NONFICTION - April 9, 1995

THE DREAM OF WATER: A Memoir by Kyoko Mori (Henry Holt: $22.50; 275 pp.) What exactly is meant by the word homeland ? How should one deal with a horrible father? These seem to be the two questions at the forefront of Kyoko Mori’s autobiography, “The Dream of Water.”

In 1990, Mori returned to her native Japan for the first time in 13 years. After traveling around the country for a few weeks, she visits the relatives of her mother, who committed suicide when Mori was 12. She also spends time with her father, Hiroshi, and his wife. Hiroshi is to fatherhood what Attila the Hun was to Europe. With an almost sociopathic lack of caring, he has abused, manipulated and belittled Mori and her younger brother ever since she can remember. One of the underlying reasons for Mori’s visit is to see if she can live peacefully in the same part of the world as her father. By the end of her trip, she has an answer: “Kobe will always be a lost land to me, a place to think of with nostalgia, from far away. . . . That is the price of my anger. . . . I am losing the city I love, the place of my childhood, because I won’t forgive my father.”

In spite of some accomplished writing, “The Dream of Water” is a frustrating book. Mori goes to Japan angry and returns angry, and while her feelings are certainly justified, it is not exactly clear, on a selfish level, what is to be gained by reading her rage. Mori is at her best in the sections dealing with Japanese culture and questions of identity; however, as soon as Hiroshi enters the picture, “The Dream of Water” begins to feel like a very expensive therapy session.