![]() ![]() Job insecurity and limited professional opportunities are the daily reality for much of Japan’s working class. If the cops won’t bother to help protect an actual celebrity, why would they bother with other women facing the same issue?Īlongside the critique of Japan’s police response to the social crisis of stalking, Imamura’s novel also conveys the challenges faced by ordinary workers in Japan’s economy and work-life culture. In a shocking lack of understanding, the police suggested that Egbuchulam “ face to face” with the stalker to sort things out like “adults.” Much of the resounding fear that Japanese women experience surrounds not just the stalking epidemic, but the dangerously insensitive police responses to these incidents. Even so, in 2020, Japanese idol Marie Egbuchulam reported to the local police that an unknown man bypassed her residence’s auto lock system and trespassed onto her property for the sole purpose of meeting her. You don’t have to be some Japanese glamor idol to be well-aware of the threat that stalking poses to both the sanity and safety of women in general. Unsurprisingly, due to Imamura’s complexity and talent as a writer, the novel leverages the light and almost comical nature of its narrator’s internal monologues to implicitly shed wisdom on the growing problem of stalking in modern Japanese culture. Never does the Woman in the Purple Skirt ever suspect that a stalker has altered the course of her life.Īs the novel continues through the perspective of Yellow Cardigan, the reader becomes eerily aware of how much obsession dominates the emotional palette and life of the narrator. Yellow Cardigan’s little interruptions in Purple Skirt’s daily routine eventually leads to Purple Skirt finding a cleaning job at a five-star hotel where Yellow Cardigan also works. Despite this obvious truth, the narrator claims that no one knows about Yellow Cardigan and “That’s the difference between her and the Woman in the Purple Skirt.” The Woman in the Purple Skirt – 222 pages – $9.99 – Penguin Booksįrom the shadows, Yellow Cardigan subtly makes her presence subconsciously known as she begins to shape Purple Skirt’s life with anonymous gifts of shampoo and help-wanted ads. In reality, Purple Skirt is just another faceless person in the crowd who only gets loving recognition from the neighborhood school children who appreciate when she plays with them. Yellow Cardigan’s tunnel-vision-esque devotion to Purple Skirt leads her to falsely believe that Purple Skirt is a well-known celebrity that other people also devote themselves to. She crosses the pages of the novel much like a nonentity who observes the more interesting life of her idol and neighbor, the Woman in the Purple Skirt. The story’s narrator, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, is childish, immature, and highly unreliable. Imamura’s intimate experiences allow for a creative and realistic depiction of the harsh and brutal reality that working class people must face in Japan. Much of the knowledge displayed in The Woman in the Purple Skirt which reveals the inner workings of the hotel staff hierarchy, and its constricted social sphere, comes from Imamura’s own personal experience as a hotel housekeeper. Dubbed by her fans and readership as the “second Sayaka Murata” (the Japanese author of Convenience Store Woman, 2018, and Earthlings, 2020), many attribute this moniker to Imamura’s sharp humor and satiric language. Nominated three times for the Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Japan, Hiroshima-born Natsuko Imamura finally won the award in 2019 for The Woman in the Purple Skirt, which was brilliantly translated to English in 2021 by Lucy North. ![]() More than a ghost, less than a guardian angel, and closer to a disenchanted fairy godmother, Yellow Cardigan watches from within the shadows – far enough away from view that she remains unnoticed, all while Purple Skirt’s life unravels in dramatic chaos. Yellow Cardigan knows and records everything: Purple Skirt’s unsuccessful job hunting, her unglamorous hair care routine, her usual order from the bakery, and her illicit affair with a hotel director. ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese novels) - Loneliness, a newly standardized leitmotif in Japanese literature, is the driving force behind much of modern Japan’s social dilemmas and Natsuko Imamura’s unnerving novel.īeyond that, the fear over taking risks and forging new relationships frames the narrative told by the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, who stalks and surveys the Woman in the Purple Skirt at nearly all hours of the day.
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