’s Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize.

Laurianne

The book follows a single mom and her daughter as they embark on a new life after being separated from her husband. I don't have many things to say, some part really resonate with me while others left me slightly in confusion. But it was a good book, 4.25 stars.

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble It is Spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light, streaming through the windows, so bright you have to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness; becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go, and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time.

madina

4.5. i think there is a trend on the fiction im reading this yr. the theme of light in this is amazing :( im just... in love with the flesh & blood and humanity of this book

Nico J

Every time I rate something three stars, I wish there were half-options. This is a firm 3.5, bleak, enchanting, wounding. I waffle between feeling sorry for her and being frustrated with her, and wondering how upset her daughter must be as they dredge through miserable and few options together. At points I wonder what the crux of the issue is, why her husband is the way he is, and there's a sliver, a glint of mental illness that's danced upon but never touched. I find this happening often in books with authors from Asia, but all too often it's done in that delicate way in many American novels as well - from the perspective of the protagonist or storyteller, it's not so stark as to be named but rather woven into their life. While reading, you muse on the people you pass by every day that have this going on and are pulling themselves through it all - haven't you done the same? In the same vein, it's uncomfortably honest at points and you want to look away, frustrated for the person and child she's supposed to be taking care of but also understand how one could be at the end of their rope. The imagery is powerful; there isn't a note of hope at the end, though. You're frustrated watching it all and even the ending feels fragile, tentative. I'd read more by this author.

Territory of Light A Novel

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