3.5 rounded down

I sometimes find it challenging as a reader when a book completely succeeds in achieving what it sets out to do - such as creating a distinct voice or reading experience - but by doing so gives the reader an experience which is so immersive, on the verge of being claustrophobic - that being stuck in the protagonist's head or life is not the most pleasant experience. Examples that come to mind at the extreme end of the spectrum are American Psycho, perhaps Lolita could be another.

This is where I struggled with Mild Vertigo: Mieko Kanai has so successfully got into the head of this housewife that it creates a stultifying reading experience. I struggled to separate this almost oppressive reading experience from the writing skill clearly on show here. Perhaps one I might appreciate more on a re-read, but another interesting fiction offering from one of my favourite indie publishers.

Mild Vertigo is a melodic blend of narrative and inner monologue, reminiscent of Ducks, Newburyport at times. Balanced and thoughtful storytelling, reflecting the seemingly shallow day to day troubles besetting a Japanese housewife, Mild Vertigo explores fascinating aspects of capitalist society and privilege in modern day life.

The translation is impeccable and the prose flows beautifully. I was captivated by the style of this novel and, though at times the extending listing of items and exceptionally detailed descriptions threatened to bore, the writer has an uncanny knack of cutting things off before the attention span is lost and return to the fascinating story that is unravelling.

I absolutely loved this book and will be looking forward to picking up a physical copy to add to my collection of incredible fiction from Fitzcarraldo editions.

Netgalley and Fitzcarraldo Editions were kind enough to provide me with an eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review, so just to start out this review, this book starts with a sentence that is about three pages long, and there is not a single period on the first page, as it really describes the stream of consciousness of housewife natsumi as she reckons with her life and and it's repetitiveness, so in staying true to that, I will attempt not to use any periods in my review either, as I was very impressed by mieko kanai's writing style and the way she could portray natsumi's thoughts like this without me ever losing the plot, as well as polly bartons translation, because although nothing really happens in this book, I still found myself loving it and I flew through it - I read most of it in one sitting at the beach, trying not to succumb to hay-fever - and I thought this book was a very clever look at 'the housewife', or the way society views women and housewives in general, and it also reminded me a little bit of kim jiyoung, born 1982 by cho nam joo, which is one of my favourite books, so naturally I really enjoyed mild vertigo, even though you might say there is not a lot of plot to it, and I think if you like no plot just vibes books like me, this book is definitely for you.

A stream of consciousness which flows quickly through the pages of this short novella. Author Mieko Kanai follows the thoughts of Natsumi, a Tokyo housewife, as she undergoes her unchanging everyday, routine chores.

'Mild Vertigo' deserves to be read slowly, like a piece of poetry, uninterrupted by a short bus ride or the few minutes you are able to read before falling asleep. Nothing much happens, intentionally, making it an interesting reflection on the boredom we all feel when we're doing the same thing over and over again.

Beautifully translated by Polly Barton from Mieko Kanai’s 1997 novel.

Originally published in 1997, Mild Vertigo is the latest novel to be introduced to English readers by the ever-reliable Fitzcarraldo Press. The wonderfully fluent translation is by Polly Barton. The author, Meiko Kanai, has had a long career and has been translated into English before, though I'm not familiar with any of her previous work.

Mild Vertigo is about Matsumi, an ordinary housewife going about her life in a Tokyo apartment. We follow her inner monologue as she goes about her day and interacts with her family, neighbours and friends. Not very much happens, but in Meiko Kanai's hands the minutiae of Matsumi's life is absolutely compelling.

The novel is almost stream of consciousness, with long, free flowing sentences in which follow Matsumi's thoughts blur together with the conversations she has. I often find that stream of consciousness unenjoyable to read and such narrative devices to be intrusive. Neither is the case. The book is very readable; the sentences are long but not dense and it helps that there are paragraphs breaks. I quickly got used to the style and the rhythm, to the point that I stopped noticing it.

A word of praise too for Polly Barton. I can't speak to the accuracy of the translation but in every other way I thought it was superb. It can't have been easy to translate such long, complicated sentences and to end up with such clear, natural prose is remarkable. But for the attribution you wouldn't know it's a translated work.

