This question -- of how to define womanhood, and how to live up to it (as society forces a specific version and picture of it on women) -- is one all three of them are dealing with, in very different ways. Natsuko is obviously torn a bit, and concerned that having a child might pull her away from her writing, but admirably Kawakami doesn't put that at the fore: Natsuko never really frames it as an either/or proposition -- nor does she go into this with any certainty that she can balance the two. Meanwhile, Midoriko’s journal betrays her fear and outrage at the concept and the biology of womanhood, and how it defines the modern woman. Midoriko scrawls with white hot aggression about menstruation, breast growth, and child bearing.

Note: Kawakami Mieko's 乳と卵 ('Breasts and Eggs') was a novella that won the 2007 (II) Akutagawa Prize; more than a decade later, she revised and expanded (considerably) on it, a version that was then published in 2019 as 夏物語 ('Summer Stories'); the English-language editions of the latter have now, somewhat confusingly, been published under the former title (while the original 'Breasts and Eggs' was never published in (English) translation). Although the logic of some translation decisions is opaque -- why use object instead of subject pronouns ? why translate some terms and not others ? why use colloquialisms that make Natsuko sound younger than her late thirties ? -- those mysteries generally do not get in the way of the translation, which is smooth and quite readable. That fluidness, though, is not enough to save this work. Breasts and Eggs reads like nothing so much as two novels clumsily grafted together. The transparent attempt to link the two, coming near the end of the book, makes manifest the large, ugly stitches by which the amalgam is cobbled together in this Frankenstein novel." - Erik R. Lofgren, World Literature Today Indeed, Natsuko’s various decisions throughout the book – never predictable – may be read as a growing assertiveness, not just against the men in her life but against all the norms of a society rooted in deeply patriarchal and illogical values. Book Two is a very different beast, measuring twice the length of Book One and slowing its pace to reflect its protagonist’s age and emotional place in life.

It feels like I’m trapped inside my body. It decides when I get hungry, and when I’ll get my period. From birth to death, you have to keep eating and making money just to stay alive.” They won't do anything for their kids or families if it means sacrificing their own comfort, but they go out in the world and act all big, like I'm such a good dad, such a provider. She will not be controlled by her biology and the fact that she cannot control it in turn — such as stopping her breasts from growing or her periods from happening — is crushing for her. When she was much younger she had a boyfriend, Naruse, whom she got along very well with, but she found that she couldn't stand sex: Makiko is dissatisfied with how her breasts look -- and not just their flatness -- while Midoriko is just hitting puberty and is having difficulties with the physical changes she is undergoing: she's not thrilled about the budding of her breasts, and anxious about the onset of her period, which she hasn't yet had, but many of her classmates have.

Kitamura, Katie (7 April 2020). "A Japanese Literary Star Joins Her Peers on Western Bookshelves". The New York Times . Retrieved 19 October 2020.

In her quest, she meets a handful of unique characters and also experiences a morphing of her current relationship, most notably that which she shares with her literary agent.

Yuriko: Imagine you’re at the edge of a forest, right before dawn… After walking for a while, you come to a small house… Inside, you find ten sleeping children.” … Beauty meant that you were good. And being good meant being happy. Happiness can be defined all kinds of ways, but human beings, consciously or unconsciously, are always pulling for their own version of happiness. Even people who want to die see death as a kind of solace, and view ending their lives as the only way to make it there. Happiness is the base unit of consciousness, our single greatest motivator.”Plot-wise, nothing remarkable actually happens in the story. It’s divided into two self-contained but related parts featuring the same cast of characters. Book One takes place over a period of less than 48 hours, while Book Two stretches over the better part of a year. It’s the sort of story where characters go about their day, wrestling with personal demons and navigating interpersonal relationships, but nothing out of the ordinary transpires. Mieko Kawakami. “ Acts of Recognition: On the Women Characters of Haruki Murakami”. Literary Hub. 03 October 2019. Makiko married young but split up from her husband before Midoriko was even born, raising her as a single parent.

The issue of womanhood is more universal, and Kawakami's take is particularly intriguing with her de-sexualized protagonist. The ostensible reason for Makiko's visit to Tokyo is because she is considering getting breast implants.

If you bring a new life into the world, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re waking one of these kids up. You know what makes you think doing that’s okay? Because it’s got nothing to do with you.” Things continue at a drifty pace, the novel largely made up of Natsuko’s occasional interactions with women who offer differing takes on motherhood. David Boyd’s translation seems to reflect Kawakami’s smoother control over her material, although there’s some heavy-handed exposition and the curiously detached Natsuko doesn’t always make for a thrilling narrator. Her days pass “like a row of white boxes, all lined up, the same shape and the same weight”. But Kawakami writes with ruthless honesty about the bodily experience of being a woman, from menstrual leaks to painful nipples. She carefully reveals how poverty exacerbates the suffocating pressures on women within a society where “prettiness means value”. The mysteries of procreation hold both anxiety and allure across the two parts, although Kawakami remains thoroughly unsentimental – motherhood can be “miraculous”, but it can also be oppressive. Two separate characters even suggest that to give birth is a selfish act of violence, an argument pursued with fearlessness, given voice both in teenage nihilism (“why did any of us have to be born?”) and via an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, convinced that the only way to be sure you don’t inflict “excruciating pain” on an innocent child is to not have one. Book Two, on the other hand, offers us multiple stances, opinions, and ideas when it comes to carrying, giving birth, and raising a child. As well as the role of a woman in the family, in society, in the house.