Last night I finished Yoko Tawada's Scattered All Over the Earth, which I liked a lot but didn't love. It did make me want to read her novel The Emissary. Scattered All Over the Earth felt like one of those novels that is based on an interesting and strange notion, but in the end wasn't fully realized; the end felt a bit like a more intelligent Friends episode where we'll reminded that while you can't choose your family you can choose your friends (that's more critical than I mean it to be). An odd but engaging crew of characters is drawn together by a love of languages, and the mystery surrounding the fact that Japan has seemingly disappeared. No one can really remember Japan or what happened to it, and all the aspects of Japanese culture are all now associated with other cultures. Hiruko, in an attempt to try and find someone else in the world who speaks her language, is the engine that quietly drives the story forward. It hints at profound issues related to language and culture and cultural diffusion and is well worth the read. I think it was another book that I picked it at Northshire Books down in Manchester.
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