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The Waiting Years

Fumiko Enchi,

John Bester (Translator)

3.93 · Rating details · 1,738 ratings · 185 reviews

The beautiful, immature girl whom she took home to her husband was a maid only in name. Tomo's real mission had been to find him a mistress. Nor did her secret humiliation end there. The web that his insatiable lust spun about him soon trapped another young woman, and another ... and the relationships between the women thus caught were to form, over the years, a subtle, sh ...more

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Paperback, 203 pages

Published September 13th 2002 by Kodansha (first published 1957)

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May 13, 2017 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: 500-great-books-women, japan, noma-prize

My Asian classic entry for the annual classics bingo is The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi. Considered the grand dame of Japanese literature with a life spanning most of the 20th century, The Waiting Years is Enchi's crowning achievement. The novel took her seven years to complete and won the prestigious Noma Prize in 1957. A story set in the colonial Meiji period, The Waiting Years is a tale about a man of prominence, his astute wife, and his unquenched lust for women that lands him multiple con My Asian classic entry for the annual classics bingo is The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi. Considered the grand dame of Japanese literature with a life spanning most of the 20th century, The Waiting Years is Enchi's crowning achievement. The novel took her seven years to complete and won the prestigious Noma Prize in 1957. A story set in the colonial Meiji period, The Waiting Years is a tale about a man of prominence, his astute wife, and his unquenched lust for women that lands him multiple concubines. Deserving of this honor, The Waiting Years is indeed an Asian classic that should not be overlooked.

Yukitomo Shirikawa has risen in the political ranks over the course of his career. His position takes him all over Japan, and he desires women at each stop. Unable to control his urges, his political advisors suggest that he take a concubine. Married to Tomo, an extremely intelligent woman, for fifteen years, Yukitomo asks her to journey to Tokyo to find such an unspoiled girl for his conquests. Tomo selects fifteen year old Suga, who comes from a struggling family who can no longer afford to feed her. Suga becomes a personal assistant to Yukitomo as well as friend to their daughter Etsuko. A sweet girl, Tomo takes Suga under her wing, yet internally she harbors jealousies that last for the rest of her life.

Shirikawa does not stop with Suga. A few years later he brings a second concubine named Yumi into the house. Tomo has selected her as well to ensure that the girl has high character. Rather than becoming rivals, Suga and Yumi become the best of friends, like sisters from another life. This friendship lasts until the marriage of the Shirikawa's mentally disabled son named Michimasa. From the outset of this marriage, Shirikawa has his eye on his new daughter in law named Miya. His son being pea brained, Shirikawa is able to satisfy this conquest as well, and Tomo works swiftly to move the new couple and their growing family out of the house. The two concubines remain, however, and after years of marriage, Tomo and Yukitomo remain husband and wife in name only.

As the twentieth century moves past the First World War, the Japanese government begins to change. Colonial agents hand picked by their cronies make way for a National Assembly voted on by the people. Shirikawa realizes these changes are at hand and retires from political life to a large estate on the outskirts of Tokyo. His political career may have ended but not his lust for women. As a result he desires younger and younger women, young enough to be his daughter or even grand daughter, as he moves toward the twilight of his life. Tomo continues to run the home, concubines included, and does not speak ill will of her husband.

In the 1950s as Japan was still recovering from World War Two, Fumiko Enchi wrote a feminist take on colonialism in her country. While a man of prominence could take on concubines with no stain on his character, a woman had to remain legally married to him and live under the same roof as the said concubines. Having an affair of her own was unheard of an considered illicit and crude, even if her own needs were unmet by her husband and her feelings hurt beyond repair. Enchi also brings to light the fact that men brought concubines into service before they came of age, damaging their bodies, making it impossible for them to have children. Yet, unfortunately, this had been the norm for centuries in Japan. The country's modernity eventually brought the practice to an end.

Enchi's novel has earned inclusion in the book 500 Great Books by Women by Erica Bauermeister. The Waiting Years is worthy of inclusion as it features a strong female protagonist in Tomo, and brings to light the treatment of concubines and the place of women in a marriage in colonial Japan. I thought that Enchi has created memorable characters and spun an intricate web of emotions as the four main women fight for Yukitomo's attention and affections. I enjoyed The Waiting Years as a story and most likely would have read it even if did not check off a box in various challenges. A novel bringing outdated practices and human emotions to light, I rate The Waiting Years 4.5 quality stars. ...more

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Dec 18, 2016 Jim Fonseca rated it really liked it

The author was a Grand Dame of Japanese literature (1905-1986). Although this book was published in 1957 it’s set at the end of the Meiji period in the very late 1800’s, still the horse and carriage era.

