Reviews: Ms Ice Sandwich (7)

"If video games make you stupid, then what do mobile phones make you?"

A young boy buys egg sandwiches every day. The reason? The mysterious young woman behind the counter. Her black hair and beautiful eyes with eyelids the color of blue Popsicles make him fall in love with her. His visits to the store provide his sole wish in an otherwise mundane daily life where no one seems to understand him.

Kawakami creates a novella about what we like to describe as "the coming-of-age" of a boy but I don't think that Ms. Ice Sandwich is just that. The child is the only focus of the narration and we see his world through his eyes and enter his mind. His mum is a kind of fortune-teller, distant and quite selfish, her only activity is staring at a mobile screen. Like, you know, 90% of our stupid world...His classmates are indifferent, with the exception of Tutti, his father left the picture long ago. His only confidante is his seriously ill grandmother, his escape is sketching beautiful sceneries.

Through his thoughts we are shown truths and realities, his innocent remarks aim at the heart of the significance of appearance in this society. The bright blue eyeshadow of the woman is disturbing to many customers. She is different. Why? The public decides and condemns. The young boy questions everything, he is sensitive and begins to regard the world of the adults as a seriously weird territory. Tutti, his friend, is a girl who loves violent action films and drawing gunfights. Gradually, the boy understands that loss, sentimental and physical, is one more reality he will have to come to terms with.

There is a quiet critique in Kawakami's writing, a tenderness towards a protagonist we would like to hug and protect and have endless conversations with. Behind the whimsical tone and the elegant humor, there is sadness about the deep loneliness of a child who is an old soul, wise and honest. On a side note, I loved the use of The Tinderbox, one of my favorite fairy tales, within the context of the boy's story.

"Well, then you'd better come back again and watch. He's the best-Al Pacino!", she says, a big grin on her face.

"What's that?"

"You know-the film we just saw Lieutenant Hanna. Al Pacino plays him."

"Oh, it's somebody's name. I thought it might be how you say goodbye in some other country."

Japanese Literature is a world treasure. We need ALL of the translations and I can't wait to read more of Kawakami's work.

"But then I find that I can't say any more and I stop talking. It's silent in the room, like time has just stopped, but after a bit I can hear a bird chirping. It feels like it's coming from so close by that I spin around to check, but there are no birds anywhere."

'And now I can't move at all, and all I can do is hold my breath, and silently listen to the final sound, nothing to do but listen silently to the very last echo of that sound.'

Utterly beguiling, deceptively simple, this is a simply wonderful novella from Mieko Kawakami, getting a re-issue in advance of the publication of 'Breasts and Eggs' in a month or so. Our narrator is a fourth-grader, living with his mother and Grandma (his father's mother). He seems quite a lonely child, mildy OCD as he counts the cracks on the pavements, and utterly obsessed with the woman in the supermarket who serves the sandwiches, whom he has nicknamed Ms Ice Sandwich. As he battles with the everyday life of school work and his classmates, and his mother's attachment to her mobile phone, we learn more about him, his late father who may have read him a bedtime story that he half remembers, and the Grandma who is dying. He is friends with Doo-Wop and Tutti, a girl who he gradually starts to befriend and who, like him, has lost a parent. As he becomes more and more involved in drawing the perfect painting of Ms Ice Sandwich, is he going to miss out on what is right in front of him?

The narrative voice is perfect for the central character, and you can't help but be drawn into his world. The writing is also, at precisely perfect moments, lyrical to the point of poetic, and will just suddenly hit you with a sucker-punch that leaves you breathless. It may appear overly simplistic, but it's not, and the book's message of cherishing precious moments and not letting chances pass you by are universal in theme. A joyous quick read that will surely cheer up any reader who wants to enter into Kawakami's world:

'There's loads of hard stuff in life, and maybe when we're grown-ups, there's going to be tons more hard stuff to deal with. And when that happens, I'm going to tell myself I can't give in or freeze up and get discouraged and do nothing. I have to believe that.'

If ever there's a time for books like this, and authors like Kawakami, then surely that time is now. Just uplifting. Al Pacino!

This is a short and effective novella about dealing with loss and growing up, and a small boy’s infatuation with the woman who serves sandwiches in his local store. It talks about the big things by focusing on little things. To be so convincingly inside a young boy’s head is a remarkable feat of empathy from Kawakami. She was a new author to me, and I will be looking for more of her work.

I did enjoy reading the book and it was enjoyable but I think I expected too much from it as I felt there could have been more to it.

Kawakami nails the voice of a teenager in love, in this quirky novella.

Although a slight volume there is much subtlety and tenderness in this book.
The story is about a young boy, his school friends, his family, and a sandwich vendor in a supermarket. The themes are childhood, loss, innocence, and kindness.
The author repeats images and themes so that they resonate, you will remember the blue eyeshadow, the dogs, and the mother's weird business long after you finish the book.

This is slim coming of age novella.

The young narrator leads quite a lonely life. He finds himself becoming obsessed by a supermarket assistant with electric/ice blue painted eyelids who deftly puts sandwiches into bags.
This leads him to becoming friends with the equally lonely "Tutti" . These two share their less mainstream interests and build up a trusting relationship.
The other important relationship to the narrator is with their bed bound grandmother who seems to be silently dying. Indeed this is a book about the "unspoken".

My only reservation is that I heard the narrator's voice as "female" in my head, but did I have to be so "binary"?

It is powerful and memorable in the way a Murakami book is.- oblique but tender too.

Tracey
Exeter