Growing-Up Explored in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

Growing-Up Explored in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

The first time I read Kitchen, I knew I was experiencing something very special. Not since my initial reading of Catcher in the Rye have I witnessed such a perceptive look at the joys and pains of growing up. These coming-of-age novels capture our attention with plots that, while twisting and turning in creative, off-beat ways, remain believable. The writers of these novels tell us their stories with a subtle style more exciting than that of textbooks and assigned reading, a style not unlike a good one-sided conversation. Finally, within this great style of writing, the authors infuse honest insights, often humorous and sometimes poignant, which do not carry a lecturing or authoritative tone. Banana Yoshimoto, as translated by Megan Backus, incorporates these three elements of a successful coming-of-age novel into Kitchen skillfully. The result is magnificent.

To keep a young person interested, an author must weave an interesting story. Kitchen is fascinating because the premise of the story is original: A Japanese twenty-something's grandmother dies and is taken in by an employee of her grandmother's favorite flower shop and his transvestite mother. Along the course of the story, the heroine discovers a passion for cooking, the young man dreams a dream with the heroine, and a crazy admirer kills the transvestite mother. In the end, the heroine and the young man realize their love for each other, without even having shared a passionate kiss. Such a plot is interesting to the average teenager who craves the out-of-the-ordinary; she wants escape. Kitchen certainly provides something different, but it does so in a familiar way. When the heroine Mikage finds out that Yuichi's m...

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...xperiencing life. When I read Kitchen, I sympathized with Mikage's loss of her grandmother. Until now, I still do not truly know how such a loss feels. So, in some ways, to read a coming-of-age novel is an identification with what you have experienced and a preparation for that which has yet to come. Some may argue that Kitchen is interesting simply because it is written by a foreigner. Without speaking Japanese and reading the original material, we may not know how close the translation is. I argue that it doesn't matter. No matter from where you have come or how far in life you have gotten, after spending a little time in the Kitchen, you will have learned without feeling you have been taught. In the world of those who are still growing up, that is the best way to learn.

Work Cited

Yoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. Trans. Megan Backus. NY: Washington Square, 1988.