Book Review; Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
Read: 03/09 - 09/09Format: PhysicalSpoiler free: YesMy rating: ★★★★☆Type: Psychogeography
This novel is one of the most emotive pieces I’ve read all year. Yu is a master of the atmospheric. Her use of framing narrative and historical anecdotes interrelating with the story itself forged a connection between reader and narrator like no other. This deep attachment was so piercingly beautiful and organically felt, I struggle putting it into words. One enters into the narrators psyche and can appreciate all of his life choices, many completely out of his control, that contributed to his physical and mental state.
He partially narrates from a formless and timeless sense of identity, inferring that he is looking back on life itself, utterly lost in his own past. Ironically, his complete association with form is partially responsible for the depth of his depression. This sense of retrospective time perfectly emulates Yu’s themes of shame, poverty and regret that the narrator, along with many others stuck in the cycle of poverty, are plagued by.
It further tends to the perspective that society itself cultivates such a harsh world for the masses while attempting to create a utopia for the few. Yu illuminates these grey areas alongside the poignant fragments of a homeless persons reality, thereby raising awareness of their silent voices, and for whom basic necessities are so hard to come by. “nobody becomes homeless because they want to be”.
Repetition and pathetic fallacy are strategically used to reinforce themes in a highly effective way, and so, if you do read this outstanding piece I highly recommend doing so to light rain sounds. I can’t promise you won’t cry, but nonetheless it’s not an experience to miss out on.