The only criticism I have of the novel relates to a longish section that takes the form of a critical essay on photography by an unnamed writer (who I assumed to be standing in for Meiko Kanai). I found the change in tone jarring and the section felt out of place. It isn't without interest and functions as a comment on what the author was trying to achieve with the novel. But it would have been more in keeping with the rest of the novel, and more interesting, to have Matsumi's commentary on the essay rather than presenting it straight.

Overall this is highly recommended. A book so plotless being so compelling and readable is something of a magic trick.

“Natsumi, who from the previous night had been feeling a dull ache behind her eyes, making her wonder if she might be coming down with a summer cold, said […] I’m going to savour the life of a single person, I’m going to let my hair down for once”. Mild Vertigo, a novel written by Mieko Kanai and translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton, is an unusual, unexpectedly captivating account of domestic life through the eyes of a married woman and mother, Natsumi. Written in long, meandering sentences both brimming with description and capturing such vivid stillness, the narrative is structured with short-story-like segments, self-contained but building towards a greater picture; some sections of the book were first published as reviews and articles, all intended towards the eventual novel. Although some of these moments feel a bit jarring in the context of the novel, they are nonetheless well-written and engrossing; everything from lists of ingredients for dinner to commentary on films is made lively, filtered through and informing the stream-of-consciousness narrative. “Light's time, which has had its thin surface layer peeled off so delicately by the camera, not only shows us the distant past of a pre-war and post-war Tokyo now lost to us, but […] fills that surface with a pale, fleeting clarity”, Kanai writes in one of these gorgeous-but-anomalous segments. In general, as it explores the ways that everyday life can accumulate in and on another person, the boons and burdens and bewilderment of a domestic world, it is a thoughtful novel, and the recurring motif of relief and/or release makes for some thought-provoking moments.

This was a nice author to me but not a new publishing house as I am a big fan of Fitzcarraldo Editions and trust their choices when it comes to publishing great quality pieces of fiction and non fiction. In this case I thought the writing style was skillfully executed and the plot thoughtfully considered. I will be sharing this on my social media platforms to people after a clever piece of translated fiction within the domestic Japanese setting.

A short but strangely beautiful novel about the minutiae of every day life. This was a very intriguing and original novel; Natsumi is a somewhat unremarkable housewife living in her apartment building among many other unremarkable housewives but her thoughts and feelings were very vivid and I couldn't stop reading,

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

While usually a fan of writing about Japan, and novels/works translated from Japanese I just found that I couldn't quite get to grips with this one.
Each segment started well but then I seemed to drift away each time.

This is exactly the sort of book I love. This was a strange but beautiful mixture of short stories and a longer book about one woman (Natsumi) and her family life.

All the stories follow each other but deal with different aspects of Natsumi's married life, her relationship with her friends, her husband, her children and wider family.

It perfectly described her days and her circuitous thoughts as she goes about the mundane tasks. It also explores her dissatisfaction with the more boring parts (eg shopping, which was a seemingly endless description of a supermarket layout - we've all been there - writing our shopping lists as we travel through the store in our mind).

I really enjoyed this book except for the essay part which felt oddly misplaced.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Fiztcarraldo Editions and Netgalley for providing an ARC to review.

Written in the late 1990s and translated here by Polly Barton, Kanai has created a stream-of-consciousness novel that centres of the daily life of Natsumi, a full-time 'housewife' and mother living in suburban Tokyo.
The prose follows Natsumi's thoughts and feelings which are recorded here in long, winding sentences with numerous sub-clauses as she appears to drift through her life interacting with her neighbours, shopping in the local supermarket and talking to her husband. Despite this, what appears to to be both a simplistic and unremarkable narrative delicately exposes the inner life of a woman, and in a wider context, women, who are either unfulfilled, trapped by circumstance or their own ennui or dissatisfied with life. In this respect, the book is a feminist examination of the life of not just Japanese women living in a certain time period, but all women who find themselves spectators in their own life, looking in on it as if from outside. Natsumi is the only one of her group of friends who doesn't work and this causes her some anxiety, yet those who do work seem equally as dissatisfied with their work, their relationships or their friendships with each other.

