Исчезновение как способ существования: примирение с утратой и парадоксы человеческой памяти в произведениях Огава Ё:ко и Каваками Хироми

Японские исследования. 2022. № 2. С. 108–119.

Borkina A.

The article deals with the representation of the problem of memory in contemporary Japanese fiction. Ogawa Yōko’s novel “The Memory Police” and Kawakami Hiromi’s story “To Disappear”, chosen for the analysis, demonstrate similar approach and some parallels in terms of plot structure. In “The Memory Police” there is a young writer in the center of the narration, who lives on an island where different things and memories about them disappear one by one. The main character of “To Disappear” lives in a strange world where people go missing, change the shape of their bodies and even communicate with the mystical forces. The contact with something missing for these women becomes a tool to form so-called “postmemory”, recollection of the events they have not witnessed, as well as a device to fight the unfair social system. The disappearance in Ogawa and Kawakami’s works is also connected with the bodies’ deformation and the following loss of self-identity. Finally, the problems of memory and corporeality loss are linked to the women’s question in the works mentioned above. The loss of the voice by the main character in “The Memory Police”, the history of family disappearance in “To Disappear” – all these plot lines correspond with the main issues represented in contemporary Japanese women fiction. To sum up, “The Memory Police” and “To Disappear” represent a brand new type of world-view and existing, moving away from the usual model of “personal space”. The escapism is now hyperbolized, the disappearance becomes a way of living, and the written narration is the only chance to leave a trace and to connect to memories and the history of your own.

Keywords: постмодернизм, postmodernism, японская литература, japanese literature, women's literature, postmemory, литература женского потока, постпамять, Kawakami Hiromi, Каваками Хироми, Ogawa Yoko, Огава Ёко