Goodbye Tsugumi

Jim Fonseca

Rating: really liked it
Question: if a story is about three young women of college age, is it always a YA novel? This Japanese author is considered a YA author.

This is a bit of a strange story. The main character is an only child but she also grew up with her aunt and uncle and two female cousins who are sisters, one a year older, one a year younger. The two families run a small seaside resort and function as a single family. While we follow the main character as she tells the story, Tsugumi of the title is in a sense the real main character. Tsugumi has some kind of disabling disease, and it was thought she might die while young.



The young woman who might die is beautiful and very intelligent but, because of her illness, she is spoiled rotten and one of the nastiest people you will want to meet. She enjoys being mean to people. Everyone in the family, adults and children, let her do and say whatever she wants. She constantly calls the other girls ‘dimwits’ ‘morons,’ and ‘assholes.’ She plays up her illness saying “You jerks sure are going to feel like crap if I die tonight!” And, of course, all of us older people remember how we used to say to our mothers things like “Keep your mouth shut unless you’ve got something worth saying.” She has tantrums and throws food. The family seems not only to indulge her, but to admire her for this behavior.

The girl with the illness also experiences a “white rage” if someone crosses her. And when her boyfriend gets involved with some thugs she takes revenge on them in away that is bizarre, almost Stephen King-ish.

It’s also a book about nostalgia. They all love their lives and the companionship at the hotel. Now the main character is going off to college in Tokyo and the aunt and uncle are selling the resort. They are all overcome with nostalgia as the last third of the book focuses on the last summer they will be together, while the girl’s illness becomes more serious.



A good story; fast-paced, less than 200 pages. I rate it a 3.5, rounded up to 4. I liked a bit better the author’s novel Kitchen, about a young woman trying to overcome grief through gourmet cooking. Here it is you are interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Photo of a Japanese resort from pinterest
The author from bongbongbooks.wordpress.com

Samadrita

Rating: really liked it
The present encapsulates a series of moments which rarely coalesce to form a coherent motif or a recognizable image we can easily identify with only grief or euphoria or even dejection. Melancholia and felicity, hope and disappointment are often indissolubly mixed in this concoction. One cannot have one without the other. But on rare occasions clarity dawns on a fortunate few or those who are sentimental enough to look back at a time which has already merged with the void leaving only a pale shadow of its existence hovering uncertainly in its place. And one can, perhaps to one's utter astonishment, make out the remnants of a past in which one was really, truly content even though the edges of this transitory happiness were rimmed by an aching awareness of its imperfections.

The sense that the three of us were becoming friends seemed to saturate the air between us like a kind of instinct, a pleasurable premonition.

Even though I find myself grappling with a deep reluctance to disassemble Banana Yoshimoto's works to the sum of their parts knowing all too well that even the effort seems like an insult to her talent, I gain a kind of quiet confidence from the understated brilliance of her words to string together words of my own and attempt to trace the contours of that elusive, ephemeral happiness that she limns with consummate artistry. The small, tender moments that can presumptuously be considered inconsequential when a life is subjected to a careful scrutiny at its inevitable end but aren't. Moments which blend resentment and gratitude, restlessness and satisfaction, love and anger in equal measure. Moments which are akin to the blurred landscape on the other side of the frosted glass window on a misty, rain-drenched morning. One can only be dazzled by their burnish once the obfuscating, gauzy veil of time has been lifted.

For the sake of token criticism, one can call Tsugumi, the perennially ailing, delicate waif of a girl with the vicious spirit of a demon, a meaner version of the manic pixie dream girl prototype. But it's not Tsugumi - indisputably the emotional center of this narrative - who stands out in my eyes. It is rather the memory of a listless summer spent in a seaside town of one's childhood in which Tsugumi's casual cruelty, her laughter, her tears and fury burn in the palette of the narrator's consciousness with the inexorable intensity of the sun, eclipsing all the memories of other sharper happinesses. It is the bittersweet longing for a lost home that engulfs Maria (the narrator) every time she steps off a bus amidst the hustle and bustle of upscale Tokyo, an ache which only the gentle sound of Tsugumi sliding the paper door open to her room in Yamamoto Inn can ameliorate. And it is rather the story of the girl on the cusp of graduating to a newer phase of life, falteringly embracing the idea of a new home, and confronting the growing dread of losing something she had not even recognized she held dear to herself that I wish to cherish for a long time.