The main theme is the absolute domination by males in the patriarchal society of the time. When the story opens the patriarch is 40-ish; his wife is in her 30’s. He’s a high-level police administrator in a time of anti-republican sentiment. He’s cruel, aloof, self-centered and corrupt.

He’s tire The author was a Grand Dame of Japanese literature (1905-1986). Although this book was published in 1957 it’s set at the end of the Meiji period in the very late 1800’s, still the horse and carriage era.

The main theme is the absolute domination by males in the patriarchal society of the time. When the story opens the patriarch is 40-ish; his wife is in her 30’s. He’s a high-level police administrator in a time of anti-republican sentiment. He’s cruel, aloof, self-centered and corrupt.

He’s tired of just having the maids on the side, so he sends his wife on a several month-long journey to Tokyo to find a concubine for him. She has no choice but to do his bidding. After interviewing many young women and negotiating with their families, she finds the perfect young woman – 15 years old. All works well for a while, so well that, without even consulting with her or even telling his wife (she learns through gossip) he adopts her as a formal daughter. (They have a biological daughter and a mentally deficient son.) Then he tires of her and wants another one. And then, horror of horrors, it gets worse. (view spoiler)

After the first concubine is introduced into the household, the woman and her husband have no relations and not even any conversation other than talk about the household and budget. She starts to fight insanity by becoming the perfect “Stepford” wife. She lives with overwhelming anxiety and even terror that the neighbors and the town will learn of everything that is going on in the household. Her children’s lives will be ruined as well if that happens.

description

She also feels responsible to these young women she has engaged into service for her husband. When he tires of them, she tries to find them husbands even though they are “damaged goods.” The culture is so male-dominated, that when she becomes ill and wants to see a specialized doctor, she has to ask her daughter to talk to her husband (the woman’s son-in-law) to get him to ask permission of her husband. Good guy that he is, the head-of-household graciously agrees to let her see the doctor.

The “waiting years” comes to mean her whole life: waiting for him to die so she can be released from the anxiety and the fear of the damage he continues to cause. And, of course, there’s a twist at the end. A good story with a lot of local color and Japanese cultural customs of the time.
...more

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Aug 11, 2014 Praj rated it really liked it

Shelves: にほん, blue-lotuses

Not a single strand of hair loosened from the perfect coiffure, a fulsome smile tripping from the corners of her mouth putting a Noh mask to shame, confident in her posture, her heart being swept by violent sea of excruciating conflicts; there she sat gazing into the naivety of a girl-child untouched by the menstrual years. The woman in her fluttering between agony and envy, empathetic towards the fate of an adolescent girl whereas the wife in her scrupulously astute in the ongoing task, a “dist ...more

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Aug 23, 2014 Cheryl rated it really liked it

Recommended to Cheryl by: Praj

Shelves: global-intrigue, asia, fiction, women-and-books, fav-authors

"The strength that was a fraction greater than his own made him feel ill at ease in her presence."

The quiet, abiding strength that a woman unknowingly (sometimes knowingly) possesses, a force that rests upon the floor of her instincts and lives within the crevice of her subconscious; a force sometimes never uncovered from the hidden spaces of her conscious, because it adheres to the lies of the community around her. It is the kind of strength that instills within her a calmness that jolts; t
"The strength that was a fraction greater than his own made him feel ill at ease in her presence."

The quiet, abiding strength that a woman unknowingly (sometimes knowingly) possesses, a force that rests upon the floor of her instincts and lives within the crevice of her subconscious; a force sometimes never uncovered from the hidden spaces of her conscious, because it adheres to the lies of the community around her. It is the kind of strength that instills within her a calmness that jolts; the strength that has kept mothers, grandmothers, and daughters sane during slavery, wars (I'm remembering A Woman In Berlin as I write this), poverty, death, divorce, racial tensions, and more; it is the strength that causes a patriarchal mindset to cringe at the term, "women's rights."

Privately, he was wondering with disgust, just what part of the provinces had produced the kind of man who would have his legal wife search for a concubine for him. It confirmed his dislike for provincials in general, yet as he sat facing Tomo he sensed something in her manner that seemed somehow to match the pride in tradition still surviving in himself, something that was neither proud nor ingratiating, that was not in the slightest out of the ordinary yet suggested an old-fashioned formality that could not be sneered at or made fun of.

The gall of Yukitomo Shirakawa, Tomo's husband, is intrinsic of his society, the feared-and-revered bunch of government officials of the prefecture Fukushima. He is an official tasked with disarming the local civil rights movement, you know, those misfits who dare topple power because they care about that basic thing called humanity (in fact, he wears the ideology of quite a few officials we've read about around the world). He runs his household as he does his province, like a coward whose shield is the number of women, fine clothes, and jewelry he procures, whose authority is measured by how inhumane he treats the people around me.

