Scattered All Over The Earth, by Yoko Tawada - A Review

By: Eva Rebecca

At the start of the summer break I was browsing through a bookshop, a frequent pastime of mine, and an aesthetically pleasing book cover, consisting mostly of pink and green pastels, caught my eye. The synopsis of Scattered All Over The Earth by Yoko Tawada intrigued me, a novel in which someone’s home country has suddenly vanished from earth and has been erased from collective memory, which instigates a journey in search of any remaining people from this lost country, that also explores the bounds of language and the part it plays in one’s identity.

The subject matter of this book seemed incredibly interesting to me, and I expected the story to be a thought-provoking journey in search of the protagonist’s roots.

However, as much as this was true, the execution was slightly disappointing to me.

The story is told from multiple perspectives, six in total, therefore the novel actually contains six separate stories that are linked together and woven into one. As a result, despite the character of Hiruko being presented as the main protagonist (at least that is the impression given by the back cover blurb), only three of the chapters are told from her point of view. Plus, the opening chapter is from another perspective entirely, that of Knut. This made it difficult for me to connect with Hiruko’s character, as well as the five other characters.

Another thing that bothered me about the multiple perspectives in this novel, is that for some of the characters the reader is provided with an extensive background story, such as those of Nanook and Susanoo, whilst with other characters we only touch the surface of who they are, primarily Akash and Nora. It could be argued that the backgrounds of certain characters are more important to the narrative than others, however, the superficiality of both Akash and Nora made their motivation to join a group of strangers in their quest to find a remaining person from ‘the land of sushi’ entirely unconvincing.

Perhaps these characters are explored further in the second and third book, because, apparently, this novel is only the first volume of a trilogy. I was not aware of this when I started reading, but the inconclusive ending of Scattered All Over The Earth makes a lot more sense now. That being said, I doubt I will ever read the other two books, simply because I did not feel invested enough in this story to care about what will happen next.

All that aside, the overarching theme of this book, namely the connection between language, culture, and their influence on someone’s identity, was thoroughly explored. Yoko Tawada did an amazing job at incorporating the characteristics of particular languages, the nuance of expressions, and the importance of context, that are prominent when different languages meet in conversation.

If you have an interest in language and linguistics, I would still recommend this book, as the novel is centered around this subject and the author skillfully plays with language throughout the entire story. However, if this does not seem quite up your street, Scattered All Over The Earth is not worth your time for only its character arcs and interpersonal relationships. But this is just one person’s opinion.