Diary of a Void - [short] Book Review
Have you ever heard of a lie that sounded so real? Have you ever created a lie that you wanted to possess so badly that everything you did centered around it? Something along those lines is what Yagi’s book Diary of a Void is based on. A lie. The protagonist, Shibata, tired of performing common tasks such as clearing away coffee cups at her office, reveals she is pregnant and cannot clear it away due to her morning sickness. The catch? She is not pregnant. What follows after her declaration is a world of motherhood that is filled with loneliness despite the presence of another individual growing inside one’s body.
Yagi shows us a world of discrimination against women, against mothers. In the workplace, Shibata, the only woman in her office, is meant to do tasks like clearing away coffee cups because of her sex. When Shibata is thinking about how she would want her child to grow up, it shows what positive attributes mothers want to associate their children with, including their names. So how does a kind person, who was once a child, take advantage of another when they grow up? Did their mothers imagine their child would do that in the future? These are some of the questions that I had come across when reading Yagi’s powerful book.
And, just when you think the world is kinder to mothers — giving them your seats, making space for them in elevators, picking up their heavy groceries — you discover the sphere of unsupportive husbands and fathers, making discouraging comments on their wives’ weight or how the delivery date conflicts with their work schedule.
It was a bit confusing when Shibata started making visits to the doctor in her supposed last trimester. But then again, is anything real? Her diary is the only thing that the reader relies on, and we are aware that her narrative surrounding the pregnancy is fake. I felt when she started writing about her visits to the doctor, she was not only lying to the readers but also to herself. She wanted to hold onto the lie for as long as she could so her loneliness would not consume her.
At one point, Shibata is reminded of The Witch, the building caretaker of where she lived with her family as a young girl. The word around her was that she had a tiger and a garden full of poisonous herbs, all of which was found untrue upon Shibata’s discovery one morning. Her garden was instead filled with different kinds of vibrant flowers and she liked to feed the small kittens. She recalls this moment because as she is close to giving birth, she realizes her lie, just like that rumor around The Witch, could result in something beautiful, something worthwhile. Despite the hollowness eating at her from the inside, she finds comfort in knowing that the lie is something she created, something she owns. She won’t be lonely anymore.
As you finish reading Yagi’s book, you understand why someone would do something like Shibata did, and why someone would most likely do it again. I truly loved this book. Upon finishing it, I looked deep into my void and found something moving there, just like Shibata. It was a voice I’d buried a long time ago that is waiting to be born, to be let out into the world. My void kicked just like Shibata’s, violently, desperately. A hollowness that had a voice, that had limbs but was faceless, foreign, uncertain. What is it? How will it end up growing? If we all look inside us, we might find something moving too — a voice, a lost childhood, solitude, ourselves.
