|
Penned
in 1994, when Banana Yoshimoto was thirty years old, Amrita
centers on a girl named Sakumi. Sakumi is quite similar to
the typical Yoshimoto protagonist: mid-twenties, pretty but
not beautiful, and from an affluent albeit broken family.
She spends her days doing what a number of young women from
similar backgrounds do: She shops at expensive boutiques,
hangs out with her friends, and has long, leisurely dates
with her boyfriend. However, there is one key element to Sakumi
that differentiates her: One day, she split her head open
when she fell on some steep steps, causing her mind to become
a clean slate.
Working
at a small bar called Berries and living with her odd family—her
mother, her cousin, her mother's best friend, and her little
brother—Sakumi spends her days similarly to the way that
she did before, but with the added addition of suddenly recalling
memories that had been deeply submerged in her subconsciousness.
Many of these memories concern her dead sister Mayu, a once
a famous actress. Beautiful and liked by everyone, Mayu died
years before in an accident related to alcohol and drug use.
Her memory hangs over Sakumi's family and the mind of Mayu's
boyfriend Ryuichiro, a writer who has become a globetrotter
after Mayu's death. With this deep shadow over her life, Sakumi
tries to rediscover herself.
Amrita
is definitely a convoluted work due to the introductions and
disappearances of characters—seemingly at random—and
a confusing timeline which offers few clues as to whether
the setting is in the past or the present. However, the book
is not a rambling mess. With a clean slate for a mind, Sakumi
definitely has an interesting outlook towards life. She sees
her family members in a completely new light and learns slowly
what makes each person important to her and how each person
is a piece of the puzzle which is her memory.
Like
almost every other Yoshimoto novel, Amrita is tinged
with melancholy, and it can make the readers reflect on their
own personal relationships, how their concepts of a person
is completely made up of thoughts and memories, and how truly
tenuous these thoughts and memories are.
(April,
2007)
|