Next to this kind of man, you'll sometimes find the woman of the quiet strength. She stands beside him at the podium, while he gives the "I apologize if I've shamed my family" speech. She stands next to him, a shadowed beauty, as of cherry blossoms on a cloudy day, even after he's punched and dragged her through an elevator on national TV. Maybe like Tomo, she's thinking, she must not let this thing that threatened to engulf her whole existence become a threat to her daughter as well. But it always does. And what of the psychological threat to the son?

To the people around her, Tomo's thoughts are ineffectual, her words almost nonexistent, but her strength reigns as mistress of a house that shelters three of her husband's lovers, one of them her own daughter-in-law. Enchi gave me a pathway into psychology through potent drama, through terse prose neatly handcrafted. I didn't like this as much as I did Masks, because here I sensed a writer struggling to taper the motive (for lack of a better word) lurking behind her words, hence it misses the lyrical subtleties and layered nuance of Masks, but the discussion and dissection of cultural attitude is one of discerning awareness that captivates. ...more

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Mar 27, 2020 Jr Bacdayan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Torn between her inviolable sense of duty as a wife and her intense passion as a lover, we meet the heroine of this tale, Tomo, during her quest to find a worthy concubine for her husband. From here we meet different women cast together by fate to become bound to one man and his sexual whims. A man who is able to do so because of his position, influence, and wealth. But this book is not a depiction of his strength. This is a testament to all the women who endured despite him, and a great woman w ...more

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Jul 27, 2014 Aubrey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reality-check, japanese, translated, person-of-reality, person-of-translated, person-of-reality-translated, antidote-translated, person-of-everything, r-2015, antidote-think-twice-read

4.5/5

She felt like laughing at Michimasa and the other husband, Iwamoto–laughing with the utterly cold and beautiful laugh of the harpy who rips open the bellies of pregnant women...

It is peculiar, how one is expected to react to the codifications of lust. The age of consent in the US may no longer be seven, as it was around the time Tomo was growing through her prime, but the tenterhooks upon which the sexual impulses of young females are put are still a marvel to behold. Of course, Japan is a very different place with its geishas and its samurai and its concubines, but I have no interest in mystifying myself with conjectures of a world I've never known. Those who've grown to expect a further fetish along the lines of Memoirs of a Geisha would be much better off breaking themselves on Enchi and her lot. My piddling thoughts are no match for her insight of knives.

"Jailbait", "got herself pregnant", "frigid", some of these used, some of these implied, and some of these a modern inheritance, all transmuting penises into a sensory organ of paramount sociocultural weight. It amazes me, how people take these for granted with one hand while shunning the form of pedophilia with the other. It's as if the molding of the young and susceptible into creatures of receptive, docile, idealistic flexibility can only be denigrated under certain names, certain crimes, certain temperaments. The problem is that, under the right circumstances of keeping them proud, ignorant, and sexually chained, the young will rise to the challenge. They will grow in as desecrated a soil as provided and inflict their nightmares beyond the reach of any physical succor. For those unfamiliar with The Tale of Genji, here's another way of putting it: when one is young and coupled to an older partner and the only thing with more appeal than fucking said partner is beating the living shit out of them, things get complicated. Add in a dash of first priority self-control, a tad of socially encouraged gynephobia, a hint of the mythos of a vengeful afterlife, and you're good to go.

...boundless pity as for a charming animal that was about to be led to the slaughter, and fixed hatred at the thought that eventually this innocent girl might turn into a devil...

The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book is "sexy" cause, really, this book has a lot going for it with all the appealing descriptions of youth and lust and absolute power. Just goes to show how much of the male gaze I've yet to burn.

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?

...more

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Feb 25, 2015 Paula rated it really liked it

Shelves: cultural, award-winner, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, read-in-2015, 2015-year-reading-women

The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi brings an in-depth look at the lives of four women in a male-dominated Japanese society. Originally published in 1957, this is a beautifully written story of Tomo, Suga, Yumi, and Miya. With heart-wrenching prose, we experience their loneliness and struggles through their long waiting years.

Fumiko Enchi has a simple style of writing and develops her characters in a subtle lovely way. This is not a book to be rushed through. The novel starts out slow but progres ...more

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Mar 13, 2015 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical, modern-classics, read-in-translation, through-the-generations

What this slim volume lacks in pages it makes up in power & beautiful, careful writing. There is not a word wasted. In one case, too much so as I found the introduction of their son into the story quite jarring.

