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

Growing-Up Explored in Banana Yoshimotos KitchenThe first time I find out Kitchen, I knew I was experiencing something genuinely special. Not since my initial containing of Catcher in the Rye give I witnessed such a perceptive look at the joys and air of growing up. These coming-of-age novels capture our attention with plots that, while twisting and turning in creative, off-beat ways, remain believable. The writers of these novels tell us their stories with a subtle style more than exciting than that of textbooks and assigned reading, a style not unlike a good one-sided conversation. Finally, within this great style of writing, the authors infuse aboveboard insights, often humorous and sometimes poignant, which do not carry a lecturing or authoritative tone. Banana Yoshimoto, as translated by Megan Backus, incorporates these triple elements of a successful coming-of-age novel into Kitchen skillfully. The result is magnificent.To keep a schoolgirlish person interested, an aut hor must weave an interesting story. Kitchen is fascinating because the come before 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 flesh of the story, the heroine discovers a passion for cooking, the young man dreams a dream with the heroine, and a crazy admirer kills the transvestite mother. In the end, the heroine and the young man receive their love for each other, without even having shared a passionate kiss. such(prenominal) a plot is interesting to the average teenager who craves the out-of-the-ordinary she wants escape. Kitchen certainly provides something different, moreover it does so in a familiar way. When the heroine Mikage finds out that Yuichis m... ...xperiencing smell. When I read Kitchen, I sympathized with Mikages loss of her grandmother. Until now, I still do not rattling know how such a loss feels. So, in some ways, to read a coming-of-age novel is an identification with what you have experienced and a grooming for that which has yet to come. Some whitethorn argue that Kitchen is interesting simply because it is scripted 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 matter. No matter from where you have come or how far in life you have gotten, after spending a little time in the Kitchen, you will have learned without feeling you have been taught. In the conception of those who are still growing up, that is the best way to learn.Work CitedYoshimoto, Banana. Kitchen. Trans. Megan Backus. NY cap Square, 1988.