|The Lake - Banana Yoshimoto|

There is a saying that: “People can be indifferent and silent as a lake”. However, what if the lake wants to stir up but can only mange a ripple? From just the image of the cover, the author already evokes serenity. What may seem a still lake surface contains a touch of ripp

les and sparkles. Gently and elegantly, “The Lake” draws readers deep into the abyss that is the life of the 2 main characters.

Chihiro saw her mother in her dream. It was a complete dream, not ambiguous like echoing fragmented memories. It was a dream of her mother, yet at the same time it felt as close as distanced to her, yet at the same time it gave her teary eyes. The dream reminded her of the painful days living with her “family”, when both of her parents aren’t officially husband and wife, when her grandparents forced her to keep distance from her “unofficial” father. Waking up, she found Nakajima lying sideways, curled up next to her like usual. They got to know each other through the window of the two 400-meter-apart buildings and it was the light shining through those windows that first connected the lonely souls together so that they could lean on each other to fill the void in their souls. As she got closer to Nakajima, Chihiro seems to sink deeper into the spiritual world – a world void of everything except tormenting memories of her childhood, her deceased mother or her old friends Chii and Mino. Love came between them delicately as they made up for their partner’s weaknesses, as if they had known each other for a long time. The lake represents Chihiro’s world after her mother’s death, silent on the surface yet raging in torrents deep down. The lake represents Nakajima’s world where the light barely reaches deep down. It was love, so delicate and tender that only the most perceptive can notice, that unified the state of the worlds above and beneath the lake. “Love isn’t only a matter if fussing over each other, hugging, wanting to be together. Some things communicate, inevitably, precisely because you keep them in check.” The lake, also representing the world of the two siblings Chii and Chihiro, is the remnant of Nakajima’s mother and his disastrous childhood as well as the basis for Chihiro’s lake-side monkeys drawing. They are all seemingly connected together in this vast and tranquil world to escape the shadows of their past to exist. The scene of Chihiro looking over paintings then returning with how cup of tea serves a gentle ending for the book unlike the beginning. An ending as though each and every character have been set freed, so calm and peaceful like the rippling waves of a lake. “The Lake” has successfully created a mystical world as well as a delicate yet profound love: a love that forces you to feel, to think and to smile. “This is what it means to be loved... when someone wants to touch you, to be tender...”

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