Growing-Up Explored in Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen Essay -- Yoshimoto K

Growing-Up Explored in Banana Yoshimotos KitchenThe head start time I read Kitchen, I knew I was experiencing something very special. non since my initial reading of Catcher in the Rye produce I witnessed such a perceptive look at the joys and pains of evolution up. These coming-of-age novels capture our attention with plots that, while twisting and turning in creative, off-beat ways, sojourn believable. The writers of these novels tell us their stories with a subtle style more fire than that of textbooks and assigned reading, a style non unlike a goodly one-sided conversation. Finally, within this great style of writing, the authors infuse honest insights, oft humorous and sometimes poignant, which do not carry a talk or authoritative tone. Banana Yoshimoto, as translated by Megan Backus, incorporates these three elements of a successful coming-of-age novel into Kitchen skillfully. The result is magnificent.To keep a young somebody interested, an author must weave an intere sting composition. Kitchen is fascinating because the premise of the story is original A Japanese twenty-somethings grandmother dies and is taken in by an employee of her grandmothers favorite flower shop and his transvestite mother. Along the course of the story, the heroine discovers a passion for cooking, the young man dreams a dream with the heroine, and a crackers admirer kills the transvestite mother. In the end, the heroine and the young man realize their bed for each other, without even having sh ared a passionate kiss. Such a plot is interesting to the average teenager who craves the out-of-the-ordinary she wants escape. Kitchen certainly provides something different, but it does so in a familiar way. When the heroine Mikage finds out that Yuichis m... ...xperiencing life. When I read Kitchen, I sympathized with Mikages loss of her grandmother. Until now, I still do not truly last how such a loss feels. So, in some ways, to read a coming-of-age novel is an identificati on with what you have experienced and a preparation for that which has heretofore to come. Some may argue that Kitchen is interesting simply because it is written by a foreigner. Without speaking Japanese and reading the original material, we may not know how close the translation is. I argue that it doesnt liaison. No matter from where you have come or how far in life you have gotten, after spending a little time in the Kitchen, you go forth have learned without feeling you have been taught. In the world of those who are still growing up, that is the best way to learn.Work CitedYoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. Trans. Megan Backus. NY Washington Square, 1988.