Dendera

3.5 stars.

If you aren't used to translated work, this might be difficult to read. Literature translated from especially Japanese (in my experience) can come across as awkward and stilted. This novel seems a trifle awkward, but, in the context of this novel, it also fits the storytelling.

This is essentially the story of Kayu Saitoh, a woman of seventy sent to Climb the Mountain that she might attain Paradise and, thereby, leave her share of the food for everyone else in her village. Everyone of seventy years of age is sent to the mountain to die, to ensure the survival of younger, more able-bodied villagers. And she's all right with that. She never questioned anything.

But then she is rescued by the women of Dendera, all women–only women–sent to the mountain in the thirty years before she was. The leader is a woman of one hundred who is embittered and filled with wrath against their village. She and her group, the Hawks, want to attack and destroy the village. Other women, the Doves, wish to have their vengeance on the village by making Dendera a utopian society. There are no men, and many of the women don't want their to be any.

So you have an erstwhile feminism happening here. Kayu wants none of it; she just wants to die.

And then the proverbial excrement hits the proverbial air conditioning. A mother bear and her cub awaken from hibernation in starvation mode. And not only is life in Dendera about survival and ideological disagreements between Hawks and Doves, but now they must contend with a hungry mother bear, later a WOUNDED hungry mother bear.

Keeping track of all the women gets difficult, because there are so many; they get listed in word vomit a few times, and my eyes glazed over. However, I appreciate the fact that these women have personalities and conflicts and are not infantilized, nor are they idealized. They are flawed, just as they should be.

Kayu's P.O.V. is the main P.O.V. But a few chapters are dedicated to Redback, the bear. Whilst interesting, and I think Sato-sensei has some very valid statements on nature, Redback's chapters are a bit problematic to me, because he negates her capacity for affection, for mourning. But he certainly has created an intelligent, dynamic character in both her and Kayu.

Kayu begins the book being pretty aggro and unpleasant. She slowly become a person of substance and realizes her own aspirations. Once she is forced to use her head, she's quite good at it, and she becomes her own person, sadly at the age of seventy.

There is no supernatural element to this novel, but there is some amazing gore. If one were in the mood for something peculiar and grim and female-oriented, I would recommend this heartily.

It took me three weeks to read this book, I just kept putting it down. The reason I kept putting it down was because it repeated itself over and over and over. Translation issues, I presume. I get that Kayu Saitoh has to question everything everyone has built, but I really got to the point in which I wish we were with any character but her. I just found it to be a chore, which is a shame because it's an awesome idea. I think I wanted this to be the Japanese version of [b:Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival 127810 Two Old Women An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival Velma Wallis https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348013323s/127810.jpg 528604]. Did you know Dendera became a movie? I'll skip it. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1813253/