Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : Riverhead Books, 2020.
Description
"A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations. Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo. Kazu's life in the city began and ended in that park; he arrived there to work as a laborer in the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and ended his days living in the vast homeless village in the park, traumatized by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and shattered by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics. Through Kazu's eyes, we see daily life in Tokyo buzz around him and learn the intimate details of his personal story, how loss and society's inequalities and constrictions spiraled towards this ghostly fate, with moments of beauty and grace just out of reach. A powerful masterwork from one of Japan's most brilliant outsider writers, Tokyo Ueno Station is a book for our times and a look into a marginalized existence in a shiny global megapolis"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member ozzer
“Suffering is the one promise life keeps.” This is a sentiment David Mitchell expresses in his current novel, “Utopia Avenue.” It applies in spades to Yu Miri’s dreamlike novel, TOKYO UENO STATION, in which she takes a clear-eyed look at the gulf between the haves and have-nots in postwar
This place plays a key role in the novel. It is a piece of land given to the people by their Emperor. It was the site of famous battles, a place of refuge following the 1923 earthquake and the American firebombing of Tokyo during WWII. Today it has museums, a zoo, numerous memorial statues, and a mass grave honoring the people who died there. Just across the street sits Ueno Train Station. This is significant to Kazu’s story because it is the gateway to the capital from the northern province where he lived. The station also is the perennial disembarkation point for people from the North seeking work in the city. Like Kazu, many end up homeless, once again seeking sanctuary in this iconic park.
Yu’s non-linear stream-of-consciousness narrative largely relies on what Kazu sees and hears, but also congers his memories in flashbacks. To these, she adds park history as told by Shige, Kazu’s homeless friend. Notwithstanding its poetic structure, Yu’s narrative structure can be disorienting. Also, the mood is ceaselessly dark. However, she masterfully uses it to portray what it is like to be homeless in Japan today. The government tolerates the encampment only when it doesn’t conflict with a cleaner image it wants to convey, like during an imperial visit. The government never communicates directly with these poor souls, but instead posts terse signs. The city people ignore the homeless or pretend they just aren’t there. Worst of all, Kazu is made to feel that he deserves his sad fate primarily because he has always been poor. Poverty and struggle are inextricable for him. Yu uses rain as a motif to show Kazu’s struggle, especially when there is no shelter. His wife tells him, “You never did have any luck, did you?” And after seeing the Emperor pass by, Kazu observes that he had “a life that had never known struggle, envy or aimlessness, one that had lived the same 73 years as I had.”
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Japan. Kazu, her protagonist/narrator, is a Job-like figure. He seems fated to a life of struggle and despair; a life he can’t even escape after death. Following a life of hard work and poverty, marked by separation from his family and the mysterious death of his son at age 21, he finally retires to his home in Fukushima. Shortly thereafter, his wife also passes away mysteriously in her sleep. In an effort to avoid being a burden to his granddaughter, Kazu returns to a life of homelessness in Tokyo’s Ueno Park.This place plays a key role in the novel. It is a piece of land given to the people by their Emperor. It was the site of famous battles, a place of refuge following the 1923 earthquake and the American firebombing of Tokyo during WWII. Today it has museums, a zoo, numerous memorial statues, and a mass grave honoring the people who died there. Just across the street sits Ueno Train Station. This is significant to Kazu’s story because it is the gateway to the capital from the northern province where he lived. The station also is the perennial disembarkation point for people from the North seeking work in the city. Like Kazu, many end up homeless, once again seeking sanctuary in this iconic park.
Yu’s non-linear stream-of-consciousness narrative largely relies on what Kazu sees and hears, but also congers his memories in flashbacks. To these, she adds park history as told by Shige, Kazu’s homeless friend. Notwithstanding its poetic structure, Yu’s narrative structure can be disorienting. Also, the mood is ceaselessly dark. However, she masterfully uses it to portray what it is like to be homeless in Japan today. The government tolerates the encampment only when it doesn’t conflict with a cleaner image it wants to convey, like during an imperial visit. The government never communicates directly with these poor souls, but instead posts terse signs. The city people ignore the homeless or pretend they just aren’t there. Worst of all, Kazu is made to feel that he deserves his sad fate primarily because he has always been poor. Poverty and struggle are inextricable for him. Yu uses rain as a motif to show Kazu’s struggle, especially when there is no shelter. His wife tells him, “You never did have any luck, did you?” And after seeing the Emperor pass by, Kazu observes that he had “a life that had never known struggle, envy or aimlessness, one that had lived the same 73 years as I had.”
