Cold Enough For Snow
Author: Jessica Au
Published by: Del Rey books
Pages: 405
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★★
Author: Jessica Au
Published by: Del Rey books
Pages: 405
Format: Hardback
My Rating: ★★★★★
A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city’s most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here - is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey?
At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another’s inner world.
At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another’s inner world.
My thoughts:
Reading Cold Enough For Snow was a magical experience. The novella is a dense and ambiguous focus on family, memories, and a mother and daughter relationship.
A daughter travels to Japan with her mother in an attempt to make some sort of connection with her. Both are in a land foreign to them, and the daughter thinks this will help them both to be on equal footing. The daughter, as narrator, conveys to us a feeling of loneliness while in the midst of trying to understand both herself and her relationship with her mother. As the two women wander through Tokyo, visiting various sites, the daughter reflects on moments in the past that seem to have brought her to this point in her life.
The narrator tells us of the tales her mother told of her family. Yet when asked, her mother exclaims that she never told those tales. Even her sister has differing memories. As the two women go through the streets of Japan, exploring, it’s almost as if they are in parallel play. They are together, yet largely in their own thoughts.
Art plays an important role in shaping her thoughts. The mother and daughter visit an art museum, the daughter gazing at the Monet paintings and wishing that her mother would notice the same impressions of a dreamlike quality to the work.
There’s a gentleness to it, a little melancholy, and a bit of a haze much like the reader is seeing it all unfold through the drizzly rain that falls on this mother and daughter on their journey. The writing is soothing, with a sense of calm in the imagery of a rainy Tokyo.
The book feels much larger in the mind than its page count would suggest. Despite being a very slim novel, there’s a lot of weight to it – not necessarily plot-wise, but in the form of deeper thinking. It isn't a book to rush through. Not only is the mood a melancholic, meditative, leisurely one, but the structure forces you to slow down too. The paragraphs are long and full of detailed observation so there's a density there and this will appeal to a reader who likes to immerse in contemplation. While reading I felt I was in the art galleries, in the home of the lecturer of the narrator and most of all, alone in the Japanese mountains with some drizzling rain.
Jessica Au's Cold Enough for Snow is comprised solely of observation and contemplation, and features thoughtful, quiet prose. This is a beautifully-observed, deceptively simple piece.
Overall reaction:
Reading Cold Enough For Snow was a magical experience. The novella is a dense and ambiguous focus on family, memories, and a mother and daughter relationship.
A daughter travels to Japan with her mother in an attempt to make some sort of connection with her. Both are in a land foreign to them, and the daughter thinks this will help them both to be on equal footing. The daughter, as narrator, conveys to us a feeling of loneliness while in the midst of trying to understand both herself and her relationship with her mother. As the two women wander through Tokyo, visiting various sites, the daughter reflects on moments in the past that seem to have brought her to this point in her life.
The narrator tells us of the tales her mother told of her family. Yet when asked, her mother exclaims that she never told those tales. Even her sister has differing memories. As the two women go through the streets of Japan, exploring, it’s almost as if they are in parallel play. They are together, yet largely in their own thoughts.
Art plays an important role in shaping her thoughts. The mother and daughter visit an art museum, the daughter gazing at the Monet paintings and wishing that her mother would notice the same impressions of a dreamlike quality to the work.
There’s a gentleness to it, a little melancholy, and a bit of a haze much like the reader is seeing it all unfold through the drizzly rain that falls on this mother and daughter on their journey. The writing is soothing, with a sense of calm in the imagery of a rainy Tokyo.
The book feels much larger in the mind than its page count would suggest. Despite being a very slim novel, there’s a lot of weight to it – not necessarily plot-wise, but in the form of deeper thinking. It isn't a book to rush through. Not only is the mood a melancholic, meditative, leisurely one, but the structure forces you to slow down too. The paragraphs are long and full of detailed observation so there's a density there and this will appeal to a reader who likes to immerse in contemplation. While reading I felt I was in the art galleries, in the home of the lecturer of the narrator and most of all, alone in the Japanese mountains with some drizzling rain.
Jessica Au's Cold Enough for Snow is comprised solely of observation and contemplation, and features thoughtful, quiet prose. This is a beautifully-observed, deceptively simple piece.
Overall reaction: