In Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen, the two stories - Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow - centre on a common theme of death and food. As a result of their personal loss, the two main protagonists of the stories, Mikage and Satsuki are somewhat pushed to forge and re-examine their relationships with the people around them who are connected to their loss both directly and indirectly. The various bonds are build through food, be it the act of making food in the kitchen, or eating them. Reading it actually reminded me of the classic film Tampopo - I suppose it shows how much the Japanese, or the Asian lifestyle revolves around food and the appreciation of food. Indeed.

Yoshimoto’s writing flows, making the book very easy to read. At times it even sounds childish, though I wonder if that’s the result of the translation. I don’t mean childish here in a bad way, but I think it makes the author more unique, existing in her own style different from that of Murakami Haruki, for instance, or other Western authors.

As stories go, I personally prefer Kitchen to Moonlight Shadow. Satsuki, in Moonlight Shadow felt the emcompassing loss of Hitoshi, her boyfriend due to an untimely death; but the physical and psychological ache she talks about over never being able to see him again, or how her soul just dies with him is foreign to me. In a way even suffocating, because of the words she used to evoke emotions that I don’t think I’m capable of feeling. Although I do understand about wanting to say goodbye for that one last time, no matter how elusive - the need for closure in order for one to move on.

On the other hand, Mikage’s story in Kitchen is more compelling. The death of her grandmother left her all alone in the world until Yuichi reached out one day to pull her from the brink, take her into his home to live with him and his flamboyant yet mysterious mother. What completely compels me is their relationship - growing from friends, to being two people who understand each other as a result of their profound loss having no one else left, and eventually to that of lovers. It wasn’t the all-encompassing love Satsuki felt for her boyfriend, but it was something that happened over time. A Mulder-and-Scully kind of love where two people are unknowingly thrown together as a result of something beyond their control, finally realising that they’re the only ones left in the world who understand one another completely. In a way they seem to exist in a world that is truly removed from the rest, even more so than the supernatural bent of the latter story.

Perhaps what sums up the book best, is a quote - one of my favourite passages from the book, ironically from the second story:

One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet, others I’ll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through.