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Inheritors
Spanning more than 150 years, and set in multiple locations in colonial and postcolonial Asia and the United States, Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war.
Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories. A retired doctor, for example, is forced to confront the horrific moral consequences of his wartime actions. An elderly woman subjects herself to an interview, gradually revealing a fifty-year old murder and its shattering aftermath. And in the last days of a doomed war, a prodigal son who enlisted against his parents' wishes survives the American invasion of his island outpost, only to be asked for a sacrifice more daunting than any he imagined.
Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designed to speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories. A retired doctor, for example, is forced to confront the horrific moral consequences of his wartime actions. An elderly woman subjects herself to an interview, gradually revealing a fifty-year old murder and its shattering aftermath. And in the last days of a doomed war, a prodigal son who enlisted against his parents' wishes survives the American invasion of his island outpost, only to be asked for a sacrifice more daunting than any he imagined.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2020
141 people are currently reading
7938 people want to read
About the author
Asako Serizawa
2 books71 followersASAKO SERIZAWA was born in Japan and grew up in Singapore, Jakarta, and Tokyo. A graduate of Tufts University, Brown University, and Emerson College, she has received two O. Henry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. A recent fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, she currently lives in Boston. Inheritors is her first book.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 204 reviews
August 2, 2020
Rating: 5🍌
Growing up a young Monkey in the United States, history -- and especially World War II -- was presented in black and white. When it came to the Pacific side of World War II, we learned almost nothing beyond Pearl Harbor, kamikaze pilots, possibly Iwo Jima. And, of course, the atomic bombs. As a student, I pictured the brave scientists working feverishly in their secret labs during the Manhattan Project; I pictured the Enola Gay flying over the Pacific on its spiritual mission; I pictured the mushroom cloud rising into the sky. It was only when I read John Hersey's Hiroshima as a high school student that it dawned on me the bombs actually landed on people. I don't blame my young Monkey-self for that simplistic worldview, but rather the schools, textbooks, and teachers -- indeed the very way that history was taught in America, where the US was seen as a historic force of unimpeachable good and Japan was seen as a land of cherry blossoms, samurai, and ramen.
Asako Serizawa’s thought-provoking, daring, and altogether remarkable debut collection of interconnected stories challenges these received ideas, stereotypes, and misunderstood or little known aspects of a war that engulfed the entire Asia-Pacific region for nearly a decade and led to 36 million deaths. Not a traditional collection of disparate short stories, the 13 pieces in INHERITORS converse and combine to illustrate how the events of World War II in the Pacific shaped the fate of a single Japanese family across multiple generations in Japan and the United States. A family tree at the beginning of the book, along with the epigraph from Theodor Adorno ("Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant"), offers one roadmap for navigating the text.
The central stories, set in Asia (primarily Japan) during World War II and the American Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), explore topics such as the unspeakable atrocities of Japan in East and Southeast Asia; the American air raids of Japan that destroyed dozens of cities and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo; military sex slavery, as well as the state-sanctioned prostitution houses set up for American servicemen after Surrender; and the nascent Japanese Communist movement that stirred among the ruins under the iron fist of General MacArthur and the American Occupation. Other stories are set in the United States, including two that follow a Japanese-American woman who visits Japan more than 50 years after the war in search of her family history.
Whether depicting a Japanese soldier who believes in the righteousness of his mission, a philosophical doctor who regrets his participation in wartime atrocities, or a young boy whose life is irrevocably altered by the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, Serizawa treats her characters and her subject with nuance, intelligence, and extraordinary compassion, crafting not only an indictment of war and nationalism but also an attempt at understanding how ordinary people can find themselves supporting horrible national policies or even committing horrible acts. And in doing so the book forces readers to ask these questions of themselves -- incredibly relevant in our modern world for obvious reasons.
But Serizawa is up to something even more in INHERITORS. In the final two stories, we are vaulted into the United States of the near future (the latest story in the timeline takes place in 2035). Juxtaposed with the stories that precede it -- and read in the context of Adorno’s epigraph -- these pieces deliver a stark warning for the future while casting a backwards light on the rest of the collection that tempted me to start over and read the whole thing again.
Other GR reviewers have commented on the wide range of styles and settings of these stories, as well as the difficulty of some of the pieces, and that is indeed one of the collection's notable traits. It's a bold choice: the wide range had the effect of keeping me slightly off-balance from story to story while compelling me to grapple with each story and character on their own terms and in relation to the collection as a whole. But beyond the thematic and formal concerns, what makes this a 5🍌 book for me is that these stories are almost invariably beautifully executed and extraordinarily moving -- the book affected me at a visceral level, leaving me time and time again with an aching chest and prickling scalp (my personal barometer of literary experience).
Not a novel, not a traditional collection of short stories, not historical fiction (indeed, in an author's note Serizawa takes to task the very concept of historical fiction), INHERITORS stands out as an ambitious piece of literature. And like the characters haunted by the memory of war throughout the book, I too will be haunted by the memory of reading it.
Growing up a young Monkey in the United States, history -- and especially World War II -- was presented in black and white. When it came to the Pacific side of World War II, we learned almost nothing beyond Pearl Harbor, kamikaze pilots, possibly Iwo Jima. And, of course, the atomic bombs. As a student, I pictured the brave scientists working feverishly in their secret labs during the Manhattan Project; I pictured the Enola Gay flying over the Pacific on its spiritual mission; I pictured the mushroom cloud rising into the sky. It was only when I read John Hersey's Hiroshima as a high school student that it dawned on me the bombs actually landed on people. I don't blame my young Monkey-self for that simplistic worldview, but rather the schools, textbooks, and teachers -- indeed the very way that history was taught in America, where the US was seen as a historic force of unimpeachable good and Japan was seen as a land of cherry blossoms, samurai, and ramen.
Asako Serizawa’s thought-provoking, daring, and altogether remarkable debut collection of interconnected stories challenges these received ideas, stereotypes, and misunderstood or little known aspects of a war that engulfed the entire Asia-Pacific region for nearly a decade and led to 36 million deaths. Not a traditional collection of disparate short stories, the 13 pieces in INHERITORS converse and combine to illustrate how the events of World War II in the Pacific shaped the fate of a single Japanese family across multiple generations in Japan and the United States. A family tree at the beginning of the book, along with the epigraph from Theodor Adorno ("Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant"), offers one roadmap for navigating the text.
The central stories, set in Asia (primarily Japan) during World War II and the American Occupation of Japan (1945-1952), explore topics such as the unspeakable atrocities of Japan in East and Southeast Asia; the American air raids of Japan that destroyed dozens of cities and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, especially the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo; military sex slavery, as well as the state-sanctioned prostitution houses set up for American servicemen after Surrender; and the nascent Japanese Communist movement that stirred among the ruins under the iron fist of General MacArthur and the American Occupation. Other stories are set in the United States, including two that follow a Japanese-American woman who visits Japan more than 50 years after the war in search of her family history.
