Mild vertigo

In this intoxicating stream-of-consciousness novel, Mieko Kanai tackles the existential traps of motherhood, marriage, and domestic captivity.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kanai, Mieko, 1947-
Other Authors: Barton, Polly (Translator), Zambreno, Kate
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Japanese
Published: New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2023.
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Description
Summary:In this intoxicating stream-of-consciousness novel, Mieko Kanai tackles the existential traps of motherhood, marriage, and domestic captivity.
"The apparently unremarkable Natsumi lives in a modern Tokyo apartment with her husband and two sons: she does the laundry, goes to the supermarket, visits friends, and gossips with neighbors. Tracing her conversations and interactions with her family and friends as they blend seamlessly into her own infernally buzzing internal monologue, Mild Vertigo explores the dizzying reality of being unable to locate oneself in the endless stream of minutiae that forms a lonely life confined to a middle-class home, where both everything and nothing happens. With shades of Clarice Lispector, Elena Ferrante, and Kobo Abe, this verbally acrobatic novel by the esteemed novelist, essayist, and critic Mieko Kanai-whose work enjoys a cult status in Japan-is a disconcerting and radically imaginative portrait of selfhood in late-stage capitalist society"-- Provided by publisher
Physical Description:179 pages
ISBN:9780811232289
081123228X
Author Notes:Born in 1947,Mieko Kanai is a novelist, poet, short-story writer, essayist, and critic. Her novel Mild Vertigo was called "mesmerizing" ( The New York Times ), "monumental" ( Japan Times ), and "urgent" ( The Atlantic ) Polly Barton is a writer and literary translator from the Japanese. Her translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki and Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa. She has published two works of non-fiction, Fifty Sounds and Porn: An Oral History ; What Am I, A Deer? is her debut novel. Kate Zambreno is the author of eight books, most recently the novel Drifts and a study of Hervé Guibert, To Write As If Already Dead .