Because the ocean had always been there, in the good times as well as the bad times of my life, when it was sweltering out and the beach was filled with people, and in the dead of winter when the sky was heavy with stars, and when we were heading to the local shrine on New Year's Day...all I had to do was turn my head and it would be there, the same as always.

Fragile bonds which only accumulate substance and strength to grow into pulsating hearts that throb to the uneven rhythms of existence. Vague silhouettes flickering somewhere in the horizon coming into sharper focus with the shifting of light and the shortening of distance, and metamorphosing into the very people we are accustomed to admire and despise by turns. Yoshimoto is capable of disinterring profound meaning lodged in the depths of the most mundane of occurrences and shucking off the hard shell of superficial reality to reveal its soft, pliant core.

A surge of emotion cuts into my chest, overwhelmingly fierce. As if these people I love and this town are going to vanish from the very face of the earth, a feeling so overwhelmingly bright I can't stand to look at it straight.

Her craft lies in exalting the ordinary and the everyday truths of life's many baffling dichotomies to transcendental wisdom and in converting ambiguous characters to people of flesh and blood who cannot help surrendering before the promise of love which accosts them in their most vulnerable moments. In the end, she knows it is not about bidding farewell to a time in memory or a place or a way of life but having the courage to accept the truth of its centrality in one's life, knowing full well that forever is a beautiful lie and goodbye waits just around the corner.

Jr Bacdayan

Rating: really liked it
This novel, more than anything, wrenched my heart. I could feel its every beat as I glided through Banana Yoshimoto’s simple yet soothing prose. The breeze of a warm summer sea penetrated through the pages and I felt its warmth saunter over me like a comforting blanket. Even the cold of my room was eviscerated by the earnest glow of a young girl’s relentless spirit. This beautiful tale of two cousins is one of the few books that has truly resonated with my personal outlook. I was thoroughly taken by Maria trying to come to terms with the changes in her life, and Tsugumi ceaselessly going forward without a care in the world. It was a rare indulgence both to the senses and the mind.

“The world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one single instant to the next – and I didn’t want to forget a single one.”

Goodbye Tsugumi, as the name suggests, is a novel whose waves are anchored on the ends and partings we have to face in life. Maria recently moved out of her hometown, her birthplace to be with her Father and to attend the University. From her coastal town, she suddenly finds herself under the big and overwhelming city lights of Tokyo. She misses the ocean, and warmth of her friends, her cousins. But over time the quiet town of her beginnings slowly seeps out of her thoughts as she starts to appreciate the brightness of her new surroundings, until she learns that the past she has now taken for granted might never be revisited again. And so she comes home, maybe for the last time.

The pages of this book are littered with nostalgia so overpowering it forces one to revisit ones own past. Ceaselessly, the thoughts of Maria drift to the sea, and every time she understands to appreciate the things around her. She immortalizes image after image of her last moments in this sacred place that the essence of it is reflected by my realization that I have stopped breathing for a few seconds.

The commonplace, the ordinary, the pedestrian, these are the things that revisit Maria. In contrast the special, ruffian, sickly Tsugumi hovers over her like a giant shadow pulling her back to face the everyday mirror she has never looked at before. Tsugumi, someone who has never been out of their town, yet has the life force of more than the entire towns people combined, dazzles her, blinds her and somehow helps her see what it was she came back for. Tsugumi serves as the beach, a springboard to the incessant waves of Maria’s thoughts and apprehensions, a striking yet fragile pillar of assurance that shrouds her snugly, homely, bringing her back. Together they make for such a breathtaking sight.

“And every time this happened I would realize that this feeling wasn’t quite suffering, no, but a kind of distress that was at the same time wonderfully exciting. Even as I rested there this sea of emotions continued to ebb and flow through my chest.”

‘Everything will be all right.’ This is the gentle message of Tsugumi to Maria. Despite her horrid attitude, her profanities, her sauciness, her immaturity, she grasps the things she can and holds on tight. Her unfiltered way of living and her relentless spirit defies the pathetic circumstances she has. She refuses pity; she refuses tears, because she knows things are as they are. And whatever comes along, whatever changes, life goes on. “Babe, I can die in the mountains as much as I can die beside the sea.”