Whether depicting a Japanese soldier who believes in the righteousness of his mission, a philosophical doctor who regrets his participation in wartime atrocities, or a young boy whose life is irrevocably altered by the 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, Serizawa treats her characters and her subject with nuance, intelligence, and extraordinary compassion, crafting not only an indictment of war and nationalism but also an attempt at understanding how ordinary people can find themselves supporting horrible national policies or even committing horrible acts. And in doing so the book forces readers to ask these questions of themselves -- incredibly relevant in our modern world for obvious reasons.
But Serizawa is up to something even more in INHERITORS. In the final two stories, we are vaulted into the United States of the near future (the latest story in the timeline takes place in 2035). Juxtaposed with the stories that precede it -- and read in the context of Adorno’s epigraph -- these pieces deliver a stark warning for the future while casting a backwards light on the rest of the collection that tempted me to start over and read the whole thing again.
Other GR reviewers have commented on the wide range of styles and settings of these stories, as well as the difficulty of some of the pieces, and that is indeed one of the collection's notable traits. It's a bold choice: the wide range had the effect of keeping me slightly off-balance from story to story while compelling me to grapple with each story and character on their own terms and in relation to the collection as a whole. But beyond the thematic and formal concerns, what makes this a 5🍌 book for me is that these stories are almost invariably beautifully executed and extraordinarily moving -- the book affected me at a visceral level, leaving me time and time again with an aching chest and prickling scalp (my personal barometer of literary experience).
Not a novel, not a traditional collection of short stories, not historical fiction (indeed, in an author's note Serizawa takes to task the very concept of historical fiction), INHERITORS stands out as an ambitious piece of literature. And like the characters haunted by the memory of war throughout the book, I too will be haunted by the memory of reading it.
August 1, 2020
The writing in these connected stories was generally insightful, precise and illuminating. Often it was also confusing. They cover a period from approximately 1913 to 2035, but they are not arranged in chronological order. The style and tone of the stories vary. Subjects include Japanese colonialism, forced prostitution, American occupation and medical atrocities. Themes and events are approached from different directions and perceptions of events sometimes contradict. Most of the stories deal with the Japanese during, and immediately following, WWII but the last 2 (my least favorite) are set in the near-future United States.
There is a family tree at the beginning of the book, but I was listening to an audio book so it wasn’t helpful to me. Actually, I doubt that it would have made reading this book any less confusing even if I had a printed copy of the family tree. It would have been better if the date and familial relationships had been incorporated in the heading of each chapter. Nevertheless, I found thought this book very interesting and I would be happy to read this author again.
There is a family tree at the beginning of the book, but I was listening to an audio book so it wasn’t helpful to me. Actually, I doubt that it would have made reading this book any less confusing even if I had a printed copy of the family tree. It would have been better if the date and familial relationships had been incorporated in the heading of each chapter. Nevertheless, I found thought this book very interesting and I would be happy to read this author again.
April 29, 2020
Inheritors is an ambitious debut book and that is a good thing. It spans 150 years—five generations of a Japanese family, starting in 2013 and ending in the imagined future of 2035. The setting changes from occupied Japan to the United States, but the theme is consistent: the trauma of war doesn’t end when a peace treaty is signed. Rather, it continues to affect the people involved and future generations.
Sometimes spellbinding, other times obtuse, the stories can be uneven in their presentation. The best ones are those that drill down to moral dilemmas: an ordinary housewife who sacrifices herself as a sort of “comfort woman” so that she and her husband can survive. A woman whose memory is fading who eventually reveals a 50-year-old murder. A doctor, now retired, who lost touch with his humanity in undertaking wartime actions.
The book shifts the spotlight – typically reserved for the European point of view – to colonial and postcolonial Asia and grapples with the fallout of war and displacement: the devastation, the trauma, the sacrifices, the legacies of loss, and the quest for adaptation and understanding.
This is a fine book about that sheds light on the ways that war survivors and successive generations selectively experience and remember and relay the aftermath. Certainly it is well worth reading.
Sometimes spellbinding, other times obtuse, the stories can be uneven in their presentation. The best ones are those that drill down to moral dilemmas: an ordinary housewife who sacrifices herself as a sort of “comfort woman” so that she and her husband can survive. A woman whose memory is fading who eventually reveals a 50-year-old murder. A doctor, now retired, who lost touch with his humanity in undertaking wartime actions.
The book shifts the spotlight – typically reserved for the European point of view – to colonial and postcolonial Asia and grapples with the fallout of war and displacement: the devastation, the trauma, the sacrifices, the legacies of loss, and the quest for adaptation and understanding.
This is a fine book about that sheds light on the ways that war survivors and successive generations selectively experience and remember and relay the aftermath. Certainly it is well worth reading.
August 5, 2020
Why do I keep choosing to read such hard books, books that wring my heart, cause my eyes to burn, and challenge my comfort with things I wish I did not know?
In this case, my husband heard of the book on the radio and recommended I look into it. It was publication day, but I was granted my request for the galley.
I really had little idea of the Japanese people's WWII experiences other than America's internment camps and the effect of the Atom bomb. The war divided families, soldiers endured horrors and then were pariahs, women sold their bodies to put food on the table, doctors were forced to perform horrible experiments for the war effort.
Extraordinary and profound, Inheritors encapsulates a family's history over generations. You won't be the same after reading it.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
In this case, my husband heard of the book on the radio and recommended I look into it. It was publication day, but I was granted my request for the galley.
I really had little idea of the Japanese people's WWII experiences other than America's internment camps and the effect of the Atom bomb. The war divided families, soldiers endured horrors and then were pariahs, women sold their bodies to put food on the table, doctors were forced to perform horrible experiments for the war effort.
Extraordinary and profound, Inheritors encapsulates a family's history over generations. You won't be the same after reading it.
I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
May 18, 2025
The Garden Of Forking Paths
The tenth chapter of Asako Serizawa's novel "Inheritors" (2020) discusses at length Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" and its view of the ambiguous, contingent character of history. The chapter, titled "Pavilion", includes two interlocutors who discuss the Borges story before one fulfills his mission of killing the other. Borges's story, the philosophical discussion in the chapter, and the action of the chapter all show the complexity of Serizawa's book in considering the difficulty of understanding history.
In an author's note at the end of the novel, Serizawa writes: "this book is foremost engaged with the texts and media, scholarly, popular and fictional, that have represented and discussed this history, and the concept of history, from myriad perspectives." Serizawa writes further that the goal of her book is to show the difficulty of the concept of "historical fiction" as "an objective occurrence bound to a time and place." Instead, she hopes her book "will complicate this idea and spark questions about how history is made, how it is lived, remembered, reproduced, and used, and how ultimately unbound it is by the time and place in which it is grounded. The Second World War didn't start and end with specific people and events: its roots reach back to values seeded long ago, and its sundering effects have hardly lost their spark and propulsion."
