Kitchen (1993) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Characters/People edit see section history

• Mikage Sakurai: A skilled cook, Mikage takes on gender roles that are traditionally masculine instead of feminine. She goes to stay with Yuichi and his mom when her own parents die.
• Yuichi Tanabe: Mikage's friend; one year younger than Mikage; long-limbed with pretty features, he is more feminine than Mikage; worked at the same flower shop as Mikage's grandmother
• Eriko (Yuji) Tanabe: Yuichi's mother, Eriko is transsexual. She has sparkling narrow eyes, hair like silk to her shoulders, well-formed lips, and a nose with a high straight bridge. She takes in Mikage when Mikage's parents die and works the nightshift.
• Mr. & Mrs. Sakurai (minor): Mikage's deceased parents
• Grandmother: Mikage's grandmother who has raised her since the death of her parents; worked at a flower shop with Yuichi
• Grandfather (minor): died when Mikage was in junior high
• Woofie (Wolfie): Yuichi's former dog
• Sotaro: Mikage's old boyfriend

Quotes edit see section history

• “<p.3> The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White tile catching the light (ting! ting!). I love even incredibly dirty kitchens to distraction--vegetable droppings all over the floor, so dirty your slippers turn black on the bottom.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.4> When I'm dead worn out, in a reverie, I often think that when it comes time to die, I want to breathe my last in a kitchen. Whether it's cold and I'm all alone, or somebody's there and it's warm, I stare death fearlessly in the eye. If it's a kitchen, I'll think, 'How good.'”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.4> When my grandmother died the other day, I was taken by surprise. My family had steadily decreased one by one as the years went by, but when it suddenly dawned on me that I was all alone, everything before my eyes seemed false. The fact that time continued to pass in the usual way in this apartment where I grew up, even though now I was here all alone, amazed me. It was total science fiction. The blackness of the cosmos.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.4> Steeped in a sadness so great I could barely cry, shuffling softly in gentle drowsiness, I pulled my futon into the deathly silent, gleaming kitchen. Wrapped in a blanket, like Linus, I slept. The hum of the refrigerator kept me from thinking of my loneliness. There, the long night came on in perfect peace, and morning came.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.11> Dumbfounded, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Hair that rustled like silk to her shoulders; the deep sparkle of her long, narrow eyes; well-formed lips, a nose with a high, straight bridge--the whole of her gave off a marvelous light that seemed to vibrate with life force. She didn't look human.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.6-7> Bad as it sounds, it was like I was possessed. His attitude was totally 'cool,' though, I felt I could trust him. In the black gloom before my eyes (as it always is in cases of bewitchment), I saw a straight road leading from me to him. He seemed to glow with white light. That was the effect he had on me.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.9-10> While he made tea, I explored the kitchen. I took everything in: the good quality of the mat on the wood floor and of Yuichi's slippers; a practical minimum of well-worn kitchen things, precisely arranged. A Silverstone frying pan and a delightful German-made vegetable peeler to make even the laziest grandmother enjoy slip, slipping those skins off. Lit by a small fluorescent lamp, all kinds of plates silently awaited their turns; glasses sparkled. It was clear that in spite of the disorder everything was of the finest quality. There were things with special uses, like...porcelain bowls, gratin dishes, gigantic platters, two beer steins. Somehow it was all very satisfying. I even opened the small refrigerator (Yuichi said it was okay)--everything was neatly organized, nothing just 'left.' I looked around, nodding and murmuring approvingly, 'Mmm, mmm.' It was a good kitchen. I fell in love with it at first sight.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.10> I saw myself reflected in the glass of the large terrace window while black gloom spread over the rain-hounded night panorama. I was tied by blood to no creature in this world. I could go anywhere, do anything. It was dizzying. Suddenly, to see the world was so large, the cosmos so black. The unbounded fascination of it, the unbounded lonliness...”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.12> There was a warm light, like her afterimage, softly glowing in my heart. That must be what they mean by 'charm.'”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.14-15> But I trusted their kitchen. Even though they didn't look alike, there were certain traits I shared. Their faces shone like buddhas when they smiled. I like that, I thought.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.16> By now the rain had stopped, and the atmosphere, sparkling, replete with moisture, refracted the glittering night splendidly.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.16> Wrapped in blankets, I thought how funny it was tonight, too, here I was sleeping next to the kitchen. I smiled to myself. But this time I wasn't lonely. Maybe I had been waiting for this,. Maybe all I had been waiting for was a bed in which to be able to stop thinking, just for a little while, about what happened before and what would happen in the future. I was too sad to be able to sleep in the same bed with anyone; that would only make the sadness worse. But here was a kitchen, some plants, someone sleeping in the next room, perfect quiet...this was the best. This place was...the best.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.17> The entire apartment was filled with light, like a sunroom. I looked out a the sweet, endless blue of the sky; it was glorious. In the joy of being in a kitchen I liked so well, my head cleared, and suddenly I remembered she was a man. I turned to look at her. Deja vu overwhelmed me like a flash flood. The house smelled of wood. I felt an immense nostalgia, in that downpour of morning light, watching her pull a cushion onto the floor in that dusty living room and curl up to watch TV.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.18-19> 'When Woofie died I couldn't get Yuichi to eat a bite, not a grain of rice, nothing. So it follows that Yuichi feels close to you. I can't guarantee it's romantic, though!'”

