Ms Ice Sandwich (Japanese Novellas)

This book has been called a coming-of-age story. I think it’s about the birth of an artist. The boy becomes obsessed with a young lady who sells sandwiches at the supermarket — because of her huge eye lined in blue. He begins to draw her. She is unfriendly but icily efficient at her job. He buys sandwiches from her every day just to look at her.Are her eyes so big as a result of plastic surgery? (Some Asian women get their eye “fixed” to look Western.) He wants to know — and doesn't.As the story unfolds, we get a touching picture of his affection for his grandmother who is paralyzed and speechless from a stroke. She’s the only person he can talk to. Then a quirky girl in his class makes friends with him. She is wise beyond her years and opens his eyes to a few things. And he continues to draw Ms Ice Sandwich over and over until the drawing feels just right.This little story is bigger than its page count. There’s philosophy in it. There’s love in it — but no sentimentality. There’s the artist’s eye.I can see why Haruki Murakami admires this author. Elegantly spare and oddly evocative, Ms Ice Sandwich is a gem.

A good introduction to the work of Kawakami Mieko, one of Japan’s new generation of female writers.In this novella she captures extremely well the interior musings of a young adolescent coming to realizations about the true nature of the human condition. The women in his life - an aging grandmother, a distracted mother, an audacious female friend, the Ms. Ice Sandwich of the title - all come into clearer focus as the narrative moves along, both for him and for us. The young boy’s imaginary musings gradually give way to a more grounded reality, but one that still has room for flights of fancy in night time dreams.Kawakami’s prose flows effortlessly; the reader is both inside the hero’s mind and yet detached enough to judge the accuracy and true intent of his relatively naive world view.Having finished reading the novella, I’ll go now and find my own egg sandwich.

A novel written from the perspective of a 10 year old Japanese boy to be this emotionally affecting? There’s just a magic to the way Kawakami writes that grabs you from the first page. I read this first, but now I will go and read her later book “Breasts and Eggs” (a cleaned-up translation, I suspect: the original title is probably a little bit harsher) and whatever else she writes. Very, very impressive.

Nice short novella. Not my favorite work, tbh, but I still enjoyed it. What I did NOT enjoy is the ebook price: waaaay too expensive. I wont buy the others.

It is not often that I so blindly stumble upon a Japanese author without knowing anything beforehand. In this case, I was quite literally browsing library shelves and came upon Ms Ice Sandwich. What a quirky title, I thought, and a Japanese name. I guess I’ll read this. Browsing library shelves, it turns out, has its perks.Which is a blatant segue to my first point about Ms Ice Sandwich. If someone were to ask me, “Hey David, what would you say is the Japanese version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” I would now have an answer. Both novels feature a young man coming-of-age, one who is shy with perhaps some development immaturity. Both prominently feature women who could be accused of manic-pixie-dreamgirl status if we weren’t past that in our popular culture lexicon (I hope). Each has its quirks, more in Ms Ice Sandwich due to its Japanese nature, and both feature emotional moments powerful enough to induce tears.However, I do not wish to sell Ms Ice Sandwich short. It is short, clocking in at just over ninety pages, but Kawakami packs meaning and heart into those ninety pages better than some authors who ramble on for 900. The unnamed protagonist of this novel is worth knowing, a “sweet kid,” for lack of a better cliche. He reminds me of myself when I was a young boy, though I was not so sweet, fawning over women and creating elaborate fantasies about them in the safety of my own head. In this boy’s case, he becomes obsessed with a sandwich vendor whom he calls Ms Ice Sandwich. She has electric blue eyelids that cover the largest and most beautiful eyes he has ever seen. He has never said a word to her, and knows nothing about her personality or disposition beyond what she exudes as a behind-the-counter saleswoman.Much can be assumed about this obsession. The boy’s mother is an absent one, more concerned with her cell phone and pseudo-business than with mothering, and his father is long gone. The boy has friends, but is fairly awkward in school and Kawakami writes him as potentially having some autistic or OCD tendencies. That he would pick one particular human, one as visually strange as he is emotionally, is no surprise. And his love is innocent, pure even, because he seems to be young enough for such emotions to remain untainted by the film of puberty.As mirror to the young boy is a girl his own age named Tutti Frutti, a nickname that the boy infamously and uncharacteristically draped upon her due to a funny incident involving flatulence. Tutti lives nearby, is more outgoing and irreverent than the boy, and is also missing a parent – in this case her mother. Tutti also serves as mirror to Ms Ice Sandwich, becoming someone the boy can actually talk to and who is more grounded in reality.My only complaint with Ms Ice Sandwich, aside from perhaps wishing this were a longer work, is with some of the translation quirks. It is almost immediately apparent that Ms Ice Sandwich is translated by a Brit. The repeated use of the word ‘mum’ and the addition of some very non-Japanese phrases like ‘taking the piss’ are off-putting for anyone who has some knowledge of Japanese culture. Having read the majority of my Japanese literature through American translators, I may have glossed over any American buzz words or phrases, and if nothing else this has cued me into the possibility of keeping a more watchful eye. Thankfully these British stains do not otherwise mar a beautiful novella and one that will have me watching for Meiko Kawakami’s name in the years to come.

