Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: This story is very uniquely Japanese in that each image, each thought holds a deeper meaning. It is very beautiful and although the plot physically goes very slowly, the progression of the thoughts and actions of Mikage is where the story really grows. The life depicted seem realistic but holds a surrealistic feeling to it. Since anything more said would be a reiteration of the previous reviews, please read the book. It is definitely an unforgettable experience.

Rating:
Summary: Kitchen
Review: "Kitchen" by Banana Yoshimoto, it talks about a girl named Mikage and her life. Mikage grown up with her grandmother. After she grown up, her grandmother dead from sickness and all the sudden Mikage became alone. Basically this is about how Mikage espeaically like about kitchen. Mikage felt that kitchen made her felt warm. Also, because Mikage grown up with her grandmother; therefore, she didn't get any love from a really family. All the feeling that she can feel is lonely. I think Banana wrote a good feeling of how Mikage feels about kitchen and her loneliness. Banana wrote about how Mikage expression and as a reader, it is easy to feel how Mikage feeling. Espeically at the middle of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Fresh and pleasant surprise
Review: This past summer, I worked long hours stocking textbooks at my college bookstore. I came across _Kitchen_, and was compelled to read it. I'm glad I did. Banana Yoshimoto's writing is sparsely beautiful, all at once distant and intimate, in a distinctively Japanese way. The close-up yet faraway look into each character's mind left just the right amount up to the imagination, and the story dealt with death both realistically and sentimentally. I think Yoshimoto's gift is not only simplicity, but balance. I *will* own this book and read it again!

Rating:
Summary: Not what I would expect, certainly
Review: Upon the recommendation of a friend I decided to read some Banana Yoshimoto. I was not at all sure what to expect. I am accustomed to more traditional Japanese literature, such as that of Mishima or Kawabata or Soseki. In my recent readings of contemporary Japanese literature I have seen a striking break away from the more traditional values associated with Japan. In Kitchen I marveled at the simplicity with which Yoshimoto manages to convey a less traditional, more sexually liberated Japanese youth, with a twist of non-traditional gender roles thrown in to create an odd backdrop for what is actually not a terribly compelling story. The details and Yoshimoto's weaving of the details that surround the main story are the only thing that keeps Kitchen alive and breathing. It is, nevertheless, entertaining and a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Simple and Perfect
Review: Kitchen is uncomplicated on the surface, but able to express the unexpressable. This is a book that allows you to breathe. An excellent introduction to contemporary Japanese literature. My recommendation: read Kitchen and then try something by Murakami...

Rating:
Summary: Simple and aesthethic-a contemporary Japanese masterpiece
Review: Banana Yoshimoto's book Kitchen (and Moonlight) is delightfully simple , unpretentious , aesthethic ,warm ,personal, tragic, delicate and not to mention delicious too!.Indeed a benchmark of a contemporary Japanese author. A delicate masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Tragically beautiful, Fresh Voiced, Not For A Sunny Day
Review: I read KITCHEN over the summer, between Commonwealth Literature and Geology classes in Pittsburgh. Haunting, written with a great deal of integrity and above all, a voice that is fresh. Personally, I would read another of Yoshimoto's books, but that has more to do with what I got out of MOONLIGHT SHADOW than KITCHEN. The voice is new, but won't work for everyone. Bordering on sentimentality at times, yet, how does one write truly about death without being sentimental? It does not lack closure, for that would be impossible for Mikage to find, yet, I wanted something more to happen. I don't see the world any differently now than I did before KITCHEN, in spite of its tragic beauty. Don't take this one to the beach.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, soul-stirring masterwork
Review: I have read and re-read this book several times, and I am always amazed by its beauty and simplicity. Yoshimoto has to be one of the most empathetic writers of our times: she never creates characters that aren't three-dimensional, fleshed out, and possessed of some secret longing that she renders in stark, intimate detail. She does not humiliate her characters, but shows them the utmost respect, even though the fates she concocts for them may not always be happy ones. The young female narrator of Kitchen is one whose voice will echo in my mind for a long time to come. Funny, touching, beautifully transalted, "Kitchen" should be must-reading for anyone interested in the world's great contemporary writers, of whom Banana Yoshimoto is most certainly one.

Rating:
Summary: Pig out
Review: This book is very intimate, raising several important questions about our personal lives. Is not the kitchen the room most vividly associated with our childhood hopes and dreams? Well, not really. And is homecooked food not the incarnation of motherhood, a solid version of our mother's own milk transsubstantiated across time? Actually, not. But does the hum of the refrigerator not replicate the comforting rumbles we experience in our mother's womb? Kinda. Well, OK, it doesn't.

Rating:
Summary: trippia90@hotmail
Review: This book will make you warm and smile when reading all. She described well the way the characters healing and loving each other.Only one thing,I feel sorry, is that I couldn't feel the taste of simplicity because I read the book translated into korean.I heard that simplicity is her merit.