The Diving Pool: Three Novellas
The first major English translation of one of contemporary Japan's bestselling and most celebrated authors From Akutagawa Award-winning author Yoko Ogawa comes a haunting trio of novellas about love, fertility, obsession, and how even the most innocent gestures may contain a hairline crack of...
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The first major English translation of one of contemporary Japan's bestselling and most celebrated authors From Akutagawa Award-winning author Yoko Ogawa comes a haunting trio of novellas about love, fertility, obsession, and how even the most innocent gestures may contain a hairline crack of cruel intent.A lonely teenage girl falls in love with her foster brother as she watches him leap from a high diving board into a pool--a peculiar infatuation that sends unexpected ripples through her life.A young woman records the daily moods of her pregnant sister in a diary, taking meticulous note of a pregnancy that may or may not be a hallucination--but whose hallucination is it, hers or her sister's?A woman nostalgically visits her old college dormitory on the outskirts of Tokyo, a boarding house run by a mysterious triple amputee with one leg.Hauntingly spare, beautiful, and twisted, The Diving Pool is a disquieting and at times darkly humorous collection of novellas about normal people who suddenly discover their own dark possibilities.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780312426835 (0312426836)
ASIN: 312426836
Publish date: January 22nd 2008
Publisher: Picador
Pages no: 164
Edition language: English
Category:
Novels,
Literature,
Cultural,
Literary Fiction,
Contemporary,
Asian Literature,
Asia,
Horror,
Japan,
Short Stories,
Japanese Literature
The Diving Pool Author: Yokō Ogawa Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder In Yokō Ogawa’s first major English translation, three stories present a brutally honest and fearless picture of obsession and desire. A cursory glance at the everyday lives of the characters presents the startlin...
She is actually quietly sadistic... O.o
These three tales offer a quiet horror, the cruelty is silent, the terror subtle, haunting us by the beauty of Yoko Ogawa's writing. She shows us individuals, unaware of a connection to their fellow beings, with no discernable anchor to the society they live in, the cruelty displayed is dislocated ...
2.5 stars, I loathed the first story.1. The Diving Pool - a bored teenage girl tortures a toddler2. Pregnancy Diary - a woman poisons her sister during pregnancy3. Dormitory - a disappearing tenant story with a novel ending
The cover, which most closely relates to the opening story, is probably one of my favorite parts of this book. The stories were well-written, with a eerie and unsettling vibe that never really panned out. I wouldn't say they were great. I do think the author is talented, so I'll probably give her an...