The need for the author to explain her goals and some of her sources in a note at the end of the book is itself a sign of the unsatisfactory nature of "Inheritors". The book deteriorates markedly with the lengthy, wordy discussion of the Borges story, interesting as it might be in itself. The author is reduced to talking about her theme, and in a confusing way, rather than in showing it. So too, the book loses whatever coherence it may have had in the futuristic, preachy section with which it ends.
"Inheritors" is a commendably ambitious work for a first novel. As Serizawa says, it is more a series of interrelated vignettes which cover the history of a Japanese family from 1913 into the present and future through 2035. The family tree and chronology at the beginning of the book don't offer much help in allowing the reader to follow the story. With sections in the United States at the beginning and end of the work, the book revolves around WW II in Japan as recounted from various perspectives in a series of incidents. The book does not spare the reader the brutality of Japan's war of colonization and imperialism, and the terrible destruction of the fighting. There is an effective chapter about some of Japan's war atrocities which, for many years were hidden from view. The book also roundly criticizes the American treatment of its Japanese immigrants, before and during the War, and America's conduct of the War. It shows the suffering resulting from American occupation in the War's aftermath.
The thirteen separate chapters of the book are most effective when the incidents are described in detail through the perspective of one of the characters. The effective sections of the book also work in other textual materials, stories, and histories. The writing is often lyrical and beautiful. The book is better when it encourages the reader to reflect upon particular incidents rather than to think globally. It does not convince in its own rambling meditations about the course of history, such as in the discussion of the Borges story or in the concluding sections and in other parts. The book becomes wearisome and does not hang together well.
Although it includes sections of thoughtful perceptive writing, I found "Inheritors" ultimately unsatisfactory both as a work of literature and as a meditation on WW II and on history and philosophy.
Robin Friedman
The tenth chapter of Asako Serizawa's novel "Inheritors" (2020) discusses at length Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" and its view of the ambiguous, contingent character of history. The chapter, titled "Pavilion", includes two interlocutors who discuss the Borges story before one fulfills his mission of killing the other. Borges's story, the philosophical discussion in the chapter, and the action of the chapter all show the complexity of Serizawa's book in considering the difficulty of understanding history.
In an author's note at the end of the novel, Serizawa writes: "this book is foremost engaged with the texts and media, scholarly, popular and fictional, that have represented and discussed this history, and the concept of history, from myriad perspectives." Serizawa writes further that the goal of her book is to show the difficulty of the concept of "historical fiction" as "an objective occurrence bound to a time and place." Instead, she hopes her book "will complicate this idea and spark questions about how history is made, how it is lived, remembered, reproduced, and used, and how ultimately unbound it is by the time and place in which it is grounded. The Second World War didn't start and end with specific people and events: its roots reach back to values seeded long ago, and its sundering effects have hardly lost their spark and propulsion."
The need for the author to explain her goals and some of her sources in a note at the end of the book is itself a sign of the unsatisfactory nature of "Inheritors". The book deteriorates markedly with the lengthy, wordy discussion of the Borges story, interesting as it might be in itself. The author is reduced to talking about her theme, and in a confusing way, rather than in showing it. So too, the book loses whatever coherence it may have had in the futuristic, preachy section with which it ends.
"Inheritors" is a commendably ambitious work for a first novel. As Serizawa says, it is more a series of interrelated vignettes which cover the history of a Japanese family from 1913 into the present and future through 2035. The family tree and chronology at the beginning of the book don't offer much help in allowing the reader to follow the story. With sections in the United States at the beginning and end of the work, the book revolves around WW II in Japan as recounted from various perspectives in a series of incidents. The book does not spare the reader the brutality of Japan's war of colonization and imperialism, and the terrible destruction of the fighting. There is an effective chapter about some of Japan's war atrocities which, for many years were hidden from view. The book also roundly criticizes the American treatment of its Japanese immigrants, before and during the War, and America's conduct of the War. It shows the suffering resulting from American occupation in the War's aftermath.
The thirteen separate chapters of the book are most effective when the incidents are described in detail through the perspective of one of the characters. The effective sections of the book also work in other textual materials, stories, and histories. The writing is often lyrical and beautiful. The book is better when it encourages the reader to reflect upon particular incidents rather than to think globally. It does not convince in its own rambling meditations about the course of history, such as in the discussion of the Borges story or in the concluding sections and in other parts. The book becomes wearisome and does not hang together well.
Although it includes sections of thoughtful perceptive writing, I found "Inheritors" ultimately unsatisfactory both as a work of literature and as a meditation on WW II and on history and philosophy.
Robin Friedman
April 23, 2020
A stunning and magnificent book about World War II in Japan and America that everyone should read. Serizawa's writing is beautiful, brash, and wholly enthralling as she charts the emotions and reactions and relationships that touch on one Japanese family over many generations. Serizawa's tiny details, a sense or proportion, and the ability to write unflinchingly about horror and trauma make this book outstanding.
July 14, 2020
'We're not separate from our histories.'
This is a brave and bold debut from Japanese-born Asako Serizawa. In a series of inter-connected stories that follow various generations of the same family, moving back and forwards in time, it's more a novel than stories. Covering a period of something like 150 years, and moving between the US - to where one member of the family emigrated - and Japan, the characters in each generation find themselves addressing the same questions of identity and history: How are we shaped by the past, and who controls the narrative of history?
The book covers many issues that define US, Japanese and Korean relationships, and it isn't afraid to tackle some weighty issues head-on. But it is always in terms of family, as the title refers. One particular section ('Pavilion') involves two brothers discussing Borges' short story 'The Garden of Forking Paths' and this is, I think, vital to understanding the structure and intent of the book. One of them, describing a novel that is part of the short story, comments on the concept of 'diverging, converging, crisscrossing, or simply running parallel across a vast, endless labyrinth of time'. As Serizawa weaves her story in a non-linear fashion the reader has to pay attention to the relationships between characters and this idea of crisscrossing stories. The final couple of sections move us into the future of the mid 2030s, with the next generation of the family coping with a very different world.
Indeed, for me, these last two sections didn't quite sit as well as the rest of the book, ending with a sort of sci-fi feel that slightly jarred against what had been, until then, a wonderfully crafted book. Despite this, however, Serizawa has announced herself as a writer worth watching, and this is a terrific, intelligent kind of book that fully deserves to be read. Can't quite give it 5 stars, but a notable 4.5 stars for sure. Enjoyable and thought-provoking.
This is a brave and bold debut from Japanese-born Asako Serizawa. In a series of inter-connected stories that follow various generations of the same family, moving back and forwards in time, it's more a novel than stories. Covering a period of something like 150 years, and moving between the US - to where one member of the family emigrated - and Japan, the characters in each generation find themselves addressing the same questions of identity and history: How are we shaped by the past, and who controls the narrative of history?
