The Name of the Flower

Kuniko Mukoda's cunning "The Name of the Flower" surprised me. Mukoda's thirteen stories portray human strenghts and sorrows of ordinary Japanese women.

"When Sachiko woke up, the first thing she did was go to the kitchen and take two eggs out of the refridgerator. It was her morning ritual. She put them out in a bowl and then went to brush her teeth and wash her face. Eggs straight out of the refridgerator didn't taste good, and she had been told that they would cook better when left for a while at room temperature. The ice-cold eggs seemed stiff and leaden. They bumped against each other, making a dull clunk in the white bowl, but soon they stopped moving."

Kuniko's stories reveal surprising insight into the mind of women and men, how deep is the world underneath the surfaces of our daily hum-drum world.

Women are like willows, they might bend in the wind, but never break. We men might think women are really strong, but actually they are very fragile. Or we might think that women are really fragile, but actually they are very strong.

Mukoda writes with quick wit and humor. Her fiction isn't as naive as Banana Yoshimoto's or as grand as Haruki Murakami's. She calculates, tickles and teases. And out comes a fertile egg, gracefully finished, poetic stories of Japanese soul.

The first story, "The Name of the Flower" tells story of Tsuneko, a woman who realizes that her husband has taken a lover. The woman's name is exactly the same as certain flower which name she had taught her husband before they got married.

"The Fake Egg" is a story of couple who are unable to concieve a child. The woman fears that she is unable to get a child, and compares herself to a waterglass egg that was used to teach hens proper places to lay eggs. But then she meets a photographer who wants to take her photo..

"Manhattan" is a story of man who's wife has taken a lover and escaped with him. Being left alone, the man, Mutsuo, who resembles a French baguette, finds out that his favorite Chinese noodle shop is replaced by a cocktail lounge "Manhattan". Cast away, this character falls in love with the cocktail lounge's mama-san.

The afterword was not written by Mukoda herself but the translator. As I flipped the last page, I realized how suddenly she exited this world. On August 22, 1981 A Chinese airplane crashed. Aboard was the emerging writer Kuniko Mukoda.

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