Review: 'Dragon Palace' by Hiromi Kawakami (川上弘美 ), trans. by Ted Goossen

Look at that cover, at how unsettling that pale octopus feels against the darkness of the background. Consider how somehow the lack of capitals makes the title feel like an unfinished thought, something still becoming. All those weird feelings are embodied by the stories collected in Dragon Palace. While I still feel unsure about exactly how I feel, I do know I am very intrigued by Kawakami. Thanks to Stone Bridge Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I apologise sincerely for the long delay!

Pub. Date: 29/09/2023
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press; MONKEY

Stories from a Japanese master of transformative fiction, where reality, myth, and human foibles meet shifting dimensions of gender, biology, and destiny.

From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this otherworldly collection of eight stories, each a masterpiece of transformation, infused with humor, sex, and the universal search for love and beauty—in a world where the laws of time and space, and even species boundaries, don’t apply. Meet a shape-shifting con man, a goddess who uses sex to control her followers, an elderly man possessed by a fox spirit, a woman who falls in love with her 400-year-old ancestor, a kitchen god with three faces in a weasel-infested apartment block, moles who provide underground sanctuary for humans who have lost the will to live, a man nurtured through life by his seven extraordinary sisters, and a woman who is handed from husband to husband until she is finally able to return to the sea.

Dragon Palace contains eight stories, each of which is odder than the other and yet they all come together quite nicely as well. In 'Hokusai', a disaffected young man meets a strange guy who swears he used to be an octopus. As they move from bar to bar, he narrates his strange life. In 'Dragon Palace' we meet a woman who is being visited by her diminutive great-grandmother, who was once the prophet or god of a cult and has some utterly strange stories to tell. 'Fox's Den' is about a middle-aged woman who develops an odd kind of relationship with the elderly man she cares for, which may or may not involve conversations about feces and transformations. 'Mole' was one of my favourite stories about a couple who may or may not be anthropomorphised moles (?) who pick up the tired and weary in the city and take them underground, where they either recover ... or not. 'The Kitchen God' is also very intriguing to me, about a woman who eats the plaster in her kitchen and prays to its god, while having strained relationships with those around her. 'The Roar' is something straight out of a fairy or folklore tale about a boy who, as he grows up, moves into the care of his different sisters, who are also his teachers and lovers. Deeply weird but gorgeous imagery. In 'Shimazaki' we live in a world where some people live for centuries and so a woman finds herself in something of a relationship with an ancestor of hers. The collection's last story, 'Sea Horse' is about a woman who once was a sea horse and has been passed along by various men for years and is now confronted with the fact that her own daughter is distinctly "of the sea".

I am new to Hiromi Kawakami's writing, but I found s.penkevich's review on Goodreads really useful to get an overview of her oeuvre and writing style. I fully agree with him that there is a quietness to her writing which sneaks up on you. It is all so matter-of-fact and straightforward and then suddenly something hooks you, or at least it did for me. He also notes how many of the stories in Dragon Palace veer into the taboo, especially when it comes to matters of sex and love. Sex is a palpable presence in almost all of the stories, often as something that is desirable but also identity-shifting, forceful, shocking. Sex becomes the way in which characters encounter a fuller truth of themselves and one another, where the line between the human and the animal blurs. There is also a difference whether the protagonist is male or female, although for all love seems of secondary, if any, importance. I think it is only 'Mole' where there is no overt focus on sexuality and this is one of the tenderest stories, in many ways, while also featuring a protagonist who is more solidly on the animal side of the equation. As a woman, I found my own reaction to these stories really interesting. In some, like 'The Roar', the fantastical/folklore-esque nature of the story made it easier to put the violence of sex aside, whereas I found this harder to do with others, like the 'Sea Horse'. I'm really intrigued to read more by Hiromi Kawakami, perhaps also by different translators, although from what I can tell Ted Goossen did an excellent job at capturing the slightly distanced tone of the stories.

I give this collection...

4 Universes!

Although the stories in Dragon Palace are deeply strange and also off-putting at times, I have been thinking about them frequently since reading them. That kind of staying power speaks of its own kind of quality, so everyone who is into weird fiction should give these a go.