BREASTS and EGGS, by Mieko Kawakami, was published in 2019, originally in Japanese, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
The book is a window into the life of a person living in Japan, and providing a window into a stranger’s life is one of the most exalted functions of literature. Even the most ordinary details of Japanese life were of interest to this reader. It is also a fascinating trove of details about copulation, sperm donation, the laws and cultural norms surrounding sperm donation, and many other aspects of sex and pregnancy, with nary a spark, or even an ember, of eroticism or desire.
The male characters are mere forms, valuable only in their capacity as sperm donors, whether accomplished “skin-to-skin,” as one volunteer sperm donor suggests, or through sperm banks. Since the practice of conception through donor is considered shameful in Japan (though the author notes that it is nevertheless common), the protagonist, Natsuko, considers using a sperm bank in Denmark.
Her path to motherhood is complicated by the fact that having sex sickens her, though she doesn’t know why. As a sex-positive person (as most people are), this reader found it hard to identify with Natsuko, though all of her fictional female friends voice similar disgust and scorn. Without this connection, the book mostly bored me.
Kawakami has her characters articulate resentments felt by [almost] all women. One character says: “I can’t tell you how good it felt when my ex left the house. It was like I could breathe again. … men can be such idiots. They can’t do anything around the house without making a ton of noise, not even close the fridge or turn the lights on. They can’t take care of anyone else. They can’t even take care of themselves. They won’t do anything for their kids or their families if it means sacrificing their own comfort, but they go out in the world and act all big, like, I’m such a good dad, such a provider. Idiots. … [this guy would] get bent out of shape over the smallest little comment, then wait around for someone to reinflate his stupid, flabby ego. God, that pissed me off. At some point, it finally hit me. Why am I wasting my precious time getting angry over all his stupid shit?”
Another character says; “[Men are] on a pedestal from the second they’re born, only they don’t realize it. Whenever they need something, their moms come running. They’re taught to believe that their penises make them superior and that women are just there for them to use however they see fit…and it’s women who have to make it work.””
These are the observations of Japanese female characters. Compare them with the feelings American women revealed in comments (2,600 of them) on a recent article in The New York Times called “Over 60, Single, and Never Happier.” One woman wrote: “The idea of devoting my life’s energy to another human being for the few good years I have left on this planet makes me incredibly anxious…. Coupling again makes me feel even more anxious. I feel as though I’ve been a caretaker since birth. I am not bitter, I loved my husbands deeply, my daughter is my life’s grace, but I’m at such a level of physical and mental exhaustion that if I make anyone other than myself my primary relationship moving forward, I will have no good years left at all.”
Another comment to the same article: “I have spent the majority of my life taking care of and worrying about other people. I will obviously take care of my father and my husband when it is needed. Now I want to focus on myself. Will I ever get remarried if my husband dies before me? Highly doubt it.”
This reader has been married three times and has collected resentments, too. My marital and parental duties were easily twice that of my husbands, yet I have never met a man who could or would comprehend the depth of these resentments. Betty Friedan explained them decades ago in The Feminine Mystique, and it’s surprising how little has changed.
Despite my resentments, I like men. I like their cadence, their physique, their voice, the way they walk, the way they think. I like to talk to them, work with them, eat with them, and yes, dance with them. Sex was important not only in the doing, but in how I reacted to life in general, with reactions to women markedly different than those to men.
Every Tuesday morning, I do line dancing, a bunch of older women doing light exercise for an hour, laughing, boogeying, getting out of the house. One day a tall, good-looking man of about 60 came to the door of the studio where we were dancing, and we stopped and stared at him. “Are you going to dance with us?” One woman shouted out. “Come on, dance,” said another. He smiled and said, “I’m just checking out the space for my mother’s 90th birthday party.” We were so disappointed. Living as an old woman in America is like living in a harem.
“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” is a quote from Anita Dunn/Gloria Steinem that always gets a laugh. This book is the fever dream of the fish-and-bicycle feminists. This is what the world would look like if women treated men as if their only purpose was to donate sperm. In Kawakami’s telling, they’re not even useful as moneymakers.
Perhaps that interpretation is too gender focused. Perhaps this is the fever dream of people who live in self-created cocoons, isolated, without functional family or friends, supporting themselves hand to mouth, with only occasional vivid contact with other human beings. This is the world of many science fiction books, where humans become robotic.
A friend’s young daughter-in-law says this is her favorite book. Is it the voice of a generation that I am irretrievably out of touch with?
I wonder if this book is science fiction or the future.