Author: Laura Imai Messina
Stylized as: the phone booth at the edge of the world
Translated from the Italian by Lucy Rand
Publisher: The Overlook Press, New York
Pages: 416
Extra features: reading group questions, Japanese-English glossary
Topics: grief, survival, guilt, familial love, romantic love, trauma, disaster, healing, parenthood
First impression: not as long as it seems (explained below)
Photo by Alexander McBride Wilson
This review contains spoilers.
Note: To avoid confusion, Japanese names mentioned in full here are written in the Western style, first name before last name. The events of this novel are based on true stories, and the Wind Phone (Kaze no Denwa) is a real place.
Summary
"'A man once told me that death is a very personal thing ... To some extent, we try to build our lives exactly like everyone else's. But not death. Everyone reacts to death in their own way...'" - Suzuki-san (64)
The novel begins with death enunciated by grief. Yui Hasegawa is still dealing with the loss of her mother and daughter in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami years later. She is a successful radio host, but she has no family left. Like many survivors, Yui is innately tormented. She's moved to Tokyo after the disaster and divorced herself from the sea. Whenever she sees the sea, she must eat several chunks of chocolate to quell her nausea.
After hearing about the Wind Phone that can connect you with your loved ones from a radio caller, Yui makes her first journey to The Mountain of the Whale (Kujira-yama), where the Wind Phone stands. It was built and is taken care of by Suzuki-san and his wife. The character of Suzuki-san is based on the real-life caretaker, Sasaki-san.
Yui immediately meets Takeshi Fujita, a single father who lost his wife several years ago to cancer. They form a spontaneous bond that continues to deepen every time they make the trek to the Wind Phone together. Over the years, Yui becomes more and more a part of Takeshi's family, taking care of his daughter, Hana, when Takeshi is busy at work. Even so, Yui herself has never had the courage to pick up the phone's receiver and speak.
The novel is split into two parts. Part I details Yui's gradual acceptance of the past. She slowly comes to love the sea again, despite its can-be turmoil, and the definite moment of overcoming her inhibitions comes when - in a dramatic show of vomiting - Yui purges herself of her nausea. Other victims and survivors of the tsunami and various trauma make up the rest of the pages, each with their own stories. The visitors of the Wind Phone build up a certain special connection with each other that carries into the future.
Part II begins with the climax of Yui's story. The Wind Phone is in danger. A typhoon is blowing across the land, and Yui sneaks out at night with a car full of supplies to reinforce the Wind Phone to the earth. In the denouement, Yui grapples with aligning her old identity with her new one. After finally speaking into the phone's receiver, Yui is able to open herself up to love wholeheartedly once again.
"She had been wrong. It wasn't just the best things that came to an end, but also the worst." (165)
Analysis
I agree with most critics that The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is a poetic experience. Though the author is Italian, she is married to a Japanese husband.
The setting of the book interchanges between coastal Japan and the city life of Tokyo, though even the city chapters seem mellow and laid-back. To use a term from anime genres, the pacing is very "slice-of-life." Relaxed, short, and sweet, like the gentle rumbling of the Shinkansen bullet train.
The premise is very thought-provoking. The real-life Wind Phone is one of those things that demands a story. Attention must be paid to it. At the end of the day, however, it is not a tourist destination, as the author reminded in a post-note. The spirituality of the Wind Phone and its surrounding garden, Bell Gardia, is one that must not be tarnished. It is a place that demands respect, most of all.
I enjoyed the easy pace with which the story unfolded, much like the waves of the sea washing onto shore in calm tides. Messina's chapters are all very short; thus, manageable if you are looking for breaks to place your bookmark. After every plot-driven chapter, she includes a chapter just for detailing something specific that came up in the previous chapter. For example, Yui made bento for Hana, and the next chapter gave a list of what made it into Hana's lunchbox.
To be sure, there were tear-jerking moments in the novel, but I appreciated that none of it felt too angsty or grievous, in the purest sense of those words. Especially not at the beginning. We wake up to Yui's past like the sunrise, slow and steady, but the light spreading nonetheless.
Yui's growing relationship with little Hana interested me the most. I half-expected tension to run afoul in the household from this new woman entering it after the death of her mother, but Hana surprised me by responding politely to Yui from the start. It also helps that they both have a weakness for chocolate. When I think about it, Hana also had two years to reconcile the death of her mother, during which time Hana was completely mute.
"It was just a matter of time, the pediatrician had said, because in children, feelings can sometimes turn into solid substances and it is quite common for these substances to get lodged in the throat." (56)
An affectionate scene occurred when, speaking of family, Hana went despondent over the thought that she could never live up to Yui's own deceased daughter. And then we have Yui, wondering if Hana loved her - could ever love her.
