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Jan 27, 2011

HappyHippo marked it as to-read

maap kalo tulisan ini sepertinya gak nyambung ama bukuna

"Ada buku EA?" ... <glek-keselek>

Inget buku ini otomatis inget kelakuan seorang rekan durjana yang bisa bikin malu sesama rekan durjana. Ternyata ketua dewan pembina jaduler lebih durjana dari gw :))

Buku ini didapat dilapak buku bekas Dewi Sartika dalam rangka Reuni Durjana sekaligus merayakan ultah seorang durjana yang sudah di rancang sejak awal bulan atas permintaan seorang durjana yang More...

84 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 27, 2012

Gavin rated it:

One of the many things I love about goodreads is that a person is able to see what other “friends” think about a novel before committing oneself to reading it. I would have never read KITCHEN had I not seen that Mariel, Oriana, and Jason Pettus, three of my friends, all thought highly of this slim book.

But, even with the high ratings of these three “friends”, I still had to find out information about Banana Yoshimoto, the author. So I went to Wikipedia (obviously, where else woul More...

5 comments like (22 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jason rated it:

Oh, let's face it; I love everything Banana Yoshimoto's ever written! But that said, she's not for everyone; she's a minimalist storyteller, at least in my opinion, able to turn the emotional state of the right reader with the flick of just one beautiful perfect phrase, but only if you're ready to catch that beautiful perfect phrase and appreciate it for what it is. Give up on this review yet? Then you shouldn't be reading Yoshimoto! Actually consisting of two novellas, Kitchen (named after the More...

0 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2011

Helvry rated it:

Novel karya Banana Yoshimoto terdiri dari dua judul, Kitchen dan Moonlight Shadow. Secara umum, cerita tentang sepasang anak muda yang ditinggal orang terdekat, dan berusaha bangkit dari bayang-bayang kesepian dan rasa kehilangan itu.

KITCHEN
Kitchen bercerita tentang seorang gadis muda di Tokyo, Mikage, yang ditinggalkan oleh kematian neneknya. Ia sebatang kara, hingga ia bertemu dengan Yuichi Tanabe di pemakaman neneknya. Yuichi adalah seorang pekerja paruh waktu di toko bunga More...

73 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

ruzmarì rated it:

"Kitchen" is a great little novella, and reading it is like having an old friend come to stay with you for a few days out of the blue. That one friend who had just the perfect quirky turn of phrase, the oddly poetic outlook on things like noodles and shoelace-tips. Yoshimoto's writing has matured since "Kitchen," but this story remains fresh and thoughtful, charming and simple and deep. My favorite part of the book, though, isn't the title novella but the one included afte More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2010

Jia rated it:

"Mikage, kau terpesona pada ibuku?" tanyanya.

"Begitulah. Habis dia cantik sekali," kataku jujur.

"Ya, ya," sambil tertawa, Yuichi berjalan ke arahku lalu duduk di lantai di depanku. "Dia menjalani operasi plastik."

"Masa?" tanyaku berpura-pura tenang. "Mungkin karena itu wajah kalian samasekali tidak mirip."

"Bukan itu saja...," Yuichi melanjutkan tanpa mampu menahan geli, "dia More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Black Elephants rated it:

Kitchen is a novel made up of two short stories: the eponymous one and another. It is written by one of Japan’s most popular contemporary writers Banana Yoshimoto. This was actually her debut novel, and it contains all the zest and magic of a new author just setting out.

The two stories, while separate, are connected by the themes of love, loss and enchantment in a world of reality. Our first opens with the protagonist Mikage unsure how to move on after her grandmother’s death (being More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

Shery rated it:

Although this book surrounded many themes of love and death, it was surprisingly light and refreshing. Yoshimoto writes in a very classy but bold style which conveys the inner strength of main characters.

The first character, Mikage is a young adult living in contemporary Japan, whose grandmother had died at the beginning of the book. She then moves in with a friend, Yuichi, and his mother, Eriko who was a transsexual. Through a series of events, which includes another death, and slo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 20, 2008

Shimelle rated it:

Having read this last week, I'm now confused. Not about the book (which reads in a way that doesn't require the slightest bit of effort) or about Japanese culture (which comes to life with enough universality to make sense). No. I was confused as to why, with an MA in contemporary English literature -- and a specialism in gender studies -- I had only come to find this book now, at the suggestion of a dear friend. During my studies, professors lauded extremes. Books like Tim & Pete, Dennis C More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2007

Leslie rated it:

Brooklyn has the best tag sales. People there seem to only own good stuff, and sometimes get in the mood to sell it all off for fifty cents a pop. It was at such a tag sale that I spotted the book, which I had earlier seen on the "currently reading" list of a very ahead-of-the-curve friend's blog (that was in 2001, before "blog" had entered the mainstream vocabulary and this Yoshimoto reading dude was the only person I knew who had one). The tag sale also featured some beauti More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2008

