{"id":42331,"date":"2017-05-29T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T14:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=42331"},"modified":"2017-06-13T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T20:17:10","slug":"tomoyuki-hoshino-translated-charles-de-wolf-booklist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tomoyuki-hoshino-translated-charles-de-wolf-booklist\/","title":{"rendered":"ME by Tomoyuki Hoshino, translated by Charles De Wolf [in Booklist]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-41919 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2017\/03\/Me-by-Tomoyuki-Hoshino-509x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"509\" height=\"800\" \/>The back cover insists\u00a0<em>ME<\/em>\u00a0\u201ccenters on the \u2018It\u2019s me\u2019 telephone scam\u201d in which a caller often targets the elderly, seeking funds to cover a false emergency. The ploy is more a brief narrative catalyst here; McDonald\u2019s, in comparison, gets enough pagetime to make the novel occasionally resemble an extended advertisement.<\/p>\n<p>Japanese electronics store employee Hitoshi Nagano\u2019s usual McDonald\u2019s lunch is interrupted by a cell phone that mistakenly lands on his tray; nonchalantly, he takes it home. He calls owner Daiki Hiyama\u2019s mother and persuades her to wire \u00a5900,000 immediately. Three days later, Mother Hiyama arrives at his door convinced Hitoshi is Daiki; when Hitoshi visits his own parents, a doppelg\u00e4nger has already usurped his place. The (sur)reality is that Hitoshi is not unique: finding a few MEs initially provides comforting companionship until too many competing MEs create a violent anarchy.<\/p>\n<p>Hoshino\u2019s latest-in-translation (rendered by Japan-based professor Charles De Wolf) begins as black comedy and devolves into an anti-solipsistic treatise on the erasure of individual identity. Despite a thought-provoking afterword by Nobel Prized Kenzabur\u014d \u014ce (Hoshino won the 2011 Kenzabur\u014d \u014ce Prize), this muddled\u00a0<em>ME<\/em>\u00a0offers little clarity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review:<\/strong> modified from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.booklistonline.com\/ME-Tomoyuki-Hoshino\/pid=8725236\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">&#8220;Fiction,&#8221; <em>Booklist Online<\/em>, May 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2017 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The back cover insists\u00a0ME\u00a0\u201ccenters on the \u2018It\u2019s me\u2019 telephone scam\u201d in which a caller often targets the elderly, seeking funds to cover a false emergency. The ploy is more a brief narrative catalyst here; McDonald\u2019s, in comparison, gets enough pagetime to make the novel occasionally&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,76,6535,66],"tags":[6608,6668,7387,10,11,7385,39,35,7386],"class_list":["post-42331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-japanese","category-repost","category-translation","tag-bookdragon","tag-booklist","tag-charles-de-wolf","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-me","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-speculative-fantasy","tag-tomoyuki-hoshino"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>ME by Tomoyuki Hoshino, translated by Charles De Wolf [in Booklist] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tomoyuki-hoshino-translated-charles-de-wolf-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ME by Tomoyuki Hoshino, translated by Charles De Wolf [in Booklist] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The back cover insists\u00a0ME\u00a0\u201ccenters on the \u2018It\u2019s me\u2019 telephone scam\u201d in which a caller often targets the elderly, seeking funds to cover a false emergency. The ploy is more a brief narrative catalyst here; McDonald\u2019s, in comparison, gets enough pagetime to make the novel occasionally...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tomoyuki-hoshino-translated-charles-de-wolf-booklist\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-29T14:33:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-13T20:17:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2017\/03\/Me-by-Tomoyuki-Hoshino.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"509\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"ME by Tomoyuki Hoshino, translated by Charles De Wolf [in Booklist] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/tomoyuki-hoshino-translated-charles-de-wolf-booklist\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"ME by Tomoyuki Hoshino, translated by Charles De Wolf [in Booklist] - BookDragon","og_description":"The back cover insists\u00a0ME\u00a0\u201ccenters on the \u2018It\u2019s me\u2019 telephone scam\u201d in which a caller often targets the elderly, seeking funds to cover a false emergency. 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