Filling the Hollow

Resignifying Memory and Identity Through Storytelling in Hiromi Goto’s "Chorus of Mushrooms"

Abstract

Chorus of Mushrooms tells the story of a Japanese family that immigrated to the small city of Nanton, in Canada.  It depicts the challenges of three women of different generations - a grandmother, a mother and a granddaughter - and also a father, engaged in the ongoing process of surviving and (re)constructing identities and memories in a foreign environment, which constantly challenges the characters to deal with blurred and overlapping geographies of home.  Thus, this essay analyzes briefly the narrative strategies employed by Hiromi Goto in the light of postcolonial studies. The analyses of the narrative act in Chorus of Mushrooms reveals not only how the identities of these three generations of women are (re)constructed in the novel, but also how the story – or stories – is/are creatively told and memories resignified in the process. Before analysing Goto’s novel, a brief account of the author’s and the novel’s sociocultural and historical backgrounds is provided. Then, some narrative strategies are highlighted in the light of Suzan Lanser’s (1982) categories, mainly because of the importance of understanding how memory culture unfolds in the novel via these strategies. Finally, further issues of memory and identity are identified and examined in view of Astrid Erll (2011), Vijay Agnew (2013) and Doreen Massey’s (2014) and Linda McDowell’s (1999) theoretical approaches to space, place and gender.  The present study shows not only the role of memories in the narrative and their impact in the characters’ lives, but also Hiromi Goto’s creative and sharp writing skills.