Michael Emmerich (1)Critiques

This is a collection of 10 short stories set in Sheffield and/or by Sheffield authors, I'm not sure of the rules. The only author I was familiar with was Banana Yoshimoto. The stories are short, diverse and strange.

Brilliant!

Same as [b:New Penguin Parallel Text: Short Stories in Japanese|9985112|New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories in Japanese|Michael Emmerich|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348827091l/9985112._SY75_.jpg|14879715] - Emmerich's taste in stories is questionable at best. I think more than one had a bit of a dark sexual turn. But a good concept, and I really liked the addition of the CD to be able to hear the story too. I might buy the Essay version next.

There was a point towards the middle and end of this book where every story started to take a dark and/or suddenly sexual turn. I'm starting to think this is typical of Emmerich (the editor)'s tastes.

Glad to finish it, anyway - I bought this back in 2016 or 2017 and my Japanese reading ability has only recently become fluent enough not to struggle to read it. Even with the translation on the other page. It's a really great concept, which I'd like to see repeated with a different set of stories.

What I thought would be a finger-licking good anthology turned out to be at times just what I wanted and occasionally almost seppuku-inducing.
Hideo Furukawa continues to perplex me in uncomfortable ways.
Hitomi Kanehara and Osamu Hashimoto and several other authors nearly unknown outside of Japan offer an uneven and rather concerning series of gritty episodes.
But the shining lights of this edition are Banana Yoshimoto, Hiromi Kawakami and Shuichi Yoshida. These are some of their best stories in English to date and the whole reason I picked up this book. Yoshida in particular is uncannily good and at this point criminally under-translated.

Banana Yoshimoto's novels have established her as one of Japan's finest
and most popular writers and an acclaimed, bestselling literary star all over the
world. Now, in Asleep, she delivers three novellas that develop her sophisticated,
resonant and artfully simple vision.

I read the majority of this in previous years but only just now read the very final story. If there was any delay it's because I first started this book to help me get back into reading Japanese and after a little bit I ended up quickly outgrowing the book. But it's so good that I had to finish the last story since the selections are fantastic.

1.) 神様 - Kawakami Hiromi
2.) むかし夕日の公園で - Otsuichi
3.) 肉屋おうむ - Ishii Shinji
4.) ミイラ - Yoshimoto Banana
5.) 百物語 - Kitamura Kaoru
6.) かける - Tawada Yoko

Michael Emmerich's stories mostly fall in the suspense genre but every story is fascinating. He starts off with a very simple story and as the collection progresses, the stories become more difficult. Included are rough side-by-side translations, a dictionary, a grammar explanation and an audio cd with a native speaker reading. A great book to have if you're trying to switch from classroom Japanese to real life Japanese.

And a real bonus as, because of this book, I've bought and read other stories/books by these authors since I had such a good time and I know that they are at a proper reading level for my Japanese.