Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram) Click here or scroll to the bottom for audio version
“Take it easy,” that’s the favorite phrase of the villagers in Kamusari, according to the young narrator in the Japanese fiction book “The Easy Life in Kamusari” by Shion Miura. And just like the title suggests, this is a book is NOT for impatient readers, which I usually am. Yet, I found myself reading this novel bit by bit every night before going to bed. Its leisurely pace, lack of action, and meandering plot about an 18-year-old city boy adjusting to a hard, tedious life in a remote village made for a stress-free night read. However, for these very reasons, a lot of readers may not enjoy it. There’s barely any romance, mystery, tension, and no twists in the story. But if you enjoyed “The Great Passage” by the same author, then you might enjoy this one too.
The protagonist Yuki Hirano is packed away by his parents from Tokyo to Kamusari, after they enroll him into a forestry trainee-ship that pays modestly. Yuki reluctantly takes a train to the remote region, but within a few days he is looking for ways to escape, as the village has no cellphone reception, no internet, no places of interests, one lone little shop and certainly no girls his age. How long can the youngster last in the hard life of a lumberjack, even if the village people seem to have an easy-going life?
I was blown away by the sheer amount of details and descriptions that Shion Miura weaves about a forester’s life in the mountains. If you didn’t know the book was fictional and the author was a woman, it would have been easy to believe that this was perhaps a real-life account of a young man who spent a year working deep in the mountains. From initially despising Kamusari and feeling like an outsider, Yuki gradually develops friendships with an interesting group of men and becomes entranced by the enchanting mythical tales surrounding the Kamusari mountain, its deities, and the ritualistic festivals celebrated in the region. One intriguing belief held by the villagers is that the daughters of the mountain God occasionally “spirit away” a child prior to a festival, and being chosen for this is considered an extraordinary bles sing.
By the end of the novel, you might also find yourself falling in love with Kamusari and being captivated by the warmth and vigor of Yuki’s host, Yoki. Yoki resides with his temperamental yet stunning wife, Miho, his wise old grandmother, Shige, and their loyal and adorable dog, Noko. These people eventually become Yuki’s second family and Kamusari sometimes feels better than home. If you don’t mind reading slow-paced realistic contemporary novels that’s just about regular people leading their regular lives, with the occasional ups and downs, definitely pick this novel up.
It’s a 4 on 5 from me. “The Easy Life in Kamusari” is available to download in Kindle Unlimited.