Un Lavoro Perfetto by Tsumura Kikuko

 It's a wonderful book Un Lavoro Perfetto

by Tsumura Kikuko published last month by Marsilio. 

One of my best readings of this summer-time. 

I am not surprised: Japanese books are tranquils, we breath a different energy: we leave behind the chaotic world of the western civilization for leaving space at other way of thinking, eating, working, living.

This one is a book on work, but not because there is lack of work, or because people aren't treated well: it's the opposite. 

People treated very well at work at some point fall depressed and they must change work. It's the main thematic of this book, thinking better; falling depressed, disoriented and unable to work because burned out.

The writer, I am impressed, analyzes also the littlest feelings of the protagonist, giving voice to a girl not just human, but also acute like Miss Marple and present, and uself all the time and in every work-condition.

She will always leave these five works changing for better the environment she found and it is a rarety this one. Impressive. This girl with the treat of the modern detective, is a profound connaisseur of the human soul, and, for every reader, I am sure, a pleasant discovery.

Told in first person, the protagonist is the narrator, once lost her job because of the high pressure she felt, and once returned at her parents's house she went in a center for employment where discovered in mrs Masakado a great shoulder.

What the girl of 36 years is searching is a not too heavy job, for starting. She doesn't want to think too much and mrs Masakado will find for her the proper workplace; at first she had to video-spying a writer; someone had brought him a DVD with some illegal items inside. The poor writer didn't know anything of it and was surrounded by wagons and wagons of DVDS...

Once sorted out the story the girl will run away searching for other. So mrs Masakado finds her a job where it is requested the writing of some ads for the line of the Albatros bus. It is a good job, not too heavy, but once the month is over, she leaves.

The third job is similar: she must write something for a rice cracker envelope brand. These crackers are famous because people buying them find a lot of info and curiosities on the most diversified topics on the envelope. Yummy 😋 and useful! The work is great, and she is having a great success, but then, she decides of leaving.

The fourth job is attaching posters in some areas of the city. I didn't know how it worked and I discovered a completely different way of doing it: I found it fascinating. The girl will leave this job as well ending in a public park where she will discover more profoundly, thanks to someone else, how to resolve her most profound fears regarding her first job in the sanitary system.

The end of the book is spectacularly encouraging: it is true, we can be paralyzed by delusions, by bad experiences, writes the author but...we can't never know.

There is not a way for trying to see or understand how a job experience will end up.

It's important to give the best, hoping.  

I also loved in this book the commistion between jobs and traditional yummy japanese food and teas eaten and drunk all the time. 

Yes, a delicious book, too.

Highly recommended.

I thank Marsilio for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori