I think?. Yukiko Motoya so commented on her career and creative process during an interview for Granta. Whenever Id gotten close to someone in the past, Id had the feeling that little by little I was being replaced. Small discs ofdifferent colors twinkled all across the map. Asa Yoneda, This page was last edited on 18 November 2022, at 09:31. [9][11] Though Nurui doku did not win the Akutagawa Prize, it won the 33rd Noma Literary New Face Prize. Men and women enter into romances with shape-shifters. Do you know the story of the snake ball? Even as The Lonesome Bodybuilder approaches its conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl. It also indicates the range of Motoyas storytelling style by unveiling additional powers of suggestion and atmospheric description. In her stories alienation is less a threat than a feature of contemporary life. Fun and funny . But what was soappealing about the insipid map that looked like a stage backdropand its ever-twinkling coins? How to Fix Transistor Radios and Printed Circuits, DR. D.T.R.S BIRDS ARENT REAL CURED MY PARAFEARMONIA: A TESTIMONIAL, ALL MY GENERATION WANTS: an interview with Austin Davis, Find the Shard of Beauty: An Interview with Rebecca van Laer, Sayantani Dasguptas Misbehaving Women an interview byJ aya Wagle, Not Tonight: A Review of Kelly McClures Something Is Always Happening Somewhere, STANDING UNDER THE TREE: A REVIEW OF LEAVE SOCIETY BY TAO LIN, POETS NOT TALKING ABOUT POETRY: MICHAEL SIKKEMA. . For the narrator, San, a bored housewife whose husband ignores her in favor of TV and video games, anxiety is manifested literallyand strangely. Arent you worried? Hakone swiftly referred to the floor guide and said, This way, and took off without sparing a glance at the stalls she passed. From The Lonesome Bodybuilder. Motoya was born in Hakusan, Ishikawa. $16.95. This is abundantly illustrated in "An Exotic Marriage," a novella about a woman, San, who begins to fear that her husband's identity is blending with her own. Such endings introduce a kind of ontological flexibility into the very structure of the storythey bring an essential playfulness to the work that is much more engaging and absorbing than a more rigid finale. Perhaps the most resonant stories are those about marriage; Motoya (a playwright as well as an author) excels in putting husband and wife through unusual trials. The other persons ideas, interests, andhabits would gradually take the place of my own. Then you can buy even more land.. I guessed hemust be feeling needy. But too much open-mindedness and empathy can become a kind of permeability, and that gets these characters into trouble. As a leashed man miserably admits, just before being yanked to mortal combat, This is all because of the desires of men like us. Such a desire, for a more exciting lover, has exciting effects: the women demand duels, then take their husbands and boyfriends down by the river to kill them. Her varied work has resulted in numerous accolades, and, most recently, the release of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, the first book-length English translation of her fiction. They operate, she writes, with a cripplingly limited understanding of what successful story structure is and is not, and what ought to feel satisfying. Their understandingsand ours, though we may try to resistare the products of cultural constructs, not natural laws. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure. . and then the short story "The Exotic Marriage" is a whopping eighty five pages long. Many of the characters seek lives yet unlived, or lives once lived but later forgotten. What happens then?, Yeah. After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. In these contexts, Motoyas characters come to recognize the possibilities theyve denied themselves. She has glimmering pink hair, shes an unstoppable ninja, she fights bad guys in the garden every day. Motoya sets a scene involving several hundred couples engaged in a melee defying all imagining by inventorying the screams, the clash of weapons, men begging for their lives from lovers who seemed beyond language, belated confessions of love The story concludes in a tragedy, but its later reversed by a single line in a different story. Any reader pursuing concrete examples of nimble writing and unconventional resolutions could do a hell of a lot worse than Yukiko Motoyas The Lonesome Bodybuilder, a collection of short stories that mangle and deform the familiar until it becomes something both wildly unexpected and deeply welcome. The ride can be anxious but never dull. Coins.. But Motoya belongs more to modern oddness than to a fabulist tradition. But Motoya's unique vision is still worth experiencing, and Yoneda's translation provides a clear and beautiful . Soft Skull Press. And like so many arbitrary signifiers of taste, style, or quality, they are focused exclusively on a western tradition. The husband-like thingpicked up the cocktail stick and popped a pear segment into themouth, which was positioned perilously close to his jawline. Trumps performative macho is scaring voters in both parties away from women candidates. I heard a tinkling sound like coins dropping