I found Mina’s Matchbox quite scattered and 1-dimensional. It harshly oscillates between unbearably boring and quirkily imaginative.
I finished the novel only because I misinterpreted/ over-read? sentences that were just facts, not allusions to an upcoming unravelling of charged events. The novel, or Edgers' Manual (as I like to call it), is peppered with sentences like:
”Now, after thirty years have passed, there is no trace of the house.” ”Today, more than 30 years later, I still have my card from the Ashiya Public Library.” ”Everything is alright, no one is missing.” ”In the thirty years since, Mina and I have only seen each other a handful of times.” ”Everyone is here. No one is missing. Once more I repeated those words to myself…”
Edgers' Manual | Review of Mina's Matchbox | lit.salon
I guess after reading all these seemingly foreboding sentences, I felt cheated out of a loud bang of an end? Even the only saving grace for this novel, the collection of unsettling stories that Mina writes on the inside of the matchboxes, adds to the anticipation of something dreadful. And when this anticipation eventually amounts to zilch, it's disappointing.
So much happens but none of it sums up to anything impactful nor is there any character development.
We know the narrator is in their 40’s looking back at one year from their childhood, and that the book isn’t actually from the perspective of a child. (If it were, the book might have sat better with me.) Yet, there’s no deep insight drawn from these memories; most reflections are awfully redundant. This redundancy also impacts the "whimsy" or the "rose-colored memories", as they read flatter than they should. I'd imagine seeing your cousin ride a freaking pygmy hippo to school, drinking a radium-fortified drink on the regular, or witnessing a portion of the Israel-Palestine conflict on television would give birth to some kick-ass insights in your 40's. I guess I'm wrong.
I don’t know if the insertion of the idea of looking back and reliving a memory is to be thematically coherent with the author's other works. To me, it reads as lazy writing, an editing oversight, or a need to be trendily nostalgic/ melancholic.
The detached, matter-of-fact writing style, absent back-stories for characters, and limited emotional display only fostered a deep indifference towards the characters in me. And so when (expected) things like death, fire, a fall from grace, and so-called discoveries happened, they evoked no feelings. I guess this is another reason why despite so much happening, Mina’s Matchbox reads as if nothing quite happens.
One might say, “What? But the hippo, Pochiko, dies! Loving and caring Yoneda-san dies… Aunt Rosa, too, fades away!!”
To that I say, “As they all should."
I also think that 271 pages is simply not justified for this story! The Volleyball sections (among others), though accessible, outstayed their welcome. Mina’s Matchbox could have done much better with tighter editing. I also think that it would have worked wonders as a short story with a lot left to the reader’s imagination.
