Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi and The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters

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Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi

Satrapi is most well known for her Persepolis books, and rightly so. Persepolis works on a grand scale. While it centers around one individual, it examines politics, history, and culture, while moving across continents and eras. Chicken With Plums is a smaller work, that keeps itself firmly centered on the life of one man, Satrapi's great-uncle. The politics and cultural shifts are still there, of course, but they function as background.

At 83 pages, Chicken With Plums is a quick read, but it's not as simple as you might suspect. There's a sense of poignancy, as well as a clear awareness of the tragedy and the beauty of the ordinary world.



The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters

From the back cover:

These uncommonly elegant and assured stories explore Japanese society caught between the long shadow of World War II and the rapid advance of Westernization.

The short stories in The Laws of Evening are subtle, but powerful. Mary Yukari Waters is deeply in tune with her characters' humanity even in painful, ugly circumstances. (The first story is about a Japanese women living in Japan occupied China with her husband and daughter in the midst of World War II.) Several stories have elderly main characters, looking their changing lives in a changing world. Mary Yukari waters treats them with the dignity they deserve, rather than making them into the cheap caricatures that are often presented.

My favorite story would be "The Way Love Works," a story about mothers and daughters, as well as identity and, well, the way love works.

"When you come first in someone's heart," she said, "when you feel the magnitude of another person's love for you..." Her gait slowed, along with her speech. "You become a different person. I mean, something physically changes inside of you." Her voice choked up behind the parasol and I hoped she was not going to cry. "I want you to know that feeling," she said. "Because it'll sustain you, all your life. Life... life can get so hard."