Translucent Tree

by Nobuko Takagi, Deborah Iwabuchi (Translator)

Chigiri Yamazaki is a divorced single mother who has returned to Tsurugi City with her 11 year old daughter to care for her ailing father--a famouse sword maker whose business has completely faltered. It falls upon Chigiri to keep dept collectors at bay.

Go Imai, a freelance documentary maker, is on a business trip from Tokyo and has decided to stop by this little town of Tsurugi, where he had come to do a story on Chigiri's father 25 years ago. Go reunites with Chigiri, and the two begin a love story of epic consequence and passion reminiscent of the works of Marguerite Duras and Alice Munro, set against the backdrop of bucolic Japan.

Genres: Fiction, Japanese Literature, Japan

188 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Tenma · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is superbly written. It flows at a good pace and is charged with deep emotions. The reason I gave it only two stars is because to me "Translucent Tree" is more of an erotic novel than a romantic one. Nobuko Takagi seems to equate platonic love between a man and a woman to lust, carnal desires, and explosive sex, which I found vulgar. This novel is reminiscent of Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood", albeit with more mature and older characters. If you read NW and found its eroticism appealing, then you will probably like this one.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5-3. Much more sexually explicit than I’m used to seeing in Japanese literary fiction. Beautiful at times, trite at others.

[Courtney Reed · Rating 2 out of 5]

In general, the English version of this text is well translated, and is a fast and interesting read.

While I did become interested in the plot, I didn't have much attachment to the characters. Both Go and Chigiri seem to be fairly cookie-cutter as far as protagonists go: divorced single mother, taking care of her aging father with nothing else to really define her as an individual meets married business man with a horrible lifestyle and little connection to his family. While they both seem to discover an innocence through their romance and "learn to love again," it just seemed a little too cliche to mean much, as a reader.

While the plot is beautifully written, we find our protagonist pair as dull in comparison. I'm not certain if the sexual details needed to be discussed as much as they were. The relationship was focused around the sexual turning into love, but the elaboration wasn't critically necessary. If anything, perhaps it was used as a device to get readers to continue reading or become attached to the characters, but this may be alienating to some readers when overdone. It's not essential to the exposition and the end story.

And, of course, someone dies. There wasn't much other direction to take, granted, but it really added to how cliche a lot of this seemed. I was more attached to Go because of his personal realizations about his life and his understanding of love, and I was a bit disappointed, but I didn't foresee any other ending when I started this book.

Overall, I didn't mind reading it. It only took me a few hours to finish and kept my attention through its plot and simple narration. It did not have much to distinguish it from other works, however.

Perhaps there is some beauty in the idea that we, as humans, all experience and relate to love similarly enough to reproduce this story time and time again.

[Louise Chambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this. I might later. The relationship just seemed so typically male/female that it made me impatient.

[Amy ☁️ (tinycl0ud) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story about second chances and finding love again later in life. The main character, Chigiri, is a divorcee with a young daughter. When she was described as being at the “peak of womanhood” at age 42, I felt very heartened HAHA. She's stuck taking care of her ailing father while running out of money. Just then, an old acquaintance, Go, returns to her village.

Upon their first reunion, he finds her "youthful and innocent" with "a seductive nature that struck him as vaguely dangerous." Go focuses on "her slim waist, the soft flesh of her back . . . the firm muscles of her backside . . . the ripe curves of her thighs and legs." When she gives orders, he feels like he is getting hit with "a silken whip." Hmmmmm very interesting. The looking goes both way by the way. Both of them end up completely shaken up by the short afternoon spent together. I guess middle-aged people can have passionate romances too.

There's a lot of back and forth, both parties wishing they could reach out to ask for more but holding back for the sake of propriety or insecurity. To justify their relationship, Go gives Chigiri money for hospital bills. They're just too shy to admit they're in love even though they talk on the phone for ages, write smutty love letters, and think about each other all the time. I thought it was going to be happy romance novel BUT since the characters are not young and healthy teenagers, I guess it wasn't in the cards for them.

Two years after their affair starts, Go finds out that he is terminally ill. Then he dies and Chigiri becomes depressed. Over a decade later, Chigiri develops early-onset dementia and becomes lost in her memories. I know people die when they're old and all (is 48 old? or 59?) but the last few chapters were a real bummer. Every chapter began with a cheery exposition about the beautiful scenery but that just made the inevitable death(s) more depressing. But kudos for middle-aged romance representation.

[Ariane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Je commence avec le positif: le design de couverture de l'édition anglaise est très beau et bien pensé (vous voyez le symbole phallique?).


