Source of book: Audiobook from the library
Last year my wife and I visited
New York City together, and as part of that visit, we stopped by a Japanese
book store. Our second kid has taken a number of semesters of Japanese in
college, after learning a bit on her own - so probably 3rd grade level. We got
a few books as presents, but I also checked out the shelf of books in
translation and put a few titles on my list. This was one of them.
Like many of the shorter Japanese
books I have read or listened to over the last few years, this one has a rather
surreal feel to it. On the one hand, not much of anything happens for the first
three quarters of the book. It is very mundane. But it is also increasingly
creepy and menacing, until all kinds of hell breaks loose in the last part of
the book.
Also, like other books, names are
rarely used. The titular character does have a name, but for the most part, she
is referred to as The Woman in the Purple Skirt.
The narrator is The Woman in the
Yellow Cardigan, and we really do not figure out her identity until near the
end. She is a thoroughly unreliable narrator, and at least borderline
malevolent. If there is a villain in the story, she is it.
The book opens innocently enough:
There’s a person living not too far from me known as the
Woman in the Purple Skirt. She only ever wears a purple-colored skirt – which
is why she has this name.
At first I thought the Woman in the Purple Skirt must be a
young girl. This is probably because she is small and delicate looking, and
because she has long hair that hangs down loosely over her shoulders. From a
distance, you’d be forgiven for thinking she was about thirteen. But look
carefully, from up close, and you see she’s not young – far from it. She has
age spots on her cheeks, and that shoulder-length black hair is not glossy –
it’s quite dry and stiff. About once a week, the Woman in the Purple Skirt goes
to a bakery in the local shopping district and buys herself a little
custard-filled cream bun. I always pretend to be taking my time deciding which
pastries to buy, but in reality I’m getting a good look at her. And as I watch,
I think to myself: She reminds me of somebody. But who?
At first, it seems like the
narrator is just a lonely and shy woman who wants to have the Woman in the
Purple Skirt as a friend, but cannot work up the courage to talk to her.
But as the story progresses, the
narrator becomes more and more of a creepy stalker, following her target from
the shadows, getting into her personal business, and more.
One of the first incidents is the
narrator working to get The Woman in the Purple Skirt to apply for a job at the
same hotel she works at, which happens. But after she initially seems to be
making friends and becoming popular, she makes the fatal mistake of starting a
relationship with the director of housekeeping - a married man.
From there, things spiral to a
rather crazy ending. I won’t spoil it, but it isn’t expected. There are several
endings that you think might happen that don’t, and rather than either a happy
ending or a catastrophe, there is more ambiguity.
It is also at the end that you
realize that there are at least three competing stories about what really
happened, and it is impossible to know who - if anyone - is telling the full
truth.
Along the way, there are some bits
of rather pointed satire. For example, the way that hotel staff tend to be
marginalized and underpaid; but also how they fight back in little ways. There
is plenty of cattiness between the staff, the unfortunate tendency of women to
fight and denigrate each other, rather than standing together. There is plenty
of male entitlement.
There are also some delightful
passages, such as the friendship between The Woman in the Purple Skirt and the
neighborhood children.
The book is short - under four
hours on audiobook - and would likely be a fast read in print. It starts slow,
but draws you in as it goes on, even as one becomes more and more horrified by
the narrator’s behavior. Check it out.
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