This novel, written by the same writer for the novel Masks, that I reviewed a few days ago, is about a well-off household in prewar Japan that is preparing for the arrival of a new concubine. The narrative perspective of this arrival is primarily from the first wife.
This is a sad and frustrating novel. It’s sad and earnest, and gives voice to what is inherently a silenced voice. This novel also predates other novels that I have read that discuss the concept of bringing a concubine into the fold of a household and showing it for what it is, a kind of polygamy, without giving it a kind of cultural credence.
I might reread Pearl Buck’s A Good Earth before too long because I read that as a kid and thought it was amazing, and that book has that issue of shedding light on a culture foreign to American readers, but also reinforcing parts of it that feel off to us. This book shows a similar relationship (between the first wife and the concubine) without the kind of outsider or sentimentality of that other book. In the same way, not showing the relationships within polygamy from male perspectives changes our sense of it. I am thinking particularly of how it’s represented in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which is contemporary to this book. And how both of these books predate Mariam Bo’s So Long a Letter.
In any event, this is a small book with a subtle book that explores the complications and inherent kinds of sadness that the lead character but also the young mistress (treated and shown as a kind of second wife) experience.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Waiting-Years-English-Japanese/dp/0870111590/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=14HX30UO7Z01B&keywords=the+waiting+years+fumiko+enchi&qid=1550331806&s=gateway&sprefix=thw+waiting+years%2Caps%2C474&sr=8-1-fkmrnull)