Sinon, je suis confuse quant aux intentions de l’auteure. La sexualité est au coeur de ce récit, la sexualité féminine en prime, montrée entre autres à travers des scènes de masturbation accompagnée du flot de pensées du personnage féminin. On peut penser que l’auteure souhaite normaliser le désir féminin, qui a si longtemps été tu, caché, ridiculisé… Peut-être que oui, peut-être qu’en 1999, quand le livre est publié, c’était ça, mais en même temps on se retrouve dans des situations qui reproduisent une sexualité tellement conventionnelle que j’ai roulé des yeux plus d’une fois. Par exemple des choses qui sont nommées mais ne sont pas remises en question par les personnages, comme: « recevoir une fellation n’est pas une relation sexuelle » (parce qu’il n’y a pas pénétration), le fait que la femme doit toujours absolument prendre une douche avant la relation sexuelle, le fait que l’homme est extrêmement mal à l’aise de l’entendre dire qu’elle se fait plaisir sans lui (même si monsieur lui parle de ses nombreuses conquêtes), etc. On a aussi droit à une scène où la femme accompagne deux collègues à la pêche. Elle leur prépare leurs boîtes-repas et passe sa journée à marcher quelques mètres derrière eux, à les regarder sans jamais se demander pourquoi personne ne pense à lui mettre une canne à pêche entre les mains — elle décrira plus tard la pêche comme étant une activité masculine et blablabla (ça m’a vraiment énervée).


Et je tiens à dire que ça ne me dérange pas que l’auteure présente ceci où cela, qu’elle soit féministe ou non, mais je ne voyais plus où elle voulait en venir. J’ai cherché d’autres avis en ligne et plusieurs personnes voyaient le livre comme de la littérature érotique, mais je n’y crois pas puisque les scènes de sexe ne sont pas excitantes à lire, au contraire on a presque l’impression de regarder des mollusques se reproduire. D’ailleurs, je me suis rappelé que j’ai lu une nouvelle en français de Nobuko Takagi dans un recueil, et que si je me souviens bien ça parlait de la reproduction d’amibes ou un truc du genre… ;-P



Bref… déception.

[Kassiopeia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this was a lot more sex than I anticipated, but then again I pretty much went into this without any previous knowledge whatsoever. And well what can I say, it read quite pleasant and I was engaged pretty much throughout. The very last chapter dragged on a bit, and you could guess where the entire thing was heading halfway through, but I still had a little cry towards the end.
This probably won't resonate with everyone, because other than them meeting up awkwardly and figuring out they lust for each other nothing much is happening, but sometimes that's all you need in a story.


Buuut probably not the kind of romance you would pine to have in your life as in he dies off quickly and she then spends her remaining years in a deep depressed funk until losing her mind from dementia. Yeah.

[Nisa Lyyski · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me a while to finish as it lacked that page turning grip that I enjoy and fuels me to want to know what comes next. It has good bones as a story, but is not as deeply layered as I would have liked. It does include deep thought anecdotes on life/mortality/loss, but was mostly focused on poetic and seductive chemistry of the two characters; although enjoyable, I wish the parts of the story in between the intimate encounters were just as interesting. Perhaps the calm and slower paced style of writing was an intentional part of the story, and it does help set the tone for rural Japan, as most of this story takes place.

[HH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Đang đọc thì tự nhiên tò mò đi đọc review. Review có nhắc tới cảnh nóng. Mình: ủa vậy hả vậy đi đọc cảnh nóng thôi =))
Đọc cảnh nóng xong rồi bỏ sách xuống, à, coi như đọc xong.
Đọc xong rồi cũng không rõ sách nói gì nhưng nói chung là ừ, nhiều cảnh nóng ;___;

[Alibiserver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of hoped a lot while I was reading this book. The premise was rich, titillating, and exciting. 2 people, a man and a woman, in their mid-life, meeting again after 20 or so years, with the intention of re-igniting their love affairs. Chigiri is a divorcee struggling to make ends meet while her father succumbs to disease (and eventually so) while Go is a successful TV Production Directors, churning out documentaries and traveling all over the world. While their reunion is an obviously very very strange one for me, their sexual liaisons were not.

Deborah Ibuchi shows her translating acumen again in this Nobuko Takagi title, a slim volume no more than 300 pages, with a somewhat rich, engrossing tale of 2 people whose love affair remains secret even as the book ends. Some may be turned off by the excessive sexual nature (and thus sex scenes in the book may be too much) but the lightheaded prose may make this a quick read.

Which is not what I was expecting for a 780 peso (17 US Dollar) purchase.

[David Haws · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess this is a "romance" novel. The basic concept isn't bad, and it could get steamy in places; but the treatment seems a little "clinical," and the ending is unnecessarily maudlin. (I guess she didn't know how to end it, and so **SPOILER ALERT** gave the dude rectal cancer. Yikes! I know writers do horrible things to the characters they love; but "cancer" seems more mean-spirited than gratuitous.)

[Alys Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most beautiful and realistic love stories i've ever read.

[Gerry · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main character, daughter of a swordsmith, sounded promising, but the love relationship was totally banal. Disappointing - it seemed like the writer could have done so much more with the concept.