INHABITATION

In 1970s Osaka, a young man moves out of his mother’s home and is consumed by thoughts of life, love, and an impaled lizard.

Stretching from the cherry-blossom spring of one year to the spring of the next, this novel follows the passionate preoccupations of graduating college student and part-time hotel bellboy Iryō Tetsuyuki. Miyamoto (Rivers, 2014, etc.) published this novel in 1984—straight after the release of his novel Maboroshi no hikari but before it had found fame as the film Maborosi—but its themes are timeless. Sometimes literally and always figuratively feverish, Tetsuyuki struggles with the tangible aspects of adult life: finances, collegiality, romantic love, filial obligations. The book's Japanese title, Haru no Yume—Spring Dream—gives a good sense of Tetsuyuki’s tenuous grasp of reality as he comes of age. A perceptive if judgmental character, Tetsuyuki can be a deeply exasperating protagonist, though he's portrayed with just enough sympathy and fascination to keep the reader engaged with his constantly shifting resolutions. Through this balancing act and his clear prose, Miyamoto shows why he is respected in Japan, if little-known abroad. Somehow, Tetsuyuki's feelings toward his girlfriend, the financial debt he inherited from his father, his relationship with his mother, the profound nature of existence, and various concepts of reincarnation are all bound up with Kin-chan, the lizard he accidentally nailed to a pillar on his first night in his own place. A cast of characters at the Osaka hotel and around the Kansai region also provide foils for Tetsuyuki's developing sensibility and counterexamples for many of the relationships he is trying to develop.

A fascinating exploration of early adulthood in Japan.