Book Review: Someone to Watch Over You by Kumi Kimura
A haunting Japanese novella about guilt, paranoia and redemption set during the times of pandemic.
Two strangers, who are refugees from their guilty pasts, forge a curious relationship when they live together in a house during the COVID-19 times. Tae, a middle-aged woman, returned to an inherited house in her small town from Tokyo after she wasn't able to land a proper job. Living off the money left by her deceased parents, she plans for a solitary future. However, the forced solitude due to the pandemic makes her desperate and insecure as she feels her past mistakes are catching up on her. She takes help from the handyman, Shinobu, who is also going through a similar state, by offering him food and a space to live in exchange for surveilling her home from possible intruders.
The novella 'Someone to Watch Over You' by Kumi Kimura was first published in Japanese in 2021. It is the first work of the acclaimed author to be translated into English. I received a review copy of the translation from the publisher, Pushkin Press, through NetGalley in exchange for honest feedback. By setting the plot during the times of the initial spread of the coronavirus in 2020, the writer effectively creates an atmosphere of fear, tension, and distrust throughout the book. She uses this to explore themes like loneliness, human connection, guilt, paranoia, and privacy.
The plot is narrated using alternating perspectives of the two protagonists. With narration using the third person, we are also subjected to minute descriptions of their lives. This helps to bring out the intensity of the atmosphere and, at the same time, to keep the readers at a distance from the characters, even when the most intimate secrets are revealed. This style also contrasts the two of them more strikingly and contributes to the experience when we eventually realize how intrinsically similar they are. This makes sure that we get an objective look at their behaviors and actions while simultaneously getting soaked in an environment of suspicion and distrust.
The novel is set in a very recent past when the entire globe stayed behind closed doors, altering all of us permanently in multiple ways. But the writer is able to extrapolate her themes universally applicable by stressing a world order that's turning each individual into a lonely statistic. The relationships that develop between the characters are based on privacy and convenience, where human interaction is kept to a minimum. The perpetual skepticism of the aloof Tae towards Shinobu is not only due to her past choices but also to a world that is turning more intrusive. Even then, a ray of hope, redemption, and the need for connection is visible towards the end.
'Someone to Watch Over You' is a novella that offers a tense and paranoid atmosphere to its readers while telling a story about two individuals who are forced to connect during a period of crisis, both internal and external. It will resonate with the readers of our time due to our shared experience of lockdown during the recent times of pandemic and also due to its exploration of a society that's turning progressively intrusive, forcing its participants more and more into isolation.