As sweet as its title, Sweet Bean Paste looks at the power of letting people in. Finding understanding, forgiveness and second chances.
Sentaro is trapped in life, he repeats the same routine every day and drinks too much at night to escape it. He has no friends, and goes through the motions of producing dorayaki (a sweet desert) to pay back his debts. In Sweet Bean Paste, author Durian Sukegawa has created a character who is average but never ordinary, Sentaro has his demons.
Unable to cope with the same routine, and to break away from it, Sentaro places a sign asking for help in his shop, not that he needs it, at least he doesn’t think he does – the pace of customers only ever being steady, if not a little slow. More important than this, is that deep down he needs the company, and so does Tokue – a white-haired lady who stands withered and aging beneath the shop’s blossom trees. Although she is not what he had in mind, he may just find a similarity in their stories and a cure for each other’s ailments.
Despite Sentaro’s reluctance and attempts to shoo her away, Tokue manages to persuade him for a chance at the job. For her sweet bean paste, one that fills the pancakes of a dorayaki, is far beyond his own – because she listens to the beans, she listens to life.
Everything should be as sweet as the pancakes Tokue and Sentaro create, but they’re both holding a secret from each other and Tokue’s comes with fear and discrimination. The prejudice of others threatening to destroy the success they’ve built.
There is a sort of poetry to Durian Sukegawa’s writings, the characters’ emotions reflected in nature, and by using colour so sparingly it has a greater impact in the scenes. Sukegawa has created a book that’s easy to read, and easy to fall into, the narrative told from the perspective of Sentaro. The first half of Sweet Bean Paste concentrating solely on his relationship with Tokue, in particular its changing dynamics; with it often being hard to see who is the boss and who is the employee. There are also many similarities between the two main characters, one of which is the depth of their loneliness, but in each other’s company they begin to lower their protective shield and reveal a bit more about themselves. The formality of colleagues dropping away and instead turning into a genuine friendship.
In the second half of the novel the author tells a history often hidden; of the poor treatment of others due to fear and misinformation. Here Sukegawa explores people’s unfounded worries and how it controls and overwhelms their rational senses – for in this novel the thing that’s most contagious is fear. This is shown when Sentaro has his own worries rise up, and by using the protagonist’s voice in exploring them, the author holds a mirror to the reader’s own fears. This is continued when Sentaro reluctantly and shamefully acknowledges such thoughts exist, but from this he’s able to confront his own doubts and biases – the author inviting readers to do the same. But as Sukegawa states in the book “There’s still a lot that needs changing.”
Throughout the characters journey there are echoes of past pains, but Sukegawa has taken great effort not to have this dominate their stories, he wants you to see the cause of the pain and to think carefully upon it, but to also see that it doesn’t define them. After all they’re fully-dimensional people with hundreds of levels to them.
In meeting Tokue, Sentaro is brought further into the world and away from his self-imposed imprisonment; one which he had continued, even after gaining his physical freedom, and in this there is a symmetry to Tokue’s story. Once locked away herself, Tokue has also been given her freedom, and though her soul isn’t trapped like Sentaro, she is instead confined by society in its judgements. This mirroring of each other helps Sentaro to draw on his own experiences in understanding Tokue, whilst also using these to highlight one key difference between them – one had been punished for their wrong-doings, while the other was innocent but still punished by people’s fears.
Sweet Bean Paste creates cravings of all sorts, and not just with the food, which is sumptuously described, but in knowing more about the characters; their past – which for each of the characters could be a novel in itself – but also where their future lies. This is especially the case after the last line in the book, which leaves the characters in limbo with only a sense of direction and not the details of where, or even if they’ll go this way. By leaving it open-ended, Durian Sukegawa stops Sweet Bean Paste from being sickly sweet, and with its touch of salt, works to accent each other perfectly.
Book Edition Information:
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781786071958
Cover Design: James Jones
Cover Illustration: Pietari Posti
Translation: Alison Watts
Presented Edition: 2017 Paperback
Background image courtesy of Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa (2013)
As sweet as its title, Sweet Bean Paste looks at the power of letting people in. Finding understanding, forgiveness and second chances.
