“I can’t do it … I’m pregnant. The smell of coffee . . . it triggers my morning sickness. The cigarettes, too . . . Anyway, isn’t this supposed to be a nonsmoking building?”
And that’s how I became pregnant.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
For the sake of women everywhere, Ms Shibata is going to pull off the mother of all deceptions…
As the only woman in her office, Ms Shibata is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can’t clear away her coworkers’ dirty cups – because she’s pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms Shibata is not pregnant.
Pregnant Ms Shibata doesn’t have to serve coffee to anyone. Pregnant Ms Shibata isn’t forced to work overtime. Pregnant Ms Shibata can rest, watch TV, take long baths, and even join an aerobics class for expectant mothers. But she has a nine-month ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with the help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of her ‘pregnancy’, the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve.
Diary of a Void will keep you turning the pages to see just how far Ms Shibata will go.
REVIEW
This is a story about Shibata, a 34 year old woman in Japan, who has an office job associated with a processing factory that makes paper cores. Shibata is the only woman in her team, and the toxic patriarchal environment is palpable from the start. Shibata’s journey throughout the novella was driven by the questions: how is she going to do that? when will she be found out? will she really become pregnant? There was not much scene-setting in this story, with Yagi focusing on character development – which for me is the appeal of this book. However, Yagi does attempt to ‘show’ us around Shibata’s workplace, which, within the character-focused narrative, does slow down the pace. A paper core factory is a very underwhelming setting – though, I also think that’s one of the points of the book – Yagi is telling a fictional story in a very real, present-day environment, but for me, it did end up reducing my final rating for Diary of a Void.
The chapter structure is cleverly divided into mostly weekly sections, following the development of Shibata’s pregnancy, including pregnancy information regarding the size of the baby for each week this ‘pregnancy’ progresses. From a feminist point-of-view, as the reader, you can’t help but feel frustrations for Shibata as she experiences sexual harassment and her boss’ response is further harassment. Yagi presents these frustrations though quirky and sometimes dark humour which is thought out loud by our protagonist.
I sliced into the box with the blade, and imagined stabbing every one of my coworkers.
As the narrative develops, Shibata’s belief in the pregnancy escalates as the reader starts to question the legitimacy of the pregnancy also, with further questions developing as to what is Shibata going to do, how is she going to get out of this situation? I’m not sure I would class this as Literary Fiction as ‘storygraph’ have labelled it, though I would say contemporary. It is on par with many other Japanese contemporary fiction novels, in the slow-paced character-study which we can see in other novels such as Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawasaki and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagusawa, though both of these rated higher for me that Diary of a Void.
Overall Thoughts
This is a nice slow-paced novella that touches on the misogyny of Japanese culture (though, this can be found in most parts of the world). It emphasises the desperation of wanting to be treated differently to the exceptions of a patriarchal society, though, I feel Shibata simply traded one female stereotype for another – that of a pregnant woman and mother. For me, a three and a half star rating is still worth picking up. It remains a well-written novella which an interesting premise, and is thought-provoking. Not to mention, it has a very nice cover design.
FAVOURITE LINES
Two elderly people in town had choked to death on mochi they’d managed to sneak past the nursing home staff . . . It wasn’t even New Year’s yet, but they’d already gotten into the mochi?
As they spoke, they passed single file by the flowerbeds, then broke into different formations, changing shape like an amoeba.
BOOK DETAILS
Released: 11 August 2022 by Harville Decker
Publisher: Harville Decker
Pages: 224
Rating: (3.5 stars)
Genres: Literary Fiction / Feminist
