53 pages • 1 hour read
Mieko Kawakami, Transl. Sam Bett, Transl. David BoydBreasts and Eggs
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 1, Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 1: Breasts
Book 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Out for Chinese”
Natsu, Makiko, and Midoriko go out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Growing giddy after several drinks, Makiko tells Natsu that the first thing she does after returning from work is to watch her daughter sleep, prompting Midoriko to write “YOU’RE GROSS” on a piece of paper and hold it up.
Another journal entry from Midoriko details a fight with her mother over money. Midoriko asked Makiko, “Why did you even have me?” (75). She feels guilty for the part she plays in her mother’s poverty, knowing it would be easier for Makiko to support herself alone. In the wake of this fight, she resolved to stop speaking to Makiko, partially out of the certainty that she would say mean things.
Midoriko recalls when a classmate spotted Makiko biking to work in her Chanel uniform and made fun of her in front of the class. Midoriko wanted to stand up for her mother, but instead she laughed along.
Book 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Up All Night Talking”
The group returns home, where Natsu and Makiko continue drinking. The wife of Natsu’s landlord visits to remind her that she is three months behind on rent. Makiko sympathizes; she is often unable to pay rent on time herself, and it will only get harder when Midoriko starts middle school next year.
Midoriko looks through Natsu’s bookshelf. Makiko tells her that Natsu is writing a novel but Natsu brushes her off, embarrassed. Though she’s certain that writing is her life’s calling, Natsu is ashamed of her lack of material success. She wishes she could provide for Makiko and Midoriko. Natsu knows that her desire to write is vaguely tied to memories of her childhood, and to her relationship with her mother and Komi, but she can’t figure out how to put these things together.
Natsu and Makiko continue drinking. They discuss Makiko’s job at Chanel. The bar is struggling after several unfortunate events, including the loss of Suzuka. Suzuka is in her mid-30s and has worked at Chanel for five years. Though no longer considered beautiful, she is one of the bar’s best employees.
The owner of Chanel, a middle-aged woman named Coco, hired a college student named Jing Li. Despite her more reserved personality, Jing Li was popular with customers. When Suzuka discovered that Jing Li was earning a higher hourly rate than she was, she confronted Coco. Coco replied that Jing Li was “worth it” because she was young (99). Devastated, Suzuka quit on the spot.
After Suzuka’s exit, Coco hired two younger girls, Nozomi and An. The staff suspected the girls lied about their ages, but they were well liked and popular with customers. Nozomi and An worked diligently until the day they both stopped showing up with no explanation. A while later, police arrived at the bar and informed Coco that Nozomi and An were children being trafficked. One of Nozomi’s clients beat her, leaving her in critical condition. Makiko visited Nozomi in the hospital, where her face was wrapped in bandages and tubes. Nozomi couldn’t speak but cried silently as Makiko talked to her.
Makiko and Natsu go to bed. As Natsu waits for sleep, dreams and memories swirl in her head. She thinks of Nozomi. Natsu herself got her first factory job at 14 after lying about her age. She recalls running home to avoid the catcalling men on the sidewalk. These memories blur into images of Komi and her mother, then Makiko and Midoriko. Eventually, she falls asleep.
In her journal, Midoriko writes about her peer Jun’s aspiration to become a Buddhist monk. While explaining the concept of enlightenment, Jun tells Midoriko that only men can be reborn as Buddhas, because “women are supposedly dirty” (83). Midoriko angrily questions how Jun can buy into Buddhism at all.
Midoriko describes experiencing pain in her eyes. She wonders how all the things she takes in through her eyes get out. She despairs that her body will continue to grow while her eyes stay the same size and worries that eventually she won’t be able to open them.
Book 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “The Safest Place in the World”
Natsu wakes to find that her period has started, and she’s bled on the sheets. Makiko is in town for her consultation, leaving Natsu to look after Midoriko until she returns at seven o’clock at night. Natsu takes Midoriko to an amusement park, watching as Midoriko goes on rides for several hours. She notes that Midoriko’s calm demeanor never changes.
Over lunch, Makiko asks Natsu why adults drink. Natsu responds that people get tired of being who they are, and alcohol allows them to escape themselves. She recalls developing an alcohol dependency when she first moved to Tokyo. Though she is in recovery from her addiction, she feels she couldn’t have survived without it.
On the way out of the amusement park, Natsu and Midoriko ride the Ferris wheel. As they climb over the city, Natsu recalls riding the same Ferris wheel when she was Midoriko’s age. She tells Midoriko that Ferris wheels are one of the safest places on Earth and relates how she used to wish for a whole city of Ferris wheels, where everyone could live without fear.
