A mother who only loves her daughter because she has to, and is so afraid of loneliness that she becomes pregnant with a child she doesn’t want. A daughter who hates her mother, and she only returns to her side when the possibility of having a little brother arises. A condescending sister who wants to adopt her niece. One man after another, each one more narcissistic and selfish. In short, Tsushima is a story populated by excessively cruel characters, stubborn and incapable of looking beyond their own needs.
Likewise, the translation is rigid and artificial; It takes life away from the characters and makes reading extremely difficult. With robotic and false dialogues, the constant movement between the present and the past is disruptive and manages to hinder reading more than giving the story substance and reality. And the ending is sudden and leaves us with that feeling of when the DVD is scratched and the movie is left halfway.
The role of dreams in the life of the protagonist is interesting, exploited to the point of making us doubt the status of reality of certain fragments and perhaps of the entire story. However, the author introduces symbols and dream themes that one hopes will be developed throughout the novel, but that are rather forgotten in just a few pages and never returned to.
As a woman, I try to empathize with the protagonist, understand her motives and feelings, but I find it difficult. Her behavior towards her daughter is reprehensible, incomprehensible and will hardly allow readers to feel identified. And it is not about the mere cruelty of her actions – without a doubt the history of literature is full of atrocious and insensitive characters – but rather about the absolute incredibility of her person and all of her decisions.