Amrita

Really love this book...found it randomly years ago, and am now buying it again for myself and a friend. Its not my usual read, but i got far into it very easily, there is something magical about he way she writes and where you go as you venture into it.

The book I received had a different cover than on the site. Many people pay special attention to covers and editions, so I am not happy that the product was not as described.

Brilliant book. Perfect.

I first came across this mini novel on my degree. Later I taught it in my sixth form class. I taught it from a feminist perspective-the lesson was a blast.

complicated and as even the author herself said the book doesnt know what it wants to say. being her first book this makes sense but i am dissapointed as i generally enjoyed her other books

This was my first taste of Yoshimoto as an author, and I have to say that I'm not impressed.I'm not a great lover of fiction at the best of times, and tend to engage with fiction on a fairly superficial level even on the rare occasions when I do pick up a novel, so to start with I think I just didn't "get" this book. What is it trying to tell us about the human condition? What glimpses does it give us into the psyche? I don't know.I'm also not so good at suspending disbelief. This is probably a "magical realism" book, but I went into it not knowing this, and was then disappointed to find out that nobody is the slightest bit incredulous when it turns out that everyone is clairvoyant and can commune with spirits. "Thank you for telling me what the spirits have told you" instead of "Jesus H. Christ what do you mean my dead sister is speaking to you?!"Like I said, I probably didn't "get" it, but I wouldn't recommend it to others either really.

This is the first novel that I have read by the intriguingly-named Banana Yoshimoto, who comments in a brief Afterword that `now as I read over this novel I realise how naive it is ... The theme of this book is simple' but she still requires over 350 pages of small print to deliver it.This is a very discursive work, beginning with the narrator, Sakumi, who lives in Tokyo and works both as a waitress and a typist, thinking of her sister, Mayu, a beautiful actress who has just died from a drug overdose, and Mayu's boyfriend, Ryuichiro. He is a writer, who starts to send her presents after she has had a fall, hit her head and lost her memory. Sakumi, who is in her early 20s, lives with her divorced mother, Yukiko, her 8-year old step-brother, Yoshio, and her mother's divorced friend, Junko. The author manipulates time, waking and dreaming states, and memories to create a confusing state where reality seems suspended.Sakumi and Ryuichiro begin a relationship that, to my ears, did not have the ring of truth. I felt that I was hanging onto the story by my fingertips until Mr Mesmer and Noodles are introduced and the narrative becomes filled with clairvoyants.The author's writing style allows the story flow from one scene to another without emphases or constraints so that few individual events stand out. The language used in the novel, the American-English version having been translated by Russell F. Wasden, is rather vague which leads to incidents seeming to repeat themselves unnecessarily. Many of the characters are only poorly sketched in, perhaps to emphasise the dreamlike narrative, so that it is difficult to engage fully with them and, indeed, believe them. Stream-of-consciousness narration may seem easy to write, but it must have structure and direction if it is not to seem haphazard and rambling, as is often the case here.This appears to be the author's 4th novel to be translated into English but it is her longest, so perhaps Yoshimoto was unfamiliar with its requirements. Whilst it won the Murasaki-shikibu Prize, it may be that the judges were more used to the style of its delivery, and perhaps the author's `naivety' is what I have experienced on reading it. There are times when Yoshimoto's language tightens, such as when she describes Saipan, and then it is easier to understand the enthusiasm of her followers. It is possible that what I am identifying is a problem with the translation but I am not in a position to judge.Yoshio begins to have visions and hear voices, is keen to become a writer like Ryuichiro and loses interest in attending school. There are sufficient actions to suggest that the author's difficulty is drawing these together to create a unified and satisfying structure.In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better to have read one of her shorter books first.

Banana Yoshimoto's book Amrita is a very surreal yet beautiful novel. After the death of a young actress her family struggle to come to terms with her death. In their each very individual ways they try to come to terms with it in their own way. The narrator of the story Sakumi comes across as a character that we can all relate to. They all live in a rather unconventional family which compromises of her mother, he brother, cousin and her mother's lifelong friend. Yoshimoto writes in a way that looks at the everyday mundane things but after you have read the book she gives them an almost mystical quality. Sakumi's brother is a `special' child as he seems to have mystical powers of being able to see into the future. Sakumi also suffers her own misfortune when she falls and looses her memory. We are then taken on a weird journey to the pacific ocean when Sakumi and her brother stay with friends and we are introduced to a whole new world filled with spiritualism.This book captures many different themes and you almost feel like you are travelling through a different world. Having read many of Yoshimoto's books this has to be one of my favourites. I would definitely recommend it.