Let’s collect questions for 小川洋子
We can ask these in November during the book club event.
- In a number of your stories (the poison in Pregnancy Calendar, the bees in Dormitory. The nature of the disappearances in the Memory Police), there is an unresolved ambiguity about the nature of a central element - is it real, is it in the mind of the characters. Is that ambiguity important to you? In your own mind, when you are writing, do you have a single view about these elements. Or do you too remain unsure about their nature?
- Mina’s matchbox is set in Ashiya - where you currently live or have lived. How is location important in this story?
- Memory appears to be a recurring theme in your books (housekeeper, the memory police). In Mina’s matchbox, memory preserves a world, protects it from change. (LP Hartley - "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there”)
- The suicide of Yasunari Kawabata has a profound impact on the book loving Mina. Do you remember this event from your own childhood? Did you read Kawabata’s novels at a precocious age (like Mina)? Did you seek to echo any of Kawabata’s novels or writing style in Mina’s matchbox?
