I loved this story even if I'm not completely sure what happened. I mean, what did happen at the end anyways? This is a story I will continue to think back on.

This was a bizarre read. I understand it was full of symbolism and this undercurrent of intensity, but all I felt was distracted and confused while reading The Hole. The narrator’s life is suspended; yes, she’s stuck in a fog and it only gets thicker as the novel reaches a climax (?). This is absurdist fiction at its finest. Read it only if you dont need a real plot, but would like to feel uncomfortable for two hours.

My starred review for Shelf Awareness is here: https://www.shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=960#m16787

The review was also cross-posted to Smithsonian BookDragon: http://smithsonianapa.org/bookdragon/the-hole-by-hiroko-oyamada-translated-by-david-boyd-in-shelf-awareness/

Definitely enjoyed this one! Such an interesting concept and the writing was well done. I'll be looking for more from this author. This is such a wonderful read.

The Hole follows Asa after a move with her husband out of the city to the Japanese countryside. The move was precipitated by her husband's transfer to the local branch of his office, which conveniently is only a short drive from the small town where his parents live. She and her husband share a single car and as there are no jobs that are reachable by foot, they decide Asa should quit her work and be a housewife for the time being. They can certainly afford it after her mother-in-law offers them their next door property rent free. It's just so strange that Asa can't seem to recall ever having seen this property despite having visited her in-laws many times. But that's just the start of the eeriness of this story. In her new found unemployment, Asa becomes listless. From working constant overtime to hours of isolation while her husband works late into the night the days start to blend and lose their form.

Set among the backdrop of constant droning of cicadas and an unceasing summer heat wave, this book reads as a surreal waking dream—sometimes nightmare. There's a haziness to the writing, like the heat rising off the pavement, everything becomes distorted and bizarre. As with the main character this book is languid, time drags and loses meaning. How long has she been in the house? Neither she nor you, the reader, can remember.

To me, The Hole reads like a modern fable about working culture. Rather than enjoying her new free time, Asa feels mounting pressure to be productive and guilt about her unemployment while her husband spends more and more time at the office. We certainly have a culture like that here in the United States, but I imagine it is especially significant in a place like Japan that places so much importance on career. I'm very impressed with how much the author manages to slip into such a slim book and with such intensity. I still get shivers thinking about it as I write this review.

When this story claims to be an unsettling mix of "My Neighbor Totoro" and "Alice in Wonderland," it isn't lying. 

A novella that begs to be pictured in animated, Studio Ghibli style, "The Hole" follows Asa after her husband transfers jobs and they move out of the city and into the house next to her mother-in-law. No longer employed, with very few options to become so, and even less need to, Asa has time to wander around her new town, where strange beings begin to appear and bizarre experiences beset Asa’s life.

Like a modern-day, adult fairytale, "The Hole" manages to build strong characters and a strange world in a very short amount of time and is filled to the brim with atmospheric writing, an overwhelming tone of uncertainty, and an unceasing tension and mystery aspect that will tease readers to consume the short story in one sitting.

For some, the obvious allegorical framework will be the most interesting part, while others will find the somewhat forceful moral-of-the-story feeling not worth experiencing. Likewise, the underlying insinuation may become too clear for some readers in the final paragraphs, especially those who often dissect literature, while others may find the overall ending less than satisfactory in its purposeful vagueness. With such a strong message, the themes of the novella will be a deciding factor for most, but enjoyment can still be found if readers want only to experience stepping into a surreal world, as long as they don’t expect a resolute ending or outward explanation of events.

Even though the story has a small scope and is overtly thematic, it’s so well done and creates such an engaging narrative that it’s enjoyable, nevertheless. But it also helps that the implications of the story are so universally relevant, especially in the current state of events.

Lovers of modern classics and literary fiction should absolutely consider picking up this short read, particularly those who also enjoy Ghibli movies. I rated "The Hole" 4 out of 5.

Thank you to Netgalley and New Directions Publishing for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Hiroko Oyamada's second novel to be translated into English, "The Hole", explores the isolation and loneliness people can experience once they no longer feel like they contribute to society in accordance with what is expected of them. Translated by David Boyd, and winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in Japan, the short book follows Asa, a young woman who quits her temp job and becomes a housewife in order to move to the countryside with her husband when he changes jobs. Even though they make the decision together and at the time it seems like the most practical decision for their family, Asa soon feels bored with her new lifestyle, and starts feeling more and more isolated from her husband and the rest of society. After falling into a mysterious hole one day, Asa's encounters and experiences take a surreal turn and she starts questioning her sanity and her place in the world.