  Eriko Tanabe

• “<p.19> Her power was the brilliance of her charm and it had brought her to where she was now. I had the feeling that neither her wife nor her son could diminish it. That quality must have condemned her to an ice-cold loneliness. She said, munching cucumbers, 'You know, a lot of people say things they don't mean. But I'm serious: I want you to stay here as long as you like. You're a good kid, and having you here makes me truly happy. I understand what it's like to be hurt and to have nowhere to go. Please, stay with us and don't worry about anything. Okay?'”

  Mikage Sakurai / Eriko Tanabe

• “<p.20-21> No matter how dreamlike a love I have found myself in, no matter how delightfully drunk I have been, in my heart I was always aware that my family consisted of only one other person. The space that cannot be filled, no matter how cheerfully a child and an old person are living together--the deathly silence that, panting in a corner of the room, pushes its way in like a shudder. I felt it very early, although no one told me about it.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.21> When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own?”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.22> I loved the Tanabe's sofa as much as I loved their kitchen. I came to crave sleeping on it. Listen to the quiet breathing of the plants, sensing the night view through the curtains, I slept like a baby. There wasn't anything more I wanted. I was happy.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.22> Cold and dark, not a sigh to be heard. Everything there <in grandmother's apartment>, which should have been so familiar, seemed to be turning away from me. I entered gingerly, on tiptoe, feeling as though I should ask permission. When my grandmother died, time died, too, in this apartment.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.23> As we decided where to meet, I looked up at the window. The sky outside was a dull gray. Waves of clouds were being pushed around by the wind with amazing force. In this world there is no place for sadness. No place; not one.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.24> 'Funny, isn't it, we haven't seen each other in all this time and we talk about the weather.'”

  Sotaro

• “<p.24> It's so great, I thought, having tea in the afternoon with someone you really feel at home with. I knew how wildly he tosses in his sleep, how much milk and sugar he takes in his coffee. I knew his face in front of the mirror, insanely serious, as he tries to tame his mop of unruly hair with the hair dryer. Then I thought, if we were still together I would be worrying about how I've just chipped the nail polish on my right hand scrubbing the refrigerator.”

  Mikage Sakurai

• “<p.25> 'His mother lives there too!' (All right, 'mother' wasn't strictly correct, but...)”

• “<p.31> The incredible ease and nonchalance of the conversation made my brain reel. It was like watching Bewitched. That they could be this cheerfully normal in the midst of such extreme abnormality.”

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Tokyo: Where Mikage lives.
• Iku: Where Mikage travels to on her business trip.
• Urara
• Sotaro
• Chuo Park: seperates Mikage's and Yuichi's apartments from one another

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• moon-viewing: Describe this term.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Sexual Identity: This book isn't afraid to play with gender roles- Mikage, while enjoying the traditionally female skill of cooking, uses it to get a job and supports herself by it (seen as a traditionally male role). Through this, she also becomes the breadwinner instead of her boyfriend, and instead of him wooing her, she is often the one wooing him. Her boyfriend, Yuichi, takes on more traditional female roles in not being the breadwinner, being more sensitive emotionally, and is wooed intead of doing the wooing.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Banana Yoshimoto (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Megan Backus (Translator) - English-language translation.

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 895.635

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Japanese
• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Psychological & Suspense
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary