Haruki Murakami has a lot to answer for

This is another slim, provocative novel by the author of The Factory. I think Haruki Murakami has a lot to answer for. This is another Japanese work that starts as a realistic picture of contemporary Japanese life and then—suddenly without warning—slips into an alternate universe.

Asa Matsumura’s husband is being transferred to an office in the country. His parents live not far from the new office and, providentially, own the house next door, which is about to be vacated. The childless young couple can live there rent-free. What could go wrong?

Asa has to quit her job. The new house, much bigger than their city apartment, is much too distant from her company for a daily commute. Besides, she’s not a permanent employee. Her winter bonus is only ¥30,000 while permanent employees receive between ¥600,000 and ¥700,000 (($5,171 - $6,033).

Neither her husband nor her in-laws pay much attention to her. Her husband barely looks up from his cell phone screen. Her mother-in-law works and her father-in-law works and plays golf. Asa begins her new life, one without a car or anyone to talk to. A bus passes once an hour. Her husband’s grandfather waters the garden next door rain or shine; he does not respond to Asa’s greetings.

There is a river not far from the property and one summer day Asa spots a big, black animal, not a weasel or a raccoon. “It had wide shoulders, slender and muscular thighs, but from the knees down, its legs were as thin as sticks. The animal was covered in black fur and had a long tail and rounded ears.”

She follows the animal, which almost seems to be guiding her. “I saw the animal’s tail slip through the grass, and I leapt after it, but there was nothing there to catch me.” She has fallen into a four- or five-foot deep hole, and the animal has vanished soundlessly. It is the beginning of her adventures.

A mysterious woman helps her out of the hole. A scruffy man tells her he is her husband’s older brother, someone her husband has never mentioned. This “brother-in-law” talks about the animal and its propensity to dig holes.  But he does not know what kind of animal it is. 

He points out the animal is trapped in an old well that is covered by a grate. “You can’t get it off unless you put a finger in there and lift, but this guy’s a smart one. He can push it open with his fangs . . . If you’re wonder why I bother putting the cover on when he’s only going to get out again, I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you.”

In addition to Haruki Murakami, Lewis Carroll also has a lot to answer for. Asa does not fall completely underground like Alice, but her adventures are also remarkable and mysterious. And at one point a character tells Asa he’s white rabbit Alice followed underground. But who is this person who claims to be her husband’s brother? Doe he even exist?  What is the animal? Possibly Asa’s own unconscious? Do the holes represent emptiness’s in Asa’s heart? Does anything mean anything? And should we care?

The Hole is interesting because it does provoke such questions. On one level the novel is a realistic description of a trash-filled rural landscape and polluted marshland and river. On another level, we have mysterious creatures and inexplicable happenings. Are they symbolic or simply Asa’s delusions?

As the book’s narrator, Asa asks some hard questions: “Can you really hide your brother’s existence from you spouse? Is it even possible? And more importantly—why would anyone do it? Were they worried about the world finding out that the family had a shut-in? Or was there more to it than that?” 

Good questions Asa, and you’re living with someone who can answer. But no: “How could I ever as my husband about any of this? So—you have an older brother? How could I say anything to his mother? So—you have another son?” So, she doesn’t.

Other readers may find The Hole more rewarding than I did. Laura Van Den Berg (author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears and other works) says that “Hiroko Oyamada is brilliant on work, families, and the sacrifices women are so often asked to make. The Hole is a haunting and transformative work of fiction: as Asa begins to see the world in new ways so do we.”

I have two complaints about the publishing company. A convention to make scenes with dialogue easy to read is to make each separate speaker’s words a new paragraph. The Hole does not do that, so the reader has great blocks of type filled with quotation marks. That the Japanese original is the same does not in my mind justify the English typography.

Also, why isn’t the translator’s name on the cover? David Boyd, who’s done a skillful job of turning Oyamada’s fantasy in the English, gets a line on the back cover; he’s assistant professor of Japanese at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Good job, David. Shame on New Directions.