The atmosphere of the book is crafted perfectly, blending the sweltering summer heat, the unnerving buzzing of the cicadas, and the claustrophobia of a small village, to create an ominous tone that makes the reader question what they are reading as much as Asa is questioning what she is experiencing. The first half of the book, rooted in reality and exploring the choices women are presented with to be considered successful members of Japanese society , spirals into magical realism in the second half to create a beautiful allegory of the traps our lives can be. Thank you Netgalley and New Directions Publishing for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review. I loved it and I highly recommend it.

<I>Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.</I>

This is a really bizarre little book. It's a whole lot of nothing happening, followed by very weird, maybe not real nothing happening. It's an interesting look at how the utterly relentless trap of time can make a person feel a little insane, but unfortunately this book has little to say on that subject that anyone who has been stuck permanently at home thanks to unemployment/quarantine doesn't already know. Asa and her "the hours take years to pass while the days fly by" is almost too relatable in 2020.

Also, in typical Japanese fashion, this book is more of a window into a specific period of time in the main character's life, rather than a full story. There are no answers from the author about what happened and the words just stop rather than the story actually ending.

However, the book is oddly compelling, and at just under 2 hours, a very fast read. I say if you are intrigued by the synopsis go ahead and grab this one and just expect it to be weird as hell. If you're hesitating then skip it. I'm not even going to leave a star rating because I honestly can't decide if I loved or hated this one, but it was certainly captivating.

I didn't mean to read this book in one sitting, but once I started, I had to know what happened next. Oyamada drew me in from the first page with lush descriptions and a protagonist who couldn't be a better guide on The Hole's strange journey. I absolutely loved it.

Subtle and dream like The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada is written to perfection!

In The Hole we follow Asa a middle aged woman living a very mundane life, stuck working a part time company job and with not many friends her whole world begins to change once her husband gets a promotion at work. Which causes them to move back to her husbands home town. Now with out a job Asa is stuck at home as a house wife and having to adjust to life out in the countryside she finds herself very bored and alone. With no real friends and her husband always working Asa starts taking notice of her surroundings more and more and although everything seems ordinary at first the closer she looks the more subtle oddities she starts to notice.

One day while out running a errand for a friend she notices a little black creature out on her walk she’s never seen anything like it, curious she decides to follow it out into a patch of grass until she ultimately ends up falling in to a hole but this hole happens to be the perfect size just for her almost as though this was a trap made for her. After the incident she later begins to start noticing other strange occurrences almost as she’s quit literally “gone down the rabbits hole”.

Overall The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada is a great read and I can’t recommend it enough. Her attention to detail really shows in this Novella. And I can definitely see the influences from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure in wonderland. I look forward to reading more from Oyamada in the future.

“Disclaimer this ARC was given to me by Netgalley and New Directions Publishing in exchange for a honest review”

Short and quiet in it's build, The Hole takes almost a quarter of the book before the reader even realizes that something ... odd, is at play. After moving into a home next to her inlaws, Asa spends her days largely alone. That is, until one hot, summer day, while the cicadas are singing, Asa follows a strange animal and falls into a hole. From there, it's almost as if she has walked through a door to another version of her world, one filled with people and things she can't quite explain.
Oyamada's writing is eerie and subtle and the translation only stumbles occasionally, mostly around character names which change based on who that character is talking to - an issue that wouldn't exist in the original text but doesn't translate well without context.

In this short, mildly creepy novella, a woman's husband takes a job in his hometown. After they move into the house next door to her in-laws, the woman begins to see strange animals and happenings.

This was an unsettling and strange little story. I enjoyed the claustrophobic and detailed nature of the narrative. It felt like a dark My Neighbor Totoro complete with fanciful creatures and rural Japanese landscapes. It was atmospheric in all the best ways, and easily read in one sitting!

3.5/5

Thank you, NetGalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the advanced review copy!