Jennifer rated it:

Any time I try to read Japanese novels I feel like I'm missing something. In Kitchen, as in the few other Japanese novels I've read, the prose seems flat and spare. I'm beginning to think it's not a question of translation and more a question of a different writing style. Mikage, a young woman, is left alone when her grandmother dies, following the deaths of her parents and grandfather. She ends up being sort of adopted by the Tanabe family, a young man her age and his transsexual (m to f) m More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2011

bookczuk rated it:

For such a slim volume, this book took me forever to read. It's two stories, one more a novella and the other more a short story, each about love, loss and loyalty told in a minimalist, ethereal sort of style. Kind of like a haiku version of fiction writing. Characters were beautifully drawn, though I think the improbably Eriko with his/her zest for life charmed me the most. The snippets of Japanese life and culture were fascinating, especially in Kitchen 1, and the bits focused on food (I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Loved this book, although I was surprised by the sudden, almost terminal end to the main story. This is a book about loss and bereavement and how people adjust or find escape in places or things associated with the person who has gone. Someone very close to me died last suddenly last year after a short illness and this book summarised a lot of what I felt at the time. It also reinforced one of the things that he taught me - hang onto life and live every minute because it's only coming around onc More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Bözsi rated it:

I have launched myself on a reading program of Japanese books (as many as I can manage--in English translation) in preparation for going to Japan with Dennis in the last week of March. I have read quite a few Japanese novels over the year, and always thoroughly enjoyed them, usually finding them quite thought provoking, so I'm rather enjoying this "full immersion" for a couple of months in the newer writings of the last 5 to 10 years. This little book, Kitchen. by Banana Yoshimoto, w More...

0 comments like

Nov 02, 2011

Su rated it:

Hacía muchísimo que un libro no me quitaba el aliento. Kitchen es una novela minimalista, sobria, de una efusividad delicada que en occidente puede malinterpretarse. En lo personal, estaba deseosa de algo proveniente de Japón, y me alegro de tomar como primera experiencia a Banana Yoshimoto.

Fue una sorpresa encontrar personajes tan carismáticos, pero apartándome de lo genuino en Mikage y Tanabe (juntos y separados), Eriko es mi favorita por razones oscuras. Yoshimoto consigue con mae More...

0 comments like

Oct 21, 2011

Patrice rated it:

I have found a few gems at my local thrift store, St. Vincent de Paul's. Banana Yoshimoto's first novel, Kitchen was a find last week that I promised myself I could read if I finished my assigned school reading. A thrift store bargain, I'd have to say it was probably the best 10 cents I've ever spent.

I read Yoshimoto's collection of short stories Lizard in Ashland, Oregon years ago while getting my degree in English. A friend who introduced me to many other amazing books, comics, More...

0 comments like

Jul 01, 2011

J.A. rated it:

I wasn't sure if I'd like Kitchen. Last summer I’d read Goodbye Tsugami and hadn’t been all that impressed. Maybe Kitchen would be different? There’s a lot of hype around Yoshimoto’s writing, all about how deceptively simple her language is, but what I found was laziness. Like if I’d been her editor, I’d ask for another revision because a lot of the sentences were just too sloppy. But then I wasn’t reading Kitchen in Japanese. I wasn’t reading Kitchen at all. I was reading a translation. Was it More...

0 comments like

Jun 16, 2011

Rhea rated it:

Manusia bisa memilih diantara begitu banyak jalan. Mungkin akan lebih tepat jika dikatakan bahwa momen untuk memilih jalan itu tak ubahnya seperti menyaksikan mimpi.

Kitchen

Mikage Sakurai adalah orang yang tergila-gila akan dapur. baginya dapur tak hanya sebagai tempat mamasak, tapi dapur merepresentasikan suatu kerinduan yang mengoyak-gonyak jiwanya.

Yuichi, adalah seorang laki-laki yang tanggung, yang kurang menampakkan emosinya. Orang yang datar.
More...

0 comments like

May 16, 2011

Alison rated it:

I think that this is a really appealing book based upon the writing style the author uses. The author Yoshimoto tends to use a really sad tone to drive the reader into the book and the emotional scenes really causes me to feel depressed. Although the author uses a sad tone, she/he also tries to make the character know how to adjust to any hardships they meet in their lives. Such as the protagonist, Mikage Sakurai, her life wasn't as satisfiying as any ordinary person. She goes through the proces More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 24, 2011

Sabra rated it:

This book came highly recommended to me when I was looking for female authors versus the white male variety. I thought: what an adorable name...Banana Yoshimoto, what on earth could her one-word titled books be about which are a worldwide sensation? Lizard, Asleep, Amrita, Kitchen.

