Strangers

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As the book turns from character study to an eerie ghost story, I realized that I found myself invested in Hideo’s relationship with his parents. In one heartbreaking scene where Hideo and his parents decide to eat out for dinner at an expensive restaurant, Mr. Yamada creates a chapter of unbearable heartbreak and finality that makes this novel worth reading. I did not expect this scene to come out so affectingly, but it is the best part of the novel. I understood all at once that although goodbyes must be made—it’s never easy to write the least. He goes to catch a show at a local variety hall -- and finds a man there who looks exactly like his father.

Ijintachi to no Natsu" a aparut in 1987 si il are ca protagonist si narator pe Hideo Horada ce traieste in Tokyo-ul anilor '80 fiind un scenarist de seriale de televiziune de succes. Ramas singur, divortat de sotie si cu finantele imputinate acesta incearca sa-si continue viata cum poate. Ajunge sa locuiasca in cladirea de birouri unde isi face si meseria. Acolo cunoaste o femeie stranie cu o cicatrice pe piept pe care incearca s-o evite dar care il si intriga. Yamada's manner of stripped-down storytelling leaves much to the reader, but he manages tempo very subtly, as Harada moves between fear and elation, and his reacquaintance with his parents is deepened in nicely pitched snatches of dialogue and imagery: "I could see the mannerisms of a dashing artisan in the way my father swung his arms and strutted along, and I found it quite endearing." About the Author: Taichi Yamada is the pen name of Taichi Ishizaka, a film and television drama scriptwriter. Strangers was his first novel. He has since written two more that are available in English: In Search of a Distant Voice, and I Haven’t Dreamed of Flying for a While. How can that be possible he wonders? There is only one possible explanation he concludes – they are an hallucination caused by his solitude and grief. He thought he’d buried his grief for his parents but seeing them makes him realise that “Somewhere deep inside of me I had been yearning desperately for the warm embrace of parental love.

related in a pared-down prose style that matches well with Harada’s spartan life. He’s doesn’t seem to have any friends, he has lost touch with his only son and has no interest other than working on the script for a new series. Understandable therefore that he feels the pull towards this other surreal world. Strangely enough, this book began tepidly. This is the story of lonely TV writer, Hideo who is approaching middle age. Set in Japan during the 1980s outside of Kyoto, Hideo lives a mundane life of where everything seems to be all laid out for him. Estranged from his son, Shigeki, at odds with his ex-wife Ayako for dating who’s now engaged to his occasional friend and co-worker, Mamiya, Hideo spends his time in solitude, concealing his feelings—whether it be anger, or confusion. Strangers is an odd little book and isn’t my usual fare because it involves ghosts. Fortunately there was more to it than the spectral element. urn:lcp:strangers0000yama_p2o1:epub:f3e38884-e90c-4339-86a8-8dcfdde58c99 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier strangers0000yama_p2o1 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1fk2715g Invoice 1652 Isbn 0571224369

The 2023 English-language film All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh, is also based on the novel. Yamada has gained accolades from substantial writers such as David Mitchell and Bret Easton Ellis, but this novel is more a gentle entertainment than a serious psychic disturbance." - James Urquhart, Daily Telegraph Strangers is written with a clarity I have come to recognise as Japanese." - Kate Kellaway, The Observer Harada-san (Hideo) is in his mid 40s, is a scriptwriter for television who isn't working all that much any more and lives alone, having been recently divorced and never taking enough time to see his college-age son. He lives in Tokyo, in an apartment which is an office building by day but which during the night has maybe one or two lit windows that one can see from the outside. He is just a drab little man with a blah life. Many years ago, when he just a boy (I think he was 12), he was waiting for his parents to return home but they never did. His mom and dad were doubled on a bike when they were hit from behind in a hit-and-run accident. He was sent to live with his grandmother, but then she died, then sent to live with his uncle, who sent him to college and then died. Well, as it turns out, one day it was Hideo's birthday and he got a bee in his bonnet to go to his birthplace of Akasuka. When he arrived, he walked into a mediocre comedy club pretty much kept going by tour bus crowds, and there he saw a man that looked just like his father. It looked so much like his dad that he couldn't help but to keep looking at the guy. At the end of the performance, the strange man invited Harada-san to come home with him for a beer so Hideo goes. When he arrives, the strange man's wife is there and she is the spitting image of his mother. From there, the tale gets stranger and stranger and Hideo Harada finds himself in great danger from the other side. This terse novel by Taichi Yamada, a successful scriptwriter for Japanese television, is a ghost story that pens in spare strokes a portrait of urban alienation. The narrator is 47-year-old Hideo Harada, also a TV scriptwriter: he is working, he tells us wryly, on "a comedy of manners about men and women who spent a hell of a lot of time playing billiards and tennis". Harada is divorced from his wife and hasn't spoken to his 19-year-old son in a long time. He lives in his office and hardly sees anyone, and doesn't want to. Until one night when, looking up at his building from outside, he notices another lit window. As the story fairies would have it, there lives an attractive younger woman, with whom he starts a desperate affair.It somehow seems entirely natural then for Hideo to take up the man's invitation and go for a beer at the man's home.

