Inhabitation

May 1, 2019
In 1970s Osaka, a young man moves out of his mother's home and is consumed by thoughts of life, love, and an impaled lizard. Stretching from the cherry-blossom spring of one year to the spring of the next, this novel follows the passionate preoccupations of graduating college student and part-time hotel bellboy Iryō Tetsuyuki. Miyamoto (Rivers, 2014, etc.) published this novel in 1984--straight after the release of his novel Maboroshi no hikari but before it had found fame as the film Maborosi--but its themes are timeless. Sometimes literally and always figuratively feverish, Tetsuyuki struggles with the tangible aspects of adult life: finances, collegiality, romantic love, filial obligations. The book's Japanese title, Haru no Yume--Spring Dream--gives a good sense of Tetsuyuki's tenuous grasp of reality as he comes of age. A perceptive if judgmental character, Tetsuyuki can be a deeply exasperating protagonist, though he's portrayed with just enough sympathy and fascination to keep the reader engaged with his constantly shifting resolutions. Through this balancing act and his clear prose, Miyamoto shows why he is respected in Japan, if little-known abroad. Somehow, Tetsuyuki's feelings toward his girlfriend, the financial debt he inherited from his father, his relationship with his mother, the profound nature of existence, and various concepts of reincarnation are all bound up with Kin-chan, the lizard he accidentally nailed to a pillar on his first night in his own place. A cast of characters at the Osaka hotel and around the Kansai region also provide foils for Tetsuyuki's developing sensibility and counterexamples for many of the relationships he is trying to develop. A fascinating exploration of early adulthood in Japan.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 20, 2019
The latest from Miyamoto (Kinshu: Autumn Brocade) has a surreal, promising conceit but never manages to wriggle free from banality. In the 1970s, college student Tetsuyuki moves to a dingy apartment on the outskirts of Daito in Osaka Prefecture, partly to avoid the underworld creditors hounding him and his mother. In a home improvement project gone wrong, Tetsuyuki inadvertently nails a lizard to the wall. Remorseful, he keeps the lizard alive, feeding it weevil larvae and other delicacies after his long shifts as a hotel bellboy. The lizard demonstrates a “tenacious vitality” that the formerly shiftless Tetsuyuki begins to exhibit more in his own life. He asserts himself at work, confronts a rival for his girlfriend Yoko’s affection, and faces down his dangerous creditors. Moreover, he begins having fleeting visions of enlightenment, dreams in which “dying and being reborn, he continually passed through the cycle of life and death as a lizard.” Throughout, the diction is overly stiff, whether it’s depicting Tetsuyuki challenging his girlfriend’s suitor (“Can your intellectuality trump my baseness?”), violent gangsters administering a beating (“Hey, hurry up and kick the bucket!”), or young men discussing the afterlife (“I wonder why people die”). This tale of a young man seeking enlightenment fails to illuminate.

July 1, 2019
The original Japanese title, [Haru no yume], visible in blue on the cover, translates to spring dream. Cherry blossom petals opens Miyamoto's latest novel translated into English, which ends (penultimately) with spring light. In between, a year goes by that is part dream, part nightmare, part surreality. University student Iryo Tetsuyuki moves to Osaka's outskirts to avoid vicious creditors determined to collect his late father's debts. During the first night in his dingy apartment, he inadvertently impales a lizard with a nail he intends to use as a hat hook. With the light of morning, he's shocked to discover that the lizard is still alive. Over the year, Tetsuyuki feeds and waters the trapped lizard, even naming him Kin, making him confessor and witness to Tetsuyuki's daily life, including his relationships with his well-to-do girlfriend, his mother (who is also forced into partial hiding), and his colleagues at the hotel at which he works part-time. Originally published in 1985, Miyamoto's depiction of a young man's struggles, minus today's pernicious ubiquity of social media, remains surprisingly relevant and resonant.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)