I enjoyed the hot summer afternoon I spent reading “The Hole” by Hiroko Oyamada, despite knowing very little about the short book or its author. (Actually, I think I may have enjoyed it more specifically because I didn’t know where it would take me). I especially liked the way that Oyamada depicted the atmosphere of small towns in the Japanese countryside during the summer - humidity, cicadas, secrets, and all. The mood of the story left me feeling really uneasy in a way that made me feel determined to read the book in one sitting. I think that fans of Japanese novels and short stories in translation will enjoy this read; “The Hole,” like some other popular, contemporary Japanese works, also contains bizarre and fantastical happenings in everyday life.

Perfectly surreal and lingering. The atmosphere is oppressive with the heat and cicadas, and unsettling from the very beginning. An excellent read for the middle of a hot summer or cuddled up next to the fire in the fall. The blocks of dialogue were a bit difficult to sort through, but overall the translation was beautifully descriptive. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley; this was a perfect find for me!

I never read books like this, so this felt like a new reading experience for me. The Hole is a short little story about a young wife that moves with her husband back to his parent's small town in Japan. That's when everything starts to feel a lot like Alice in Wonderland. This is not a book for folks that need a plot or character development. For me it's all about the ride and the experience. It's like some kind of distorted, guided meditation.

I was surprised at how unsettled I felt while reading this book, how the feeling sprung up in me, seemingly without much effort from the writer. The writing feels subtle and calm, even when what's taking place is bonkers and creepy. It feels like when you're watching a scary movie riiiight before you expect a jump scare, except the book kind of maintains that feel throughout most of the story and the jump scare doesn't come, so you're kind of a ball of anxious anticipation the whole time. The story is definitely not horror or scary per se, it's just VERY unsettling and maintained a consistent, uneasy feeling in me. The writing brought this on so well.

I don't really read surrealist, symbolic books like this. It put me in a wild, dream like trance. Kinda felt cinematic, too, with stark, vivid imagery. The creepy smiling!! The garden hose!! The bugs!! I read this very late at night with the lights off, and I'm a huge wimp, so that might have a bit to do with my reaction.

Overall, this is a super unique story, at least for my reading tastes. I'm grateful I went outside of my comfort zone and gave it a shot because I enjoyed the places it took me.

Oh, and the cover is perfect.

Thanks to #NetGalley and New Directions for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is pretty good. I suspect it won't resonate with many readers. It's a bit surreal at times and sometimes translated manuscripts don't land. But this author has talent, and has written an interesting tale. If you're seeking something different and have an open mind, this might work for you.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

The premise is one we often see in the context of horror stories. A couple or family move from the city to a rural area for work and the ones not at work begin to notice oddities or unsettling occurrences. In this novella, Oyamada follows a woman's descent into the surreal as she explores her new surroundings.

When Asa's husband gets a new job in the small town where he was born, she is happy to leave the city and her unfulfilling dead-end job and move to a rent-free house provided by her in-laws. Only after she arrives does she begin, very slowly, to notice that the seemingly dull little town is a rather odd place. Why is it always so hot and humid? Why are there so many insects? Why are there so many weird and uncanny children around?

And then one day, while on a walk, she falls into a hole and from then on, life becomes more and more mysterious and macabre...

I enjoyed the Japanese setting and Gothic atmosphere of this novella though the ending was so subtle I needed to reflect on it for a while before I 'got' it. 3.5stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this novella in exchange for a fair review.

There is a comfortable allegorical framework that gives this novel its shape--the idea of daily life as a kind of trap in which all of us inevitably fall, that immobilizes and suffocates us and condemns us to leading useless lives just like the last generation--but the way Oyamada leads us through that allegory is a deliciously eerie horror story. The narrator of the story is isolated from her family, her work, her friends, her husband; and when she and her husband move back to her husband's rural community her isolation becomes a kind of living nightmare, where ordinary things become horrific and she loses every sense of how to measure her experiences against any kind of normalcy. The flat observational tone and the accumulation of detail work so well here. I experienced the remarkable truth, as I read, that the act of observing one's everyday life experiences too closely leads to a kind of waking horror, where even a smile, when thought about too long, becomes grotesque and threatening. There is a kind of stasis in this horror story that reminded me of the classic Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe. There is the same remarkable alienation described here where the protagonist moves from an urban environment to a rural, traditional village in Japan, where everyone but she knows what's going on. The exquisite attention to detail, whether it be the descriptions of the strange animal in the woods, or an unfamiliar beetle, or the ear-piercing shrill cries of the cicadas, or the many other accumulating wonders of observation Oyamada makes, really made this a wonderfully unsettling read.