Julie OtsukaKirja-arvosteluja

Great freaking book

The Swimmers is a literary promise that never really fulfilled itself for me. It consists of a few different parts, more disjointed than connected, with a few lovely paragraphs.

For me, it was just not engaging at all. Regardless of Otsuka's undeniable skill, I struggled to finish this. Not having to think about it feels like a huge relief.

this is such a beautiful and deeply moving novel! it's a tiny novel that packs an emotional punch. the first half of the story is fun and chuckle worthy. the second half, well, poor alice - the second half is more emotional. it’s a story of a woman who is losing her ability to think just when her adult daughter might be ready to form a bond. it becomes a story of a mother and a daughter and those things that neither understood nor knew about each other. the craft is near perfection. the sentences are powerful. it's tender and funny and clever. and really enjoyed, even though it's so sad, how it got progressively more emotional as the story went on. i just really enjoyed this book

CW: Animals are harmed early in the book. DNF. This is not the quarantine book I need right now.

This was a rare first person plural narrator that I found to be executed well and actually essential to the plot. How else to properly pay respect to a whole generation of picture brides in the early twentieth century, getting the reader invested in a life that would inevitably be cut short without leaving us unmoored in a narrative?

The plot hurtles through a carousel of lives, losing some, picking another up, following one through for longer, all the while presenting a unified and yet multitude of experiences. I only learnt some years ago that there was a huge migration of Japanese men to the Americas as cheap labour during the early 20th century. I appreciated how this book brought the women's experiences to the forefront, humanising and personalising the stories that history books had tended to relegate as a postscript to a postscript in American immigration history.

On the downside of knowing some history, I can't tell if the book intended for the reader to feel the tension of knowing what laid ahead for these women, specifically the internment camps in WWII. It was very good strategic planning to use the first person plural, that the narrative did not let the reader linger long on atrocities since the characters themselves also couldn't if they wanted to survive. They were mentioned almost as if being rattled off a list, to form a collective scar that underpinned all the characters' experiences, and to show how even though those stories cannot be truly told, those experiences reverberated through the surviving women. This book would be a very good introduction to a less-talked-about part of history, and very suitable to high schoolers and up.½

Die Menschen, die regelmäßig ins Schwimmbad unter der Erde kommen, könnten unterschiedlicher nicht sein. Doch hier ist es unwichtig, wer sie sind. Wichtig ist, dass sie ihre Sorgen und Probleme hinter sich lassen können. Zu den Schwimmern gehört auch die demente Alice. Doch dann erscheint ein Riss im Becken. Da man die Ursache nicht finden kann, wird das Bad geschlossen. Damit verschlechtert sich auch der Zustand von Alice.
Die Autorin Julie Otsuka erzählt aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven und in sehr verschiedenen Erzählweisen. Ich fand es anstrengend, diese Art des Erzählens zu lesen.
Das Leben ist nicht berechenbar und es kann vorkommen, dass uns etwas aus der Bahn wirft, das für sich betrachtet kein großes Problem ist. Für Alice bedeutet das, dass ein Stück Verlässlichkeit weggebrochen ist und ihr damit Halt fehlt. Auch in ihrem Zustand entsteht ein Riss und sie muss in ein Pflegeheim ziehen. Alices Tochter hat ein schlechtes Gewissen, weil sie nicht weiß, ob sie im Kontakt zu ihrer Mutter wirklich alles richtig gemacht hat. Sie versucht zu ergründen, warum ihre Mutter mit der Krankheit geschlagen wurde.
Das Leben in dem Heim ist strengen Regeln unterworfen. Die Pflegebedürftigen mit ihren individuellen Bedürfnissen können nicht adäquat betreut werden. Es ist deprimierend, das mitzuerleben, aber in Zeiten des Pflegenotstandes wohl nicht ungewöhnlich.
Es ist eine emotionale und bedrückende Geschichte, die mich aber aufgrund der distanzierten Erzählweise nicht wirklich abgeholt hat.

