From the acclaimed author of The Hole and The Factory, a thrilling and mysterious work that explores fertility, masculinity, and marriage in contemporary Japan.
In these three interconnected stories, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet fish store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada’s previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.
By Mike
This one is quite literally a slice of life. It is thin, and seemingly inconsequential, but it becomes engaging by using a rule which I recognize from screenwriting; enter a scene as late as possible and exit it as soon as possible. But instead of a cinema screen, three instances of dinner, friendship and evolving romantic relationships/young families are painted much like a Japanese shoji screen; three-part, two dimensional at first glance but rich in color and depth. There are profound psychological details to be found on closer inspection and I could not help but be charmed by the dialogue and observations about the most random topics, which get weirdly heightened, almost magical in their eeriness.
As a European the Japanese conformity and social norms of course already create a slight sense of strangeness, but there is a subdermal tension that I could not put my finger on, yet it seemed universal enough to make me enjoy this exemplary instance of less is more.