Nothing is perfect, nothing lasts forever, and rather than mope perhaps it is better to appreciate the moments that come our way. The friendships that will someday end, the love that will one day cease, the home that will later find itself elsewhere, our reflections which years from now we will not recognize. Who says that the future, real as it is, should ruin the things that we, at the moment, hold dear.

Tsugumi’s last assurance to Maria at the end of the novel is as clear as the sea in summer. However insolent and depressing Tsugumi might sound, her ardor and spirit leaps out and makes itself felt. And it feels unmistakably alive.

Whether it may be saying goodbye, moving somewhere unfamiliar, losing something precious, falling in or out of love, having nothing left inside you, or whatever it is that troubles us. Maybe Tsugumi is right. Maybe that’s just how things are, how life is. We remember but we move forward. Maybe, despite appearances, everything will be all right.

Keep well.

Lynne King

Rating: really liked it

From the time she was born, Tsugumi was ridiculously frail, and she had a whole slew of physical ailments and defects. Her doctors announced that she would die young and her family began preparing for the worst. Of course everyone around her spoiled her like you wouldn’t believe.

I loved "Kitchen" by this author but I actually prefer this book. What it is, I've really tried to fathom it out, basically is that it comes down to the simplicity in the style of writing. Having said that, I've read different translations with the two books and the style is definitely different. This book is more American in its style. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that but one needs to localize here and, of course, the book is targeted for different markets.

This book is about Maria, but also a love story about Tsugumi, who sounds a dreadful individual. I was ready to dispose of the book after two pages and throw it into the Saison river but no, I decided to persevere with it as I loved "Kitchen" and would you believe it but I was soon well and truly enchanted with the story.

The fact that Tsugumi was an invalid has, I believe, been responsible for her behaviour. Perhaps that was why she was such an “enfant terrible”, as she spent so much time in bed that she had too much time to reflect. She was somewhat insular. I was reminded of Proust for some obscure reason. If one spends so much time on one’s own, one really reflects and the mind and emotions can run wild, especially with the imagination and yet, I feel, one can be so enriched by this.

The story is told by her cousin Maria, who appears to be somewhat in awe of Tsugumi and is spending her final summer with her by the sea at Tsugumi’s parents’ inn, before she moves to be with her family in Tokyo and then go to university there.

Initially Maria was not too enamoured with Tsugumi but slowly this recedes and love soon replaces it. There is the most remarkable letter written at the end of the book that nearly brought me to tears I must confess. It was heart-breaking.

But Tsugumi finds love with Kyoichi and it is like a different individual has been born, summoned here by the rebirth of the phoenix. All of her loyalty in her love rises to the fore and even includes Kyoichi’s dog, Gongoro, evidently a rather ghastly Pomeranian. But love works strange miracles in our life on this planet. Also when love is involved, other emotions make an unexpected appearance and then some rather unusual events occur. Revenge then enters into the equation and then the most remarkable things happen. I was quite breathless when I saw what Tsugumi was capable of. I could have never have done what she did. I would not have had the strength. All I can add is that there is a large hole involved…

The novella is multi-faceted. The sea is the foundation and essence of the book as is light. The two both enter into the soul somehow.

Surprisingly enough by the end of the book I was thoroughly enchanted with Tsugumi. To apologise didn't exist in her vocabulary and when she finally did apologise, the world exploded with amazement. How she changed with love!

I had translation work to do but abandoned that and sat myself down at the table on the terrace with my book, gazed at my beloved Pyrenees, and sipped a glass of iced water. It is rather hot here at the moment at 29°C. I read the book in one sitting and was so impressed with it that I then opened a bottle of Champagne and had a glass. I was celebrating, held it up and imagined that I was sitting on a moonbeam gazing down on Tsugumi and her world.

I’m not going to wax lyrical here but I love the book and that should suffice. And yes, I am indeed looking forward to reading another book by this remarkable Japanese author.

luce (currently recovering from a hiatus)

Rating: really liked it
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3 ½ stars

“This story you’re reading contains my memories of the final visit I made to the seaside town where I passed my childhood—of my last summer at home.”

Goodbye Tsugumi is the quintessence of Yoshimoto. Written in her quietly poetic prose Goodbye Tsugumi is a novel that is light on the plot. Yoshimoto introduces us to her characters without preamble, offering little in terms of backstory, yet she's quick to establish the dynamic between Maria and her capricious best friend Tsugumi. Maria's feelings are rendered in a language that is both simple and lyrical, as Yoshimoto often juxtaposes Maria's inner thoughts with ordinary details of her environment. Yoshimoto is particularly attuned to nature, noting the smell of the sea, raindrops, the sand. She truly conjures up Maria's “little fishing town”, almost giving it an ethereal quality.
The friendship between Maria and Tsugumi is the focus of this short novel. In spite of their contrasting personalities, the bond between the two runs deep. Tsugumi's prickliness stems partly from her frustration towards the mysterious malady she suffers from. Maria, who's going to a university in Tokyo, decides to spend her summer with Tsugumi's in her beloved village. Yoshimoto captures with clarity Maria's impressions and feelings, vividly rendering this particular phase of her life.
An atmosphere of nostalgia envelops Maria and Tsugumi's story, making certain scenes particularly bittersweet.
However much I liked Yoshimoto's prose, I can't say that I particularly cared for Tsugumi. Her capricious nature was at times excused by her condition, which is fair enough but doesn't really give her the right to be cruel or rude.
Still, this makes for a breezy read, and fans of Yoshimoto will most likely enjoy this.

edit post re-read: this second time around i actually kind of liked tsugumi (even if she was a bit of a bitch). go figure.

Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell

Rating: really liked it

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DNF @ p.77



I'm doing this experiment where I'm rereading the books from my adolescence as part of this project. When I was in high school, I went through this phase where I was OBSESSED with Banana Yoshimoto. Lucky me, I found my trove of old books in the garage while cleaning it a few weeks ago, so I'm giving a lot of my old faves a reread to see which are worth keeping and which should be passed on to someone else.



One of the reasons I love Banana Yoshimoto's books is that they have a dreamy, introspective wistfulness to them. Sometimes this makes them really slow but when you really like the characters, it's a bit like reading one of your old school diaries. It's all very internally focused and everything kind of shimmers softly because you haven't become jaded yet. All of her books are like that, even with adult characters.



Because they are so introspective, though, they aren't really all that fun if you don't like the characters because they're almost entirely character-driven and don't really have a lot of action. That was the case with me for GOODBYE, TSUGUMI. Maria is bland and Tsugumi is a manipulative sociopath. Neither of them are particularly likable and their friendship really didn't make sense to me. I seem to remember being ambivalent about this one as a teen but rating it higher because she was my ultimate favorite author. I think in my teens, I gave this a three. Now it's getting a two.



1.5 to 2 stars

Ed Martin

Rating: really liked it
I really wasn't impressed by this book. The ideas and themes covered sounded very interesting, and while Yoshimoto's descriptions of scenery are well-written, the characters seemed to lack depth, and didn't really encourage a feeling of sympathy. I've given the benefit of the doubt as the process of translation may subtract from the original. While the descriptions of scenery were well written, and Yoshimoto made some interesting and thought-provoking points, the characters spoilt the book for me. It felt as if words were being forced into characters mouths unnaturally, with mundane conversation being interrupted by metaphysics and soul-baring in a way that really jarred. Furthermore, while the narrator was easy to get to know and relate to, the other characters lacked depth and rationale to their actions a lot of the time. I might recommend this book to young teenagers but as adult reading it really didn't do it for me. If another translation came out I'd re-read it though.

Vonia

Rating: really liked it
Yoshimoto's elegiac writing would probably automatically receive the rating for average, regardless of anything else. her prose is so beautiful, transporting readers with its sheer elegance.

The tone of this book matches the location, the seaside village where the narrator, Maria Shirakawa, is spending one last summer. At the center of the novel is her friendship with one quite unlovable character, Tsugumi. Tsugumi is her cousin, whom treats everyone around her poorly; predictably those closest to her worst of all. She is dying; has been for many years. Weak most of the time, she cannot travel, but has to be in bed most of the time. Much happens during this summer, most notably Tsugumi falling in love. Tsugumi's parents own a hotel, whom's newest rivals' (although they are closing it anyways, so it is irrelevant) son, Kyōichi. Maria herself learns more about life, her family, the meaning of home, who she is as a young person in the world. A threesome that summer, they truly bond, learning together....