Non posso fare a meno di iniziare questa recensione con un po’ di sconcerto nel registrare che questo romanzo fa parte di una collana dedicata alla letteratura giapponese, quando l’autrice è nata in California e tuttora lavora e vive negli USA. È vero che le definizioni di cosa rientra e cosa no in un certo tipo di letteratura sono sempre lasche, ma vivere in questo Paese mi ha insegnato il disagio che lз italianз provano nel (non) gestire i cambiamenti demografici e sospetto che il cognome Otsuka in questo caso pesi più del suo luogo di nascita e crescita.

Comunque, sono contenta di aver letto Venivamo tutte per mare, sia perché racconta una storia – l’immigrazione giapponese, in questo caso soprattutto delle donne, negli USA e il successivo internamento nei campi – ancora poco conosciuta, sia per il modo in cui lo fa. Venivamo tutte per mare, infatti, è un racconto corale che racconta questa pagina della storia statunitense attraverso le esperienze di numerose donne di origine giapponese, spesso senza dare loro un nome o un volto, ma identificandole di volta in volta con la loro esperienza e il modo in cui i grandi eventi storici impattano sulla vita di ognuna.

Probabilmente deluderà chi è in cerca di un romanzo che lǝ aiuti a capire quella fetta di storia, visto che è fatto più di punti di vista che di racconto omogeneo: è più una lettura per chi sa, anche solo a grandi linee, cosa è successo e può lasciarsi trasportare da Otsuka nel sentire di queste donne giapponesi trapiantate negli USA. L’autrice è stata anche molto brava a evitare il sentimentalismo e a riprodurre quel modo di raccontare che associamo alle nonne e a chi ha vissuto in un’epoca a noi (relativamente) lontana.

Il romanzo si conclude con la solita riflessione sull’immigrazione, sull’integrazione e sulla facilità con la quale lasciamo che le istituzioni facciano del male a intere categorie di persone. Dico la solita non tanto perché mi sia seccata di leggerla, ma perché sono amareggiata dal fatto che una raccomandazione così presente in letteratura viene drammaticamente ignorata ogni volta: sappiamo che non va a finire bene, in un modo o nell’altro, ma noi niente, non riusciamo mai a fermarci prima del disastro. Poi piangiamo sul latte versato e ci chiediamo come sia stato possibile. Che orrore.

I LOVED this book. It shows us the lives of these anonymous women starting off from one similar point - mail order brides on a boat from Japan to America in the early 1900s - and how each experience could go lots of ways and they all are just one tiny thread in the tapestry of life. Here is an example:

"Some of us worked quickly to impress them. Some of us worked quickly just to show them that we could pick plums and top beets and sack onions and crate berries just as quickly if not more quickly than the men. Some of us worked quickly because we had spent our entire childhoods bent over barefoot in the rice paddies and already knew what to do. Some of us worked quickly because our husbands had warned us that if we did not they would send us home on the very next boat. I asked for a wife who was able and strong. Some of us came from the city, and worked slowly, because we had never before held a hoe. "Easiest job in America," we were told. Some of us had been sickly and weak all our lives but after one week in the lemon groves of Riverside we felt stronger than oxen. One of us collapsed before she had even finished weeding her first row."

A subtle book, with flashes of sadness and flashes of goodness, all building to a quiet intensity of emotion. By the end of the book I felt my heart racing because it felt like I had truly seen how life goes, the good and bad and the sheer blind chance of it all.

This book destroyed me.

Julie Otsuka has a beautiful writing style that brings you immediately into the moment. This book was heart wrenching. It starts with these swimmers having to adjust to their pool being closed down and wrestling with how hard change is. But a lot of it was enlightening as well for me to read - how our relationships to routine can sometimes be the best at different stages of life. And then the story moves into a daughter dealing with her aged mother’s decline with dementia and loss of memory and self. And yep, it’s unbelievably moving and sad and real (and did I mention sad?!) This is not an emotionally easy read, but I think it’s a worthwhile experience.

