My Year of Meats

“How can you say ‘justa name’? Name is very first thing. Name is face to all the world.”

Jane’s mother says this to Jane’s father when he quibbles at her decision to give their daughter a hyphenated last name. The subject of naming remains important throughout the novel. Having American-sounding names allows Jane and John/Joichi to have some privileges in America they would not have had using traditional Japanese names. Jane becomes obsessed with naming her unborn child later in the text.

“She liked the size of things American. Convenient. Economical. Big and simple.”

Akiko has this thought after watching Suzie Flowers dump Coca-Cola on a pot roast. This quote calls attention to one of America’s most prominent features, its superfluous size, which is what most attracts Akiko and the film crew to America. The comments about America being convenient and economical are somewhat ironic; as the book unfolds the high cost of America’s penchant for convenience become clear. 

“She remembers the pain and also the strangeness of being stuck […] surrounded by people who didn’t know. It was lonely.”

This memory refers to an incident in Akiko’s childhood in which her tongue got stuck to a metal pole while she was playing on a playground. This memory is significant because Akiko finds herself in this same position throughout most of the book as well. She is often surrounded by outsiders who only see John’s surface kindness and not his truly horrific treatment of her, making her feel the same loneliness she felt as a child. Then, as now, she suffered her pain in silence.

“One’s attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking.”

This is an excerpt from one of the chapter epigraphs by Sei Shōnagon. It is worth noting because it brings to light elegance’s importance to the central characters. Jane seeks elegance in the men around her, Akiko seeks it in her environment. This desire is somewhat ironic in nature because so much of America—the strip bars, the feedlots, the slaughterhouses—are anything but elegant.

“(S)he’d had this dumb idea that lists could become poetry.”

Akiko has this thought when writing her own lists based on Shōnagon’s “Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster” and “Things That Give A Hot Feeling” (62-3). This quote is significant because the idea that lists can become poetry reflects one of the central issues of this novel: the question of how people—particularly women—can make cohesive and beautiful that which is initially unshapen and ordinary. This is also essentially the task Jane has to perform but with video footage instead of words later on in the novel. 

“[Y]ou are going to behave like a decent, civilized man, do you understand? Not a sleazy agent rep. Not a television producer. A human being.”

Jane says this to John when she is fed up with his selfish, brutish ways and she wants him to act respectfully at the Baptist church they are about to film in. This quote highlights capitalism’s power to dehumanize. Many of the characters in this book base their actions on their job title rather than on their humanity. Jane, Sloan, Joichi, Mr. Oda, and John Dunn all sublimate their humanity for the sake of money and a job at some point in the novel.

“A carriage overturns. One would have imagined such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream—astonishing and senseless.”

This quote is from an epigraph from Sei Shōnagon’s list “Surprising and Distressing Things.” As the novel progresses, Jane discovers rot inside many of the institutions she encounters—from advertising to factory farming. These institutions seems stable and powerful, but they are more precarious than they appear. Discovering this feels dreamlike, surprising, and distressing.

“‘You don’t know father?’ She turned away from me. ‘You are wicked girl.’

‘No, Ma. I know who the father is. I just haven’t told him.’

‘He nice man?’ She turned back hopefully.

‘I don’t… I mean, yes, I guess he’s a nice man.’

‘You tell him, then he marry you? Maybe?’

‘No, Ma, I don’t think so.’

‘Then he not nice man and is better you throw away his baby.’”

This conversation is between Jane and her mother about Sloan’s role in the pregnancy. The exchange reveals that while some of the world has laxed attitudes towards unwed motherhood, Jane’s mother still sees marriage as the proper response to pregnancy. Her mother’s stance makes marriage seem like a cure-all, but as Akiko and John prove, this is clearly not the case. 

“I had wanted a child so badly at one point in my life and that much desire is hard to erase.”

Jane has this thought right before she realizes she does not want to get an abortion. The significance of this quote is in the idea that strong desire is hard to make disappear, a truth learned by many of the characters. For example, when Jane shows up at the club Sloan is playing at, even though much time and distance has passed between the, he still runs right for her. Additionally, Akiko feels such a desire to live in America on her own that she is willing to give up everything she has ever known to get it. 

“I feel such sadness for my lying life.”

Akiko says this in her letter to Jane as a way of explaining how she feels after watching authentic American mothers on My American Wife!. Other characters have lying lives of their own. John is a philanderer and a rapist. Jane won’t admit to Sloan that she is pregnant and hides the truth about her project from Dyann and Lara.

“Words weren’t safe, but sex could be.”

Jane has this thought when she decides to try to sleep with Sloan instead of trying to talk about the issues in their relationship. The idea that sex is safer than conversation comes up a lot throughout the novel. For example, Akiko would rather endure sex with her husband than speak to him. Bunny Dunn has no problem revealing herself physically but is emotionally guarded. In this novel, sex is sometimes a way to avoid emotional intimacy.

