Parallel Universes, well executed but ultimately unsatisfying

A very slim novel, a very quick read. At less than 200 pages, considering so many novels are now the size of bricks, the brevity seems part of Kitamura’s understated style. The novel is definitely cleverly handled, with a lot of showing rather than telling. The protagonist is a 49 year old woman, a renowned actress, and the other two key characters are her husband, Tomas, and 25 year old Xavier. The novel has very few characters and is deliberately low key.

It is a novel in two halves. In Part I, Xavier at first hopes the protagonist is his birth mother, then later, he becomes the assistant of the director and works closely with the protagonist, becoming protégé and friend. In this first half of the novel, the protagonist and Tomas have no children. In Part II, Xavier really is the son of the protagonist and Tomas, who comes home to live with them and their home dynamics shift tectonically as a result. I suppose the point of the two halves is to ponder on what each person means to the other, and how they relate, depending on their roles, and what if those roles shifted, as Kitamura shifts them? It is almost like parallel universes, the trousers of time, the changing possible scenarios with the same pieces/characters.

What I enjoyed most is how everything is seen through the protagonist’s eyes – what we the reader understands is only limited to the understanding of the protagonist, and when her understanding or perspective shifts, then like a kaleidoscope, for the reader, the whole situation shifts too. The protagonist is one of those who reads into things with great discernment. For example, she and Xavier are negotiating a new footing for their relationship now he is appointed the director’s assistant, and part of their group. The protagonist observes him to understand as much as she can about him:

“Xavier held the two coffees aloft, one in each hand, the bag with the breakfast sandwich. He carried the second cup with care, his fingers delicately braced around its edge, and somehow in his pose and in that little paper cup I could see the entire dynamic of his relationship with Ann. I didn’t need to see the two together in order to understand how they would interact…” (p79)

These kinds of passages are typical of Kitamura and a triumph of her style.

However, all that said, I did not enjoy this read. So much so that I would hesitate to reach out for the next Kitamura novel. It is not that nothing much happens in the ‘plot’ – nothing has to happen, that’s fine, and anyway, Kitamura’s details and reflections are so elegant that the style carries the day. But it is the two halves, of the different realities, that I disliked. This is a tad too close to surrealism, too slippery, too unreliable for my liking. I do understand the unreliability is the whole point; Kitamura wants to disquiet the reader by asking us to imagine – she illustrates for us in beautiful details – how things could be if people were other than we suppose them to be, to each other. She wants us to reflect on what a 49 year old woman and a 25 year old man could be doing together – is this a sleazy affair? The resemblance suggests familial relationship – are they mother and son? What is their manner to one another? What obligations do they have to each other, and how would that change if their roles were changed? I do understand Kitamura wants us to explore this, but I dislike the slippery nature of swapping people’s relationships to one another, because that is the fabric on which our realities are constructed. I guess playing with these role and relationship swaps feels not just uncomfortable for me, but actually unpleasant, and even vexing.

But for all that I am just not interested in this kind of imagining of role swapping, Kitamura executes it with finesse, so all kudos to her.