Tsugumi is oh so complicated of an an enigma of a perplexing character. Yoshimoto has actually achieved something great in her, actually. So layered, many readers will quite understandable dismiss her as an ungrateful bitch that deserves no sympathy. To that, I say Yoshimoto's characters as well as novels as a whole are often to be absorbed, not exactly read. They lack plots sometimes. It is a sensory experience. What you receive from reading her novels are far from what you typically receive from American authors, even other Asian authors. She gave an impression to others because of her defense mechanisms. So many of them, she herself was lost in them. But, like Maria & Kyōichi, some readers will be able to see the beauty Tsugumi has hidden inside. Although this is no excuse for how she treats people, it is an explanation.

Yoshimoto explores some very adult themes with grace. But the presiding magic of this novel is the prose. A "few" examples....

"All summer long, Tsugumi was just as lovely as she could be. Something inside her kept creating an endless number of these moments -- scenes when the whole world would have caught its breath at the sight of her, and stood staring, utterly enchanted."

“On nights like this when the air is so clear,you end up saying things you ordinarily wouldn’t. Without even noticing what you’re doing, you open up your heart and just start talking to the person next to you—you talk as if you have no audience but the glittering stars, far overhead.”

“Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.”

“People who are going to get along really well know it almost as soon as they meet. You spend a little while talking and everyone starts to feel this conviction, you're all equally sure that you're at the beginning of something good. That's how it is when you meet people you're going to be with for a long time.”


“Life is a performance, I thought... the word "illusion" would have meant more or less the same thing, but to me "performance" seemed closed to the truth. Standing there in the midst of the crowd that evening, I felt this realization swirl dizzily through my body in a dazzling splendor of light, if only for an instant. Each one of us continues to carry the heart of each self we've ever been, at every stage along the way, and a chaos of everything good and rotten. And we have to carry this weight all alone, through each day that we live. We try to be as nice as we can to the people we love, but we alone support the weight of ourselves.”


“For ten years I had been protected, wrapped up in something like a blanket that had been stitched together from all kinds of different things. But people never notice that warmth until after they've emerged. You don't even notice that you've been inside until it's too late for you ever to go back-- that's how perfect the temperature of that blanket is.”


“That night, having wriggled down into my futon all alone, I found myself in the grips of a wrenching sadness. I was only a child, but I knew the feeling that came when you parted with something, and I felt that pain. I lay gazing up at the ceiling , feeling the sleek stiffness of the well-starched sheets against my skin. My distress was a seed that would grow into an understanding of what it meant to say goodbye. In contrast to the heavy ache I would come to know later on in life, this was tiny and fresh – a green bud of pain with a bright halo of light rimming its edges.”


“I got up and sprinted into the ocean, chasing my father. I'm in love with the moment when the water switches from being so cold you want to leap up into the air to something that feels just right against your skin.”
“Love is the kind of thing that’s already happening by the time you notice it, that’s how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn’t change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types— love where there’s an end in sight and love where there isn’t. People in love understand that better than anyone. When there’s no end in sight, it means you’re headed for something huge.”

7jane

Rating: really liked it
Maria Shirakawa is spending her last summer before Tokyo university at the seaside spa she has spent the most of her life in, with her cousin’s family, waiting for her father to finish his divorce from his first wife. This time is spent mostly with her two cousins, Yoko and Tsugumi, of which the latter stands out for her beauty, but also because of her abrasive, spoiled nature and fragile health. During the summer, love is found and the appreciation of the seaside and its town grows more intense for Maria as time passes… and Tsugumi’s health state varies.

Yes, some part of how you will like this book may depend on how much you can tolerate Tsugumi’s harshness, sometimes. That said, the other things like the events of the book, and the description of the nature and other details (including of the spa) cushion it well. It’s not only the summer that will gradually pass – there’s also the change of the (view spoiler)[family being ready to sell the spa and start a mountain resort away from the village; Tsugumi’s love interest, Kyoichi, is from the family that will ‘replace’ the inn by having a bigger hotel, freshly built, near the village (hide spoiler)]… this is a book of farewells and goodbyes, making the details, the enjoyments and the less happy times more intense.