I originally thought that husband Yukitomo was as much a victim of late 19th century customs as the unfortunate women who he controls, but now I think he was just a self centred, not very bright jerk, who never realised what a treasure he had in his wife, Tomo.

I've thought about what I kn ...more

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Jun 26, 2016 Evan rated it liked it

Shelves: _lfpl-library, 2016-reads, japonais, age-gap, men-behaving-badly, womyns-herstory, _less-than-200-pages, yearning

Life is one long wait. A series of goals and milestones reached -- large and small --with a lot of waiting in between. And then there's that larger feeling of "waiting," the overriding one that spans all those events -- that vague and hard-to-pinpoint nagging sense of dissatisfaction that most humans carry from cradle to grave. The one that is famously characterized by the song phrase: "Is that all there is?"

In Fumiko Enchi's 1957 novel, The Waiting Years, it's not plainly clear what is being wa ...more

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Jul 27, 2015 Dioni (Bookie Mee) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recent-favorites, 500-great-books-by-women

First published at: http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2016/01/...

Continuing my Japanese book strikes, my first book of 2016 is The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi. I read this together with the Japanese Literature book group. It won the most votes out of the 5 books I proposed, and coincidentally it was probably the one I wanted to read the most, so it worked out nicely :).

Just a couple of dozens pages in, I was already surprised how quickly the plot was laid out. Somehow I was expecting it to be a slo First published at: http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2016/01/...

Continuing my Japanese book strikes, my first book of 2016 is The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi. I read this together with the Japanese Literature book group. It won the most votes out of the 5 books I proposed, and coincidentally it was probably the one I wanted to read the most, so it worked out nicely :).

Just a couple of dozens pages in, I was already surprised how quickly the plot was laid out. Somehow I was expecting it to be a slow read. The book is set in the early Meiji Era (1868-1912). It starts with Tomo - wife of a high Japanese official - looking for a young girl to be brought home. For what purpose, it was clear to the reader: to be a second woman, or a concubine, but it was never said out loud among the characters. Unlike some other cultures, there was not an official concubine role in this society, as the man does not marry the girl. And I mean it when I said "girl", because they were looking for a 15 year-old, inexperienced girl. The fact that the girl is underage made a very uncomfortable read to my modern eyes, probably more than any other issues that appear throughout the book.

The book kept surprising me throughout. I anticipated it to concentrate on catty rivalries between Tomo and the new girl, Suga, in the style of Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale (which I have not read, so I may be totally off, however Wikipedia mentions that Nagai Kafu was in young Enchi's reading list). But it's not. There would be more women coming into the house later on, but all the female characters get along with each other, for the most parts. How they behave felt very realistic, and to me showed how women behave in real life more than TV dramas. Hint: I'm not a fan of Asian TV dramas. I don't like how in them people behave in such outrageous, outlandish, exaggerated manners.

In this book, the women are dignified and logical in handling what life gives them. I loved that we get very close into the heads of the women, offering insights that I never felt I got when I read the other big name Japanese authors - who happen to be mostly male. As far as I remember, the female characters in books written by Kawabata, Tanizaki, Soseki, Kobo Abe, or Mishima even, are all very distant and aloof, and we never really get into their heads. It's hard to see them pass their outwardly submissive demeanour.

In the Waiting Years, though the women may still look to be submissive, there's a lot of internal conflicts and struggles, and there's anger that bubbles up in the characters, which is obviously Enchi's own feminist views of the system. And that brought me to conclude, that this book I think could only be written by a woman, and I'm thankful Fumiko Enchi gave voices to these women and made them real. It's an interesting portrait of Japanese culture at a particular time from a point of view that we rarely get.

I was wavering between 4.5 and 5 stars, but the ending pushed it over the edge. It's incredibly powerful, and so sad that I shed some tears.

During the reading, I coincidentally found a beautiful second hand copy of Masks - another popular book by Enchi, which I look forward to reading sometime. Finally, a favorite Japanese female author! (I really don't like Banana Yoshimoto. I couldn't stand her books.)
...more

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Mar 11, 2018 Ray rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

An interesting book, different to my normal read.

The main character is Tomo, the wife of a mid ranking official. The setting is Japan in the early part of the 20th century. A time of rapid change.

