The second book from Pushkin Press's Japanese Novellas series which I am going to review today is Ms Ice Sandwich by Kawakami Mieko (yes, she shares the same last name as Kawakami Hiromi whose Record of a Night Too Brief I reviewed last week, but the two authors have no relation whatsoever as far as I am concerned). The story is narrated from the perspective of the boy, and one of my favourite things about this book is the ability of the author to reproduce the mind and thoughts of a gifted child. It reminded me of a mixture between The perks of being a wallflower and Convenience store woman. I also liked very much the character of Ms Ice Sandwhich herself. The protagonist, who's different from the other kids and subconsciously feels it, likes her because she is also different: she has an "unconventional beauty", and I found this very sweet and touching. The wider world is seen only in glimpses: His father is dead, his mother distant, his grandmother is ill, his classmates faceless. Even "Ms Ice Sandwich" is more of an imagined entity. It is only Tutti, an independent girl in his class, who creates her own space in his reality. She pushes him to grow and gives him confidence. To bolster my argument, I'll have to look at the book's interior logistics. You get a few main characters. The bullied kid with a mild deformity, a visibly poor friend, and the self-justified douche of the school bully. Nothing revolutionary in this set up. The kids confront one another. There are graphic scenes of creepily sadistic bullying and one or two scenes utterly inappropriate for children. I wouldn't care, except who exactly, is the audience for this novel? If it is really YA why does she include the graphic sexuality - e

The narrative follows 14-year-old narrator's resigned yet inly tormented struggle against bullying, as well as his frustrated endeavours to make sense of his trampled-upon existence. He is convinced that his lazy eye makes him an easy target, as do Kojima's self-created 'signs' (her wilfully 'dirty' appearance, linking her to her miserably poor father, and her later refusal to eat, resulting in excessive weight loss). Both the narrator and Kojima are presented as outsiders, othered and unaccepted by the world – epitomes, in Kojima's view, of 'the strength of weakness'. The narrator in particular feels that he has no choice in the matter; that the world ruthlessly and unfailingly predetermines his inescapable fate. We all see the world in our own way,’ Kojima writes, and sometimes these perspectives on life are uncomfortable and conflicting. On one hand, we have Kojima and her belief in meaning and that there is a moral reward for doing the right thing, like theres a purpose that ‘ understands the meaning of everything we’ve been through when it’s all over.’ For her, someone who allows herself to suffer and continues to present herself in a way that draws scorn, is a right of passage and moral message to the world where everyone else is complicit—especially by inaction to countering the worst abusers and thereby enabling much like Hannah Arendt’s theory of the ‘Banality of Evil’—and therefor she is there to teach them.

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The resolution is intense, but felt also a tad too easy, since one could think that the option was available before already.

Crush’ brings to mind something directly romantic with a usually sexual undertone. I think we can be interested in people without wanting to ‘possess’ or sexualise them. Subscribing to a default way of feeling feelings might be the easier option for some, but (perhaps a biased view) I think it’s so unnatural and grossly robotic. Tutti, the protagonist’s gal pal in the novel is such a well-written character. I thought Kawakami was going to lean towards a conventional pattern of childhood love/‘romance’ and was happily surprised when she doesn’t. Unlike in Paterson’s novel, Bridge to Terabithia, the primary friendship in the story wasn’t cruelly side-lined or taken advantage of as a stepping stone to a ‘romantic’ endeavour. Romance is – afterall, not a ‘goal’/‘achievement’. Throughout the novel Kawakami gives children voice and agency to reflect on their experiences and to explore their beliefs. At times these children speak like they're in the middle of a Platonic dialog rather than coming across as two children having a childlike conversation. As a storytelling device it's a brave choice, as it can seem at odds with the scenes of violence that are written so realistically. It works brilliantly. The children's observations give meaning to the violent acts that they're either perpetrating, or are the victim of. They give the reader a chance to recover, too, and they allow the reader to explore more fully why humans behave as they do. The book is about bullying and behaviour of bullies and one who get bullied. It's a raw and grounded exploration behind impact of bullying as well as human relationships. Meiko created something frighteningly honest and powerful with her flair of words and dialogue writing.When school resumes he cannot spend as much time watching the woman he has named in his head Ms Ice Sandwich. Nevertheless she remains on his mind. He tells his grandmother all about her and draws pictures of her face, painting in the ice-blue eyelids. Grandma is a good listener as she lies in her bed, unable to interact, waiting to die. The boy’s mother is too distracted by her work to converse about more than daily essentials. Peers have their own obsessions, the reasons for which are rarely understood or appreciated. Three hundred forty-nine books, hundred thirty eight minutes, forty-two contemplations it took for me to start reading this one.