Territory of Light & Amplify Granacha

I imagine I’m not alone in saying that this time of year has me looking backward. Turning in on the year as if to draw something from this window of Time. Often I want to make an assessment of sorts, about what has happened. But generally, what I am left with is a feeling—not particularly concrete about the quiet accumulation of my days. Reading Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima feels a bit like this sensation: a collection of dailyness, though not my own, and while I occasionally felt compelled to assert some meaning or assessment upon its tranquil plot, I enjoyed it most when I simply observed the novel’s light rustling wind. As far as novels go, it is not one to play tricks. Its inner parts laid before the reader, one after the other, and in the very act of revealing them are transformed into something extraordinary: A year lived. Which is no small thing. Territory of Light was first published in 1979 as a serialized novel, part of Japan’s long tradition of the ‘I-novel.’ A trad