Beauty and Sadness

You'll be bothered by each masterfully painted character's passivity in the face of suffering they cause and experience. Oki's sexual assault of child mistress Otoko, wife Fumiko's jealous acceptance of his infidelity and Otoko's teenage pregnancy and suicide attempt will leave you surprised by the near-absence of emotional wounds that such injuries have on their adult lives until you realise traumatic memories will find an outlet (in this case through Keiko); even if you have repressed it in one generation, it will find its expression in the next. This book reminds me so much of my own family dynamics, it makes me realise that the reverberations of the past will always be felt but there can be both beauty and sadness in the bell's toll.