The book covers many issues that define US, Japanese and Korean relationships, and it isn't afraid to tackle some weighty issues head-on. But it is always in terms of family, as the title refers. One particular section ('Pavilion') involves two brothers discussing Borges' short story 'The Garden of Forking Paths' and this is, I think, vital to understanding the structure and intent of the book. One of them, describing a novel that is part of the short story, comments on the concept of 'diverging, converging, crisscrossing, or simply running parallel across a vast, endless labyrinth of time'. As Serizawa weaves her story in a non-linear fashion the reader has to pay attention to the relationships between characters and this idea of crisscrossing stories. The final couple of sections move us into the future of the mid 2030s, with the next generation of the family coping with a very different world.
Indeed, for me, these last two sections didn't quite sit as well as the rest of the book, ending with a sort of sci-fi feel that slightly jarred against what had been, until then, a wonderfully crafted book. Despite this, however, Serizawa has announced herself as a writer worth watching, and this is a terrific, intelligent kind of book that fully deserves to be read. Can't quite give it 5 stars, but a notable 4.5 stars for sure. Enjoyable and thought-provoking.
July 12, 2021
The narration of Inheritors made it challenging to follow as it consists of overlapping memories of painful events during WWII and the American occupation of Japan following the war. The writing is fair, but I had a hard time really getting behind the protagonist and, admittedly, felt rather ashamed of the behavior of the American soldiers in the story (no fault of the book, I know). I just never really got under the surface of this book as much as I wanted to. I think that the tapestry of stories was fairly well-done, but that I would have enjoyed the story with more of a central narrative structure, but that could be just me. The book remains very dark and almost devoid of hope, so be forewarned.
July 26, 2020
This is a book of linked short stories all having to do with a Japanese American family from 1913 to 2035. Much of it concerns the Japanese in the war and the aftermath of their war. The stories are not in chronological order and I'm so glad there was a family tree at the beginning and the dates of each story. There is a lot of pondering about both the weight of the guilt for the war and the willingness to do what it takes to atone, to learn from history.
January 31, 2021
I believe it is the trait of great literature to reinvent itself every time we read it. Good books tend to change, transformed into something different when we approach them a second or third time. Of course, it is the reader that transmutes as well. However, it is this inherent quality of good writing, like superior wine in an oak barrel aging patiently until it reaches its peak, then changing magically as we pour it in a glass, and every sip is different than the one before, that comes to mind when I experience it first-hand.
Inheritors opens with a family tree. At first glimpse we realize it covers four generations born from a Japanese couple that married at the end of the 19th century. If we look more attentively, we notice that some ramifications tend to expand more than others. Underneath, there is a listing that corresponds to the thirteen stories that make the book (spread out in seven chapters), all including in parenthesis the year of the particular story. Then, under the names, the years each lived and under that, the story where he or she is featured. I spent several minutes looking at this image, because I realized soon enough, that the family tree represented not only a mapping of the book itself but of the historical context it strived to cover.
Asako Serizawa’s first work of fiction is an intense attempt to explain history, cultural values and the power of family ties. The writing is up to the immense task, and it flowers as each story unfolds; at times giving disguised solutions to what seem at first, unanswered questions. For the most part the narrative is not only intelligent in its aim but perfectly crafted, producing a certain luminosity as the pages go by; quite often I had to pause and reflect, reread to interpret better what was implied, go back to that family tree to find hints and then return to the line I had left to find new and fresh meaning to it. The whole process I can only describe as an exquisite experience of reflection.
The geographical frame constantly shifts, from Japan to the United States and then to China; the same with the temporary structure, which jumps from dates covering a span of around a hundred and fifty years, therefore not following a chronological order. Conceived as a group of short stories, I imagine the work could be labeled a novel as well, since the edifice is constructed based on that diagram in the first page. Last week I read a book by Mircea Cărtărescu that he insists is a novel but to me it is more a collection of stories. I guess labeling is a subjective matter (as well as a publishing maneuver towards marketing and eventually profit).
In my view, the common denominator for all the stories is the quest in which the characters embark, some finding answers right away and others trying to figure out the hollowness of silence: at the end of a lifetime, a sparkle of light may shine. A lost son during the bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945, a husband following his wife to find out what exactly she does at work, a man finding out he was adopted at the end of the war in search for his real parents, a computer geek looking for his longtime deaf friend, a woman opening sealed boxes of papers after his father passed away, an old photograph pinned to a wall next to the bed of a dying man…
Choosing one that perhaps I could call my favorite has to do with a sense of space or abbreviation, otherwise this review could turn into a long (and boring) essay. Pavilion narrates the passionate conversation between two brothers that eruditely dissect and analyze Jorge Luis Borges’ famous story El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths). It’s interesting (for lack of a better word) but lately, Borges has been more than present in everything I read. Likelihood and probability aside, this of course has to do with the place he holds in my pantheon of favorite writers and explains the opening paragraph of the present text. In the Cărtărescu book I referred to earlier, Borges appears particularly in a section that is spiritually linked to The Aleph. Back to Serizawa’s story, the two brothers who have met in strange circumstances, try to find in the short story meaning to their own quest, and appear to be walking the forking paths looking for answers to life’s dilemmas, moving the pieces (the Chinese spy, the sinologist, the illustrious great grandfather and the Irish captain) in different combinations, realizing at one point, that they too, are pieces in the same board. What are the reasons behind each character’s procedure? Is what we call destiny a trap? Are the two murders related? What if there are patterns that we can not escape? Is history a simple repetition of a single script? The fascinating answers they arrive at are at the heart of the book itself. In order to understand who we are, we must trace our past; and as we walk through that marvelous garden, be certain that each path we take is unique, unrepeatable and an integral part of life’s adventure.
Inheritors is a stunning literary work.
Inheritors opens with a family tree. At first glimpse we realize it covers four generations born from a Japanese couple that married at the end of the 19th century. If we look more attentively, we notice that some ramifications tend to expand more than others. Underneath, there is a listing that corresponds to the thirteen stories that make the book (spread out in seven chapters), all including in parenthesis the year of the particular story. Then, under the names, the years each lived and under that, the story where he or she is featured. I spent several minutes looking at this image, because I realized soon enough, that the family tree represented not only a mapping of the book itself but of the historical context it strived to cover.
Asako Serizawa’s first work of fiction is an intense attempt to explain history, cultural values and the power of family ties. The writing is up to the immense task, and it flowers as each story unfolds; at times giving disguised solutions to what seem at first, unanswered questions. For the most part the narrative is not only intelligent in its aim but perfectly crafted, producing a certain luminosity as the pages go by; quite often I had to pause and reflect, reread to interpret better what was implied, go back to that family tree to find hints and then return to the line I had left to find new and fresh meaning to it. The whole process I can only describe as an exquisite experience of reflection.
