Each chapter of My Year of Meats opens with an excerpt from Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book. Consider the interplay between these quotes and the narrative’s trajectory. How does this interjection from the past enrich the novel? How does the Shonagon voice shape your relationship to the characters? Ozeki takes this novel from sharp-witted and playful to emotional and honest seamlessly. Her writing shines in the descriptions of each of the families Jane profiles, adding layers of richness to the main story. In desperation, she faxes Jane in secret divulging not only how unhappy she is but also detailing the abuses she receives from him. Unfortunately John discovers the fax and proceeds to physically beat Akiko then rapes her afterwards. She is hospitalized as a result of the beating and it is here that she learns that she has finally gotten pregnant. Jane’s episode featuring the vegetarian lesbians has inspired Akiko sufficiently however to finally decide to leave John once and for all. She leaves him while he is away on another business trip, fleeing to America where she befriends Jane and meets up with the families featured in “ My American Wife!” who have made the greatest impact on her.

The anti-meat section of this book fell a bit flat. You settle in and get comfortable with the book, which seems to be about two women. Suddenly you're reading a fiction book posing as a non-fiction book about the hazards of eating red meat and the evils of the beef industry. A bit heavy handed. I like a good non-fiction book, but when placed in a novel, it loses all credibility. The novelist isn't an expert with credibility, despite her moderate research. Plus, the delivery of the message through a conveniently one-sided evil character felt biased. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with the message; this wasn't the place for a term paper. I don’t know what took me so long to read another novel by Ruth Ozeki after A Tale for the Time Being, one of my favorite books of 2013. This is nearly as fresh, vibrant and strange. Set in 1991, it focuses on the making of a Japanese documentary series, My American Wife, sponsored by a beef marketing firm. Japanese American filmmaker Jane Takagi-Little is tasked with finding all-American families and capturing their daily lives – and best meat recipes. The traditional values and virtues of her two countries are in stark contrast, as are Main Street/Ye Olde America and the burgeoning Walmart culture. John’s “pale, flaccid” son from a previous marriage. He isn't too fond of the boy and speaks disparagingly about him. Rose Ruth Ozeki is a Canadian-American novelist, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. She worked in commercial television and media production for over a decade and made several independent films before turning to writing fiction. Wonderfully wild and bracing . . . A feast that leaves you hungry for whatever Ozeki cooks up next.”

I started out loving this book. The voice was moving, and it seemed like a love letter to everything I adore about the American Heartland. I was fascinated by the commentary on authenticity - with ourselves, with physical commodities such as meat, and with others. I also absolutely loved the excerpts from The Pillow Book and all of its simple profoundness. I'm definitely going to put it on my to-read list. I also was moved by Akiko's plight and found her story interesting. some people on here found the book preachy. i can't for the life of me see any preachiness in it, but at the same time i do see, somehow, how one might feel preached at by it. eh. if you feel preached at just drop this book and read something else. ruth ozeki won't mind. she didn't write the book for you. The story also sheds light on the link between diet and fertility, particularly in the case of the “mad cow disease” or BSE (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy) of the 90’s, whose outbreak effected meat consumption in the UK, US and Japan. During the late 80’s, a case of BSE was confirmed in the UK, a new disease found in cattle. Fear that this could be transmitted to humans in the form of Vcjd (a slow-degenerative disease), consumption of specific offal was banned and 3.7 million cattle were destroyed. Despite these precautions, human cases were eventually identified and found to be the causes of death. Eventually, media attention dissipated and the supposed threat of the disease disappeared. Now, over two decades later, can we confirm that our attention to meat consumption has changed? Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). https://www3.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/cafo.pdf. Accessed 15 Sep 2019

It sounds coherent now but it wasn’t. It’s certainly not something I planned to do in advance. I’d describe the process as organic, with one part growing willy-nilly out of another. When Jane Takagi-Little, an unemployed Japanese-American documentary filmmaker, answers the phone at two in the morning, her life is forever altered. She accepts a job working on My American Wife!, a Japanese television show sponsored by an American national lobby organization that represents American meats of all kinds—beef, pork, lamb, goat, and horse, just to name a few. But, putting all of that aside, I am very glad that I did read this novel. I found the story and most of the characters to be “real”. There are a couple of major characters that were not as fleshed out as the others. Not a complaint, just an observation.Eventually I slept again, and I dreamed about the slaughtered cow, hanging upside down, her life ebbing out of her as she rotated slowly. In my dream I saw her legs move in tandem, like she was running, and I realized she was dreaming of an endless green pasture at the edge of death, where she could gallop away and graze forever." (297) Parallel to Jane's story is the life of Akiko Ueno, a former manga artist who specialized in horror scenes and is reluctantly married to Joichi "John" Ueno, who works for BEEF-EX. John cares only that Akiko has a baby and forces her to watch My American Wife and cook the recipes, believing that it will allow her to conceive. However, as Akiko's independence and sense of self grows from watching the show and cooking for John, her relationship with John becomes violent. I really enjoyed My Year of Meats. When a book sets out to be challenging but still remains a form of intelligent discourse, full of colourful wit and empathy, what's not to like? And when the book does all of this without trying to manipulate an opinion or drawing at your hear strings to evoke a response - yes, looking at you here J.S. Froer - perfect! Jane’s initiative to highlight families of non-Caucasian, non-heterosexual persuasions as well as to feature dishes containing lamb, pork, and even vegetables angers John Ueno and in retaliation he makes life difficult for Jane. She tries to appease him by taking him out drinking; unfortunately he interprets this a sexual advance and he tries to rape her when she take him to his hotel room after their bar crawl. Fortunately Jane is able to escape his advances. Ruth Ozeki was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, by an American father and a Japanese mother, both of whom taught at Yale University. She graduated summa cum laude from Smith College with degrees in English Literature and Asian Studies, received a Japanese Ministry of Education fellowship, and emigrated to Japan to do graduate work in classical Japanese literature at Nara Women’s University. She worked at Kyoto Sangyo University, and in 1985, she returned to the States and gave up teaching for a short, but distinguished career as production designer for low-budget horror movies. By 1987, she switched genres to Japanese television.