“Nobody is going to do anything about it, and then slowly, bit by bit, it will be too late.”

Dave, a driver Jane hires to drive the crew around Colorado, says this to Jane about the issue of cattle overgrazing American land.  The idea of being “too late” menaces many of the people in the novel. Jane is constantly worrying about it being too late for her and Sloan to work things out and that it’s too late for her to have an abortion. Bunny Dunn also deals with being too late when she finally starts dealing with Rosie’s abnormalities. For Akiko, timing is a matter of survival and being too late is a sign of failure.  

“We got our own kind of justice, frontier justice, and don’t you forget it.”

Gale, the stepson of Bunny Dunn, says this to Jane after she insinuates that he molested his niece. When Gale says this, it draws attention to the relativity of justice. Many of the people who have poisoned others for a profit have never been prosecuted and many of the people who have suffered unknowingly at the hands of corporations have never been paid their due. The quote also calls attention to the fact that justice is usually determined by people with power.

“And you gals with long hair gotta wear the hair net too. We run a sanitary operation around here.”

One of the workers at Gale’s slaughterhouse says this to Jane’s cameramen. The scene that follows is one of utter carnage and butchery, a literal bloodbath. It is ironic that hairnets are what keep the operation “sanitary.” 

“Let her comfort me like I have never been comforted before, certainly not on the bony breast of my cool, dispassionate mother.”

Jane has this thought about Bunny as Bunny holds her in the hospital after Jane’s miscarriage. Jane’s relationship with her mother isn’t physically demonstrative, and this moment of comfort with Bunny is a rare instance of maternal reassurance.  

“It’s hard to make things stop once they’ve gotten goin’.”

Bunny says this to Jane in an attempt to comfort her after her miscarriage, and it can be applied to other parts of the book. For example, although Jane knows that she may be endangering her child, she feels too involved and dedicated to the Dunn narrative to quit, so she keeps going despite the potential for peril. This quote might also be applied to Akiko when she gets cold feet about leaving John. She starts to question what she is doing but then realizes she has gone too far to turn back.

“[I]t was like I finally made a choice […] and it felt good.”

Bunny says this to Jane in reference to her choice to expose Rosie’s condition to the world. When Bunny says this it reveals an important truth of this novel, that freedom is defined by the ability to choose. Akiko also feels empowered when she finally starts making her own decisions, as does Jane when she finally decides to make a commitment to Sloan. 

“[T]here’s something bloody in everybody’s dumpster.”

Jane is thinking about New York City specifically, but this observation works metaphorically as well as a more meat-oriented version of the phrase “skeletons in the closet.” All of the characters have their own secrets, their own ghosts, and none of the them walk away unbloodied. The idea that something is always hidden is also reinforced by the discussion about TV editing in this novel.

“It is expensive to telephone from an airplane […] So you see, Akiko, he must care about you very much.”

John’s mother says this to Akiko while she is caring for Akiko in John’s absence. This quote shows how heavily money, commerce, and success weigh on the lives of the characters in this book. They often see material and financial wealth as equivalent to love.

“I look at wanted thing with eyes straight on. But you! Neither here nor there. You looking always crooked, from side of eye. It has no power to hold. So wanted thing, it slip away from you.”

Jane’s mother says this to Jane after Jane blames her for the estrogen poisoning she suffered. This quote reflects one of the major themes in novel, that perspective defines reality. Joichi and Sloan both push the power of positive thinking as Jane’s mother does here, trying to get Jane to understand that she needs to define and then seek what she wants rather than waiting for it to come to her.

“She doesn’t have to be a wife at all, you know.”

Tomoko says this to Akiko when Akiko says she plans on raising her daughter in America so she can be like the American wives she has seen on TV. Tomoko’s perspective is releases women from the obligation to be wives, something that neither American nor Japanese culture appears to be able to do. It’s also important because it draws attention to the ways in which mothers shape their daughters’ lives, something Akiko may not have been fully aware of until Tomoko pointed it out. 

“I remember that month of January in Tokyo, or rather I remember the images I filmed of the month of January in Tokyo. They are my memory.”

This is an excerpt from Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil which Jane uses to preface her documentary on the Dunn family. This excerpt reflects the way in which the modern media has the power to shape both immediate perception and long term memory. People often only remember the images presented to them, forgetting their own observations. This quote underscores the intense power that media has in shaping culture, and the responsibility that comes with that power.  

“When did you notice? Why didn’t you do anything?”

These are questions Jane asks Bunny in the interview about Rosie, but they are questions that equally could be asked of her and Akiko. The line of questioning points to a discrepancy in this novel between thought and action, a discrepancy that often leads to calamity.