Paperback, 288 pages
English language
Published Oct. 20, 2020 by Soft Skull Press.
In this witty and exuberant collection of feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales, humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful services—from truth-telling to babysitting, from protecting castles to fighting crime.
A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women—who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.
In this witty and exuberant …
In this witty and exuberant collection of feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales, humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful services—from truth-telling to babysitting, from protecting castles to fighting crime.
A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women—who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company.
In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millennia-old tradition of Japanese folktales—shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells—and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.
This book twists traditional Japanese short ghost stories into tales with feminist ghost protagonists. It's a great way to get insight into Japanese themes, lore, and superstitions while centring on the women's experiences in those stories. Witty, soft, powerful, and inspiring!
TW: jealous rage & intimidation, toxic relationships (The Jealous Type), mentioned rape, threats to infant (Enoki), mentioned arson/death by fire (Silently Burning), mentioned sexual harassment/attempted assault (A Day Off)
3
As always, short story collections are full of stories that all differ in terms of quality. I picked up this book because I 1) try to read translated works and 2) really love adaptations of folk tales, mythology, etc. But I was disappointed in the experience of reading this collection. My rule of thumb for short stories (what I was taught as a Creative Writing major) was that there needs to be a reason you're seeing this moment in time, and there needs to be some kind of arc; and my rule of thumb for adaptations/stories inspired by others is that you should still be able to enjoy the work even without the context of the source …
TW: jealous rage & intimidation, toxic relationships (The Jealous Type), mentioned rape, threats to infant (Enoki), mentioned arson/death by fire (Silently Burning), mentioned sexual harassment/attempted assault (A Day Off)
3
As always, short story collections are full of stories that all differ in terms of quality. I picked up this book because I 1) try to read translated works and 2) really love adaptations of folk tales, mythology, etc. But I was disappointed in the experience of reading this collection. My rule of thumb for short stories (what I was taught as a Creative Writing major) was that there needs to be a reason you're seeing this moment in time, and there needs to be some kind of arc; and my rule of thumb for adaptations/stories inspired by others is that you should still be able to enjoy the work even without the context of the source material.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of these stories missed all three marks.
I'm glad that there's a list of the inspirations for each story, but that occasionally just baffled me more, and, again, most of the time I'd be reading these stories with zero understanding of what was done except an assumption that Matsuda was doing something potentially clever with the source material.
This doesn't mean I disliked al of the stories, and I did like where the stories touched each other, sharing characters. My favorite stories in this collection were "Smartening Up" and "Having a Blast", both of which were fun, interesting, and meant something to me even without context. I also liked "Loved One", but I'm sad we don't get to see if he ever gets to see his cat.
If you already know all of the folklore here, you may really enjoy reading this collection picking and choosing from them, and spinning them apart. But these stories mostly do not have the ability to stand alone.
