"De laatste kinderen van Tokyo" by Yōko Tawada, translated from Japanese into Dutch by Luk Van Haute

Available in English as "The Last Children of Tokyo" or "The Emissary".

Ah, this book... Lots of feelings. Definitely positive ones. For me, it taps into these times so well, I thought about a lot. Bear with me for a second while I get rambly.

I'm in my early 30s. While I was in primary school, 9/11 happened and most of life was about learning to understand hostile international politics, terrorism and the end of privacy. When I was in high school, the financial crisis of 2008 hit and shit hit the fan. As a young adult, life was dictated by severe austerity measures and loss. Since then, I have been observing natural disasters, wars, genocides, pandemics. I'm very privileged in my position in life, but I can't say that life in general is looking good.

This all is accompanied by tragic behavior of people of retirement age. And no, I don't want to support generations fighting with each other, and I know hashtag not all boomers, other generations suck too, yada yada, all people can be suffering till their last breath, and we should unite and fight the system together -I still believe that. But many of these people in my life were able to get higher wages, buy houses, pay for children, retire at 60 or earlier, use social safety nets and spend time on expensive treats like holidays abroad. Meanwhile I'm not getting beyond minimum wage and dreaming of a secure roof over my head is really only that: a dream. A decent quality of life in the future seems like a dream too, with all of the pollution and climate change.

What really ignites the flames of bitterness is the majority of 60+ year-old people voting right-wing and actively participating in destroying society. Openly supporting lower minimum wages. Declining green reforms. Removing governmental support systems like accessible healthcare. Refusing to share their wealth. Never acknowledging the struggles of younger generations. The world is dying and they want to complain to me about the food on the plane they took on their 3rd holiday of the year while I'm stressfully counting coins to pay for another medicine that has once again gotten more expensive. Please. Can you for one second care about the world you're leaving behind? At this point I'm literally begging more than sarcastically asking.

In this book, the world is dying too. Humans too. But not the elderly, they seem to have become immortal. Yet, younger generations get weaker and die, and their children become even more sickly and die even earlier, and then their children too, on it goes. Until what? Is it fun, for these elderly, to keep chugging on with their silly stuff, all alone, on barren land, reaping what they sowed?

In the novel we follow Yoshiro, in his 100s already, taking care of his very weak great-grandchild, Mumei. He's kind, humble and accommodating. He desperately wants better circumstances for the child, but is unable to change the world. Instead he tries to give Mumei daily comforts as much as possible. But through tiny cracks we also see that maybe he wasn't always so caring, that maybe he was more self-absorbed and judgmental when he was still a regular, young elderly in the old days.

The world is interesting, but we only get to learn about it in snippets. There's extreme isolationism going on. Human industry of the past appears to have done a lot of damage. It looks like climate collapse has happened. You even start to wonder if atomic bombs have fallen.

The character of Mumei made me think of 'I Who Have Never Known Men' and other books like it. Never having known another world, he just lives, even when people who've known otherwise complain and mourn. He suffers, yes, but it is what it is, and he's still curious and enjoying what's there. On one side I live for such tales and characters, they motivate me to adapt and keep going. On the other side, looking at him through the eyes of someone who knew a better life, it's sad that this is it. All that young children will ever know, is this. Do I embrace the joy of living in a world that's merely different, maybe not worse, despite its limits, or the sadness of not even knowing the extent of those limits? A bit of both?

Will the people who've lived at least double the amount of decades that I have, become more understanding like Yoshiro? Or won't they without the threat of having to live long enough to see the consequences of how they've shaped the world? Does it even still matter?

Either way, as you can see, this book has been living rent free in my head. The language is very pleasant, with unexpected descriptions, comparisons and wordplays. The different perspectives flow into each other comfortably. The ending lights up a candle, suddenly illuminating things that you've read earlier in the story and adding meaning to them, which I love. I've been sleeping on Yōko Tawada!