Not what I wanted, but super readable - A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton

[This book was provided to me free of charge by the publisher Cornerstone, assisted in this awesomeness by NetGalley. I thank them muchly.]

I'm usually leary of books set in countries the author is not from, especially countries like Japan which are so very different from western nations. However, Jackie Copleton's A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding comes with an extremely encouraging pedigree: it was on the Bailey's Prize long-list and Copleton is herself is a graduate of Cambridge and Glasgow, so I had high hopes of this one.

Amaterasu Takahashi survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Her daughter and grandson did not. For almost 40 years she's lived with the guilt of their deaths, until a man with a badly scarred face turns up on her American doorstep bearing a box of secrets. He claims to be Hideo, her grandson, rescued from the ash and debris, then raised by a man Ama would rather forget. To find the truth, she must revisit her memories of days long past, of before the war, and of her belief that everything she ever did was to protect her family.

I didn't care for this book. It's not a bad book, it just didn't offer what I look for. I wanted a book which felt authentic, which told a story I don't know from a perspective completely unfamiliar to me. ADoMU doesn't, not because the author is British, but because it's barely about Nagasaki and its aftermath. Instead its focus is the relationship between Ama and her daughter - Women's Fiction then, which is not always my thing.

Although it opens with this mystery - is the young man at the door truly the grandson Ama believed killed the day the bomb fell? - the question is inconsequential, a jumping off point for Ama's recollections, her diary entries and the papers she is given by the young man. ADoMU covers a lot of ground and consequentially its touches on its subjects are light where I would have preferred a hefty commitment to fewer of them, especially as they were the more interesting (and original) aspects.

If I'd been more caught up in the character, or the writing, I'd feel less short-changed, especially as this book goes down the lazy path so beloved by westerners writing about Japan. I was left very dissatisfied - Ama never feels like an 80-odd year-old Japanese woman.  There was no reflection or sense that she'd become a different person at 80-odd than she'd been on the day the bomb fell. The backdrops - of 30s Japan, of Japan at war - felt shallow, never quite coming alive; at one point the local festival of Shoro-Nagashi is described as being "unlike any other in Japan", but the description makes it sound like a variation of Obon. I want to know how it's different, why it's different, and what Ama thinks about it. When she moves to the US, how does it feel to lose this yearly conversation? What was Shoro-Nagashi like the year after the bomb?

There's also least one aspect felt as though it'd been written with Western attitudes in mind, rather than Japanese. I'm not accusing the book of errors (because I honestly wouldn't know), I was just thrown a bit by the suggestion that 16 is young for a relationship in a country where the legal age of consent is 13 (in certain circumstances). It was one of a few small details which contributed to a lack of immersion.

I think it's important to note there's an ongoing background discussion of white voices telling stories which belong to other cultures. This book left me with an overwhelming desire to read something about the legacy of the nuclear bombs by a Japanese writer but Google is bringing me little: everything I can find in English appears to be by western authors. They must exist, surely, but if they're getting translated I can't find them.

A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding is a good book, it just wasn't what I was looking for. I also hope the Bailey's nomination doesn't put potential readers off; this isn't one of those highbrow "hard" reads, it's an interesting one which must surely be a shoe-in for the Richard and Judy Bookclub. The important thing to note is that, despite my complaints, this is one super-readable book and you could do a lot worse when choosing something to fling in your suitcase this summer.

3.5 stars.

It's a Japanese book about a cat, I'm going to be biased - The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide

[This book was provided to me for zero pennies by the publisher, Picador, their button-pressing approval made possible by NetGalley. Wren and I thank them profusely.]

The Guest Cat is an odd little book. It is a fairly simple novella about a Tokyo couple who gradually become a second family to a neighbour's cat they call Chibi. Rather unfortunately, it feels as though something large has been lost in translation with this one.

I'm loath to point the finger at the translator - not least because the last time I did that person wrote an Amazon review explaining how I'd read the book wrong - but this does read as though it's quite a literal translation.