The same week I reserved Kitchen at the library, I also found it in a nearby Goodwill sifting through an elaborate fiction section on Sunset Boulevard. Two, in fact. I thought: fate is bringing this great boo More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2011

Pauline rated it:

"I had a feeling that I wasn't crying over any one sad thing, but rather for many. [...] I wished my heart would break and get it over it." Thoughts on Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow, both by Banana Yoshimoto (translated from Japanese by Megan Backus)

Banana Yoshimoto made me cry on my birthday. She made me think of my past year, and she made me think of you, too.

It wasn't my intention, really, to read Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow on the night of my birthday; in fa More...

19 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2011

Audrey rated it:

It felt really obvious to me that this was Banana Yoshimoto's first book. It seemed through the entirety as if style was being developed and ways to express ideas were being learned. And yet, it is fabulous. It's written in that unique Banana Yoshimoto style that I have grown to love over the years, with vague, simplistic ideas that always manage to contain so much more than it initially seems. And with time that passes so indistinctly that it almost feels like you're slowly floating in a bubble More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 07, 2011

Nikotopia rated it:

begitu abu-abu, sepi, sunyi yang mengasingkan. tapi akhirnya semua itu lumer. ibarat tangan gemetar karena beku yang menyalakan sebatang lilin di tengah kegelapan, hangat yang cukup. hanya cukup, karena dua hati sudah meleleh, karena bara cinta.

aku suka buku ini. enak. merasakan pengambaran dapur yang harus kita akrabi.

kalau pen
asaran baca ajah, cuma sedihnya, kemarin aku beli cetakan bukunya yang bikin pusing. karena di ending cerita,halaman cetakannya berantakan, jadi More...

0 comments like

Feb 06, 2011

David rated it:

I have to teach this book. It is weak. I don't know what to do. The writing is trite and the themes straining for meaning. I have done a good amount of work to find positive literary value in this book, including searching far and wide and ordering some books from university libraries. I even walked through deep icy snow and dodged drunk college students to visit a library to download an obscure review which, at its best, reads this work as a "parody," perhaps an unintentional one. More...

0 comments like

Oct 14, 2010

Emir rated it:

Why do we read? Surely nothing is new out there. What emotion has not been felt by you or another man or woman before you? What story has not been told and retold, in different variations and highlights? Still, countless books had been written and many more are being written around the world.

Suppose readers have this void. There, deep inside, you feel it and wonder how it came to be. You go on living of course, but you’re aware of that empty space, although you forget about it as y More...

23 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 02, 2010

Ljuneosborne rated it:

The third novel I've read for this spring's English class, and also my favorite so far. There are two different stories, the first with the theme of food, and both centering around the themes of death and love. I always like to read before I go to sleep, but each time I started one of these stories I stayed up late finishing it. Yoshimoto is a master of using casual and simple language to describe complex but universal human emotions. A reader will find themselves caught in emotion without warni More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 07, 2010

Joselito rated it:

You read a book. Your mind comprehends the plot, understands the characters, and lets itself be manipulated towards the delight and satisfaction literature brings. The mind is, however, fickle and there is no book which one can remember in every detail after the passage of a long time.

If what you've read is a great book, however, something would remain. Time cannot lose it. It is not in the mind, however, where it rests but in the soul. Great literature touches the soul. And when the More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 06, 2010

Dewi Kharisma rated it:

Menyelesaikannya dalam 5 hari. Bahkan sesungguhnya engga berniat menyelesaikannya dan ingin membuat kisahnya dalam benakku menggantung saja. Karena, apa yang bisa diharapkan dari kalimat-kalimat indah yang memiliki akhir?

Entah penulisnya atau penerjemahnya yang memiliki kosa kata indah memabukkan. Yang jelas, yup, itu terjadi dalam novel 'Kitchen' ini. Saking sukanya dengan kalimat-kalimat dalam novel ini, saya bahkan bertekad untuk mulai 'belajar memberi highlight dengan stabilo' un More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2009

Indah rated it:

Buku ini terdiri dari dua novelet: Kitchen dan Moonlight Shadow.

Tertarik beli buku ini satu, karena covernya simpel tapi cantik, kedua, karena judul dan ceritanya berkaitan sama dapur.I love kitchen!Buat saya dapur adalah tempat belajar, tempat saya bisa hilang dan larut dalam sebuah dunia tersendiri yang menantang dan mengasyikkan :-)

Kedua kisah di dalamnya intinya sama, tentang rasa sedih dan bagaimana menghadapinya. Yang paling saya suka adalah kalimat-kalimat sang " More...

0 comments like

Jun 03, 2009

Niratisaya rated it:

The reasons why I bought this book were quite silly. First, I got extra money in my pocket and then the second was some kind of feeling that saying tome, "this is a good and simple book which worth to read and collect". Luckily I was right. Although if I was wrong I still would read and keep it, though I won't touch it anymore. If you buy some food that's not delicious, you could easily throw it or let it rotten, but book is the only thing I couldn't expell from my room.
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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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