Yarn: Remembering the Way Home

Just read the last page of Yarn, which I absolutely loved. I am usually a reader of fiction but the description of this one "bid me to come". Wonderful tale of a not-perfect woman of Japanese nationality, a world full of fairy tales and the truth they share with everyday living...Meeting Kyoko in person is truly on my "bucket list" as well as reading more of her works. As she speaks of the importance of a bad good sweater vs a good bad one, I find that this work of hers is as well a bad good writing. There were times of jumping to situation and time that might have been organized and edited in a more fluid way, but this piece of art is what it is and truly stands well on its own insights and imperfections.A most wonderful read. It would make a great bookclub choice as its length is not challenging, keeps the reader engaged and provides moments causing one to look inside. Highly recommended.

This kind of book is usually not the kind of volume I would read; however, I found this book an interesting read. The author writes of her love and experience in the world of knitting. Anyone with a love of knitting will enjoy reading this book. It is aimed mostly at women who also have a passion for knitting.Rating: 4 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Haiku Moments: How to read, write and enjoy haiku).

As an avid reader, I greatly appreciate the unique opportunity afforded me in this book to have a favorite author address the use of a motif closely associated with her works. Those familiar with Kyoko Mori's writing will instantly recognize both birds and knitting as symbols and motifs she often employs. The fact that this is her third memoir does nothing to dull the emotional impact of her story, and using her knitting as a framework and even as a background character (or so it seems to me) provides a vibrant hue to that story's retelling. As much as I've enjoyed her other works, especially One Bird, Yarn: Remembering the Way Home offers the most inviting and insightful encapsulation of specific moments since her poetry in Fallout. Of course, I admit that I read and review as an already-devoted fan of her writing, but invite you to read this book and become a fan yourself.

This is not the first book I've read by this author. And my reaction to this book is the same as the previous one. The author suffered a serious trauma as a child when her mother committed suicide. She has spent the rest of her life trying to deal with that most primal of pains. She is low-key, quiet, contemplative, inward, self-analytic. All understandable. But reading her stories just feels dreary to me.I want to like her writing. I have many points of connection and sympathy. I enjoyed the knitting aspects of the book, as a knitter myself. I get the inherent symbolism of spinning, weaving, knitting, and yarn.But in the end, I didn't enjoy the book.

I really enjoyed this book. Hearing about Kyoko Mori's past, how she dealt with her circumstances and her life in Green Bay was very interesting reading. And the way she connected her life struggles with creative art (knitting, weaving, etc.) was inspiring. As a former student at her Wisconsin university at the time of her tenure, I enjoyed being able to understand this professor better and remembering life in the frozen tundra of Green Bay.

Yarn is Kyoko Mori the last of her Trilogy Polite Lies-The Dream of Water and Yarn,If not counting her novel Shizuoka's Daughterwhich is her own story as a 12 year girl written as a novel.The title Yarn Remembering the way home tells you that you cannot forget the past and not missing certain aspects that is ingrained in you and certain unfavorable incidents redirect your course in life.

The connections between life events to "home ec" arts such as knitting, sewing, and weaving are so contrived as to be ludicrous. In revisionist history, the author "understands" that her childhood teacher thought like a sewer rather than a knitter in teaching knitting skills, thus making the author unable to grasp knitting concepts as a child never mind that the rest of the class caught on. The author readily admits to complete passivity in her life, including her marriage, and tries to link that to knitting (stitches passively sitting in a row). I think the book could have been fascinating if she had given up all pretense of drawing any relationship between needle arts and her life and just told her story.For a great marriage of knitting and personal events, read the late Susan Gordon Lydon's books The Knitting Sutra and Knitting Heaven and Earth as well as her autobiography which barely mentions knitting, Take The Long Way Home.

My favorite part of Yarn is the beginning, in which the child Mori must knit two matching mittens as a school project. As with her other anecdotes, she recreates her own experience in a way which not only allows readers to make it our own but reminds us of all our own similar ones. "Universal" is an overused word, but this is Mori's universality: the power to make her mittens into my botched science project and your [insert embarrassing school experience].