Married at 14 and a mother by the age of 15, Tomo is the head of the household whilst her civil servant husband rises through government ranks. He philanders his way through the housemaids, and then decides that a concubine would be fitting for a man of his standing. So he sends his dutiful wife off t ...more

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May 23, 2020 Sana Abdulla rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I finally found and read this novel, it isn't quite a 5 star read but from my reading experience of Japanese literature it is a coherent straight forward narrative, with a controlled feminist outrage.
The story of Tomo, a stoic dutiful wife taking the bucketful of infidelities of her strong willed husband with couth acceptance and keeping her resentment tightly reigned, she is a force to be reckoned with and a character of extreme dignity. She is in fact the orbit of the well maintained household ...more

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May 11, 2017 Zanna rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015year-reading-women, 500gbw, bechdel-pass

It was strangely difficult to get hold of this book – I preordered a new edition almost two years in advance but finally received a refund, for it fell through somewhere, and finally got hold of a very battered second hand copy with pages dropping out of it. Tides flow in and out and I sometimes try to be patient and read something else when the book I’m pursuing is at an ebb – other times I chase all the harder fearing the object of my desire may slip entirely beyond my grasp if I hesitate. I h It was strangely difficult to get hold of this book – I preordered a new edition almost two years in advance but finally received a refund, for it fell through somewhere, and finally got hold of a very battered second hand copy with pages dropping out of it. Tides flow in and out and I sometimes try to be patient and read something else when the book I’m pursuing is at an ebb – other times I chase all the harder fearing the object of my desire may slip entirely beyond my grasp if I hesitate. I hope this book remains available and becomes more so; it’s really very good. And although I don’t have the requisite experience to judge its veracity, it’s one of those works that seems to capture the spirit of a time period in the fineness of grain only possible in proximity.

The novel centres on Tomo, the wife of a wealthy, ruthless, promiscuous man. Tomo serves her husbands wishes and interests and manages his affairs to the utmost of her ability, all the while fully conscious of the unfair and unjust patriarchal system that compels her to subsume her own emotions and betray other women to protect herself, her family, the social order. Her submission might make her sound weak and passive, but nothing could be further from the truth; she is a person of immense strength of character and extraordinary self-discipline. She is highly perceptive and sensitive to the needs and feelings of others, and she deals ably with the affairs of the household and estates even though her literacy is limited. She seems to work much harder than her husband and he is disturbed by the awareness that she is the stronger of the two.

Equally, Tomo’s self-control might be (and often is, by other characters) perceived as coldness, heartlessness, but again and again we are told that she feels compassion, guilt, fierce love, blazing desire. There is nothing wrong with Tomo’s heart; just as the rest of her is healthy and whole. She embodies the cruelty of her husband and society because of her talent and commitment, not because of anything lacking in her.

The density and precision of visual description in the novel creates, I feel, a certain detachment, as if the whole action were staged and observed from outside. The visual, always meticulously sketched, sometimes defines, sometimes overshadows the action with a layer of experience that is always fresh and crisp, the ephemeral suggesting the perennial or eternal.

Tomo’s engagement with Buddhism provides her with a way to understand her feelings of confinement, of being trapped, as being bound to the wheel of death and rebirth, from which the enlightened or virtuous may gain freedom. That worldly things like family ties and desire for love bind us more tightly to the wheel is an idea Tomo explicitly reflects on when she looks pityingly at Suga’s empty lap when other young women are playing with their babies. Yet her experience suggests that without the freedom to pursue such ends, it’s not possible to become free of desire for them. In her case, only by experiencing them, working for them and wearying of them does Tomo reach an attitude approaching renunciation; she arrives at it through suffering. There must be better ways through this whirling world…

A last point – Shirakawa Yukitomo represents the old order ruthlessly trying to preserve itself. His political enemies are the “Liberal Party”. But those men are no allies of the women Shirakawa oppresses. When they look at them, the Party men sneer at Shirakawa for keeping “tarts like that” in luxury. Like the male-dominated left everywhere and everywhen, they’re serving the same old patriarchy in new bottles. ...more

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Jun 08, 2017 Louise rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, japan-fic-lit

Written in 1957 – a mere 12 years after the devastation of Tokyo - Fumiko Enchi takes you back to the Meiji era. We are introduced to the household of a government (police) official. His work is not covered, but in the course of this novel he rises and feathers his nest such that when parliamentary reforms take place (i.e. via the liberals he has wanted to jail) Yukitomo Shirikawa has a comfortable retirement.

The work spans perhaps 40 years showing the experience of Tomo Shirikawai, the perfect Written in 1957 – a mere 12 years after the devastation of Tokyo - Fumiko Enchi takes you back to the Meiji era. We are introduced to the household of a government (police) official. His work is not covered, but in the course of this novel he rises and feathers his nest such that when parliamentary reforms take place (i.e. via the liberals he has wanted to jail) Yukitomo Shirikawa has a comfortable retirement.

