Out on the square, leaves fluttered in a gentle breeze along the pavement. The sky was a cloudless dome of sunlight. While it's not out-and-out horror, I wouldn't like to read it in an empty house at night.

From 'Lab Coats' to 'The Museum of Torture' I had an especially big case of THE SHIVERS. This was a creepy story collection, though. Perhaps this was intentional, but I'm not sure. This makes it so you cannot always tell who is speaking, and I mean basic info, like male or female, unless something like a boyfriend is mentioned. On the other hand, Ogawa is so minimalist that despite each story having a different narrator, she does not change the style or tone. There are perfect sentences like the grotesquely funny 'That evening, my potato salad had bits of the pinkie and the index finger.' J,' where a writer's strange landlady finds carrots shaped like human hands growing in her garden. This works to great effect in stories like 'Old Mrs. The spookiness is achieved by inserting a bizarre element into everyday happenings. Maybe this is due to the translation, but Yoko Ogawa is like an artist who wants to paint with as few brushstrokes as possible. Yoko Ogawa's Revenge is a master class in the macabre that will haunt you to the last page.įirst of all, whoever wrote the blurb on the book jacket has clearly not read the book. Murderers and mourners, mothers and children, lovers and innocent bystanders-their fates converge in an ominous and darkly beautiful web. Desire meets with impulse and erupts, attracting the attention of the surgeon's neighbor-who is drawn to a decaying residence that is now home to instruments of human torture. And while the surgeon's jealous lover vows to kill him, a violent envy also stirs in the soul of a lonely craftsman. Elsewhere, an accomplished surgeon is approached by a cabaret singer, whose beautiful appearance belies the grotesque condition of her heart. Sinister forces collide-and unite a host of desperate characters-in this eerie cycle of interwoven tales from Yoko Ogawa, the critically acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.Īn aspiring writer moves into a new apartment and discovers that her landlady has murdered her husband. But this collection may linger in your mind - it does in mine - as a delicious, perplexing, absorbing and somehow singular experience.' - Alan Cheuse, NPR Ogawa stands on the shoulders of giants, as another saying goes.

one may detect a slight bow to the American macabre of E.A. 'It's not just Murakami but also the shadow of Borges that hovers over this mesmerizing book.

Revenge by yōko ogawa