It’s sweet and simple in the best way. It’s cool and I like the people in the book. Not everything is explained. It’s just life observed

I so enjoyed this novel. Told through the eyes of a 4th grade boy as he experiences school, his trips to the grocery store ( where Ms Ice Sandwich works ) his love for his grandmother and his curious relationship with his mother. It's such a charming work and I so hope more of Mieko Kawakami's books are translated into English.I've only recently been reading Japanese novels ( in English ) and found this one to be one of my favorites.

The simplicity of the book and the story is what hooks you in. It doesn’t start with a bang but grows on you gradually. It’s a book that makes you a little sad and a little happy. There is loneliness and pain, but there is also love, friendship, bonding, and the little things that make life worth living.The naivety of youth and the exhilaration of attraction (if you can call it that, the narrator seems to be every bit confused about it) makes for a heartwarming read. Just like Ms Ice Sandwich, our young narrator too is a bit socially awkward, never knowing what to say and how to behave. He doesn’t fit in, always managing to get by just okay.

A beautiful story deftly told with an excellent translation from the original Japanese. The book is beautiful and arrived completely undamaged.

Recommend for those interested in modern Japanese literature

Ms Ice Sandwich-Short Romantic FlingA fourth standard, shy and introverted, has a crush on a girl at the bakery in the posh supermarket. He keeps this in his heart until Tutti, his classmate, comes to his rescue and tells him to reveal everything to that girl. It is a lovey-dovey and touching story. The unusual thing is that goatish emotions are missing in this novel, which is almost a requisite in Japanese fiction.Hats off to Mieko Kawakami!Dr. Brij MohanAuthor-Second Innings

I was keen to read this story because I’d heard Mieko Kawakami is a writer’s writer and that appealed to me as an author of Japan-related fiction. I also wanted to read this book because Haruki Murakami is a big fan of Kawakami and that speaks volumes. I wasn’t disappointed. This novella is delightful!A hyper-visual adolescent’s innocent crush on an older lady who works in a sandwich shop is coupled with the blossoming relationship he has with Tutti, a young girl in his class. This allows for a charming story that’s easy to read thanks to the superb translation by Louise Heal Kawai.I can see why Kawakami is an award-winning writer in Japan. The Japanese philosophy “mono no aware” (an appreciation of the beauty attached to the fragility of life) is a recurring theme in Japanese art and literature and this story is a great example of that. It teaches us to appreciate what we have today because it may not be there tomorrow, just like the cherry blossoms in Japan. These famous flowers are strikingly beautiful when they’re in full bloom but disappear before you realise you’ve missed the chance to see them. Kawakami provides an excellent interpretation of this theme in this concise work.“The worst thing is, you never know when somebody’s going to just disappear.”“Huh?”“Yes, disappear, like go away and never come back. You never see them again. You want to see them but it’s too late, they’re gone.” (p. 70)The boy’s relationship with his grandmother and the memories of his father also tie into this viewpoint and give you pause for thought.This may not be Kawakami’s best work, but for me as a writer it was easy to appreciate and enjoy finding out more about this sweet adolescent because his character is so well developed throughout. The translator’s outstanding choice of vocabulary conveys the feelings and expectations of a boy of this age and thanks to Kawakami’s gentle but persuasive writing style, I felt like I was inside his mind. As I turned the pages, I could perceive the world that was opening up to him as he teetered on the cusp of adulthood.Overall, this is a lovely novella that I’d recommend to young readers. I have no doubt in my mind, their interest in reading would be heightened by the fact this story focuses on important questions about love, life, death, memories, and regret.