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"A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city's most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here-is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world. Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form"--… (more)
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A woman and her mother meet in Tokyo and travel together to see
It is a either a long short story or a novella (under 100 pages). The writing is elegant and minimalist. The reader eventually learns the family’s background through flashbacks, which are inserted sporadically. At times, I wondered if it was a compilation of the woman’s memories of her mother rather than two people on a journey. It has a gentle, reflective tone, and an open ending. I enjoyed it very much.
There is virtually no plot - a daughter takes her mother on a holiday to Japan. There are no other characters - although the daughter reflects on some others - her first boyfriend, her husband, her sister. The writing style
But the core of the book is the first generation migrant experience. The narrator is Australian-born Chinese, and reflects on the life of of her and her sister compared to the life of her mother in Hong Kong. The contrast is stark but the narrator doesn't dwell on it. It's left to the reader to marvel at the distance between the dirt floor house in China of the mother and the liberal arts tertiary education of the daughter.
This is a great "people story", but if the background is the story, I can't help wishing there was something more in the foreground. There's one quirky moment - after being away on a hike for a night and a day, the narrator comes back and can't find her mother at the accommodation. And the host says that it was only booked for one guest. Was the mother really there? Was she travelling alone and only thinking deeply of her mother? If this is "the catch" it needed a little more development.