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LibraryThing member sleahey
This spare and short novel tells the story of Kazu's life from his point of view after death. From the lyrical prose, we learn that he became homeless in Tokyo late in life, and suffers many regrets, chiefly that he left his young family to move to Tokyo to earn money. The death of his adult son,
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whom he never really knew, heightens his grief, and results in a short span of time living with his wife and reacquainting himself with her before her death. We learn a bit about Japan's history during and after World War II, and the glimpse of the firebombing of Tokyo is especially powerful. Overall Kazu's life is tragic throughout, but this novel avoids being relentlessly sad thanks to the portraits of the people Kazu encounters while homeless. The conversations he happens to overhear and recount are particularly well done. Show Less
LibraryThing member texasstorm
A lonely, melancholy story that is mercifully short. The depictions of homelessness are well done.
LibraryThing member Perednia
A wistful novel about an observant life deemed unworthy by the one who lives it. The character is homeless, and the story shows how the homeless are perceived in a metropolitan park. The conversations of other people overheard are reminiscent of Wings of Desire.
LibraryThing member evano
Short, quiet, and deeply melancholy.
Kazu is a poor man who worked all his life only to find himself in his final years without family or money or meaning or even a home. He's been buffeted by the disasters -- natural and man-made -- that have befallen Japan in his long lifetime: earthquakes and
Though events in his life have intersected with the Emperor's own, they are meaningless coincidences in a country that is no longer an Empire.
As a poor man, he is invisible to the prosperous citizens of the economic powerhouse of the late 20th century.
As a homeless person in Tokyo's Ueno Park, he is invisible to passers-by, noticed by the government only when it was time for the regular sweeps of the unsightly tents and camps from the park because the Olympics are coming or the Emperor wants to visit a museum.
And as a dead man and a ghost, he has nothing but a story of misery and heartache, and he is just as invisible as he has always been...
Kazu is a poor man who worked all his life only to find himself in his final years without family or money or meaning or even a home. He's been buffeted by the disasters -- natural and man-made -- that have befallen Japan in his long lifetime: earthquakes and
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tsunamis, firebombing, disease, nuclear bombs, and nuclear meltdowns. Though events in his life have intersected with the Emperor's own, they are meaningless coincidences in a country that is no longer an Empire.
As a poor man, he is invisible to the prosperous citizens of the economic powerhouse of the late 20th century.
As a homeless person in Tokyo's Ueno Park, he is invisible to passers-by, noticed by the government only when it was time for the regular sweeps of the unsightly tents and camps from the park because the Olympics are coming or the Emperor wants to visit a museum.
And as a dead man and a ghost, he has nothing but a story of misery and heartache, and he is just as invisible as he has always been...
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LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
I wasn't a huge fan of the reader on the audio, which is a shame because I think it distracted me from the story. This provided a really interesting insight on the issues of housing insecurity in Japan--all at once specific and universal.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
A short novel describing 20th-century life for a farm family in Japan, from the perspective of one elderly widower, who ended his years homeless in Ueno Park in Tokyo. So many aspects of his life were affected by big events in Japanese history, but he was always in the background and he, as his
This book is sad and it is lonely. When Kazu begins reminiscing, I would forget that it was a memory and feel his excitement and eagerness--only to remember, as the book goes on, that noooo that did happen but now he is a lonely old man living in a cardboard hut.
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Growing up in Fukushima, Kazu was too young to fight in World War 2. After middle school he started working, and at 18 began traveling to Hokkaido and elsewhere to work. He married Setsuko and they lived with his parents, but farming was not enough to support all of the mouths. In 1964 he began working in Tokyo construction, getting ready for the Tokyo Olympics. He regularly went home, and his wife Setsuko took care of his parents and raised their two children in Fukushima. Many families lived this way, as farming was not the moneymaker small farmers needed it to be. Kazu lived in dorms, and flophouses, and so forth--always hoping to enjoy the fruits of his labor in his old age.
