A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

Hawai’i writers are similarly preoccupied with personal history. A comparable focus can
be found in Marie Hara’s work, for example in her 1994 short story collection
Bananaheart. 364 Another active Bamboo Ridge staff member, Hara writes with a sure
sense of voice in time. Titles such as “The Honeymoon Hotel, 1895,” or “The
Buddhaheads, 1933,” situate the stories at certain, fixed spots in history. The place, Hilo
and sometimes Honolulu, is specified in most of the texts. The majority of stories are
about the lessons history can teach, to be found in one’s own memory, the stories and
reminiscences of elders, relics from the past, or a bunch of dusty old newspapers, as in
“The Gift.” Halfway through the collection, “The Curse Closet” offers a clue to the
composition of the whole puzzle: Lei, the girl protagonist of most stories, hides in a
closet to confront her first menstruation and its attendant emotional mix of fear, pride,
sadness, and curiosity: “Now that I had become female and bloody, I had crossed over to
something. All I had to do was figure out what the something was” (111). At that moment
of initiation, the characters of several of the other stories are revealed to be her parents
and grandparents. The picture that emerges for the reader who puts the mosaic together is,
again, one of (cultural) identity. This identity is built from childhood experiences and
from the told or hidden stories of one’s family line. It is tested and ultimately confirmed
by events that trigger memory, such as a mother’s illness or a grandmother’s visit: When
in the last story Japanese beliefs such as the return of a dead relative to guard and guide
(and punish) the offspring are evoked, the narrator muses, “But I watch her gentle face
knowing she’ll keep her promise. We are very lucky” (161, “Go to Home”). The family is
lucky to have and to maintain ties between the generations.
Although she has had to struggle with the conflicting demands of silence and
communication (a prominent topic in Asian American writing), the unceasing labor of the
writer is to bridge and fill the gaps, to voice the roots and connections that often appear to
be nonexistent if only because they are not articulated. This is exemplified in the two
stories that are set in hospitals, at the bedside of a dying husband and a mother,
respectively. The first had never wasted a word, and his attempts to communicate come
too late: “and for a long moment he pressed my hand as hard as he could. Just like a
repeated sound, a loud word, but I don’t know what he was trying to say” (147, “A
Birthday Card and Warm Wishes”). Although the communication in “You in There” is
364 Marie Hara, Bananaheart and Other Stories, Honolulu 1994.
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