Reading “Breasts and Eggs” by Mieko Kawakami

“Dear Journal,

Now I’m going to write about breasts. I never used to have them, but they’re growing in, getting bigger, whether I like it or not. Why? Where do they come from? Why can’t I stay like I am? […] What’s everyone so excited about, though? Am I that weird? I hate it. I hate that this is happening, I hate it so bad, I hate it to death.” (113)

Well… this was a tough one. I should’ve read more than just the blurb before buying Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami. Had I known that most of this book is about the question of motherhood, IVF, and single moms in Japan, I wouldn’t have read it. After all (reading the blurb), I came for the intricate and gripping family story (and herstories), NOT for debates on motherhood and how it might be to have children. That’s not something I care about. No matter where in the world.

When two become one

Though marketed as a novel, Breasts and Eggs is rather a compilation of two different stories, connected by the overarching topic of female bodies and female body functions: breasts, eggs, menstruation, procreation, pleasure, pain. The first part of this book — called ‘book one’ — is a novella that was published as a standalone before being incorporated into this novel. Book one tells the stories of two sisters, Natsuko and her older sibling Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter Midoriko. Makiko and Midoriko come to Tokyo to visit Natsuko because Makiko, a professional hostess in her late thirties, wants to get breast implants. Her body and her looks as her primary sources of income are of huge importance — the female body once again is ‘just’ an object:

“What was up with Makiko? What made her so enthusiastic about implants? Why did she want to make her nipples pink? Try as I may, I couldn’t think up a good reason. Not that she needed one, wanting to be beautiful was reason enough. Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy.” (56)

 Meanwhile, 12-year-old Midoriko is struggling with the changes her body is going through — see the quote at the start of this post — and stopped speaking to her mother months ago, only communicating in writing or non-verbal. In the midst of all this is our narrator Natsuko, 28, an aspiring author struggling to get by. Shaped by the difficult past the siblings share — losing their parents early with Makiko becoming their provider while both of them learned to survive on what little they had — Natsuko still looks for her place in life. 

While we meet these characters amid a turbulent time — Makiko trying desperately to fulfill some beauty standards to stay young and desirable in her job, Midoriko going through the confusing and anxiety-inducing changes of puberty while being worried about her mother, and Natsuko doubting her qualification and talent as a writer — they each have their individual character traits, peculiarities that shape them, make them unique, likable, referable. They are, for the lack of a better explanation, fully formed characters. 

Even though some parts were perplexing, I absolutely loved book one and would highly recommend it.

When one should have stayed just that

Then, unfortunately, there’s book two. The blurb describes this as “ten years later, we meet Natsuko again. […] she finds herself on a journey to her native city, returning to memories of that summer and family’s past as she faces her own uncertain future.” This description may raise expectations that book two is a sort of continuation of book one, furthering our relationships with the characters we already got to know so well.

Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. 

Out of book two’s 280 pages, roughly 30 pages meet the above-mentioned description. The rest — around 240ish pages of your precious lifetime — is filled with random meetings, discoveries, characters, and events, most of it involving Natsuko’s sudden desire to become a (single) mother in modern Japan via IVF. Occasionally, Makiko and Midoriko are mentioned, but they are props, nothing more. This, however, is in accordance with the overall ‘feel’ of the second book. Pretty much every character apart from Natsuko hardly ever shows any hint of personality, but rather has a message, serves a function, being introduced by the author for a reason.

When one becomes two or the rocky path to single motherhood 

So who are our cardboard characters?  There’s the former boyfriend who underlines Natsuko’s realization that she may be asexual. Yet the author does not discuss her alleged asexuality any further but employs it as the reason Natsuko prefers IVF instead of conceiving a child naturally. Instead of introducing an important way to experience — or rather prefer not to experience — one’s sexuality, this too is just a means to an end: discussing Japanese society’s opinion on IVF treatments and single mothers. 

There’s Sengawa, Natsuko’s editor, who symbolizes the successful child-free professional woman — only to die of cancer because that’s what happens to successful women who refuse to follow their biological purpose (okay, that’s a lot of interpretation from my side but really, do we always have to kill off those characters that live outside of the mainstream bubble to make an example of them and how their alternative lifestyle is no good, leading them to mayhem, despair, and death…?). 

We got Rika, the single mother who is happy about her decision, successful as an author, and seems to have it all. Not to forget Yuriko, a woman abused by her adoptive father, who is used to introduce the (anti-natalist) idea that having children is an egotist and violent act:

Why do people see no harm in having children? They do it with smiles on their faces, as if it’s not an act of violence. You force this other being into the world, this other being that never asked to be born. You do this absurd thing because that’s what you want for yourself, and that doesn’t make any sense.

Finally, there’s Aizawa, a guy who ends up as a sperm donor for Natsuko, fulfilling his own longing for procreation with none of the usual familial relations.

Through these characters and Natsuko herself, we find ourselves amid meandering, wordy treatises about motherhood, IVFs, and the difficulties single women and single mothers face in Japan. That, of course, is an important topic and probably interesting for many people — but not me as a happily child-free woman.

Which is obviously not the author’s fault. As I said, I shouldn’t have trusted the blurb…

Conclusion

So what to make of it? Kawakami touches on important topics, and while I loved her writing in book one, I could’ve done without book two. The only reason I finished it was because I hoped it would get better. Alas, it didn’t. These two books have no genuine connection apart from the characters’ names. Natsuko’s sister Makiko and her daughter Midoriko deserve more than some namedropping to force a relation to the novella/book one. I think it would have been better to publish these books separately — I actually do not know why they didn’t do that… Be it for the different focus, style, and cast, two books in one isn’t always the best idea and it sure as hell isn’t in this case.

Anyway, as I stated before, it’s not the author’s fault. If it would’ve been only book one, I would praise her to no avail. She lost me with her choice of topic in book two, which seemed even more odd and irritating after getting to know Natsuko in book one. But that doesn’t make her a bad author.
It just results in me not recommending this book of hers 🙂

What about you? Have you read Breasts and Eggs? How did you like it?

Thanks for stopping by — take care! 🙂