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mother said, always had bad luck. He saw the emperor more than once, their sons were born on the same day, the Tokyo Olympics and other huge construction projects fed his fanily, and then the Fukushima earthquake took the last descendant he knew personally.This book is sad and it is lonely. When Kazu begins reminiscing, I would forget that it was a memory and feel his excitement and eagerness--only to remember, as the book goes on, that noooo that did happen but now he is a lonely old man living in a cardboard hut.
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Growing up in Fukushima, Kazu was too young to fight in World War 2. After middle school he started working, and at 18 began traveling to Hokkaido and elsewhere to work. He married Setsuko and they lived with his parents, but farming was not enough to support all of the mouths. In 1964 he began working in Tokyo construction, getting ready for the Tokyo Olympics. He regularly went home, and his wife Setsuko took care of his parents and raised their two children in Fukushima. Many families lived this way, as farming was not the moneymaker small farmers needed it to be. Kazu lived in dorms, and flophouses, and so forth--always hoping to enjoy the fruits of his labor in his old age.
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LibraryThing member jpeeler501
Told a good story up until the death of Koichi. Then it becomes a dark version of Forest Gump.
LibraryThing member KatherineGregg
Kazu, the narrator, was born in 1933, the same year that the emperor was born. His son was also born on the same day that the emperor's son was born. However, Kazu's life couldn't be more different than the emperor's life. Kazo, now dead, reflects on his life spent away from his wife and two
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children as a laborer. Ultimately, he becomes homeless, living his life in a park in Tokyo. In death he lives on in the busy Ueno train station in Tokyo, reflecting on his past life which wasn't much different than his afterlife. Show Less
LibraryThing member greeniezona
What a book! It was not at all what I expected when I bought a book about a haunted train station, but it was so much better. there are many stories of men who have suffered bad luck, who were born into poverty and suffered one loss after another. I found this one exceptional for a number of
Exceeded my expectations.
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reasons. One was how thoroughly it painted a picture of its main setting, from the plant life to the buildings and businesses to the people to the issues of its governance. And second was the mindset of the narrator, Kazu, who certainly feels his many losses, but who continues to go on doing what he feels to be the right or responsible thing, never wanting to be a burden on anyone else, even after spending decades laboring to support family members that he rarely saw.Exceeded my expectations.
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LibraryThing member quondame
The sad observations and reminisces of a lonely ghost who was a lonely man. Born the oldest of 8 children he still pretty much lived on his own since early adolescence, working away from his wife and two children. While he retains his internal connections to his remote home and family, he never
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enjoys real companionship. Show Less
LibraryThing member secondhandrose
Man, this was so sad!
The narrator is a ghost exploring and explaining his life in the Ueno Station homeless encampment. Originally a marginalised worker who spent most of time away from home, he loses his son unexpectedly and despite acknowledging he doesn't have a strong relationship with his
Having been to Japan recently this really hit home. There was a lot of Buddhist wisdom and customs with things I saw well explained. While in Hiroshima we also came in contact with some homeless people who politely asked us for donations.
The extreme cultural expectations of workload, pride and face come into play here.
While this book was sad, it was beautifully written and translated.
The narrator is a ghost exploring and explaining his life in the Ueno Station homeless encampment. Originally a marginalised worker who spent most of time away from home, he loses his son unexpectedly and despite acknowledging he doesn't have a strong relationship with his
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children, he takes this loss hard. Later he is able to reconcile his relationship with his wife and spends some years at home until he loses her as well. While living with a caring granddaughter, he decides he no longer wants to be a burden and moves to Tokyo to the homeless encampment. The encampment is affected by the development due to the oncoming Olympics.Having been to Japan recently this really hit home. There was a lot of Buddhist wisdom and customs with things I saw well explained. While in Hiroshima we also came in contact with some homeless people who politely asked us for donations.
The extreme cultural expectations of workload, pride and face come into play here.
While this book was sad, it was beautifully written and translated.
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LibraryThing member kakadoo202
Having been to Tokyo and at the Ueno park, i saw the homeless people there. Now i see them in a different light.
Subjects
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Translated Literature — 2020)
NPR: Books We Love (2020)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction — 2020)
Language
Original language
Japanese