As Midoriko continues to listen in silence, Natsu tells her how Makiko worked to keep them afloat after their mother and grandmother’s deaths. She recalls a day in elementary school when her class took a trip to go grape-picking. Unable to afford the 200-yen fee, Natsu had to stay home. To comfort her, Makiko hung clothes all over the apartment and carried her around, letting her pick the pretend grapes and put them in a colander.
In her journal, Midoriko details how eggs are fertilized. She is deeply disturbed by the knowledge that baby girls are born with ova, balking at the idea that she had all the required parts to give birth before she herself was born. She wants to rip out “all those parts of me […] already rushing to give birth” (116).
Midoriko writes about her hatred of her developing breasts. She wishes her body could stay the same and can’t understand why her mother wants breast implants. Once, she overheard Makiko complaining that breastfeeding Midoriko ruined her body. She worries that Makiko’s life would’ve been better if she’d never had a child, and muses that it would be best if no one was ever born.
Midoriko worries for her mother. She wishes she could talk to her but can’t bring herself to break the silence. She’s recently learned of a study that reported a tripled suicide risk in women who got breast implants. She wants to ask Makiko why she’s planning such a risky surgery.
Book 1, Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Kawakami delves further into the relationship between gendered norms and individuality. Makiko’s desire to get breast implants is informed by her work at a hostess bar, a type of venue found primarily in Japan which employs attractive, mostly young women to cater to male clientele. The hostess’ value is directly corelated with their youth and beauty, as demonstrated by the fact that Jing Li is paid more than Suzuka despite being an objectively worse employee. When Coco says that Jing Li “is worth it [because] she’s young” (99), she’s speaking to the way the patriarchy equates youth with desirability, and desirability with value. At 39, Makiko is rapidly aging out of the beauty standard, which has a direct effect of her livelihood. Her decision to get breast implants is a way to combat this perceived loss of value.
The story of Nozomi and An showcases the fallout of a beauty standard that emphasizes youth—at 13 and 14, the girls are forced into commercial sexual exploitation, preyed upon by adult men. The intersection of poverty and womanhood entails a particular set of dangers. Poor women and girls have no social power, leaving them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
The story of the elderly rape and murder victim from Chapter 1 demonstrates that while women can age out of conventional desirability, womanhood remains fraught with danger from birth to death. Kawakami emphasizes that there is no “right” way to be a woman that will protect one from these dangers. In a world where the patriarchy oppresses women both inside and outside the home, the only truly safe places exist in fantasies like Natsu’s Ferris-wheel world.
In these chapters, Kawakami introduces the theme of Reproductive Rights Versus Anti-Natalism. Midoriko is angered by the fact that she wasn’t given a choice in her own birth. Now, she must suffer through the indignities of life in a pubescent female body. She balks at the idea of spending her life working at the mercy of her body’s never-ending demands. Midoriko speculates that having a child is a nonconsensual, unfair, and selfish act, saying, an idea that clashes with the traditional expectation that all women eventually aspire to motherhood. Midoriko herself is sure she will never be a mother and expresses an anti-natalist sentiment when she says, “Think of how great it would be if none of us were ever born […]. Nothing could ever happen to us then” (113).
Though Midoriko’s thoughts can be dismissed as the existential angst of puberty, her conviction that existence is painful resonates throughout the narrative, strengthening the motif of alienation from the body. Kawakami highlights the small-scale pains, anxieties, and humiliations of being alive. For example, Midoriko describes the pain of her growing body and examines the process of ovulation in squeamish detail. Natsu admits that she developed an alcohol addiction when she first moved to Tokyo, born out the feeling that she “couldn’t stand to face another day” (115). Being alive is hard for the women in this novel—a daily slog through anxieties, aches, and social pressures. The question of whether bringing life into the world is an immoral act is one Kawakami will explore in greater detail in Eggs.
Natsu’s strongest bonds are with the women in her family. Men are not a factor in her life, and their absence is not a source of distress for her. Natsu’s memory of the fake grape-picking set up by Makiko illustrates how the sisters have always supported and uplifted one another. Makiko went to great lengths to protect Natsu from some of the traumas of poverty after they were orphaned.
Natsu’s memories emerge as a prominent motif in these chapters. Natsu lives alone and is largely isolated from conventional society due to her status a single, working-class woman. She seems to desire little from the world around her, which has little to offer her in turn. Much of her life takes place inside her head, in thoughts, visions, dreams, and memories.
Memories of the past often encroach on the narrative present, with the narration slipping seamlessly between modern-day Tokyo and Natsu’s childhood in Osaka. Kawakami explores how grief and trauma can affect memory—to Natsu, the present often feels surreal, while the past feels closer than it is. These interludes make Natsu’s mother and Komi significant characters in Natsu’s life. By carrying them with her in her memory, she preserves them in a sort of parallel existence.
