Il primo racconto è carino, il secondo ansioso. Entrambi però nulla di particolare. Il terzo non l'ho letto. ( )

This was my first experience reading this author. I have had this little slip of a book sitting on my shelf for quite a while now, but am just now getting to it. I have mixed feelings about each of the stories. The first with the same title as the collection, The Diving Pool, about a girl with a crush on her foster brother, took me by surprise in the cruelty of the main character. She is the only child to parents who run the Light House, an orphanage. She has seen children come and go from the home, never quite feeling the sense of family life—or that of a home—she wishes she could have. Something normal. She is lonely and bitter. And at times jealous. Jun, the boy she has a crush on, has lived at the Light House for a number of years, the two growing up together in a sense. As Aya secretly watches Jun, sneaking into the pool where he dives every day, observing him at home and plotting to run into him at various times where they can be alone, she does not realize that Jun is also aware of her. He sees how she treats others and knows she visits the pool where he dives. I was satisfied with the way this story was wrapped up, but overall found it disturbing and at times difficult to stomach.

The second story titled Pregnancy Diary was interesting to say the least. An unmarried woman is living with her sister and her husband. She keeps a diary of her sister’s pregnancy, noting the moment the pregnancy was announced to her sister’s behavior and habits during the pregnancy. The woman records her own feelings of discontent and even disgust and eventual retaliation. The story takes a dark turn, just as the first one did, and the reader cannot help but wonder what is real and what isn’t. Not to mention what it is behind the disturbing thoughts and actions of the narrator.

The final story in this trilogy of novellas, Dormitory, is about a woman waiting for word from her husband about their pending move out of the country. She is feeling restless and lonely when approached by a young cousin setting off to college. He needs a place to stay, and she recommends the old dormitory in which she had once stayed. When she first takes her cousin to meet the landlord of the building, I could not help but feel sorry for the landlord. Armless and with one-leg, he has managed to get along on his own for many years, and yet it is clear he is lonely and his health his beginning to fail. The young wife returns to the dormitory under the guise of wanting to visit her cousin (who is never there), and often falls into conversation with the landlord. He tells her the story of a missing student, the subsequent police investigation, and the decrease in interest in his dormitory by students that followed. The story then takes a weird turn, which I have come to expect from Ogawa. Would this turn into a mystery to be solved or a horror story? I wasn’t sure. The ending was a surprise, and I am still not sure what to make of it.

I imagine each reader could take something different away from these three stories. There is a lot left open for interpretation. When all is said and done, my favorite is probably the first story, even despite how disturbed I was by it, only because I seemed to have a better handle on what that story was about. Did I like this collection? I am not sure I can say yes. Not exactly. These three stories will definitely stay with me awhile though. Haunting, indeed. ( )

The subtitle calls them “three novellas”, but none is longer than 56 pages, so they are more accurately categorized as short stories. Regardless, I really enjoyed this collection; each was very different from the other two, but all dealt with relationships. It is the kind of literary fiction I love.

In the title story, a lonely teenager has a secret crush on her foster brother and spends time each day watching him practice his dives at the school pool. As she contemplates this infatuation, we learn more about the family and how she feels set apart, not only at school but at home.

Pregnancy Diary is NOT the diary of a pregnant woman, but rather of that woman’s sister. The narrator, who lives with her sister and brother-in-law, records how her sister feels about her pregnancy, and how it impacts everyone in the household. There is a rather other-worldly feel to this narrative, and the ending makes me wonder if the whole thing is a dream.

In the final story, The Dormitory, a young woman tries to help her cousin find accommodations at the university, suggesting the same building she stayed in when she was in school. It’s somewhat dilapidated but the price is right. What begins as a routine story, however, evolves into a horror tale of sorts. Where is her cousin? What is that dark spot on the ceiling? What happened to all the other tenants? My heart was in my throat as she gathered her courage to investigate further. ( )

I finished this yesterday but needed a full day to digest. I've just been blown the fuck away by the three stories in this book. In a matter of mere pages Ogawa beckons you forward, envelops you in a distinct world which seems familiar enough on the surface, and then tilts it all on its axis just a single degree... Enough that the air is thick with palpable tension.

In the eponymous story an angry teenage girl is infatuated with her foster brother and secretly watches him from high in the bleachers as he dives. He is good and pure and everything that she is not. Her frustration and self-loathing are displaced into the subtle torment of an orphaned toddler.

In Pregnancy Diary a women living with her sister and brother-in-law keeps a dated diary throughout her sister's pregnancy. She details the morning sickness, the appetites, and the discomforts suffered by her sister in a clinical, detached way. The sister's pregnancy is reminiscent of the toothache in Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground and the strain in the house is tangible. In response, she begins to make jam which her sister loves but with imported grapefruits which she knows might be bad for the unborn child.

The Dormitory introduces us to a bored housewife who helps her cousin get a room in her old dormitory house. There she reconnects with the manager who is missing both his arms and one leg. In the years since she left the building has fallen into disrepair and questions regarding a missing boy have left all the rooms but her cousin's empty.

The Diving Pool is beguiling and cruel in the same moment. It's prose is melodious and rhythmic but as if coming through a poorly tuned radio; There's a constant, scratchy static that runs through it. The protagonists are all average people, an angry teen, an observant sister, a lonely housewife, but they are just a step outside normal. I was never sure what I knew for certain or what was real. It all felt very dreamlike but as a reader I felt that I was there, substantial in the haze. Stunning and disturbing and absolutely remarkable. ( )

Congratulations to the translator for getting his name in print! That's a tough think, and I'm so glad for him. I hope he continues to succeed.

CONTENT WARNING FOR PEDOPHILIA
I was expecting this to be similar in some ways to Ogawa's "Revenge." Some similar devices were used, but it's nothing amazing. The novellas are mostly really boring and unsettling. Mostly, they're wordy and the pages drag on. There's no slow dread or anything. Instant unsettle-ness (I'm so irritated, that I'm making up words), yes, but other than that, nothing. The book flap does not describe the stories well -at all.-
The Diving Pool: Star and a half. She is attracted to her foster brother and wants him desperately, yes, but she also gets a charge out of tormenting her infant sister. They're described equally and it's so gross.

CONTENT WARNING OVER
Pregnancy Diary: Star and a half, but barely. A boring story in which a young woman thinks a lot about her sister's pregnancy and tries to make it weird. The labor, especially, is not dramatic even though the young woman tries. She -does- manage, however, to make a scene with her brother-in-law weird and I couldn't figure out exactly why. So there's that.
Dormitory: As soon as I figured out the whole plot of this story was going to be "amputees are weird haha" I stopped reading.

Well, this was a letdown. ( )