I have read a novel written by Riku Onda (恩田陸), “A Storybook of Dandelion”. It is a story of people who like to read a small fantasy world involved in everyday life. The destiny of a person is a timeless theme that everyone once thinks of, not only in this story. Socio-politically it is a story of a Japanese village in the beginning of 20th century, and literary-historically disastrous outputs of the war ages of Japan, especially the World War II was approaching in the time line. Satoko, who has an ability of foresight, even for her own death, lived a short but satisfied life with the main character Mineko. Satoko is in a lineage of Tokono (常野), who have some sorts of special abilities as human beings. These abilities are deeply linked to the theme of the story, however, there are no showy outputs from the abilities. Tokono people lived their plain lives with a certain sort of missions they have. Satoko also led her life by the mission. The main character is the story teller and her narration is very sincere. The story silently shows the link to the war ages, however, almost nothing shows a direct link to the social background they had, and it ended up in a small story in the village.
From the viewpoint of structuralism contrast of many matters that appear in the story is well balanced and the story is presented very well with the fluent narration of Mineko. From the viewpoint of postmodernism, intertextual elements with the 1st stories for The Tales of Tokono, (常野物語) “An Empire of Light (光の帝国)” appear. A narratology of Mineko finally recognized the possible roles of Tokono by the disastrous war ages, however, they were absent at the moment.
Overall, the story is about two little women who led their lives with certain intentions, accompanied with a small fantasy.