Sentaro is trapped in life, he repeats the same routine every day and drinks too much at night to escape it. He has no friends, and goes through the motions of producing dorayaki (a sweet desert) to pay back his debts. In Sweet Bean Paste, author Durian Sukegawa has created a character who is average but never ordinary, Sentaro has his demons.
Unable to cope with the same routine, and to break away from it, Sentaro places a sign asking for help in his shop, not that he needs it, at least he doesn’t think he does – the pace of customers only ever being steady, if not a little slow. More important than this, is that deep down he needs the company, and so does Tokue – a white-haired lady who stands withered and aging beneath the shop’s blossom trees. Although she is not what he had in mind, he may just find a similarity in their stories and a cure for each other’s ailments.
Despite Sentaro’s reluctance and attempts to shoo her away, Tokue manages to persuade him for a chance at the job. For her sweet bean paste, one that fills the pancakes of a dorayaki, is far beyond his own – because she listens to the beans, she listens to life.
Everything should be as sweet as the pancakes Tokue and Sentaro create, but they’re both holding a secret from each other and Tokue’s comes with fear and discrimination. The prejudice of others threatening to destroy the success they’ve built.
There is a sort of poetry to Durian Sukegawa’s writings, the characters’ emotions reflected in nature, and by using colour so sparingly it has a greater impact in the scenes. Sukegawa has created a book that’s easy to read, and easy to fall into, the narrative told from the perspective of Sentaro. The first half of Sweet Bean Paste concentrating solely on his relationship with Tokue, in particular its changing dynamics; with it often being hard to see who is the boss and who is the employee. There are also many similarities between the two main characters, one of which is the depth of their loneliness, but in each other’s company they begin to lower their protective shield and reveal a bit more about themselves. The formality of colleagues dropping away and instead turning into a genuine friendship.
In the second half of the novel the author tells a history often hidden; of the poor treatment of others due to fear and misinformation. Here Sukegawa explores people’s unfounded worries and how it controls and overwhelms their rational senses – for in this novel the thing that’s most contagious is fear. This is shown when Sentaro has his own worries rise up, and by using the protagonist’s voice in exploring them, the author holds a mirror to the reader’s own fears. This is continued when Sentaro reluctantly and shamefully acknowledges such thoughts exist, but from this he’s able to confront his own doubts and biases – the author inviting readers to do the same. But as Sukegawa states in the book “There’s still a lot that needs changing.”
Throughout the characters journey there are echoes of past pains, but Sukegawa has taken great effort not to have this dominate their stories, he wants you to see the cause of the pain and to think carefully upon it, but to also see that it doesn’t define them. After all they’re fully-dimensional people with hundreds of levels to them.
In meeting Tokue, Sentaro is brought further into the world and away from his self-imposed imprisonment; one which he had continued, even after gaining his physical freedom, and in this there is a symmetry to Tokue’s story. Once locked away herself, Tokue has also been given her freedom, and though her soul isn’t trapped like Sentaro, she is instead confined by society in its judgements. This mirroring of each other helps Sentaro to draw on his own experiences in understanding Tokue, whilst also using these to highlight one key difference between them – one had been punished for their wrong-doings, while the other was innocent but still punished by people’s fears.
Sweet Bean Paste creates cravings of all sorts, and not just with the food, which is sumptuously described, but in knowing more about the characters; their past – which for each of the characters could be a novel in itself – but also where their future lies. This is especially the case after the last line in the book, which leaves the characters in limbo with only a sense of direction and not the details of where, or even if they’ll go this way. By leaving it open-ended, Durian Sukegawa stops Sweet Bean Paste from being sickly sweet, and with its touch of salt, works to accent each other perfectly.
Book Edition Information:
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
ISBN: 9781786071958
Cover Design: James Jones
Cover Illustration: Pietari Posti
Translation: Alison Watts
Presented Edition: 2017 Paperback
Background image courtesy of Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
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