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Don't Laugh at
Other People's Sex Lives
by
Yamazaki Nao-Cola
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives |
| Author: | Yamazaki Nao-Cola |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 2004 (Eng. 2026) |
| Length: | 75 pages |
| Original in: | Japanese |
| Availability: | Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives - US |
| Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives - UK | |
| Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives - Canada | |
| Ne riez pas de mon histoire d'amour - France | |
| Non ridere della vita sessuale degli altri - Italia | |
| from: Bookshop.org (US) |
- Japanese title: 人のセックスを笑うな
- Translated by Polly Barton
- With a Foreword by Katie Kitamura
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Our Assessment:
B : a bit thin in some respects (including page-wise ...)
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elle | . | 15/6/2010 | Augustin Trapenard |
From the Reviews:
- "C'est que, à l'image de « L'Art du haïku » , ce tout petit livre, simple comme « Ohayô », fonctionne par illuminations, au rythme des saisons, tel un apprentissage de la sagesse. Et l'on est vite conquis par sa poésie de l'intime et de l'instant, qui le rend, comme par magie, « ineffablement émouvant »." - Augustin Trapenard, Elle
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
Yamazaki Nao-Cola's slim novella is narrated by Mirume Isogai, describing his extended affair with Sayuri Inokuma -- Yuri -- one of his teachers at art college and, at thirty-nine, more than twice his age when they first met.
Yuri is married -- to a man quite a bit her senior as well -- and keeps a studio, separate from where she and her husband live (and: "had an agreement in place with her husband that he would never come to her studio"), where she and Isogai then often rendezvous.
While Yuri takes the more forward steps to their hooking up, it's not simply a seduction.
Young and fairly inexperienced -- and uncertain of himself ("I thought of myself as bad at sex and bad with people") --, Isogai readily plays his role, but remains confused about their relationship, his own feelings, and Yuri herself.
She is needy and insecure on the one hand, but also seemingly uncommitted and distant in some ways (often, for example, not answering his calls or only responding to his messages days later), and Isogai is under no illusions about aspects of her:
Yuri spent a lot of time thinking about herself, in a way that struck me as seriously tedious. She mused constantly about the things that she could and couldn't do, the aspects of herself that she was proud of, her failings, and so on, all of which seemed to me totally insignificant.There's physical passion, but Isogai certainly doesn't see himself as a stud, though he has some ideas about the act:
The point of sex is to do it with someone you care about, as you build a relationship with them, little by little. It should be done leisurely, gently, and carefully, paying close attention to your partner's responses, but not forgetting to be sexy either.They only seem to be moderately successful in these regards, with Isogai at one point admitting: "Honestly, the sex wasn't even that good".
Part of the problem is the development of a relationship: while he believes: "my connection with Yuri was fantastic", and she purrs: "I want you to be my boyfriend forever, okay ?" the fact that she is married hovers rather problematically in the background -- all the more so when Isogai then also meets her husband. But there are other issues, as well -- not least that, even if it isn't really spoken of, that age and life-experience difference is huge. Sure, they click in some ways, and sometimes Isogai feels head over heels -- but a sense of doubt is also always there.
At one point there's an obvious off-ramp for Isogai, a classmate whom he even kisses, and who shows some independence -- going into the family business rather than continuing with her studies -- and she even asks him to go out with her, but he sticks to Yuri. Yuri, meanwhile, seems evermore uncertain about the course of her life; after a long break (which she takes with her husband) she even abandons her teaching and artistic careers; it's no surprise that there's little room left for Isogai either, leaving him all broken up.
Just about to turn twenty-two at that point, he's still very much a kid -- so also in his actions and reactions as he tries to process what has happened, down to his description of how:
As I was journaling to try to come to grips with what I was feeling, tears came dripping down onto the page. If pushed to say whether the tears felt pleasant or unpleasant, I'd say pleasant. I blinked so that more tears fell onto the paper, smudging the writing. I deliberately moved my chin so it was hovering over the word I wanted to smudge.It makes for a convincing enough story of a young -- and still very immature -- man's affair with an older woman (who is clearly looking for some answers and living out some fantasies of her own). Isogai's voice, and his (intermittent) understanding of what he is going through, is convincing enough, not least in his knowing, deep down, even in the midst of it, that this affair is unlikely to be something truly lasting:
Whenever I entertained the idea of being with Yuri forever, I'd have the thought that actually the girl of my dreams was waiting for me somewhere else, and that being with Yuri was a stopgap until I met her. Sometimes I'd think that it wasn't love, just a sort of fixation.Yuri remains a bit too elusive as a figure -- Isogai observes and analyzes some, but doesn't probe too deep (including because she does keep him at some distance in various regards) -- and the level of both Isogai's reflections and his language tends towards the YA (arguably appropriate, given his youth, but still ...), but there's enough to Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives for it to be of some interest as an account of such a mismatched affair.
- M.A.Orthofer, 9 July 2026
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Don't Laugh at Other People's Sex Lives:
- SJP Lit publicity page
- Daunt publicity page
- Curtis Brown information page
- Kawade Shobo Shinsha publicity page
- Seuil publicity page
- Rizzoli publicity page
- Contemporary Japanese Literature
- Elle (French)
- Full Stop
- Leggere a colori (Italian)
- See Index of Japanese literature
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Japanese author Yamazaki Nao-Cola (山崎 ナオコーラ) was born in 1978.
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© 2026 the complete review
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