The work spans perhaps 40 years showing the experience of Tomo Shirikawai, the perfect wife for this authoritarian politician and husband. She surrenders all to keep the family name repected. This involves, having children, managing a household and finding “acceptable assistance” for her husband. Yulitomo wields full power in this household, and Tomo has no recourse but to keep her head down and comply.

I presume this is a realistic portrayal of upper class life in the Meiji era, but it is more importantly a character study of a woman who despite her achievements, has sacrificed her self. You learn of her simple origins. You see her put her emotions aside as she perfectly performs her most morally compromising assignment: finding the perfect “comfort” for her husband.

Tomo accepts this position in this cold and thankless environment. In denying her emotions, she essentially denies herself honest relationships with everyone around her. She is cool to her daughter; the young teens who have her husband’s eye; her son whose upbringing is farmed out; her favorite grandson whom she wants to protect from the family secrets; and of course, her husband to whom she cannot directly speak.

This book is slow. It is steady. Each scene is important to showing the reader the situation and how over the years life evolved for women such as Tomo. It shows how authoritarian personalities can deny and ignore the feelings and contributions of those around them to get what they want. When the culture and the laws are on their side, those without choice are sacrificed. The concept is universal. This material can be adapted to show family life in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, pre-bellum US plantations and anywhere where a group is socially (and if follows that they will also be lawfully) unable to make basic life choices.

What was Tomo waiting for? The sad end of the book tells you. ...more

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Feb 06, 2014 Steph rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-college-class, place-japan, lost-in-translation, 500-women, first-read-in-2014, historical-fic, read-repeatedly-and-know-intimately, poc-characters, poc-author, feminist-themes

I love the The Waiting Years for its subtly creepy, haunting feel and its simple writing style. My heart went out to every woman in the story.

Read it slowly, and then maybe flip through it again. This is a book that should be savored.

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Jun 30, 2015 ☯Emily rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2015, 20th-century-classics, foreign-fiction

Tomo is a wife of a philanderer who has great power in the beginning of the novel. He asks his wife to find him a concubine which is shocking to those who knew of this request. Tomo is hurt that her husband needs another woman, but is glad she can have input into the type of woman she will introduce to her household. This is a sample of the type of decisions she must make for the next 30-40 years. She learns to hold in her emotions as she watches her husband take on a second concubine and a mist ...more

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Aug 16, 2020 Anima rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

‘Fumiko Enchi has worked on Onnazaka for eight years, which has been translated to English under the title of The Waiting Years. The novelist-critic Takami Jun describes it as “a rare jewel among masterpieces of modern literature”.

The novel reveals how the family system of Meiji Japan (1868-1912) leads to an exploitation of the women and treats various problems which the protagonist Tomo Shirakawa faces. The role of the concubines provides a profound double structure. The novel is a fictional tr ...more

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Jan 04, 2021 Vishy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have wanted to read Fumiko Enchi's 'The Waiting Years' ever since I discovered it last year. I finally got around to reading it today.

Tomo is the wife of a powerful government official. One day her husband tells her that he wants a concubine and asks Tomo to find the right woman who will play that role and who will fit into the household, as Tomo knows her husband and her household best. It is a difficult and painful thing for Tomo, but she does what her husband asks. What happens after that a ...more

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Jul 23, 2020 Laurie rated it liked it

Shelves: translated, 2020, 20th-century-classics

What could be more shocking to most wives than their husband requesting that she pick out a mistress for him who will come live with them. And she fulfills the request because if she doesn't, he will pick one out who might be less agreeable to live with from her perspective. Tomo Shirakawa is a tough, long-suffering wife to a wealthy and powerful man. It is humiliating for her to bring home a mistress for him and to watch subsequent mistresses come into their home.

I'm not a person to admire a w ...more

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Dec 31, 2020 Diana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-literature, family-saga

The Waiting Years [1957] by Fumiko Enchi - ★★★★★

I liked The Waiting Years much more than Masks [1958] by the same author. The Waiting Years is a powerful novel by a female author that tells of Mrs. Shirakawa who is forced to seek a maid or rather a young concubine for her husband. Mrs. Shirakawa finally finds strikingly beautiful and innocent girl Suga who is about to be "sacrificed for the sake of her family's fortunes" [Fumiko Enchi, 1957: 34]. After Suga, another girl follows to please the in ...more

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Feb 22, 2010 Veronika KaoruSaionji rated it it was amazing