The reliance on the supernatural -- which is occasionally simply too clumsy or simplistic -- is irritating, but for the most part Yamada does tell his story effectively. In news designed to make homosexuals make weird sounds when they hear it: Looking and Weekend creator Andrew Haigh’s new movie includes Fleabag’s sexy priest, Andrew Scott, and Normal People’s sexy shorts wearer, Paul Mescal, in a loose adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, Strangers. Also starring in the cast are The Crown’s Claire Foy and Kate Mara’s Jamie Bell. Foy has plenty of reasons to shout “A bunch of boys!” again. And the trailer for the film is just as sensual, gorgeous, and gay as any self-respecting homosexual might hope. I really enjoyed the haunting mood of Strangers. It somehow maintains a calm tone at the same time as feeling quite fast-paced, and the climactic moments are especially great. A psychological ghost story that's both chilling and unexpectedly comforting. I liked this book. Again, it was somewhat stilted and formalized in translation but that's easily overcome. The dialogue sometimes was kind of silly, with little annoying things like money being called "dough" etc which seems out of context in the story. Kind of simplistic in tone, although it does delve into the whole search of self by Harada-san and why he feels like he must continue to see his "parents." Harada is a very tragic figure to begin with, and by the end of the book I was really pulling for him. When a book does that for me, then it's a good read. This is a strange little book. The protagonist, Harada, is a middle aged screenwriter, orphaned aged twelve when his parents are killed in a traffic accident. Recently divorced, he throws himself into his work. He is tired and lonely.The cleverness of Yamada's novel is in its final twist, when it turns out that Hideo's choice leaves him still ensnared in a dangerous position. Eventually, however, Kei makes it clear to him that he must essentially choose between this unreal wallow in nostalgia and embracing the present. Strangers relies on quite a few entirely unbelievable occurrences, and there are a number of supernatural goings-on, which means that significant aspects of the novel can't withstand much close scrutiny.

Hideo is amazed and confused, but he's also drawn to the couple, and they treat him -- despite the fact that he's ten or more years older than they are -- like their son. One night the woman who appears to be the only other residential tenant in the building shows up at his doorstep with a half-empty bottle of champagne, looking for some company, but he pretends he is too busy and so she leaves.Kei isn’t convinced his trips to Asakusa are good for his health. She sees Heido changing day-by-day, becoming hollow-eyed, aged and emaciated. She’s even more worried because Heido himself cannot see these changes – when he looks at himself in the mirror he looks as healthy as ever. Can Kei save him from the ghosts of his past? Or is his desire to make up for the lost years of his relationship with his parents too strong to resist? Less subtle, unfortunately, are the vagaries of the translation into American English. To have a Japanese sushi chef from the 1940s say "Yo" as a form of greeting is ludicrous; meanwhile, a scene of seduction has Harada kissing his girlfriend's "leftward rump", as if she were some well-rounded specimen of beef cattle. In their company Hideo can relive his childhood and make up for what he missed -- something so tempting that he can't pass it up, despite realising that it is somehow unnatural and possibly even dangerous. Putem sa interpretam in mai multe feluri aceste elemente de supranatural: am putea crede ca eroul sufera de o tulburare psihica in care mintea sa cauta un refugiu confortabil in trecut, in copilarie, in parinti, atunci cand trece printr-o trauma cum ar fi un divort. Este firesc ca pacientul sa gestioneze necazul refugiindu-se intr-un loc unde s-a simtit bine. Dar atunci ar fi greu de explicat prezenta femeii cu cicatrice. Daca fortam un pic interpretarea putem spune ca ea reprezinta constiinta, vinovatia lui.