Unusual Fragments – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave

Transitional Time

The nights are starting to get colder, and now when we’re walking towards home after the theatre or on an evening stroll, I can smell the first hints of fall in the wind. I refuse to believe that this is due to finishing up the Halloween décor. I always am looking forward to fall, but this year has been a bit of a struggle to accept that indeed time marches forward and it will be winter someday.

I guess it’s additionally distressing because normally I do love winter. But after two very harsh ones, I feel almost pre-exhausted from shovelling.

In a pile of red and orange leaves sits a square, coral softcover with a black-and-white picture of an Asian person wearing heavy eyeliner and half-covered by their long, black hair.

Stories Off the Beaten Path

I’m always up for re-issued classics that are off the beaten path, and that’s exactly what this book, Unusual Fragments, from Two Lines Press’ Calico Series delivered. This slim, stylish volume features five stories from Japanese writers you may have heard of but are also off the beaten path themselves. So if you chose to read this book, you get the added bonus of maybe finding a favourite writer that you didn’t know existed.

Can I just say that I love the design of this book? The coral colour, the beautiful title pages, the typeset, the size and shape of the volume itself, and the compelling cover design. This is one very gorgeous item to put on your shelves.

A calico tabby sits in a pile of fake red leaves beside a square coral-coloured book, Unusual Fragments.

Where Reality Meets the Dark

I’m including Unusual Fragments as a spooky selection because all of these stories share some aspect of the unusual and arguably supernatural — or at least just plain eerily weird. There’s a woman who carries her tiny husband around in a box and has to deal with a sinister mother-in-law. There’s a storm that is some kind of metaphor for death and the world beyond and the ghosts stuck in between these things. All of these stories start out relatively normally, but then take a strange turn.

My particular favourite was ‘Hot Day’ by Takako Takahashi, where two lovers are stuck walking in an unfamiliar place on a hot day and reality starts shifting and turning in violent directions.

A calico tabby sits with her paws crossed in a pile of red and yellow fake leaves. In front of her is Unusual Fragments, a square coral-coloured softcover.

Classics Rediscovered

I am always a sucker for book that includes re-discovered or forgotten classics. I was particularly drawn to this collection because it features Japanese short stories from the twentieth century which I find has been snowed under a bit by renewed interest in prior centuries. Post-war Japanese literature is just so interesting and goes in so many directions and makes so many fascinating and innovative leaps in turns of form and content. I cannot get enough of work from this place and time and Unusual Fragments is going to have a great spot in my library.

A calico tabby sits smugly in a pile of fake leaves. In front of her is a book of Japanese short stories.

Embracing Rainy Weather

Fall brings its own weather-based challenges, though. I’ve been in therapy for a year and a half and I’m still struggling with rain and being afraid of any weather that includes precipitation. Most of the year it’s rain, in the winter it’s condensation on windows. I try not to be annoyed with myself for getting upset, but it’s hard not to when I hate these feelings so much and it feels like I can’t handle them.

But I can handle them. This is why I’m going to therapy.