Analysis Of Hiromi Goto's Chorus Of Mushrooms

In Hiromi Goto’s Chorus of Mushrooms, the intense interplay of food, motherhood, and sexuality yields a single harmonious product, pleasure, with which Naoe aims to reclaim her own complete identity. A forgotten woman, Naoe sits in her chair in the hall and sees all that happens around her (Goto 3). Memories of miso-shiru and crunchy daikon (5) drift through Naoe’s mind, while her daughter’s own “forsaken identity” has converted from “rice and daikon to wieners and beans” (13). Naoe’s identity is deeply rooted in the foods of her childhood and culture. Memories of her parent’s wealth and power are interwoven with memories of food. In one particular memory, Naoe and her brother Shige are so proud of their father’s success that they “play going

Naoe sumptuously describes a complexity of tastes and textures that evoke all senses: hard shells, sweet, juicy, strong garlic, spicy ginger, cream, pungent, fleshy, fresh, and “sweet as the sea” (148). Alongside these sensuous descriptions are sexual and slightly graphic depictions involving food. In the same scene, Naoe watches Tengu eat: “his mouth full of lobster meat, ginger pungent cream dripping from his lips … He licks his fingers from pinkie to his thumb. It’s good to see a body enjoy his food so much” (146). The vocabulary employs innuendo and implies an openly sexual nature to the food’s consumption with images of cream dripping from Tengu’s mouth, licking of his fingers, and having bodily enjoyment of his food. Naoe simultaneously “[coaxes] the meat from the pincers”, her face “all flush with taste, it fills the ache [her] belly has been missing” (146). The “ache” Naoe is fulfilling through food is analogous to the “dull beating ache … between [her] thighs (39). Likewise, Naoe states, “[the food] nourishes more than my body. I am replete” (147). After the meal, Naoe experiences post-climactic contentment, which suggests the complete and genuine pleasure the food brings her. This scene is likewise parallel to a scene in which Naoe strips naked in mushroom

Repeatedly through the novel, Naoe tries to recapture this feeling of “interconnectedness” found within this intersection. At the beginning of the novel, Naoe, regarding Keiko, states, “This Western food has changed you and you’ve grown more opaque even as your heart has brittled” (Goto 13). In Naoe’s perspective, Keiko’s ability to nurture, respect, and evoke “mutual pleasure” is contingent on her ability to nourish her family. Thus, Keiko’s lacklustre Western food implies a breakdown in the mother-child bond Keiko shares with not only her daughter, Murasaki, but also her own mother. Keiko supplies, but does not nourish her daughter and mother with the burnt and bland “Western food” she cooks (13), which signifies a loss of the “interconnectedness” that feeding another being brings. Conversely, Naoe and Murasaki’s profound bond is strongly embedded in Naoe feeding Murasaki pleasurable Japanese foods: “We ate, we drank, in Obāchan’s bed of feasts. Now I was tired and all roasty toasty, covered in sheets of cracker. I snuggled my head in Obāchan’s bony lap and closed my eyes to listen” (18). Unlike her mother and father, Murasaki listens to Naoe, although she cannot understand “the words [Naoe speaks]” (18). This transcendence of language suggests the intensity of Naoe and Murasaki’s bond, which is explicitly bolstered through the sharing of food and entails, as Frampton states, “mutual