Within the book is an essay on two male Japanese photographers, written in a critically academic style which provides a contrast to the winding prose of Natsumi's narrative but ultimately comes to emulate Natsumi's position. The exhibition, based on a series of photographs taken over a period of years in Tokyo, leads the author, who must be Mieko Kanai herself in an essay that might have been published independently to the book, to state:

" The act of casting their eyes on the great bustle formed by the lives of the great various unknown bystanders in these photographs, all the adults, children and women who here appear detached from the narratives of their own private lives and histories, which they of course all possess, and yet who seem, in spite of that detachment, as though their lives would not be so difficult to imagine, this all leaves the viewer with a sensation similar to a kind of vertigo."

This is subtle and clever novel. The writing style won't agree with everyone but for a reader who is prepared to read between the lines there is much to discover here.

Mild Vertigo is a little jewel of existential, stream-of-consciousness, domestic dread filling monologue. Long sentences through out of course.

I found myself racing through pages of this book, but not constantly, very much a mood read (that I enjoyed).

The husband? I would dread any mention of him.

Short but filled to the brim, highlighting the loneliness of a lost middle class housewife constrained to a ‘meaningless’ routine and expectations.

There is a common thread through the Japanese books that I've read until now and that's the simplicity of the phrases, short sentences, sometimes lyrical, but mostly concise. Mild Vertigo was a surprise in that sense, because I haven't expected to have another Ducks, Newburyport experience. The novel is full of long phrases, with a stream of consciousness style and with a focus on domestic life, daily activities at home, encounters with family, neighbors, friends. This will not be for anybody, since the plot is not the star, the main character Natsumi and the writing style are the strongest points in my opinion (translation very good also).

I really liked that in some points of the book, the topic of dividing household chores and planned incompetence is raising to the surface, with subtilty. It's a subject I am interested in and only sometimes I encounter it.

It was also interesting how Natsumi seems to have lost the control over the passage of time, life goes on, without her taking a step forward and establishing the direction. Maybe that's why sometimes she is captivated by water flowing in the sink or she is reciting the isles from the supermarket, with the entire shopping list.

If you liked Ducks, Newburyport, I think you might also enjoy Mild vertigo, considering that in this novel we have less socio-political topics, it's even more focused on the micro picture, slice of life story. For me, it was a pleasant surprise.

Thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for a honest review.

The banality of the mundane and the soul-crushign drudgery of modern family life if put to pasture in this cold, biting novel from one of Japan's biggest names.

Thanks ever so much to @fitzcarraldoeditions for sharing this title with me on @netgalley!

Mild Vertigo by Mieko Kanai, translated by Polly Barton @pollybukuro

This was such a welcome surprise! I was not expecting a rambling, stream of consciousness narration, which is not normally my sort of thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed delving into Natsumi's world. Part of its charm is precisely how domestic and non-descript it is, and for those of us who appreciate a healthy dose of domesticity, her day-to-day musings will feel very familiar and comforting.

Originally published in Japanese in 1997, Natsumi's experience hints at issues that still plague heterosexual (in particular) domestic environments in the present day, such as weaponised incompetence and the dreaded mental load. Not much has changed and that was both depressing and oddly reassuring to read. The mundane feelings and experiences that drive forward her days combined with Natsumi's obviously deeper inner life made for a layered and rewarding reading experience. On a personal note, I really appreciated the descriptions of outfits and name-dropping of fashion brands, as they acted as a fascinating window into consumer culture in mid-90s Japan.

Overall, a soothing, comforting, and introspective read, translated masterfully, as always, by Polly Barton.

4/5

This one is for my fellow lovers of no plot, just vibes books. Not much happens throughout the book but we do get an inside into our main character’s life, and her reflections on society and her place in it. I found the sentences to be extremely long (sometimes they take up a whole paragraph) which made it harder to focus on.

I enjoyed it, but sadly it won’t stay in my memory for long.

Mild Vertigo is a stream-of-consciousness novel about a housewife in modern day Tokyo, exploring what makes up her life and how societal structures and capitalism impact it. Natsumi lives in an apartment with her husband and two young sons, and her days are made up of regular mundanity, like laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, observing and talking to the neighbours, and thinking about her family. Each chapter is a separate episode, generally focusing on a theme but moving around topics as Natsumi's mind does, packed into a neat package like many of the things in Natsumi's life.