A fictionalized account of one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in our nations history, the imprisoning of loyal Japanese citizens (120,000 men, women, and children) into remote "internment camps" during WWII, and signed into law by President FDR. Oh, and upheld by SCOTUS!

It is the story of a mother and her two children (the father was illegally imprisoned earlier elsewhere) and is very well written and moving, but I wish it was longer than its 144 pages. I think however, that it would be perfect for middle or high school students (or college) to make them aware of a very terrible and horrific event in our Nation's history. I am sure the book is probably banned in schools and libraries in some states. As Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) said “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

And sadly, we do not learn from history. This type of racism is still happening in the U.S. involving other races, creeds, or orientations and getting worse...

Otsuka makes me angry because she writes so beautifully and makes me so sad.
Honestly, the care in every word has never been so apparent, what a wonderful writer.

So well done. This simple, stark tone is often imitated but so very hard to do well, especially as well as it is here.

interesting mode of telling the stories of Japanese women who came to America to wed and what they went through and ultimtely going to the internment camps. I want to read her earlier book When the Emperor Was Divine.

I picked this one up because it is this year's pick for Seattle Reads, and also because it looked like an interesting story. First, a couple things about the narrative style. The bulk of the text is in the form of series of statements, which are being presented to You, being You, the reader, or You, someone close to the narrator who exists within the story. It's never specified and it doesn't really matter. The first half or so of the novel tells the story of a local swimming pool and its denizens -- their reasons for being at the pool, their behaviour at the pool, what the pool means to them. And then, the pool floor develops a crack, and the narrative shifts to the pool-goers' reaction to the possibility that the pool may be damaged or hazardous, or worse, that it may cease to be available. One of the swimmers is Alice, whose pool routine is very important to her as she begins to lose her memory. The second half of the novel is all about Alice, and her descent into dementia, but throughout the story of the pool, Alice doesn't stand out any more than any of the other swimmers. The pool story is interesting, and the narrative style does engage, although it is unconventional. Alice's story is heartbreaking, particularly for a reader who has real-life parallels. The description of dementia, the person whose memory is failing and the effect on the people around that person are chillingly accurate, and the facilities available for that person's safety and comfort seem bleak and painful. In truth, they have made me rethink some of the options I am considering. I was thinking I'd join in on some of the public events around this novel, as part of Seattle Reads, but in truth, I'm not sure I'm able to share how this novel made me feel. Probably it would be good, to mingle with others and compare our reactions, but right now it feels impossible. It is a beautiful book, but prepare for it to pack an emotional wallop.

This is a story of a group of swimmers who, except for their individual routines (slow lane, medium lane, rapid lane) and the comfort each person finds in their morning or afternoon laps, they are strangers to one another. However, as a rift opens up in the pool's bottom, they are abandoned in a forgiving world without solace or consolation.

Alice, one of these swimmers, is gradually losing her memory. The pool served as Alice's last line of defense against the dementia that was advancing on her. Without the support of her fellow swimmers and the stability of her daily laps, she is thrown into disarray and turmoil and is reminded of her early years and the Japanese American internment camp where she spent the war. When Alice's estranged daughter unexpectedly re-enters her mother's life, she sees the tragically abrupt fall of her mother.

The narrative is a compelling and enduring work yet from a modern artist, told in hypnotic, incantatory writing. It is a searing, intimate story of mothers and daughters, and the pangs of loss. Otsuka's style is somewhat subdued: She constructs lists and litanies that initially seem modest, even mundane, but by the time the paragraph comes to a close, you are astounded by what she has accomplished. I was moved by the lovely detail...

In this work, scenes repeat in the same way that the mind does or the way that swimmers swim laps, rather than just accumulating. These accumulations add up to a terrible sense of loss and being too late. The Swimmers is a beautiful book that mimics a companion for a time of tedium and disorder, when death is as real as it is unimaginable.