Rather depresive and very sad, but strong and very beautiful. Fom first issue in 1957 remains till today very popular novel in Japan. From female author.
Historical novel (from end of 19. century) mainly about two heroines. Tomo is beautiful young woman from poor but noble (samurai) family, wife of wealthy and succesful young and handsome Japanese nobleman (samurai, but of much better origin than her) whom she loves and who married her in her age of 14. Now she is 30 and she has two children, old Rather depresive and very sad, but strong and very beautiful. Fom first issue in 1957 remains till today very popular novel in Japan. From female author.
Historical novel (from end of 19. century) mainly about two heroines. Tomo is beautiful young woman from poor but noble (samurai) family, wife of wealthy and succesful young and handsome Japanese nobleman (samurai, but of much better origin than her) whom she loves and who married her in her age of 14. Now she is 30 and she has two children, older son, his heir, and beloved little girl. She seems to be very happy. But he doesn´t loves her anymore and he asks her to secretly find for him young virgin as his concubine. She is desperate but she was raised in "old school" -´Husband will is law for his (samurai) wife´. And she still loves him and they have two childern... Also she finds Suga, 15 years old, innocent and sweet girl from good (not noble, merchant´s origin)but poor family with many debts. She would be sold as prostitute and statute of concubine is better for her, but she doesn´t know nothing about it, only that ´she must serve to certain nobleman because honor a prosperity of her family´. And Tomo takes Suga with her a and swears to herself that she would always defend Suga and take care for her. Poor Suga, horrified but still obedient, must later sleep with her master. Tomo suffers on jealousy toward Suga, but feels pitty toward her, too. And Suga beginns to love her master and suffers jealousy and hateres toward Tomo, but feels pitty for her, too. Wife and concumine unde one roof, they both suffers very much. But this is not all: when is Suga 18 and not little girl anymore, the nobleman takes in family another girl (16 years old, but very small and fragile, she looks as child) from samurai poor family, rapes her and takes her as another concubine(and he pays a huge sum of money her family for it -money was law in these times and poor female victim was gladly sold by her relatives). But she is not too obedient and she saves herself later because it - she is married by her master to his neffe, poor young noble, and she has her own happy family. But Tomo and Suga still suffers in husband/master house. Than the nobleman seduces Miya, bride of his son (which was secretly platonic lesbian love of sad abandoned and unsatisfied Tomo, too - she forbids herself strictly from love to another man, because she has husband, but some woman would be not such case, not her infidelity toward her husband :o)). He falls in lifetime love with Miya and remains in it till her death (but he still sleeps with Suga, too), while (alone) Tomo terrible fears that her son finds it... She suffers till her death in old age and on her deathbed she does her first attemt to defy her husband which angries him very much.
Very cruel but impresive image of old noble (samurai) Japanese family in end of 19. century. ...more

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Jul 09, 2011 Heidi Parton rated it it was amazing

This is a beautiful, haunting novel that addresses the problems of patriarchy in traditional Japanese society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As with Enchi's Masks, the novel starts out a little slow (which is something I've come to appreciate in fiction), but begins to pick up after five or ten pages--not in terms of plot, necessarily, but in character complexity and a dark, slow-sinking sense of foreboding. A lot of the novel's tension comes from the juxtaposition of surface "normal ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Christian rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-english, bookclub

The story of an upper-class family in early Meiji era and its many torments. The plot moves at a blazing pace, covering around 40-50 years in roughly 200 pages. It nonetheless has many characters and they are all well-developed and changing as time goes by.

However I'll admit I didn't really like it. I think the main reason for that is that Enchi focuses on nothing but the negative. It's not that I don't like sad stories, but it lacks contrast. The only positive scene I remember is when the conc ...more

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Aug 27, 2020 Jay Moran rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

As she watched Suga, with the cool skin that harboured an inner light like newly fallen snow and the dewy eyes that were also wide open yet had a misleading troubled look, Tomo would experience two unbidden and conflicting emotions: boundless pity as for a charming animal that was about to be led to the slaughter, and fixed hatred at the thought that eventually this innocent girl might turn into a devil that would devour her husband and sweep unchecked through the whole house.

Despite being short As she watched Suga, with the cool skin that harboured an inner light like newly fallen snow and the dewy eyes that were also wide open yet had a misleading troubled look, Tomo would experience two unbidden and conflicting emotions: boundless pity as for a charming animal that was about to be led to the slaughter, and fixed hatred at the thought that eventually this innocent girl might turn into a devil that would devour her husband and sweep unchecked through the whole house.

Despite being short in length, the best word I can use to describe this book is dense and that is in no way intended to be negative. The Waiting Years is thick with important, complex themes and subjects, and reading it is like working your way through a small forest that is cluttered with trees that bend and twist up together.

The premise is simple - in late 19th century Japan, Yukitomo Shirakawa asks his wife, Tomo, to select a concubine for him, preferably very young and untouched. She finds a young girl named Suga and brings her home to live under her roof and share her husband's bed. We follow this family over the years as the women grow up and how the dynamics change, within the household as well as in Japan as a country.