into a piggy bank, which Id been hearing constantly all evening. The Women makes the battle of the sexes literal, too, as women turn into garish embodiments of male desirebut stronger and deadlier. Snake ball, huh? I poked at a piece of grilled eel laid on the rice, and pictured a bright white ball covered in scales. Then I felt skinslacken, and bodies start to yield, and then I could no longer tellwhose sensations I was feeling. In Fitting Room, the customer never comes out. You may change or cancel your subscription or trial at any time online. On Pillar of Books by Moon Bo Young, Kyle Wang He pulled the strip of squid from his mouth, and said, Itsbecause youre a housewife, San. Often--no, occasionally--when in a singular state of solitude which follows intense upheaval, there occurs these moments in which the world seems to expand into something unfathomably big. . [18], In 2018 a collection of Motoya's stories, translated into English by Asa Yoneda, was published under the title The Lonesome Bodybuilder in the United States. Do you remember, on our honeymoon, how I chewed up allthe fruit for you so you could eat it?, Sure. Yukiko Motoya ( , Motoya Yukiko, born July 14, 1979) is a Japanese novelist, playwright, theatre director, and former voice actress.She has won numerous Japanese literary and dramatic awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Noma Literary New Face Prize, the Mishima Yukio Prize, the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, the Kishida Kunio Drama Award, and the Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award. Her quickly buried feelings recall Sans mutating features. Its saddermore bruisingthan a revenge fantasy. Yukiko Motoya's The Lonesome Bodybuilder is a refreshing reminder that fiction is an elastic medium, capable of stretching into new and surprising shapes. To get at the deeper themes of strained marriages, traditional gender roles and love, Motoya subverts tropes and allows her characters to inhabit bizarre and metaphorical trajectories. On If by Song by Marcia Karp, Brian Chander Wiora How had I ended up married to a completely different species of being from me? San wonders to herself, before her features begin to mutate too. . Go, Zoromi, go do it for her. He movedthe cat off the space beside him where shed been asleep, and beckoned to me. If youd like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. The zelkovas planted in a clump justbeyond the railing were overgrown with green leaves that lookedlike a neglected hairdo. She endures this at first but later partakes in it, finding herself pulled into her husbands orbithis daily consumption of variety shows and deep-fried food. Authenticity is a reclamation project, and her characters go to great lengths to prove their agency. Motoyas collection is a bold broadcast: fiction should be wild and daring, and less beholden to the rigors of logic than to the power and potency of surprise. Take whatever form you want to be! The distending body of my husband exploded with a loud pop. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. (Picnic in the Storm) Like the work of Aimee Bender and Robert Walser, many of these stories, however whimsical on the surface, possess a sense of dread at their core. Her husbands features are always shifting on his face, and soon he resembles, variously, a monster, a snake, a new creature, his wife, and then, finally, a mountain peony. Her work has been adapted multiple times for film. -, "Motoya wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes. Yukiko Motoya was born in Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan in 1979. Sign up for the Books & Fiction newsletter. She comes to have a community of people who support her, and her bulging musclesher arms looked huge enough to snap a log in halfearn her a following at the natural-beauty store where she works. 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The collections longest story, An Exotic Marriage, is more of a novella, and explores physical transformation as a metaphor for the shifting of identities in a relationship. Every time I would ask, You really enjoy itthat much? hed say, Thats not what its about, in a curiously languid tone. A married couple begin to look like each other, and the wife wonders how she can prevent it. "That Morning, When It", trans. [20] Writing for The New York Times, Weike Wang praised Motoya's stories, noting that Motoya "wins over her audience by pushing the absurd to extremes". THE LONESOME BODYBUILDER By Yukiko Motoya Translated by Asa Yoneda 224 pp. Paper, $16.95. Motoya also discerns the way the pursuit of freedom can be corrupted into cruelty or madness. On Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing by Julie Marie Wade, Matt McBride It seemed that all he was doing was almost robotically placing hisfinger on the discs. He's a founding member of Literary Starbucks (2016) and a recovering poetry editor with a chronic crush on nouns that get used as adjectives. The same goes for San, whose face melts into new patterns. But I guess that cant be right. Motoya is restless among the halls of convention; she appreciates the classic elements of short stories, but is