In this groundbreaking novel, Fumiko Hayashi tells the powerful story of
tormented love and one woman's struggle to navigate the cruel realities
of postwar Japan. The novel's characters, particularly its resilient
heroine Koda Yukiko, find themselves trapped in their own drifting,
unable to break out of the morass of indecisiveness. Set in the years
during and after World War II, their lives and damaged psyches reflect
the confusion of the times in which they live.
Floating Clouds follows Yukiko as she moves from the physically lush
and beautiful surroundings of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to the
desolation and chaos of postwar Japan. Hayashi's spare, affecting novel
presents a rare portrait of Japanese colonialism and the harshness of
Japan's postwar experience from the perspective of a woman. Its rich
cast of characters, drawn from the back alleys of urban Japan and the
low rungs of society, offers an unforgettable portrait of Japanese
society after the war.
The tortured relationship between Yukiko and Tomioka, a minor official
with the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, provides the dramatic
center of the novel. Yukiko meets Tomioka while working as a typist for
the Japanese ministry in Indochina, where they begin their affair. After
the war, Tomioka returns to his wife but remains emotionally inscrutable
to Yukiko, refusing to break off their relationship. Meanwhile, Yukiko
must find her way in a radically changed postwar Japan. When Yukiko and
Tomioka's lives once again cross, the two set down a path shaped by
their passion and sense of desperation.
First published in 1951, Floating Clouds is a classic of modern
Japanese literature and was later made into a film by legendary Japanese
director Mikio Naruse.
