Yuko Tsushima - Territory Of Light (Penguin, 1979) **½

"Territory of Light" is about a mother and her two-year old daughter, trying to build a life in Tokyo. The short chapters are all different stories from the same life, about the appartment itself, about meeting people in the park, about the neighbours ...

Her narrative is very descriptive, explaining what is happening and how things are happening, even if what is happening is very average and totally uninteresting. The struggle of a normal person in a modern city. It is not spectacular, it is not even memorable. I often wondered why I was reading this, and why I kept on reading. There is nothing special about this little book, except for Tsushima's elegant and economical writing. And it's only 119 pages long. So I finished it anyway.