The geographical frame constantly shifts, from Japan to the United States and then to China; the same with the temporary structure, which jumps from dates covering a span of around a hundred and fifty years, therefore not following a chronological order. Conceived as a group of short stories, I imagine the work could be labeled a novel as well, since the edifice is constructed based on that diagram in the first page. Last week I read a book by Mircea Cărtărescu that he insists is a novel but to me it is more a collection of stories. I guess labeling is a subjective matter (as well as a publishing maneuver towards marketing and eventually profit).
In my view, the common denominator for all the stories is the quest in which the characters embark, some finding answers right away and others trying to figure out the hollowness of silence: at the end of a lifetime, a sparkle of light may shine. A lost son during the bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945, a husband following his wife to find out what exactly she does at work, a man finding out he was adopted at the end of the war in search for his real parents, a computer geek looking for his longtime deaf friend, a woman opening sealed boxes of papers after his father passed away, an old photograph pinned to a wall next to the bed of a dying man…
Choosing one that perhaps I could call my favorite has to do with a sense of space or abbreviation, otherwise this review could turn into a long (and boring) essay. Pavilion narrates the passionate conversation between two brothers that eruditely dissect and analyze Jorge Luis Borges’ famous story El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths). It’s interesting (for lack of a better word) but lately, Borges has been more than present in everything I read. Likelihood and probability aside, this of course has to do with the place he holds in my pantheon of favorite writers and explains the opening paragraph of the present text. In the Cărtărescu book I referred to earlier, Borges appears particularly in a section that is spiritually linked to The Aleph. Back to Serizawa’s story, the two brothers who have met in strange circumstances, try to find in the short story meaning to their own quest, and appear to be walking the forking paths looking for answers to life’s dilemmas, moving the pieces (the Chinese spy, the sinologist, the illustrious great grandfather and the Irish captain) in different combinations, realizing at one point, that they too, are pieces in the same board. What are the reasons behind each character’s procedure? Is what we call destiny a trap? Are the two murders related? What if there are patterns that we can not escape? Is history a simple repetition of a single script? The fascinating answers they arrive at are at the heart of the book itself. In order to understand who we are, we must trace our past; and as we walk through that marvelous garden, be certain that each path we take is unique, unrepeatable and an integral part of life’s adventure.
Inheritors is a stunning literary work.
September 22, 2020
You can say that Inheritors by Asako Serizawa is a short story collection, but it really is a series of interconnected stories not unlike another recent book I read called Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. And while Homegoing is about the impact of slavery through multiple generations, Inheritors is about WW2 and its ramifications on generations of Japanese before, during and after the war.
The difference between the two books, however, is that most of Serizawa's stories left me cold and indifferent to whatever's happening on the page. One reason is because Serizawa's characters mostly speak with the same voice — her voice, I reckon. Another reason is that the first half of the book is written in a rough, obtuse style that's hard to penetrate for the most part. Even though both Inheritors and Homegoing provide a helpful family tree at the front of the book to help readers keep track of who's who, I never had to refer to it for Homegoing. Over here, though, I find myself being confused half the time as to how everybody is related, and it doesn't help that Inheritors is largely told without a chronological order.
In the end, the general indifference to the story, the obtuse style of writing and the lack of chronology made this a tough read for me. I honestly did not enjoy any of the stories.
The difference between the two books, however, is that most of Serizawa's stories left me cold and indifferent to whatever's happening on the page. One reason is because Serizawa's characters mostly speak with the same voice — her voice, I reckon. Another reason is that the first half of the book is written in a rough, obtuse style that's hard to penetrate for the most part. Even though both Inheritors and Homegoing provide a helpful family tree at the front of the book to help readers keep track of who's who, I never had to refer to it for Homegoing. Over here, though, I find myself being confused half the time as to how everybody is related, and it doesn't help that Inheritors is largely told without a chronological order.
In the end, the general indifference to the story, the obtuse style of writing and the lack of chronology made this a tough read for me. I honestly did not enjoy any of the stories.
October 8, 2022
Una novela que recorre 120 años de la Historia de Japón (desde 1913 hasta el futuro) solo podía ser ambiciosa. Y esta lo es, no siempre para bien. Mejor cuando se centra en el dolor íntimo de cada personaje más que en exponer grandes hechos históricos o en tratar de ser original. El libro tiene capítulos magistrales, que impactan y te dejan el corazón en un puño, pero también varios en los que no sé ni qué cuenta ni por qué me lo cuenta así. Aun así lo recomendaría porque es una lectura reveladora y que invita a la reflexión.
July 15, 2020
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa is a collection of interconnected stories that span over a century from the turn of the 20th century to the near future. Most of the stories focus on members of a Japanese family and center of impact of World War II. We see characters living in Japan before the war and during the war and their descendants living in America. We see how families are torn apart and people are forced to take on roles that they didn't want to such as working in a brothel for American soldiers. Each story was told from the perspective of a different character and in a different style, giving each story its own distinct feel.
It was interesting and heartbreaking to read about the impact of WWII from the Japanese perspective. We often hear WWII stories from the viewpoint of the victor (the Allies), so getting this take was different and an emotional journey.
What to Listen to While Reading (or during reading breaks)
-The Hanging Garden by the Cure
-Cities in Dust by Siouxsie and the Banshees
-Ikiru by MYKOOL
-One Day in Japan by aekasora
I received an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
It was interesting and heartbreaking to read about the impact of WWII from the Japanese perspective. We often hear WWII stories from the viewpoint of the victor (the Allies), so getting this take was different and an emotional journey.
What to Listen to While Reading (or during reading breaks)
-The Hanging Garden by the Cure
-Cities in Dust by Siouxsie and the Banshees
-Ikiru by MYKOOL
-One Day in Japan by aekasora
I received an advanced review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
June 11, 2020
The Inheritors, while contemplative and personal, is really a commentary about the Twentieth Century and what that means for humanity now. Like punctuated snapshots in a a family album, it is told from the perspective of various members of a Japanese and Japanese-American family in the form of loosely connected short stories. It marks a rise of hope and progress (thanks to things like increased democracy, opening of cultures, and scientific advances) at the beginning of a new century, that is interrupted, marred, and stained by racism, abuses of technology, the horrors of war, and the terrible moral choices forced by conflict and protectionism. But though the themes are global and explosive, the stories are quiet. They are individual experiences, held close to the chest, like thoughts and memories that one carries to their grave.
The stories in the past are not quite historical fiction, and later ones are not quite speculative, but they all have a tangible immediacy and ring with truth. And they all dare to ask the question: did it have to happen that way? Was it predictable? Avoidable? And perhaps more importantly, can we make better choices now for future generations?
