The Lonesome Bodybuilder

Posted on 04 August 2018 by Yukiko Motoya

A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique which her workaholic husband fails to notice A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking businessmen struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying A woman working in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won t come out of the fitting room and who may or may not be human A newlywed notices that her husband s features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own.In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien and, through it, find a way to liberation The English language debut of one of Japan s most fearlessly inventive young writers. Download The Lonesome Bodybuilder author Yukiko Motoya – kino-fada.fr These surreal yet grounded stories are exactly my kind of thing.Many start in the mundane a happy or unhappy marriage, a scene at work One strange but believable thing happens, then something a bitodd, until Motoya leads you down a path to the absolutely absurd It s ridiculous, but you can t imagine the story spinning out any other way.Themes include knowing yourself, how we are changed by contact with other people, and the place of women in Japanese society Evenso than in the W These surreal yet grounded stories are exactly my kind of thing.Many start in the mundane a happy or unhappy marriage, a scene at work One strange but believable thing happens, then something a bitodd, until Motoya leads you down a path to the absolutely absurd It s ridiculous, but you can t imagine the story spinning out any other way.Themes include knowing yourself, how we are changed by contact with other people, and the place of women in Japanese society Evenso than in the West, Japanese women are ex...There s weird and then there s Oh my goodness, what the heck did I just read weird The stories collected in Yukiko Motoya s The Lonesome Bodybuilder belong to the latter group.These stories are incisive explorations of domestic life fraught with tension and out of left field bizarre field trips ...These unique stories filled with magical realism take a tongue in cheek look at the relationships between men and women The stories can seem weird at first, but once you get used to the author s sly humor this is a great read.I was utterly riveted by Motoya s short stories I am not much of a short story reader and am very picky about those I do read But I have found I really enjoy Asian fiction, so I was curious to read The Lonesome Bodybuilder Motoya s stories are weird, but not a disturbing or uncomfortable weird More like an engrossing blend of the human mundane and surreal minutia which fluctuates and grows as the story progresses There is nothing lost in translation The writing is succinct and sharp no fl I was utterly riveted by Motoya s short stories I am not much of a short story reader and am very picky about those I do read But I have found I really enjoy Asian fiction, so I was curious to read The Lonesome Bodybuilder...For fans of the modern stylings of Haruki Murakami, Etgar Keret, Carmen Maria Machado, Karen Russell, and Kelly Link, comes another uniquely brilliant voice in short fiction, and one we are lucky to have.Most of the stories here center around themes of gender and power dynamics, as well as the problems, loneliness, and loss of true feelings and intimacy that can go along with being in relationships Motoya has a strangely specific ability to find a very realistic situation, like a married couple For fans of the modern stylings of Haruki Murakami, Etgar Keret, Carmen Maria Machado, Karen Russell, and Kelly Link, comes another uniquely brilliant voice in short fiction, and one we are lucky to have.Most of the stories here center around themes of gender and power dynamics, as well as the problems, loneliness, and loss of true feelings and intimacy that can go along with being in relationships Motoya has a strangely specific ability to find a very realistic situation, like a married couple losing touch with each other, and turning it on its head, introducing a completely absurd component that shifts the story into the realm of heightened realism, or even all the way to magical realism.I loved every story.There is something really speci...Delightfully weird short stories My favorites in the collection were the title story The Lonesome Bodybuilder and the sprawling An Exotic Marriage.Weird and wonderful, The Lonesome Bodybuilder is a delightfully odd collection of short stories Using magical realism and the absurd, Yukiko Montoya explores gender roles, social convention, and marital power dynamics in small, powerful bursts.Motoya s eleven stories all begin with the ordinary, if not mundane, and slowly splinter into the fantastic A young housewife transforms her body while weightlifting at the gym, yet her husband remains oblivious A saleswoman gives superb customer servic Weird and wonderful, The Lonesome Bodybuilder is a delightfully odd collection of short stories Using magical realism and the absurd, Yukiko Montoya explores gender roles, social convention, and marital power dynamics in small, powerful bursts.Motoya s eleven stories all begin with the ordinary, if not mundane, and slowly splinter into the fantastic A young housewife transforms her body while weightlifting at the gym, yet her husband remains oblivious A saleswoman gives superb customer service to a guest who refuses to leave the fitting room Is the customer simply shy Or is she some unknown creature A new wife notices that her and her husband s faces are slowly shifting to look like each other Is it her imagination Or is it a symptom of losing her autonomy Motoya s stories directly challenge the expectations we have for women s bodies She celebrates women who refuse to submit to t...I received my copy of The Lonesome Bodybuilder from the publisher on Edelweiss.I have mixed feelings about this set of stories At first, I thought I generally didn t like it But, after thinking about each of the stories , they re growing on me I ve had this reaction before with Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Ogawa, so I m not going to complain.I feel like each of the stories grabbed my attention or interest in different ways Some of them, like The Lonesome Bodybuilder, Typhoon, Paprika Jiro, and I received my copy of The Lonesome Bodybuilder from the publisher on Edelweiss.I have mixed feelings about this set of stories At first, I thought I generally didn t like it But, after thinking about each of the stories , they re growing on me I ve had this reaction before with Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Ogawa, so I m not going to complain.I feel like each of the stories grabbed my attention or interest in different ways Some of them, like The Lonesome Bodybuilder, Typhoon, Paprika Jiro, and The Straw Husband, are interesting on the surface because they are conventionally told stories with somewhat bizarre subject matter Others, like The Dogs and An Exotic Marriage, create interest primarily through the implications of what is happening in the plot and the characters psychology.There s no doubt that Motoya is a talented writer with inte...Prior to reading the Lonesome Bodybuilder, I had never heard of Yukiko Motoya now, I find myself a convert worshipping at her altar Across eleven stories narrated by womenoften than not , the strange is used to displace very real questions about gender, power, and relationships This is a book wherein a husband and wife begin resembling one another to the point that neither looks human mountain peonies bloom out of underpants strange men glide off buildings with the help of umbrellas Prior to reading the Lonesome Bodybuilder, I had never heard of Yukiko Motoya now, I find myself a convert worshipping at her altar Across eleven stories narrated by womenoften than not , the strange is used to displace very real questions about gender, power, and relationships This is a book wherein a husband and wife begin r...I was introduced to Yukiko Motoya through her short story The Dogs published in Granta magazine a few years back and have been eagerly anticipatingof her work making it over to the English book market Motoya s first book to be published in English, The Lonesome Bodybuilder, is a Pandora s box of weird and magical stories This collection as a whole starts of with stories of real tenderness but with a twist, they go in unexpected directions and it ...

English
04 August 2018

Yukiko Motoya