"Another person." This word is used repeatedly in this novel. For example, Jina is a victim who was beaten by her boyfriend and reported him, but she continues to be exposed to secondary words of abuse both online and in the real world. Why would she involve the company? She was making her poor boyfriend buy expensive presents? Misunderstanding? There was room for misunderstanding, right? She's a terrible woman, she should just die... she thinks.

"The thing I envy most these days are people who think that what I'm saying has no meaning at all. I, too, would like to think of myself as a woman who is difficult to understand. I would like to look at myself with those eyes. Someone completely different from me, someone I will never be able to understand, and who has no desire to understand."

"Another person." By using this word, the characters in this novel are trying to draw a line. Between themselves, who are in their current terrible situation, and others who cannot understand it. Between their future selves and the past they want to forget and leave behind. Between the self that is accepted by those around them and the child who will never be a part of "everyone." It's as if they are all trying somehow to secure a place where they can be safe. The child who has suffered a terrible experience, doesn't know what to do, and is crying. Because they drew a line here, that person is not them, that person is someone else.

But is that really the case? Can drawing a line between the suffering "other person" and the safe self really save "me"? To someone - and that person could be my future self - "me" is also "another person" who says, "That miserable person isn't me." We draw a line, we separate, but where does the suffering of the person who is separated go?

 

But "other people" can also mean something else. At one point in the book, one character is searching for stories of people in the same situation as herself. She "wanted to know what other people were doing."
In this way, "another person" can be someone else who has been through terrible things, who has been hurt, who is suffering. It can also be someone to whom I, who have been hurt in the same way, can listen, tell my story, and hold my hand. There are certainly times in this world when it is too difficult to speak up alone, but this story tells us that it is possible to connect the voices that have been silenced if we are with "another person."

 

 

 

I grew up in Tohoku and moved to Osaka. I've lived there for quite a long time, but I can't speak the Kansai dialect. I've loved foreign literature since I was a child. I'm best at Japanese, English, Spanish, and French, in that order, but I'm not good at speaking any of them. Besides books, I also love movies, and I've made original covers for UMEDA TSUTAYA BOOKS for movie originals, and held a panel exhibition for "Parasite" and sold Korean literature. I would love to collaborate with any other movies I find interesting in the future. "The Three Braids," "Central Station," "Summer Outside," "Bel Canto," "Hidden Scream"...I've written reviews for many wonderful books so far. I'm going to continue to boldly ask, "Can I write reviews?" What I'm interested in now is the reprinting of out-of-print books. There are so many books I want to see resurrected, such as "Leaving Las Vegas" and "To the Friend Who Didn't Save My Life." I also love mysteries.

 

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