The stories in the past are not quite historical fiction, and later ones are not quite speculative, but they all have a tangible immediacy and ring with truth. And they all dare to ask the question: did it have to happen that way? Was it predictable? Avoidable? And perhaps more importantly, can we make better choices now for future generations?
September 29, 2020
People often say that a book "blew them away." This book, I think, creates a kind of inward implosion of ideas about history, time, and culture. It is an incredibly emotionally intelligent book of stories which connect, cross over, and infuse each other with muliplicities of meaning.
At first, through about a third of the book, you may think you are reading a work of historical fiction following the generations of a few Japanese families. But, suddenly you realize that this isn't just about people and their experiences, it's about experiences themselves. How does the past suffuse the present and bleed into the future? There's a mind-bending quality to the writing which is a tribute to Borges and his ideas about The Garden of the Forking Paths.
This may be one of the only books I've ever read in which the last chapter increased in depth and intrigue and dove into a kind of fourth dimensional crescendo. Yes, we think of crescendos as lifting up, but this one dives deeper down, into your consciousness.
I just finished the book, and I feel as if I'm lying on my back on the ocean floor, looking up and thinking "Wow. Just Wow."
At first, through about a third of the book, you may think you are reading a work of historical fiction following the generations of a few Japanese families. But, suddenly you realize that this isn't just about people and their experiences, it's about experiences themselves. How does the past suffuse the present and bleed into the future? There's a mind-bending quality to the writing which is a tribute to Borges and his ideas about The Garden of the Forking Paths.
This may be one of the only books I've ever read in which the last chapter increased in depth and intrigue and dove into a kind of fourth dimensional crescendo. Yes, we think of crescendos as lifting up, but this one dives deeper down, into your consciousness.
I just finished the book, and I feel as if I'm lying on my back on the ocean floor, looking up and thinking "Wow. Just Wow."
August 17, 2020
These interconnected stories of an extended Japanese family span the time before and after World War II, in Japan and the U.S., from the early 20th century to the near future. Gripping, multivalent, and labyrinthine, the stories don’t flinch from engaging difficult topics, including “comfort women,” a Japanese bioweapons facility in China that used human subjects, incendiary bombs falling on Tokyo, Japanese suicide torpedoes, and encounters with American GIs after the war. In the process, family members are damaged, lost and dislocated. The stories cover a spectrum of motivations and perspectives: from pacifists and Communists, doctors and intellectuals; to migrants to the U.S. and ardent Japanese nationalists. Specific themes resurface throughout: the maze or labyrinth, including the puzzle-like intersections among stories; the garden, offering promise and hope for the future – until it bangs up against the climate crisis; and the encapsulated self, unable to connect with those they love or indeed with the world at large – “They waited too long. They had already passed each other in the night” (193). Serizawa’s imagery is rich with embodiment and sensations -- from light and dark, to gut and heart, to staring eyes and listening ears. “The walls shimmered; the air pulsated, a luminous agitation Masaaki would experience again only in the final moments of his own life” (209). The characters’ history and heritage unfurl through artifacts such as memories, news-clippings, or photos; and fluid, gut-punching moments of self-revelation. My reading of the book was complicated by memories of my uncle in the Navy, who married a survivor of Nagasaki some time after the war and brought her home to America. As a child I was drawn to the kimono and geta, the puzzle-box and Japanese dolls they gifted me. This book helped me realize that their story must have been more complicated than I could have known.
May 27, 2020
All together this is a gripping narrative. There is a family tree in the start of the book but as you read the stories and see the families’ perceptions of each other and how they fit together or how far apart their stories are it paints a very different picture. The stories are from different perspectives spanning the generations and geography, and vary greatly in writing style.
This variance in writing style was in my opinion both the greatest strength and weakness of the book. Some of the stories were harder follow because of their format and this may be particularly true for readers without much background knowledge of the historical events depicted in the stories. However, as the book continues and the way the stories are intertwined becomes more apparent many of the more confusing details are clarified. The different styles also add a lot of depth to the stories helping to highlight the different personalities and the time period in which the stories are told. I most enjoyed the stories that were told by the characters reminiscing later in life as it showed both their history and the ways these stories were buried over time. Overall the book presents a heart wrenching and thought provoking narrative that was fascinating to read.
This variance in writing style was in my opinion both the greatest strength and weakness of the book. Some of the stories were harder follow because of their format and this may be particularly true for readers without much background knowledge of the historical events depicted in the stories. However, as the book continues and the way the stories are intertwined becomes more apparent many of the more confusing details are clarified. The different styles also add a lot of depth to the stories helping to highlight the different personalities and the time period in which the stories are told. I most enjoyed the stories that were told by the characters reminiscing later in life as it showed both their history and the ways these stories were buried over time. Overall the book presents a heart wrenching and thought provoking narrative that was fascinating to read.
August 17, 2020
This book shows the complexity of Japanese history of the generational trauma of atomic bombings and Japanese imperialist war crimes through the beautifully written stories of a family line. I loved diving into the Japanese diaspora and mixed Japanese Americans coming to terms with this history and their own colonialism. The look into the future wasn’t my favorite, but an interesting addition. Required reading in my opinion!!!!!
November 28, 2020
An absolutely stunning book of staggering trauma. Set primarily in Japan and told as a collection of nonsequential short stories, Inheritors portrays five generations of a family and the reverberations of their devastating experiences during World War II. Purely on a sentence level, the writing is gorgeous. A lot of contemporary literature has almost a flat affect, but there is a poetry to Serizawa’s writing that is totally captivating, particularly in contrast to the brutality of the book. I found myself reading sentences repeatedly just to savor the language. She also shifts between styles and structures extremely smoothly.
The book is unrelenting in its exploration of themes of memory, forgetfulness, complicity in and deliberate ignorance of atrocities, nationalism, identity, and intergenerational trauma, and I so appreciated how Serizawa explores complex questions of morality without (for the most part) moralizing. No character or group escapes without critique, but the author has a great deal of empathy and compassion for her characters and portrays them with nuance. One chapter in particular (Train to Harbin) was excruciating for me to read, and I imagine different readers will find different chapters to be especially difficult. (This book contains just about every kind of trigger, so definitely do some research ahead of time if that is a concern.) One of the themes of the book is propaganda and nationalistic forgetting after a war; I saw that reflected in my own experience, as growing up I learned almost nothing about atrocities committed against and by Japan during and after the war, with the exception of the atomic bomb.
The book is so complex and thoughtfully constructed; I saw some reviews that suggested that the author should have arranged the stories chronologically, but I thought the organization was brilliant. I relied very heavily on the detailed family tree in the beginning, which I rarely do; in addition to providing the characters’ relationships, it also lists their dates of birth and death and the stories that feature them.
