Namako: Sea Cucumber (edition 1998)

Ten-year-old Ellen along with her mom, dad, and three siblings head for Japan. Ellen’s mom, who has a Japanese mother, thinks that moving to Japan will be a good response to the problem of her husband’s infidelity. Arriving in Japan, Ellen is left to stay with her grandmother. Shocked at first, but then realizing that she is not apart from her family, she gradually grows accustomed to life in Japan.

I had a hard time with this novel. Despite the author’s beautiful prose, the story didn’t seem headed in any particular direction. There were actually two points at which I thought the story would suddenly pick up interest, but then, just as quickly, the story veered away from precisely what caught my attention. The Japanese language dialogue included in the story was distracting because I do not understand Japanese. Unfortunately, only some of this dialogue was translated.

For me the highlight of the novel was the fun that Ellen had with her siblings. That part seemed to resonate with me the most. I never had the full sense that this family was living in Japan despite the Japanese language, the rice paddies, and the description of the house in which the family lived. I wanted to finish this novel to see in what direction it would go, but, by the time I was done, I did not find the story very fulfilling. ( )

it starts nicely, but half way through it becomes kind of slow ( )