The sweetness of childhood Hana evoked manifested in the small details: a hand held, a text sticker sent, a crayon drawing.
Similarly, it is in the small details that we see Takeshi and Yui's love bloom. Personally I have grown tired of dramatic shows of affection often portrayed in mass media. Messina acknowledges both parties' interest in each other but never goes into the specifics of their courtship. Just as Yui keeps the full throttle of her feelings at bay initially, Messina keeps us readers at bay from their romance. So when the moment comes that Takeshi proposes out of the blue and gently embraces Yui from behind like in a TV drama, it feels all the more precious.
Takeshi is an interesting character. He doesn't have any of the hang-ups Yui has on using the Wind Phone. He is a loving father and, presumably, a loving husband. I would've liked to hear more about Takeshi's relationship to his first wife, Akiko. Akiko is described as possessing a natural joy for life. Assuming he loved her too, Takeshi's feelings on introducing Yui into his life would have made for a fuller family dynamic. How does Yui feel about Akiko? Considering the circumstances in which they met, all the cards were laid bare from the start, so no hassles there. But is there hidden conflict? Though I love the simple family life they represent, I can't help but wonder this.
The story is made up of vignettes - that's the word! I suppose one reason Messina doesn't go further into the intricacies of their relationship can be found at the end of the book. It is dedicated to the victims of the tsunami, and while the book indicates that love comes around, it is not at its core a romantic love story.
One of the reading group questions asks whether or not it is a love story. It is, indeed, about familial love and loving yourself, but it is more about hope. Hope that humanity can overcome any disaster thrown their way. That even a single person can come to love life again, often through the connections we make along the way. That healing is a natural part of life.
For all its references to the sea, there are no scenes in the book that actually take place by the sea. Instead of vomiting, staring at the sea, I would've liked Yui to actually go down and feel it. Feel the sand between her toes and the water running past her calves. To indulge in her mass of emotions while reconciling her torn feelings for the water, both gentle and torrid. This was a missed opportunity, in my opinion. Nevertheless, the imagery of the tsunami is vivid and colourful - beauty amongst destruction.
The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World inspires us to break not like the branch of a tree, but like the waves on a shore, ebbing back to the universe, to who we are in our core.
Design
The cover design is minimalist and beautiful. The background is peppered and has a slightly more beige tone to it in person. The cover and book title combined is what attracted me to it.
The book is hardcover, with this image printed on a dust jacket. Slightly disappointed, as dust jackets are more susceptible to wear-and-tear, even with the best of care.
Very stiff spine, perhaps due to the volume of pages. Keeping the book open around the middle area is difficult. Pages don't lay flat.
On that note, I was surprised at first on how thick the book was. Then I realized it wasn't nearly as long as it seemed. The font seems 12-pt, and there's a lot of blank space from the short chapters. The book also stylistically starts every chapter on a new right-hand-side page. Daunting on the outside, fluffy on the inside.
Quotes from the Book
"...silencing a man was equivalent to erasing him forever. And so it was important to tell stories, to talk to people, to talk about people. To listen to people talking about other people. Even to speak with the dead, if it helped." (Messina, 57)
"...the strongest kind of love is the kind that is taken for granted." (Messina, 75)
"She was convinced that nostalgia had nothing to do with memory, that we actually feel it most strongly for things we have never experienced." (92)
"'We need four hugs a day for survival. We need eight hugs a day for maintenance. And we need twelve hugs a day for growth.'" (106)
"'Knowing how to love life is a necessity, Takeshi, and she needs to learn to trust people. Not to hate them. There's no way out of hate.'" (181)
"...life decays, countless cracks form over time. But it was those very cracks, the fragility, that determined a person's story; that made them want to keep going, to find out what happens next." (370)
Name Meanings
It's a fun little pastime, imagining authors slave and toil and torture themselves over naming their characters. But because they do, the name of each character often gives insight into their role in the story or disposition.
Yui - "simple and harmonious life"
Takeshi - "warrior; strong and healthy"
Hana - "flower"
Akiko - "child of autumn; bright"
Bonus! Film Adaptations
Kaze no Denwa (2020)
(English: Voices in the Wind)
Director: Nobuhiro Suwa
Country: Japan
The Wind Phone (2019)
Director: Kristin Gerweck
Country: Austria
Work Cited
Messina, Laura Imai. The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World. Translated by Lucy Rand, The Overlook Press, 2021.
References
“The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., 9 Mar. 2021, www.goodreads.com/book/show/54776222-the-phone-booth-at-the-edge-of-the-world.
“Wind Phone.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Mar. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_phone.
Campbell, Mike. “Name of the Day.” The Meaning and History of First Names - Behind the Name, www.behindthename.com/.
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