There is also the social aspect that the young wives in the novel are doing all the domestic labor, from caring for the infants to preparing the food and drinks in each of these scenes. It is a critique of the inequality of domestic labor standards, which occurs even in households where the male partner is under the impression he is helping equally. In Dr. Kate Manne’s book Entitled she cites a US study (the novel is Japan, of course, not the US, but the ideas still apply) that ‘ working women took on around two-thirds of at-home child care responsibilities’, and of the 46% of male participants who said they were coequal parents, only 32% of their partners agreed. For the three men in Weasels, this is seen as normal and when the narrator feels bad the new, possibly underaged mother is doing all the labor, social stigma keeps him from speaking up about it. This "novel" is comprised of 3 brief, well-written, connected short stories, each with a seemingly different focus: 1) high-end fish collecting; 2) Weasels at friend's new house; 3) friend and new bride's new baby, and high-end fish and fish tanks in the guest bedroom. Is there a larger through-line here? I'm not going to say no. Our protagonist and his wife are trying to get pregnant...kind of. They're going through the motions of getting tested, etc., and she seems to have a deep affection for the friend's new baby. The solution for the weasels in the second story, brought to light by the protagonist's wife (that of drowning a female weasel so the other weasels will hear its warning screams) was disturbing. That the friends never had a weasel problem again and it was all thanks to her was also disturbing but thankfully occurred "off-screen."

Hiroko Oyamada | New Directions Publishing Hiroko Oyamada | New Directions Publishing

Propagation does not guarantee flourishing. As Urabe says of his fish, “Some lay lots of eggs, others don’t. But quantity doesn’t necessarily mean anything.” And so, though the stories are suffused with the narrator’s uncertain longing, they each also contain warnings: Urabe’s sudden and unexpected death in “Death in the Family,” for example, or the horrifying shrieks of a drowning mother weasel in “The Last of the Weasels.” In “Yukiko,” a warning comes from Saiki, who is raising tropical fish in his new home. The fish live in tanks in the room where the narrator and his wife sleep, and in a terrifying episode of sleep paralysis, the narrator dreams that one of the fish—a bonytongue, long and silver, the fish the narrator likes best—has leapt out of its tank and landed on him, weighing him down. “I could feel the bonytongue twisting,” he says. “It had to be in pain. If it died like this, Saiki was going to be upset. I didn’t want this fish dying on top of me. I tried to raise my voice—to say something. I couldn’t even get my tongue to move.” The narrator is as helpless as the fish—and then he wakes up. The fish is in its tank, its scales shining. “I can really see the appeal of tropical fish. Maybe I should get some of my own,” he says to Saiki, after his terror has been dispelled in the morning light. “Don’t do it, man,” Saiki says, warning of the work involved. “I know they look pretty, but they’re living things.”

Do Weasels Dig Tunnels?

But mainly, for me, the problem is that the book is poorly written. The kind of writing failure I have in mind is not an effect of translation, and it isn't a matter of cultural differences. I know this because the issues I have in mind are problems in narration. This is just poor writing. At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter, is about a father parenting through an apocalypse in the absence of his pregnant wife. Alternatively, Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, translated (like Weasels) by David Boyd and co-translated by Lucy North, is about a woman who fakes a pregnancy to escape sexist expectations at work. Slated for release later this year, The Thorn Puller by Hiromi Ito, translated by Jeffrey Angles, is about a mother juggling children in the US and parents in Japan. Writing about parenthood isn’t new, of course: Woman Running in the Mountains by Yuko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine Harcourt, is an important four-decade-old novel about single motherhood reissued earlier this year. The first point to make about this story is the role of women. Nearly all the women in this book have a role of wife and mother and not much else. The narrator’s wife works but we know little about her job. Even the female fish are there to breed and the female weasel to protect her family. Only Saiki’s neighbour, an elderly widow, has a slightly different role but she does follow traditional female roles in providing food and gossiping.

Weasels in the Attic’s Exploration of Parenthood - Ploughshares Weasels in the Attic’s Exploration of Parenthood - Ploughshares

Hiroko Oyamada’s modus operandi is exploring the odd corners of modern Japan and she certainly does so, as the title immediately indicates. I cannot recall ever reading a book where weasels play a significant role. Book Genre: Asia, Asian Literature, Contemporary, Cultural, Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novella, Short StoriesWhat?' I asked, but Saki didn't answer. 'H-Hey, Urabe...' Saki's voice shook. I didn't understand. they looked like ordinary shrimp to me. BOOK REVIEW: PEOPLE WHO TALK TO STUFFED ANIMALS ARE NICE (JUNE 2023) BY AO OMAE – SHARED EXPERIENCES OF ESTRANGED MODERN YOUTH Now! When you include the length of their tail, they get even longer. Our western weasel friends have tails that can grow between 4 and 8 inches; that places the full length of the weasel at an above average length of 14 to 20 inches! Fascinating slim novel about fertility, marriage and friendship with a surreal atmosphere. The endings are sudden and open, almost as if you missed something, but it worked for me here and had me intrigued. Home » Japan » Hiroko Oyamada » いたちなく (Weasels in the Attic) Hiroko Oyamada: いたちなく (Weasels in the Attic)

Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada | New Directions

As stated earlier, weasels have great confidence in their skills to catch their prey, and dodge predators. Cats happen to be on of those predators, at least in the human domain. Their slender bodies and fine fur creates a serious issue: excess loss of body heat. Weasels manage this potential defeat by consuming around 40 percent of their own body weight in one day!Late in the novella, the narrator and his friend’s wife have a conversation about the different expectations of men and women surrounding parenthood and babies: In the second story, The Narrator and his wife visit Saiki who also has a new wife called Yoko and has moved to the country. They eat local rural food and discuss how to remove the weasels in the attic which are causing problems for Yoko and Saiki. The smallest weasel, fittingly named the “least weasel” can grow as long as 10 inches, although the majority of them are around 4 or 5 inches. These weasels are mostly in North America, and as you weasel around the world, they tend to be larger. The third story is more or less the same scenario, only a bit later. Yoko, Saiki’s wife, has had a baby, with the help of the narrator’s wife. This time we see that Saiki has once again shown an interest in fish and now has several fish tanks with discus fish and one with the rare bonytongue. As it is snowing, the narrator and his wife have to spend the night and they sleep in the room with the fish tanks. Bonytongues can jump three feet.