Maria mentions that she has already (view spoiler)[before the summer missed the ocean and its sound and smell, the flowers, walks home from work, the sounds of the spa, and the roar of rain (hide spoiler)]. There is melancholy, but also that of not clinging too much to what will pass by and vanish, eventually. Knowing this brings on the knowledge of details becoming material for nostalgia, later.

(I did notice from the way phones are used in this book, that the book is set in the world where cellphones were not common, yet – the book came out in Japan in 1989. How the events of the book would go now when calling other people can happen more easily?)

I think the ending was pretty much perfect, what Tsugumi says in (view spoiler)[the letter to Maria speaks past the harshness of her usual delivery, and shows even she has grown during the summer – she is one year younger than Maria – and that while she will remain herself, she has a better view of her mortality and dependence on others. I don’t know if her summer love will last, but at least she knows much better now what love could be, not like with the other, very short relationships she has had during her schooltime. (hide spoiler)] I think that even after the summer, Maria will stay in touch with Tsugumi and others, and will look upon this summer as one of the best times of her, and their, life.

saïd

Rating: really liked it
This is probably Yoshimoto Banana's most Yoshimoto Banana novel, if that makes any sense. Light on plot and heavy on character introspection, Goodbye Tsugumi is written in Yoshimoto's characteristically quiet yet purposeful prose. The characters, Maria and her eponymous best friend Tsugumi, are introduced immediately, and their dynamic rapidly established. The "little fishing town" that acts as a backdrop to Maria's and Tsugumi's friendship is beautifully and poignantly described; often Maria's emotions are juxtaposed with simple details of nature: the smell of the sea, the pitter-patter of raindrops, the sand underfoot. The theme of juxtaposition is also exemplified in the friendship between Maria and Tsugumi, their opposing personalities and desires—Maria is soon leaving to study at university in Tokyo; Tsugumi is staying behind. The ideas of contrast between people, between old and new, past and future, are all captured in this marvelously brief little novel. I'm really curious to read some of Yoshimoto's writing in the original Japanese.

shanghao

Rating: really liked it
I usually like Yoshimoto Banana's stories, but Tsugumi and Maria didn't offer any interesting angles or stories for me. The former was an egocentric special snowflake brat and the latter's a female Jared Kushner.

The evocation of an idyllic seaside town was cool but even that couldn't save the novel from Tsugumi. #byefelicia #byetsugumi

Adrienne

Rating: really liked it
I can only hope for Yoshimotos's sake that A LOT was lost in the translation of this book. I'm just glad it was a short, quick read because I really, really hated it.

Where to start? First of all, I dislike Yoshimoto's general writing style. Word choice is poor (although I realize that could be due to the translation) and the dialogue is sooooo lame. It's like a middle school student wrote it.

Also, what is up with this: "I can't explain this very well. But just then, as the lucid rush of the rain went on closing over the town, little by little, I felt utterly convinced that something about the two of them was right." There are far too many lines like this. She can't explain? That doesn't work for me when I am reading a BOOK. There isn't really a whole lot else to use but words--no music, no pictures, no movie. Writing a story and then saying you can't explain it doesn't do anything for me. It just feels like forced drama. And if this is an attempt at foreshadowing, it really failed for me. It's too transparent. It leaves no room for me as a reader to make connections or wonder about what might happen. There is no tension at all.

I got really tired of phrases like, "It just seemed right" and "I had a sudden instant of understanding". Maria mentions a lot of these, but they are meaningless without any contextual details to support them. And really, such language just seems like a cop out, a way to avoid better storytelling. It was also irritating that Maria has convenient "hunches" whenever things are out of the ordinary. No fun.

More annoying lines--She doesn't want this night to end, she doesn't want that night to end; the ocean is so beautiful she could just die, the sky is so gorgeous, blah, blah, blah. You know, when you use phrases like that every three or four pages, they lose what little power they had to begin with. Perhaps the larger issue is that they create an image of an I'm-so-happy-I-can't-contain-myself life when in reality, the experiences she is describing are bland at best (except for one psychotic incident at the end, for which Tsugumi is never held accountable).