A group of swimmers uses the community pool to swim laps. They know each other as members of the pool community, but don't socialize. One day, a crack appears on the bottom of the pool, and after an attempt to repair the crack fails, the pool is closed. Now the swimmers feel displaced.
One swimmer, Alice, is now disoriented, and is losing her memory. Incorrectly diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she is moved to a home. Her daughter narrates the story, and talks about what her mother does and doesn't remember, the relationship with her mother, and the memories her mother is losing. It is a sad story of how dementia robs people of their memory and its toll on the family.
Short book, but very poignant.

Listened to the audio book. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the pool, the first chapter was so relatable. The writing is beautiful in this book.

This slim novel starts as a story about a pool and the people who swim daily in it. It morphs into a story about a woman with mental decline. It is poignant, reflective, and beautifully written. This author excels at pointing out the importance of small details in daily life. It is written in two parts, which at first seem completely separate, but the reader gradually realizes the reason behind this structure. The entire two-part story serves as a metaphor. I look forward to reading more from this author.

I listened to this book while walking and finished it in a few days. The words were rhythmic and lyrical—comforting sometimes and disturbing at others. The beginning was about the anonymity of a group of daily swimmers. They came from all walks of life and had one significant commonality—swimming laps in the underground pool.

The routine and regularity of swimming suddenly stopped when a crack developed in the pool, and the pool permanently closed. The crack was symbolic for all involved, especially one of the swimmers, Alice, whose equilibrium went awry. Her dementia advanced, and we hear from her daughter how she becomes unrecognizable in Belavista, a “long-term, for-profit memory residence.” In the facility, Alice experienced a different kind of routine; anonymity overtakes her life. Euphemisms and platitudes are vernacular. Yet, in poetic language, the author describes Alice’s life events that she does remember, and she certainly remembers how her daughter distanced herself from her.

La piscine est un petit monde d’habitués. Lorsqu’une fissure apparaît au fond du bassin, la communauté est déstabilisée. Un court roman en trois parties qui entraînent chacune le lecteur dans une atmosphère différente, joyeuse, satirique ou dramatique, mais toujours sensible et très bien observée. On peut cependant regretter qu’elles soient plus juxtaposées qu’imbriquées, ce qui fait perdre une certaine cohérence à l’ensemble, malgré les liens symboliques entre elles.½

Het zwembad bevindt zich in een grote grotachtige ruimte diep onder de grond, vele meters onder de straten van onze stad.

An intensely touching memoir (the cover says it's a novel, but in my eyes it's a memoir, at least partially), major part of which features poignantly described progress of dementia of the narrator's aging mother (drawn from the author's life, I presume), how it affects the close family; and what's more - the repetitive structure of the narration defies all logic and helps it to evolve into the most moving, heartrending (and yet, apparently and sadly, not so uncommon) story.

Two parts to this book - one about the pool and "the swimmer" (amazingly insightful characterizations there!) and the other about the mother/daughter relationship (or, at time, the regrettable lack thereof); and at the beginning these two parts seem to be unrelated. In one interview that I've read, Ms. Otsuka says that it was her intention - to surprise the reader with that kind of arrangement. And it worked - the jolt of the shift was palpable and then made sense: there was a connection after all.

I remember Julie Otsuka well from her novels "When the Emperor Was Divine" and "The Buddha in the Attic", and I had a feeling that her new book would be comparable to those two - in its emotional value and in the quality of narration. It was that and so much more!

The first half and second half almost felt like two different books, but it worked.

Een beginnend dementerende vrouw raakt de grip op de werkelijkhed kwijt als het lokale zwembad sluit en zij haar dagelijkse baantjes niet meer kan trekken

Kijk: http://trijntjeblog.blogspot.com/2022/06/zwemmen-en-lezen.html