Unsurprisingly, some chapters are stronger than others. There was something very destabilizing about jumping around in time, even though that was intentional; some chapters seemed to do a better job of situating the reader, whereas others felt a bit more obtuse. One of the chapters toward the end was a bit didactic and plodding and felt like it was hitting me over the head a little with a summary of the themes of the book. And while I see what Serizawa was doing with the final two chapters (and the penultimate chapter had shades of Ted Chiang), I could have done without them.
That said, this was an extraordinary and challenging novel (a debut?!) and an obvious five stars for me.
The book is unrelenting in its exploration of themes of memory, forgetfulness, complicity in and deliberate ignorance of atrocities, nationalism, identity, and intergenerational trauma, and I so appreciated how Serizawa explores complex questions of morality without (for the most part) moralizing. No character or group escapes without critique, but the author has a great deal of empathy and compassion for her characters and portrays them with nuance. One chapter in particular (Train to Harbin) was excruciating for me to read, and I imagine different readers will find different chapters to be especially difficult. (This book contains just about every kind of trigger, so definitely do some research ahead of time if that is a concern.) One of the themes of the book is propaganda and nationalistic forgetting after a war; I saw that reflected in my own experience, as growing up I learned almost nothing about atrocities committed against and by Japan during and after the war, with the exception of the atomic bomb.
The book is so complex and thoughtfully constructed; I saw some reviews that suggested that the author should have arranged the stories chronologically, but I thought the organization was brilliant. I relied very heavily on the detailed family tree in the beginning, which I rarely do; in addition to providing the characters’ relationships, it also lists their dates of birth and death and the stories that feature them.
Unsurprisingly, some chapters are stronger than others. There was something very destabilizing about jumping around in time, even though that was intentional; some chapters seemed to do a better job of situating the reader, whereas others felt a bit more obtuse. One of the chapters toward the end was a bit didactic and plodding and felt like it was hitting me over the head a little with a summary of the themes of the book. And while I see what Serizawa was doing with the final two chapters (and the penultimate chapter had shades of Ted Chiang), I could have done without them.
That said, this was an extraordinary and challenging novel (a debut?!) and an obvious five stars for me.
May 5, 2021
The structure of this book leads to its complexity; its multilayered stories are sad and sometimes brutal, yet they are not highly emotional. It is a work of introspection and intelligence, but there is a distance, almost a numbness, that kept me from feeling much engagement with the characters. I was left with much to think about it.
September 22, 2022
Confuso.
August 12, 2020
This book fundamentally centers the Japanese experience of World War II, the before, during, and after, but does so without constantly referencing the Western story so many of us are familiar with. Serizawa doesn’t shy away from unpacking the problematic and systematically harmful actions the Japanese took in order to assert power. Some make concerted choices to participate and be complicit in imperialism. Other characters I empathized with, watching them make impossible decisions amid hardship.
Serizawa is deft at weaving complex storytelling and analysis into beautiful prose that feels labyrinthine. If you’ve ever read a book told from multiple character voices but they all sounded alike, and you were annoyed, then good news – the voices in this book all sound different. She also jumps forward in time – not to current day, but to the future, and envisions what the world could look like.
As I keep turning around the events that transpire within this family, I wondered:
- How do we inherit identities?
- Is to inherit also to take? Is it more taking than giving?
- What does it mean to inherit trauma?
- Family trees are like spokes that all feed back into one trunk, but what happens when breakage happens (intentional or otherwise)?
“Luna,” “Train to Harbin,” and “Pavilion” are the stories in this book that defined the reading experience for me.
Ultimately, I was also curious about the dearth of books - at least in English - that are about World War II that pertain to non-Western experiences.
Thank you to Doubleday Books for gifting me a finished copy of this book. It did not influence my review and I was not compensated.
Serizawa is deft at weaving complex storytelling and analysis into beautiful prose that feels labyrinthine. If you’ve ever read a book told from multiple character voices but they all sounded alike, and you were annoyed, then good news – the voices in this book all sound different. She also jumps forward in time – not to current day, but to the future, and envisions what the world could look like.
As I keep turning around the events that transpire within this family, I wondered:
- How do we inherit identities?
- Is to inherit also to take? Is it more taking than giving?
- What does it mean to inherit trauma?
- Family trees are like spokes that all feed back into one trunk, but what happens when breakage happens (intentional or otherwise)?
“Luna,” “Train to Harbin,” and “Pavilion” are the stories in this book that defined the reading experience for me.
Ultimately, I was also curious about the dearth of books - at least in English - that are about World War II that pertain to non-Western experiences.
Thank you to Doubleday Books for gifting me a finished copy of this book. It did not influence my review and I was not compensated.
June 2, 2025
Absolutely incredible. This book sets out to accomplish no easy storytelling task: a inter-continental and inter-generational collection of stories and perspectives that encircle the second World War. Serizawa's prose is beautiful, and poignant, and thought-provoking. The way that she was able to connect (both narratively and emotionally) the reader to each of the narrators across thousands of miles and almost 150 years is what has impressed me more than anything. The philosophical and historical implications of these stories are immense and beg many questions that a lot of writers aren't willing to ask. If you haven't read this yet and are considering it - do it! I promise you will leave a better reader than you were before.
June 16, 2024
I really like reading books that give us stories from the ‘wrong’ side of history and in this case it is Japan during and around the Second World War. It’s a series of interlinked, non-chronological stories about a Japanese family that includes a branch that has emigrated and settled in the US (although most stories remain Japan based). It’s very well written and much more literary than I was expecting, using a variety of styles and also a number of other literary sources, including Borges, as bases for some of the stories, that ultimately form an interesting picture of Japanese twentieth century history. Occasionally it can maybe be a bit over ambitious and sometimes the narrative voice may not quite have fitted its character but overall I thought this was a great read and certainly a very strong debut.
April 3, 2022
"To be a product of history - to feel the weight of that legacy - Luna feels a flash of envy. It gave her father a clarity of purpose she feels she lacks. With fewer people left every year to tell the lived stories, she can understand why he invested in the past - to expose not just the buried roots of history but the fragile bedrock of the future vulnerable to the human propensity not only to forget and repeat but to be ignorant and led."
Complex characters, gorgeous prose, and sublime storytelling all centered around the harrowing power of time and fallibility of memory. Serizawa does not tie any of her interconnected stories up with neat resolutions, but the lack thereof provides the reader space to contemplate, imagine, and ask questions. What if? What happened next? Why? Books like these are the books worth keeping.
Complex characters, gorgeous prose, and sublime storytelling all centered around the harrowing power of time and fallibility of memory. Serizawa does not tie any of her interconnected stories up with neat resolutions, but the lack thereof provides the reader space to contemplate, imagine, and ask questions. What if? What happened next? Why? Books like these are the books worth keeping.
March 20, 2021
This was an incredibly difficult review to write because there is so much packed into the book and my review would seem jumbled.
