INDEX
Three books to help us understand the opposite sex: “I thought there are fears we can’t imagine in a woman’s life.
Next is “Kitchen” by Banana Yoshimoto.
Sawada: It’s a topic that often comes up between men and women, but I’ve always wondered what the boundary between friendship and love is, and I think “Kitchen” does a good job of verbalizing this. When I think about what is the difference between the feeling of “wanting to take care of someone” and the feeling of love, I think it is just a different form, but I don’t really know.
I have lived in a rather male-oriented world, and now there is a part of me that wants to be excessively close to the idea of girls, so I am even more concerned about the boundary between the two. At that time, I remembered reading “Kitchen” a long time ago, and I thought, “This book had that aspect,” and when I read it again, I was surprised to find that my understanding of it was completely different.
-How did it change?
Sawada: When I read it now, I can see that it is definitely a story about love, but at the time I saw it as a bit more tragic. I saw it as a story of loss. But this is a story about love all the way through, and it’s about how long that love lasts. I don’t want to say that the words you say or the love you express can change a person’s life, but at least as long as the person remembers them, they have the power to save that person’s life. I feel this very strongly from “Kitchen.
Congratulations” by Hiromi Kawakami.
Sawada: I read this one once seven years ago, and it’s been a long time since I pulled it out. It was the book most recommended to me by a girl who had sung in “The Last Will and Testament” and other songs up to that point. We were both into Hiromi Kawakami at the time, and read “Sensei’s Bag” and “Parade. I remember that I liked it a lot when I read it because she said, “I think Sawada would like this one,” but I don’t remember anything after that.
I just didn’t want to read it again, or I thought there was something in it that would definitely fall apart if I read it again. If I read it now, I would update it in my mind, so I don’t open it anymore. At that time, I was still in a period of time when I had not yet developed a mind of my own, when I had not yet made a choice about what was good for me, so if I read it now, I would definitely feel differently. But I’m sure this is something that will give meaning to my life if I don’t open it.
-Sawada: “The Will” by Chikako Ogura.
Sawada: Looking back on it now, I think the girl in the “suicide note” had a greater dislike of masculinity than other people, but at the same time she had an ideal of paternity that was in inverse proportion to that. But at the time, I didn’t understand it at all, and I didn’t want to understand it. I thought that men were not designed to attack other men as much as you might think, that it is just that there are dramas and creations that push it as a symbol of masculinity, and that in terms of human arrogance, it is not that different.
-I don’t think it is something to be dismissed out of hand.
Sawada: I had given up thinking in this way, but after not being able to see or talk to the boy anymore, I had a lot to think about. I have always played baseball, and I am not too male in my thinking or misogynistic, and I am not inclined to lean either way, but I have read Ekuni’s books at ……, and I think that there are things that women cannot avoid in their lives, things that we cannot imagine. I am not a misogynist, but I read Ekuni’s book and I thought that there are fears that we cannot imagine.
I have never been afraid of walking on the street at night, but women are not, and when a woman tells me “that’s heavy” and lifts up my luggage, the difference in strength between men and women may be many times greater than I imagined. When I thought about that, I thought this might be a bad idea if I didn’t read a few more “this is the way I lived my life” written by women. My friends and girlfriends can tell me something similar to that, but they can’t tell me to the point where they say, “That’s why it’s hard for me,” so I thought, “What’s making it hard to live?” I wanted to know more about things like that.
-I have been a baseball player for a long time and grew up in a masculine environment, but since my 20s, including as a sort of reaction, I have deepened my understanding of femininity by coming into contact with novels and manga, mainly by female authors, and the knowledge and experience I gained there are reflected in the creative works you are making today. Ms. Sawada’s music is a reflection of her experience as a writer. I am sure that this is the reason why Ms. Sawada’s music is so popular among women, despite the fact that it has a strong personal novel aspect, and the major theme behind it is the “relationship between the heart and mind” that transcends gender differences and “saving the heart. Having been introduced to various works so far, I felt such a transition in your life, Ms. Sawada.
Sawada: Thank you for summarizing so beautifully. I was originally in a man-male environment, but if you ask me if I was very comfortable there, I was not. So, when I was about 26 years old, my mind was finally formed, and I was a bit moved by that. I was impressed that I could think for myself. So I really wish I had encountered these works earlier. If I had done that, I probably would have lived a completely different life than I do now, and I would have had a happier future. I can’t help but imagine …… what it would have been like.
