おとぎ話の忘れ物 [Otogibanashi no wasuremono]

by Yōko Ogawa, 小川 洋子, 樋上 公実子

小川洋子の極上世界がさらに官能的に響く!
忘れられたおとぎ話の中で、オオカミは腹を裂かれ、少女は行き先を見失う。画家・樋上公実子のイラストをモチーフに、作家・小川洋子が紡ぎだした残酷で可憐な物語。書き下ろし競作集。

117 pages, Tankobon Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Yōko Ogawa (小川 洋子) was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor and his Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored „An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics“ with Masahiko Fujiwara, a mathematician, as a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.

A film in French, "L'Annulaire“ (The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko and Marc Barbé, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's "Kusuriyubi no hyōhon“ (薬指の標本), translated into French as "L'Annulaire“ (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura and by Ranpo Edogawa, into French).

Kenzaburō Ōe has said, 'Yōko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.' The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the--sometimes grotesquely--humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing.

Reviews

[Yuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful book in its illustrations as well as words! The book consists of 4 sets of fairytales which were written by Yoko Ogawa, a very trusty author, based on fairytale-themed illustrations by Kumiko Higami, who's art is known for its sweet sensual girls with a touch of grotesqueness and poison. (One of her illustrations reminded me of a scene from Salome.) Just a perfect marriage of two artists' works. I first read it in the local library, but the book was too beautiful not to own one myself. So I got myself one. I think it would make a perfect gift for a non-bookish as well as bookish person.

[Emi · Rating 2 out of 5]

イラストは印象的だけど、話は普通かな。雰囲気はある。