It is a collection of interconnected family stories that span over 150 years that take place mostly in Japan. Most of the stories deal with WWII and then the aftermath of the war and America’s role as occupiers of Japan. Other stories take place in more recent times and in the near future. The family tree at the front of the physical book helped to clarify the time of each particular story.
Some stories are from the point of view of the Japanese as conquerors and some as the conquered.
A couple of them contained a great deal of philosophizing which I had to reread to grasp the points.
I don’t typically re-read books but I am certain I will revisit this one.
Highly recommend
It is a collection of interconnected family stories that span over 150 years that take place mostly in Japan. Most of the stories deal with WWII and then the aftermath of the war and America’s role as occupiers of Japan. Other stories take place in more recent times and in the near future. The family tree at the front of the physical book helped to clarify the time of each particular story.
Some stories are from the point of view of the Japanese as conquerors and some as the conquered.
A couple of them contained a great deal of philosophizing which I had to reread to grasp the points.
I don’t typically re-read books but I am certain I will revisit this one.
Highly recommend
August 7, 2020
this family odyssey was absolutely stunning in every way possible. every single timeline was meticulously constructed, every character thoroughly nuanced, every story incredibly lush with detail. i referred back to the family tree more times than i can count but i loved it so so much. i think it raises really important questions about historical narratives, revisionism, sundry cultural phenomena, and perhaps, most terrifyingly, our future. so many stories in this collection left me shivering. i also really appreciate the variation in story telling methods and how some tales exist in conversation with other works. overall, so poignant, so gorgeous, so heartbreaking, and never have i ever been so glad that i checked out the new books on libby. 300000/10.
November 22, 2020
If you take out all the formal tricks and sleight of hand you’d end up with a better and still-beautiful novel that is also confusing and still about 150 pages too short.
It also suffers from literary fiction disease where the author is really into using words like palimpsest. I’m not saying there has to be a ban on words like palimpsest but do you know what I’m saying like I get it you’re interested in the limits of human subjectivity and the variability of history please don’t insert dense little theory paragraphs into your narrative. It just scans as like a “look at me, the very intelligent author.”
I think the beating heart of the story is with Luna and her parents / kids. It’s pretty lovely and I would have been thrilled to have gotten more of it!
It also suffers from literary fiction disease where the author is really into using words like palimpsest. I’m not saying there has to be a ban on words like palimpsest but do you know what I’m saying like I get it you’re interested in the limits of human subjectivity and the variability of history please don’t insert dense little theory paragraphs into your narrative. It just scans as like a “look at me, the very intelligent author.”
I think the beating heart of the story is with Luna and her parents / kids. It’s pretty lovely and I would have been thrilled to have gotten more of it!
September 3, 2020
These connected stories about the effects on a multi-generational Japanese family of World War II, what preceded it, and what followed it, show how what we think of as history was once an uncertain present moment with choices to be made, choices that can be looked at from multiple perspectives, choices that ripple and continue to unfold well into what will be the future. The stories start out and then continue well-grounded in the characters' lives, and I was greatly enjoying the book, but they become increasingly philosophical and finally fanciful by the end, and I found myself enjoying these later ones less.
When Serizawa focuses on characters, the writing is strong. Ayumi, for instance, is perceptively drawn in the first story slipping into dementia as an older woman while recalling staying behind in California as a teenager when her father left to return to Japan in 1913, staying with the slightly older son of a white landowner, a family friend and love interest. When America shut its borders in 1924 to Asians amidst rising anti-Japanese hostility, "she'd ceased to be Robert's romantic commitment and become instead his permanent liability."
Ayumi's brothers remain in Japan and feature in two of the most compelling stories. Sadao, a doctor, agreed to work in Japan's biological weapons and testing program during WWII, justifying it to himself as saving more Japanese lives than it would cost of enemy lives. After the war, he wrestles with how much guilt he should bear, versus those in authority who put him in that place. Annual reunions with a couple of fellow doctors don't help:
Guilt and choices made feature strongly again in Ayumi's youngest brother Masaharu's and his wife's story. Set in the post-surrender occupation of Japan, a subway ride leads to a fascinating conversation among strangers.
By the ninth story however, Serizawa shifts to focus more heavily on abstract philosophical questions about belonging, time, choices, and fate, which can seem like they would have been better as essays than fashioned into short stories. One leans heavily on an analysis of a Borges story, which is quite a shift from her earlier character-driven stories. The final two stories are set in an increasingly dystopian future and really have nothing to do with the specific Japanese perspective context of the previous stories, though they could be considered connected in philosophical theme. Unfortunately though I didn't find them greatly interesting.
The first 2/3 of the book is really excellent then, the last third I could have skipped.
When Serizawa focuses on characters, the writing is strong. Ayumi, for instance, is perceptively drawn in the first story slipping into dementia as an older woman while recalling staying behind in California as a teenager when her father left to return to Japan in 1913, staying with the slightly older son of a white landowner, a family friend and love interest. When America shut its borders in 1924 to Asians amidst rising anti-Japanese hostility, "she'd ceased to be Robert's romantic commitment and become instead his permanent liability."
Ayumi's brothers remain in Japan and feature in two of the most compelling stories. Sadao, a doctor, agreed to work in Japan's biological weapons and testing program during WWII, justifying it to himself as saving more Japanese lives than it would cost of enemy lives. After the war, he wrestles with how much guilt he should bear, versus those in authority who put him in that place. Annual reunions with a couple of fellow doctors don't help:
Our annual meals seem to have done them good, churning up old soil mineralized by the years, the new exposure letting them breathe. I, however, find myself hurtled back to people and places lost to time but not lost to me. At my age it is time that is present, its physicality reminding me of the finality of all our choices, made and lived.
Guilt and choices made feature strongly again in Ayumi's youngest brother Masaharu's and his wife's story. Set in the post-surrender occupation of Japan, a subway ride leads to a fascinating conversation among strangers.
Masaharu wondered what these women would be saying if Japan had won the war; victors could justify anything, and hadn't they thrown themselves into the war effort just months before? The man behind him clucked but didn't reply. His wife said, "Didn't we all contribute to this war? I certainly didn't do enough to prevent it."... Surprisingly, it was the panpan prostitute in the Western-style dress who broke the silence. "But we were deceived, weren't we? We were tricked by the Emporer."
By the ninth story however, Serizawa shifts to focus more heavily on abstract philosophical questions about belonging, time, choices, and fate, which can seem like they would have been better as essays than fashioned into short stories. One leans heavily on an analysis of a Borges story, which is quite a shift from her earlier character-driven stories. The final two stories are set in an increasingly dystopian future and really have nothing to do with the specific Japanese perspective context of the previous stories, though they could be considered connected in philosophical theme. Unfortunately though I didn't find them greatly interesting.
The first 2/3 of the book is really excellent then, the last third I could have skipped.
October 2, 2023
Espectacular
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