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Japan Senji Kuroi. Life in the Cul-de-Sac Philip Gabriel, tr. Berkeley, California Stone Bridge. 2001. 231 pages. $12.95 ISBN 1-880656-57-4
AN ATMOSPHERE OF ANXIETY and unease permeates all of the twelve interwoven tales comprising Life in the Cul-de-Sac, which relates episodes spanning several years in the lives of four families who inhabit a quiet street in suburban Tokyo. The content of the work, first published in 1984 as Gunsei, meaning "gregariousness" or "living in flocks," is more directly and less ironically conveyed by the English title, for the lives of the inhabitants exhibit, not a sense of community, but emotional dead ends in isolation.
The feeling of disquiet derives from both the topics dealt with in the episodes and a narrative procedure and style that produce an unsettling effect by often leaving matters in suspension or questions unanswered and by disturbingly mixing elements of the real and unreal. An illustration is in order. Episode 1, "The Toy Room," opens with Fusao Oda engaged in pointless chatter with his two...