Tomo is acutely aware of her position as a woman and the subservience that is expected of her, and Enchi does a marvellous job of communicating all of this information in such a short space of time, and all without sacrificing the depth of her characters. She doesn't rush to paint them good or bad, right or wrong, nor does she make them flat and easily palatable. The young girl taken into the Shirakawa's home is Suga, a fifteen-year-old who is sold by her own parents to become Shirakawa's sexual companion, in spite of him being two decades her senior. She isn't doused in innocent colours by Enchi - she is a victim but that's not all she is. She has agency, she has personality, and she isn't voiceless, which added further complexity to this novel as we feel for both Suga and Tomo even though they are both inflicting pain upon the other. Tomo selected Suga, brought her into her home for her husband, therefore she is also guilty of altering the girl's future, and Suga poses a threat to the older woman as she could potentially unseat her from her position within the house. As time wears on, Suga's situation becomes all the more tragic as we see her as a thirty-year-old woman who has no experience outside of the Shirakawa household and who would struggle to adapt to the outside world if she ever left, and that is truly devastating.

The Waiting Years is a quiet book that continues to unfurl and reveal itself to you long after you read the final pages. It's a beautifully written novel that examines morals on a personal and societal level, and how we must carry the weight of our decisions and actions for the rest of our lives. ...more

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May 18, 2015 Raven Haired Girl added it

Shelves: 2015

A dissection of a marriage once filled with love slowly spiraling to loathing. Tomo, a traditional dutiful Japanese wife, faces her husband’s request in accordance with traditional and culture. Tomo a woman respectfully abides tradition, honors her husband with great grace and poise. Intelligence is on Tomo’s side as she ultimately prevails in the end.

Exquisitely written, impeccably detailed Tomo’s story is revealed slowly stirring the reader with affection. A close examination of the unjustness ...more

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Jul 27, 2015 Alexa rated it really liked it

Shelves: summer-15, fab-15

This tale is told in a stark, simplistic, matter-of-fact, almost distanced manner that underlines “a certain formality of speech and manner,” “a certain remoteness” in its protagonist. It is a heartbreaking tale of interpersonal and societal tragedy, powerful in its air of unrelieved gloom.

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Feb 18, 2012 Elizabeth Reuter rated it really liked it

Books like this are hard to review. I can't say I enjoyed it when reading it was so painful. Then again, it's beautifully written and I'll never forget it.

The Waiting Years is a story about how harmful and ridiculous patriarchy is. Good wife Tomo is driven to an early grave by the agonies placed upon her, but that's what a good wife does, so oh well; husband Yukitomo takes his superiority for granted and never thinks to question it, even as his lechery and cruelty grow out of societal bounds, an ...more

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May 04, 2012 Mandy Tanksley rated it liked it

Shelves: asian-asian-inspired-books

Fumiko Enchi's tale of a dutiful wife sent over the years to find her replacements a beautifully written and heart-wrenching one. Tomo's husband sends her to retrieve a him a new "maid." Tomo understands that will not be the girl's true duty for she will become his mistress and she won't be the only one. Tomo watches as each new girl comes into her home and takes away a part of her life. As the husband and wife grow further apart, it becomes a tragic tale of a wife scorned. Tomo can no longer st ...more

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Jan 13, 2011 Dwenig58 rated it really liked it

This was an fascinating perspective on the intertwined lives of several women in one household in the early Meiji period. Focusing on a wife/mother, two concubines, servants, daughter we see that Enchi weaves a tale that quiet powerfully reflects the women and their roles in a patriarchal society -- which were quiet defined and constrained. At times appalling to the modern reader, one has to take into consideration the fact that this is a novel reflecting a time past but also leads you to wonder ...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Lesley rated it really liked it

1 May 2015

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About Fumiko Enchi

Fumiko Enchi

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See author 円地文子.

Fumiko Enchi was the pen name of the late Japanese Shōwa period playwright and novelist Fumiko Ueda.

The daughter of a linguist, Fumiko learned a lot about French, English, Japanese and Chinese literature through private tutorage.

Fumiko suffered from poor health as a child and spent most of her time at home. She was introduced to literature by her grandmother, who showed her to the ...more

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なまみこ物語 ; 源氏物語私見 [Namamiko Monogatari; Genji Monogatari Shiken]

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“Happiness--a small-scale, endearing, harmonious happiness--surely dwelt here beneath the low-powered lamps in the tiny rooms of these houses. A small-scale happiness and a modest harmony: let a man cry out, let him rage, let him howl with grief with all the power of which he was capable, what more than these could he ever hope to gain in this life?” — 19 likes

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