Another one of Chibi's characteristics was that she changed the direction of her cautious attention frequently.

It's not constant by any means, and it doesn't render the book as unreadable as that isolated sentence suggests, but it's certainly a problem. Translating literary books demands rare skills anyway; translating from Japanese (which has so much particular vocabulary and a culture completely different from the West) ... well, I can't imagine it's easy. It also raises the question of what a translator should do - should they be extensively rewriting or merely reporting what is written? Who should decide if that sentence should be "Chibi found many things to be cautious about" or "Chibi rarely relaxed"?

There is a difference between a poetic statement and one which is overwritten. I didn't feel the translation always got that right. When it's good it's delicate, stepping lightly through the simplicity of the tale, but when it's not it's that quote, or it's contradicting itself, or it's starting threads which are never returned to and generally leaving me slightly confused.

There are some notes/footnotes from the translator which are illuminating enough for me to wish either they, or an expert in Japanese Literature, had written an introduction. I would feel the benefit of having this explained to me a bit.

On a personal level, I found this a very interesting book. There are protracted descriptions of the house which I found fascinating but which others may well find tedious. The narrator's engagement with Chibi is the typical monologue of the cat enthusiast; the reader's mileage will vary according to their meatworld keeness for this.

Although I'm giving this three stars I can't honestly say I'd recommend it. I'm in that weird situation where I'm reading other, more positive reviews, agreeing with them totally, but not actually making that connection myself. I do very much feel that it's me who hasn't got it, rather than there being nothing to get. There are certainly shades of something, but even with the benefit of a few days rumination, I couldn't actually tell you what.

3 stars.

Do yourself a favour and read this in one sitting - Confessions by Kanae Minato

[This ARC was provided to me for the sum of precisely no monies by the publisher, Mulholland books, with thanks to the ever glorious Bookbridgr.]

Everybody has pet likes, and one of mine is Japan. I've never been and likely never will - I have enough problems with English, non-Roman scripts are so far beyond my abilities I'm more likely to pwn Martin Amis in a poetry slam than cope with the Japanese language. If you think I'm joking about the English, earlier today it took me three goes to get the spelling of "persuasive" correct enough for Chrome's spell-checker to understand what I was attempting.

Kanae Minato's Confessions has been a huge bestseller in its native country, the film adaptation was nominated for an Oscar in 2011, but I requested it basically because I really like Japan. Which was lucky because this book is amazing.

Middle school teacher Yuko Moriguchi's four-year-old daughter is dead, drowned in the school's swimming pool in what everybody believes was a tragic accident. Yuko knows better. She knows her daughter was murdered by two of the students in her class and so, on her final day as a teacher, she announces this fact to her students, tells them what really happened, and what she has done about it.

Confessions is what it says on the tin: the personal perspectives of this event and what follows. It begins with Yuko's lecture, written as it is spoken, then moves on to other stories told in different ways by various people involved in what happens. In lesser hands this could become dull or repetitive, but Minato's plotting is taut, her ideas horrific, and she performs the literary equivalent of a magician whipping a silken handkerchief to reveal his disappointingly un-dismembered assistant. And then she does it again. Then a couple more times with feeling. To the end, Minato is yanking back great swathes of fabric, forcing you to reassess and rethink what you've been told. It was only at the top of the final page that I understood what was going to happen by the bottom - and it is perfect.

The story feels a little odd at first. The writing - which has the flatness I typically expect from a Japanese translation - sits uneasily with the story conveyed. The juxtaposition of realism and an almost absurd level of dramatic reveal pushed my credibility, but what felt discordant became understandable with the perspectives of other narrators. Trust Minato the writer, but do not trust her characters. Confessions should be an object lesson for anybody hoping to pen a psychological thriller of their own.

I define a five star book as one which makes me want to run up to people in the street and make them read it. If I knew where you lived I'd be standing over you now. Confessions is dark, horrific, and immaculately done: you really want to read this one.

5 stars.

Confessions on Amazon UK