国際交流基金 JAPANEASE BOOK NEWS
SUMMER 2016 /vol.88
Nazo no dokuoya My Toxic Parents Problem
By Himeno Kaoruko
Shinchosha,2015.
ISBN 978-4-10-427703-2
The term “toxic parents” has been much
in the Japanenese media in the last two or
three years---the parents who completely
dominate their children from young age
and whose controlling influence has a
continuing negative impact on them even
after they reach adulthood.
Mitsuyo,the protagonist of this novel,
had been raised by just that kind of par-rents. She was an only child in a house surround by thick walls that seemed to cut the three off from contact with the people around them.
Subject to strict discipline and living in that closed environment,Mistuyo was not even allowed to express her own feelings clearly. As far as these matters go, there must be masy cases of such toxic parents,
but Mitsuyo’s situation was peculiar in that the adult’s attacks on their child were likely to be sudden and difficult to understand.
The author has apparently modeled the language and behavior of her characters after own parents.
After Mitsyo eventually grows to adulthood and her parent pass away, she begins writing to friends as she tries grasp what made her parents the way they were.
The gradual processs as she slowly beigns to understand the difficulties she suffered forms the content to of novel.
People who experience grave trouble in relations with their parents must be every-where, not just Japan,but this is a novel that opens up a small window,letting some fresh air into the mentally closed-off world in wich such people sometimes live.
(Karube)
Reference JAPANEASE BOOK NEWS
SUMMER 2016 /vol.88
JAPAN FOUNDATION
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