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Too close to home

Life in a comfortable modern flat with her husband and two young sons leaves Natsumi so depressed she thinks she’s losing her mind

24 June 2023

9:00 AM

24 June 2023

9:00 AM

Mild Vertigo Mieko Kanai, translated by Polly Barton

Fitzcarraldo Editions, pp.176, 12.99

Natsumi lives in a modern flat in Tokyo with her husband and two young sons, her life comfortable but circumscribed by the tedium of household chores. Washing dishes in the sink, she finds herself transfixed, gazing at the ‘rope of water’ falling from the tap, twisting like a snake: ‘There was something Sisyphean in the nature of the roster of simple domestic tasks… never an end in sight.’

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