Finally, and most importantly, I DON'T like Tsugumi. Who could? She is pure evil. Maria says people can't help but like her and be enchanted by her but I don't get that AT ALL. The words she uses to describe Tsugumi--"sacred", "adorable", "enchanting"--they're just not believable. There is a serious disconnect between the Tsugumi Maria talks about and the Tsugumi Yoshimoto is showing us.

So basically, goodbye Tsu-freakin-gumi!

Rachel

Rating: really liked it
Just finished this 186-page book, strangely enough it felt quite long, despite the number of pages being quite short. Spoilers ahead.

Goodbye Tsugumi is described as 'An elegiac story of two young cousins coming of age at the Japanese seaside', 'an enchanting novel from one of Japan's finest writers. Marie has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled and occasionally cruel. Now Maria is moving to Tokyo to go to university, and Tsugumi invites her to spend a last summer by the sea. A restful idyll becomes a time of dramatic growth as Tsugumi finds love, and Maria learns the true meaning of home and family. She also has to confront Tsugumi's inner strength and the real possibility of losing her.'

The main problems I had with this book were the translated word choice, the constant stating of the obvious and the ending, especially (!!!) The ending might have killed it, I might have otherwise rated it a 5 out of 5. I expected Tsugumi to die at any moment throughout the book, and she never did die! It made me quite upset. This book is about loss, but the main character who I assume after being so intensely fleshed out in terms of characterisation would finally pass on, leaving the reader in tears, never actually happens! I suppose it is an evil trick of Banana Yoshimoto. Tsugumi is a brilliant character, though sometimes the word choice the translator (Michael Emmerich) has picked out seems a bit off, e.g. 'howdy', 'wretch', it makes the work seem to be set in the distant past and the vocabulary just makes your skin crawl. I wish he had chosen better words, or at least, USED A THESAURUS. Word choice should be not too modern nor too ancient such that it is timeless and not transient.

Other than that, I like Banana Yoshimoto's style. Unlike a lot of reviews I've read on the book after finishing it, I found this piece of work to be quite impressive. I liked it better than the other works of Yoshimoto that I have read, like The Lake or like Kitchen. It's probably my favourite of all of her works that I've read. After this, I will probably get myself N.P., Lizard, etc.

Even though a lot of reviewers say nothing much happens, I think the philosophy and the ideas behind dealing with growing up, loss, death, change, are far more meaningful and moving than a plot with lots of twists. In a way the ending is a twist, the book is titled 'goodbye tsugumi' but ultimately, it isn't a real goodbye in terms of losing, but of learning to grow apart from one another and moving on.

The book reminds me of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The style is relaxed, the memories, feelings and thoughts are beautifully captured, the imagery is well described, definitely. I really enjoyed that.

Just because nothing "happens" in a book doesn't make it a bad book! I would recommend this for people who can appreciate books that are more emotionally-provoking rather than something really thought-provoking.

Mads Motema

Rating: really liked it
So, this turned into one of the best books i’ve ever read. It is so... beautiful. And it just has a pearly, crisp feeling to it, it’s like some twinkling lights. I don’t really know how to properly express what i feel about this book, because i just loved it so much. I put little post it notes into my books for passages that got me extra much. there is like 12 of them and thats just the sentences or passages where i just had to pause and think „holy shit“.
This book also felt like some things, i’ve said that in my progress updates: feels like the music by ólafur arnalds, the track „last train home - still far“ from the anohana soundtrack. Ive also felt like it feels like the movie hotarubi no mori e and exactly like the motorcycle scene from the 2014 anime zankyou no terror. if you’ve seen that show you know what i mean, it’s one of my favourite scenes from anything of all times.
i actually expected tsugumi to die, but i was pleasantly surprised she didn’t. also, i did not expect to grow to like her so much. at first i thought „wow she sure is an entitled pain in the ass“ but over the course of the book i really really grew fond of her. i just grew fond of all of them. and of the image of this town painted in this book.
to conclude: holy shit man, this was a fucking amazing book.

Nassif Abou Khalil

Rating: really liked it
3.5 / 5

Reading a Banana Yoshimoto book is a vivid experience.
Her description of places is so immersive that I was able to clearly see the glittering stars and hear the ocean all while being in my room.
As for the characters, I was drawn to Tsugumi. Yes, she might be vindictive and narcissistic, but she’s so unapologetically herself that one can’t help but like her.