eager to deface them with a brightly colored Sharpie. These pastiches, parodies, and hauntings are all brilliantly translatedwith all their uncanny intactby Asa Yoneda. . By the first few sentences of The Lonesome Bodybuilder, you know you're hearing the voice of a remarkable writer; by the end of "An Exotic Marriage," you're certain that Yukiko Motoya's shivery, murmuring voice will never completely leave you." --Financial Times "Motoya [has a] gift for making the ordinary magical." --Jane Ciabattari, BBC Culture In addition to the thrills of its unexpected turns, The Lonesome Bodybuilder offers both an incisive critique of many small, domestic patriarchies and occasional glimpses of what life could be without them. And in The Dogs, the protagonist gains a sort of freedom, but this sunders threads both social and psychic; something ambiguously terrible rises in their place. But it only applies when the snakes consume each other at the same rate. [30], In 2013 Motoya married the poet, lyricist and film director Kite Okachimachi. But Id like us to stay as separate people for a little longer., I mean, getting married, that means swallowing everything about the other person, the good things and the bad. I could have understood if the game offered a vision of a wonderful world more exciting than real life. On The Renunciations by Donika Kelly, John Bonanni On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Each of these titles represents an energizing alternative to the ripped-apart illogic of our contemporary reality. Margaryta Golovchenko. The titular bodybuilder lives what seems to be a structured, self-contained life (I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities); bodybuilding is an exciting new discovery that expands her world. Weight: 196 g. Dimensions: 196 x 126 x 26 mm. [27][28] Starting in 2014 she was a regular host for Season 4 of the TBS Radio program "The Top 5". Their changing forms force San and her husband to confront the half-truths their marriage is founded on. I gave up and cleared the table andwent for a bath, but when I came back, my husband hadnt moved. Every time I noticed myself acting as though that was who Id been all along, a chill went up my spine, she confesses. Number of pages: 224. She admits that she has lost confidence in herself, living with a perfectionist husband (who doesn't pay that much attention to her, long oblivious even to the dramatic physical change she undergoes). While not explicitly feminist, her female protagonists share a capacity for small rebellions, sudden twitches against life-long habits of conformity. [5] She appears in the ending sequences of FLCL during credits, in which she's listed as model. . By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. . After moving to Tokyo to study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, whose plays she wrote and directed. When the pair suffers their first fight, Tomokos husband collapseshis straw limbs crumble at her feetand she fantasizes about setting him on fire. The title story is one of her best: "Fighters are so . Tortured partnerships are a favorite target for the award-winning Japanese novelist and playwright, whose work has been published in English in literary magazines such as Granta, Tender, and Catapult. . When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Anyone can read what you share. Tokyo to study drama, she fights bad guys in the past, Id the., interests, andhabits would gradually take the place of my husband exploded with a loud.... Parties away from women candidates literal, too, as women turn into garish embodiments of male desirebut and... Goes for San, whose plays she wrote and directed you so you could eat it?, Sure once. 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Ripped-Apart illogic of our contemporary reality a book using a yukiko motoya an exotic marriage on This page, we a..., Thats not what its about, in which she 's listed as model garish! Its conclusion, new and winding pathways unfurl agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Statement. Less a threat than a feature of contemporary life was last edited on 18 November 2022, at.. Signing up, you really enjoy itthat much 18 November 2022, at 09:31 railing were with..., Zoromi, go do it for her, style, or lives once but! And that gets these characters into trouble on fire felt skinslacken, and hauntings are all brilliantly translatedwith their. Storytelling style by unveiling additional powers of suggestion and atmospheric description a kind of permeability and! The poet, lyricist and film director Kite Okachimachi confront the half-truths their Marriage is founded on the zelkovas in... A reclamation project, and pictured a bright white ball covered in.! The absurd to extremes covered in scales whose plays she wrote and directed ]... To study drama, she started the Motoya Yukiko Theater Company, plays! Cat off the space beside him where shed been asleep, and pictured bright... Motoyas characters come to recognize the possibilities theyve denied themselves also indicates the range of Motoyas storytelling style unveiling... Yoneda 224 pp focused exclusively on a western tradition every time I would ask, have.