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Things Remembered and Things Forgotten
Things Remembered and Things Forgotten | KYOKO. NAKAJIMA
4 posts | 4 read | 5 to read
'If we want to understand what has been lost to time, there is no way other than through the exercise of imagination ... imagination applied with delicate rather than broad strokes'. So wrote the award winning Japanese author Kyoko Nakajima of her story, Things Remembered and Things Forgotten, a piece that illuminates, as if by throwing a switch, the layers of wartime devastation that lie just below the surface of Tokyo's insistently modern culture. The ten acclaimed stories in this collection are pervaded by an air of Japanese ghostliness. In beautifully crafted and deceptively light prose, Nakajima portrays men and women beset by cultural amnesia and unaware of how haunted they are - by fragmented memories of war and occupation, by fading traditions, by buildings lost to firestorms and bulldozers, by the spirits of their recent past.
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charl08
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Some deep emotion stirred in her as an image flitted through her mind of her and her two sisters running around the garden with some children whose names she had long since forgotten. Who was the girl in a red pinafore she was chasing? Satsuki sensed that her real childhood had been gradually overwritten with scenes from movies and TV shows set in an imagined, nostalgic past, and the unexpected shallowness of her memories appalled her.

charl08 Photo is of Tarn Hows, a place I also visited as a kid (photos to prove it) but my memories are similarly patchy. 1y
Suet624 Gorgeous post. 1y
PurpleyPumpkin Beautiful!😍 1y
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charl08
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There is a legend about palm civets. Once a time, long ago when they were believed to be supernatural creatures that fell to earth with lightning bolt, there was a maiden who fell in love with one....

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VRM1975
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Carlottadeviba
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I am not usually a short story seeker. However, these were an absolute surprise and delight. Despite all being sprinkled with melancholy, they were crafted with such love and attention to detail that made reading them a pleasure. My favorite, the Shiitake.

charl08 This was a fun read: I will look out for more of her writing. 1y
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