My Year of Meats

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At the end of the novel, Jane says, “I don’t think I can change my future simply by writing a happy ending. That’s too easy and not so interesting. I will certainly do my best to imagine one, but in reality I will just have to wait and see.” For the most part, the characters in My Year of Meats do, in the end, get what they want, what they need, or in the case of John Ueno, what they deserve. Will you elaborate on why you decided to write a happy ending? Many years ago, my parents had a property (Australian for "farm") in the Wyong Valley north of Sydney, where they bred and raised beef cattle on pasture. It was a beautiful place, worlds away from the stinking feedlots so vividly depicted in Ruth Ozeki's novel. Even though, of course, the end place--someone's table--is the same. My mother read My Year Of Meat while she lived and worked on this property, and then she passed it on to me, saying that she found it "interesting." Soon after that, my parents sold up and retired. 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. Jane sees herself as a "documentarian" and her aspiration is, on one hand, to record the times she lives in like the Japanese writer Shōnagon, and on the other to inspire someone by the results of her work. My Year of Meats is the 1998 debut novel by Ruth Ozeki. The book takes advantage of the differences between Japanese and American culture to comment on both. [1] Overview [ edit ]

Weird, huh? How someone just drops into your life like that. I mean, there we were, minding our own business. . . . What did we do to deserve her?” I know, this sounds like My Year of Meats might be one of these books written by militant vegetarian out on a crusade, but it is actually a pretty well researched documentary about issues in cattle ranching and the meat industry in general of that particular time. 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?I almost gave this book two stars. I think My Year of Meats contains some interesting commentary about the production and marketing of meat on a global level. It also highlights the cruelty of patriarchal abuse and violence. 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! One of the problems that I had with this book is that it is painted in such broad strokes (and some of those strokes seem awfully close to familiar Asian stereotypes). For example, the Japanese wife is hopelessly timid and unassuming, even as her husband becomes more and more horrible and abusive. He is an unabashed villain who becomes only more tyrannical and heinous as the book continues. It becomes increasingly creepy that his wife, Akiko, has determined that all she wants is to become a mother (with the help of his sperm) and then she can leave him. ?!?!? I have no doubt that such monsters exist in the world, but it seems awfully convenient that the wife-beating, heavy-drinking, stripper-loving, rapist husband also happens to represent an evil beef conglomerate bent on marketing contaminated products to the world. Funny how all of these levels of moral turpitude go together. Jane Takagi-Little is a Japanese-American aspiring documentarian from MN, desperately in need of a job when she's given the chance to produce My American Wife. While the show wants to repeatedly portray families reflecting an American stereotype (straight white parents with straight white kids), Jane prefers to capture the country's diversity. As she interviews families from all across the country to showcase, she begins to see a pattern of detrimental effects from the very product she must sell, meat.

As meat becomes a large part of Ueno’s life following the premier of My American Wife!, we begin to see connections to her pregnancy and the meat industry. Ozeki describes Ueno’s nausea after consuming meat as animalistic in the same way that Takagi-Little’s uterus is. Following Ueno’s arrival to America, she is able to experience her first Thanksgiving. Ueno is finally able to consume meat without the consequence of nausea, signifying that distance from her abuser had been the cure to her ills. While it does depict many realities of American factory farming, the focus is firmly more on its human impact than on its animal one. Being someone very sensitive to depictions of animal cruelty and death, especially for meat consumption, there are some difficult scenes to read through, but not enough that they're this book's main takeaway. I appreciate that the animal scenes aren't scarring, but I'm afraid they wouldn't do enough to instill empathy for meat animals into the uninitiated. Jane Takagi-Little is a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker who is hired to work for a Japanese production company, where she uncovers some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a dangerous hormone called DES. The company works with BEEF-EX to promote the use of American beef in Japan by creating a Japanese television show called My American Wife!. [2]Bunny’s elderly husband, who proposed to Bunny during a lap dance; is clearly smitten with his young, vivacious wife. Gale Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). https://www.fao.org/publications/sofi/en/. Accessed 1 Nov 2019 Wonderfully wild and bracing . . . A feast that leaves you hungry for whatever Ozeki cooks up next.” A migrant family who Jane features on the show as an attempt to be more inclusive to other ethnicities within the US, the Martinez’s emigrated to Texas so that their son could be born an American citizen and have access to good education and opportunities they never had in their home country. Vern and Grace Beaudroux

Ozeki’s two earlier novels, My Year of Meats (1998) and All Over Creation (2003), were both recognized as Notable Books by The New York Times. All of these characters are embedded in the terrain of America—and the text of the novel—like unique jewels. Each is different, yet none is less captivating than another. And as Jane, much to the chagrin of the Japanese production company, detonates stereotypes by incorporating these quirky, unforgettable characters into My American Wife!, a central theme of the novel begins to crystallize—that of authenticity. A likeably odd and inventively imagined tale . . . Ozeki writes with the same over-the-top verve as fellow hyper-realist David Foster Wallace.” Honestly, this book is very strange. It reads like a memoir, definitely not like fiction. I *thought* it was a memoir good two-thirds into it. There are so many scientific details, included so mechanically, that it made me think I was reading a long, occasionally poetic, occasionally over-the-top dramatic reportage. It was interesting, okay, but confusing.I’m working on another novel. I used to talk about new projects but I’ve stopped doing that because until you choose to make them public, they are very private things.