From the first sentence of Mieko Kanai¡¯s ¡°Mild Vertigo,¡± you¡¯re already in a whirling state of imbalance, thanks to Kanai¡¯s distinctive style and Polly Barton¡¯s mesmerizing translation. The first sentence stretches out across pages ¡ª four to be exact ¡ª and you¡¯re pulled into the mind of Natsumi, a Tokyo housewife and mother who never feels inclined to name her two young children. It¡¯s a spiraling read of the everyday in all its idiosyncratic, tragicomic edges.
Natsumi and her family live in an upper-middle-class apartment complex, a microcosm of 1990¡¯s Japanese life that somehow feels universal: petty jealousy and floor plans, adultery and cat-haters, the Kobe earthquake and housewife prostitution rings, memory and imaginings, metafiction at its sly best with the author as a character and influencer on Natsumi¡¯s ever-unfolding perceptions as a consummate observer of life. Not much happens yet everything feels meaningful by the end of the novel. It¡¯s simultaneously disorienting and magical, a dense work of art that takes work to read.
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