The stream of consciousness element stands out a lot in this book, and the translation made this easily readable, unlike some stream of consciousness narratives, as sentences flow into each other and there is a real sense of things passing by Natsumi (especially in the grocery shopping parts). The other thing is the separate chapters: I found out after reading that these were all written separately, but also to be brought together into a novel. I wouldn't have guessed this from reading, as I felt like the episodic nature made sense, apart from the two photography reviews which I also learnt apparently are real life reviews by the author. I found this part of the book hard to engage with as I don't know much about photography or the people referenced, and was glad when it returned to Natsumi's life rather than her reading these reviews (though it's definitely an interesting concept to put in a book).

The book does well to depict the 'mild vertigo' of late stage capitalism and the ways in which Natsumi feels both a part of and external to things in her life. Not much happens, of course, as that is really the point, and as a short book it is easy to get engrossed in the reality and unreality of Natsumi's life.

Mild Vertigo was an interesting piece of writing. It was my first time reading Kanai Mieko's work, so I approached the book free of any expectations as to what it would be like. It turned out to be an elaborate stream-of-consciousness-style tale that took several distinct chapters and merged them into what was a fascinating look at the life of a woman living in a fairly isolated domestic world. This was not a story with a standard plot. Rather, it was a snapshot of this woman's life and preoccupations, most of which were outwardly trivial things but which, to her, were the basis of her world and how she occupied her days. The style of this story is not going to suit all readers, but if you are not hung up on having a clear beginning-middle-end progression to your fiction it offers a wonderful character study of the life of a modern-day housewife. It gets four stars from me.

I think this book is a bit cleverer than I am.

Mild Vertigo is about a Tokyo housewife called Natsumi. In truth, hardly anything happens in the book and the reader is pulled through by the long, dense sentences that mix stream-of-consciousness thoughts with conversation (without distinguishing between the two) as we accompany Natsumi through several episodes.

In fact, the novel comes to us as eight chapters several of which appeared separately, prior to the novel, as instalments in a glossy magazine or as reviews of photography exhibitions. The author says that even though these articles were published in different journals, they were written with the intention that they would be collated together as a novel.

So, even if not much happens, you know you are going to at least curious about how someone can write separate pieces about photography exhibitions and the daily grocery shopping and then bring them together as a pre-planned novel. For one thing, it means that Mieko Kanei, the author of Mild Vertigo, puts in an appearance in Mild Vertigo, even if not as an actual character but as the author whose essays her protagonist reads. You have to think that those two essays/reviews are included to provide the reader with some direction on interpreting the rest of the book. I found the review sections, even though I am a photographer, a bit hard to understand so I think I need to re-read probably the whole book to place the reviews in their context and then to place the book in the context of the reviews.

It sounds like it is a simple book about a Tokyo housewife, but clearly there is a lot more to it than that. The writing style might be a bit of a love/hate thing with the very long sentences that provide no guidance on switches between internal and external events: it can be a bit unsettling to read because sometimes it takes a few phrases to realise you have switched.

For me, it’s a book I would need to read again to try to get to grips with it. But the thought of doing that isn’t off-putting. Which I think all adds up to 4 stars with the potential for an upgrade on a second reading.

Natsumi is a 40-something housewife who lives in an apartment in Tokyo with her two sons and husband. She finds herself drifting through her life. She's bored, wonders how and why she got to this point, and feels inadequate most of the time. She spends a fair bit of time second-guessing herself. Her husband is rarely home and she spends a great deal of time by herself, wondering how to fill that time. She has a few gossipy encounters with neighbours, and visits her parents, but her one big outing is a get-together with friends from college. Mostly she feels like she is going around in circles. She sometimes gets somewhat hypnotized by things like water flowing from the tap. As life goes on around her, she sometimes experiences feelings of 'mild vertigo.'

This is a quiet book. It's written in the third person, yet takes place entirely in Natsumi's head. It feels like there is a reporter residing there recording her thoughts. This seems appropriate because Natsumi herself seems to be an observer of her own life. She is a bit dissociated from her own experiences.

This is an excellent book. Once I started it and entered Natsumi's head, I was eager to see how her thinking process unfolded. The writing and the translation are wonderful. I thought the structure of the book worked very well. Natsumi's feelings, uncertainties, and frustrations were evoked in a powerful way. This is a book that will stay with me and I highly recommend it.