A delicious mix of East and West, of wonder and irony, The Fox and Dr. Shimamura is a most curious novel
The Fox and Dr. Shimamura toothsomely encompasses East and West, memory and reality, fox-possession myths, and psychiatric mythmaking. As an outstanding young Japanese medical student at the end of the nineteenth century, Dr. Shimamura is sent—to his dismay—to the provinces: he is asked to cure scores of young women afflicted by an epidemic of fox possession. Believing it’s all a hoax, he considers the assignment an insulting joke, until he sees a fox moving under the skin of a young beauty... Next he travels to Europe and works with such luminaries as Charcot, Breuer and Freud—whose methods, Dr. Shimamura concludes, are incompatible with Japanese politeness. The ironic parallels between Charcot’s theories of female hysteria and ancient Japanese fox myths—when it comes to beautiful, writhing young women—are handled with a lightly sardonic touch by Christine Wunnicke, whose flavor-packed, inventive language is a delight.
Reviews:
“A wonderful and most of all wonderfully told story.”- Die Zeit
“What a beautiful book!”- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“A marvel, a wonder - a deeply strange little novel about medicine, memory, and fox possession. With her delicate prose, arch tone, and mischievous storytelling, Wunnicke proves herself a master of the form.”- Kirkus (starred review)
“A mythical, mystical, and at times bizarre tale of a late nineteenth-century Japanese doctor who is sent to remote areas of the Shimane prefecture to cure women of fox possession. Wunnicke slyly reminds us that, although women are powerless, even when it comes to treating their own illnesses, they find ways to quietly assert their will over men.”- Melissa Beck, Music and Literature
“Wunnicke paints nightmarishly hectic European scenes in a palette of absinthe and Toulouse-Lautrec, and alternates them with nightmarishly static scenes of Shimamura’s declining, colorless present in Japan. Connections proliferate like reflections in a house of mirrors, fascinating and also vaguely queasy - the narrative is disorienting in every sense of the word. But absurdist fiction, like psychotherapy, requires an investment of energy and a suspension of judgment. The Fox and Dr. Shimamura is worth the effort.”- New York Times Book Review
“Christine Wunnicke’s glittering, absurdist jewel of a novel.”- New York Times Book Review
“An appealingly haunting novel, slightly off-kilter, suggesting the unknown and the unknowable.”- M.A. Orthofer, The Complete Review
“Delightfully crazy - very nicely told: Wunnicke succeeds in drawing us into the logic of this mad world, where the fox moving under a girl’s skin is as vivid (and believable?) as Charcot’s demonstration of the arc of la grande hysterie.”- Rosmarie Waldrop
About the Author:
Christine Wunnicke lives in Munich, Germany. She has published four award-winning novels, a biography, and several translations. Philip Boehm is an American playwright, theater director, and the translator of numerous books, including Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina (forthcoming from New Directions).
160 pages
Publisher: New Directions; Later Printing edition (April 30, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0811226247
ISBN-13: 978-0811226240