The Phoenix Tree and Other Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Phoenix Tree and Other Stories collects four stories by Akutagawa Prize winning author Kizaki Satoko - 木崎 さと子, who received the prize in 1985 for her story Ao giri, which is included here translated by Carol A. Flath as The Phoenix Tree. Kizaki had also previously been shortlisted for the prize with her debut story Rasoku - Barefoot, which won the Bungakukai Prize in 1980. Born in 1939 in Changchun, (then under the occupied name of Shinkyō), Kizaki started writing in 1979 at the age of 40 and had previously lived in France and also in the U.S.A for a number of years, nations which feature in the lives of some of the characters in theses stories as well as being the locations of some of their settings. The first story Barefoot sees the narrator, Seiko, returning to Tokyo to live in a house of her Uncle's after having lived in France for some years. As she prepares a meal she hears the names and shouts of politicians canvassing for votes through the window as they drive pass the house, one in particular Narashima Yumiko the communist candidate stands out to her. As Seiko's observations progress she realizes the extent of how she has slipped out of being Japanese, comparing udon with spaghetti, and later when her Uncle visits she forgets that its her place to dote on him, in routine things like preparing a washcloth for him to wipe his hands, on her return, still in a stage of transience she observes that all Japanese faces appear the same to her. The story also sees Seiko recall her relationship with Henri a man she had met in Paris, a hypersensitive man who had come from a rural area who had an inert fear of the city, Henri as well as being an albino was an alcoholic who suffered from epilepsy. A common theme in these stories is that the narrator has been orphaned and has been taken care of or adopted by relatives, the title story has it's main narrator, Mitsue raised by her Aunt, the narratives are often explorations into unknown family histories, in Barefoot Seiko relates how her Uncle's son, Kuniaki, had used her to vent his lusts for a number of years before being married, another of the stories themes is that of the shallowness of appearances, from the smiles on the politicians posters, she imagines them running through the town barefoot or without make up Narashima she visualises as an Esmeralda running barefoot and dishevelled begging for votes with fabricated urgency. Through Seiko's musings she returns to her relationship with Henri and his eventual spiral into suicide and cross examines her feelings of guilt at her involvement with him.

The second story, Flame Trees, is remarkable for the slightness and originality of it's setting, the Hata's - Makiko and her husband, Motoo, have travelled from France to Pasadena, Motoo is a Professor of Plant Physiology, before setting up in their own apartment they stay at the Ide's, a family of second generation Japanese Americans who Motoo had previously stayed with. The story opens with an international meeting of other Professors, two wives of which feature prominently in Makiko's perceptions of the small non American community, Lyudmilla, and Helga, whom like Makiko is pregnant. Flame Trees also sees narratives delving into the past lives of it's protagonists, the Ide's history of being interned during the war and their managing to build a living through building up their farming business is depicted, whilst watching the coverage of the assassination of Kennedy the time period of the story's setting begins to take shape. Through Makiko's observations life in America is slightly disorientating her, slowly the story of her past becomes revealed provoked by observations of the Flame Trees growing in the area, memories of the evacuation of Manchuria at the end of the war, watching her mother die, earlier there is a discussion on the definition of life, of 'it' - 'something like a crimson flame blazing up', this image is subtly juxtaposed in the narrative with the flames and smoke of her mother's cremation rising up. Another aspect to Kizaki's narratives sees her characters trying to fill in the missing portraits of family members from their pasts, these are scenes provoked from everyday observations, her father's disappearance in broad daylight, taken away by the Russian troops, here one minute gone the next, Makiko visualizes the possibility of him being still alive somewhere in a Serbian prison camp, another as the time draws nearer to her giving birth provokes the memory of seeing a foetus as a child in a neighbours home in Manchuria, which leads to her evacuation with her nanny Neiya, and the fear of eligibility of returning to Japan under the one adult one child policy.

Although the shortest story in the collection, being a little close to amounting to twenty pages the third story Mei Hua Lei displays Kizaki's brilliant subtleness at being able to synthesize imagery and metaphor in depicting the predicament of her characters  caught between past, present and potential futures. Ueda is another character whose past is linked to the evacuation of Manchuria at the end of the war, but in Mei Hua Lei sees him returning to the country some years later and has a guide in Mr Feng and translator Xiao - hong. During his trip he picks out souvenirs for his wife and daughter, among these, a scarf, a dried deer's heart, that is valued for it's medicinal properties and also some silverware which Kizaki imbues with metaphor that resonates across the story, along with the deer's heart which later on is visualized by Ueda's daughter as still beating with life. Purchasing the silverware unlocks Ueda's own memories of the evacuation and of his mother, and the seller tells him that it was taken from the Japanese by advancing Russian troops, the seller adds, 'They come and go don't they?. Who knows, maybe this coaster will return to China sometime', with the inclusion of this silverware comes the awareness that it's presence is relating to something much larger, perhaps the nature of the relationship between the two nations and of each of their prosperity. Ueda keeps the silverware hidden in a draw away from Mari and Yasuko, his wife and daughter, the narrative observing of him that - 'he didn't want to expose these things to the eyes of people who didn't know the land of Manchuria'.

The Phoenix Tree is a novella in size, the narrative comes from Mitsue who receives a call from her cousin Shiro announcing that Oba-san is unwell and that she is returning home to the dilapidated wing of the family estate where Mistue lives with her brother Kohei and his wife, Kazumi. Another story that features an extended family which is split between Mitsue and Kohei who were adopted by Oba-san when they were young and Oba-san's natural siblings, Shiro and his sister Haruko, who remains largely absent in the story until nearing the end, who is living in America raising a family. Shiro explains that Oba-san wants the fact of her return to the ancestral home and her illness to be kept secret from the local villagers and that a doctor shouldn't be consulted, Mitsue is awed by Oba-san's courage in facing death unassisted, and slightly fortuitously for Shiro offers to help to nurse her, he returns to Tokyo sooner than expected. Mitsue is described as a bit of a recluse not having ever lived outside of the village, remaining unmarried, she also carries an unsightly scar across her face from a childhood accident. Although she refuses to see a doctor and hasn't had an official diagnosis Oba-san's illness is breast cancer which is in an advanced state. As she struggles to look after Oba-san Mitsue recalls the days of her childhood, of Oba-san struggling with the burden of raising additional children, and also imagining her relationship with her Uncle who had died prematurely through TB, Mitsue envisions rather romantically that her aunt's return is her wanting to die in the same place as that of her husband. In these stories which are informed by the autobiographical, Kizaki has a great ability in creating complex family scenarios where her characters are left to fill in the blanks of the histories of characters now passed, another incident that remains unclear is the circumstance of Mitsue getting her scar, Kohei tells Mitsue that he witnessed Oba-san amidst an accident of spilling hot oil push Haruko clear leaving the oil to spill and scald Mitsue instead, the revelation of the episode leads Mitsue to readdress her feelings towards Oba-san after it was believed that a maid had been to blame. The situation is compounded when it becomes known that it's Oba-san's desire for Mitsue to have plastic surgery to remove the scar, she wants to see Mitsue as she was before the accident, but is it to assuage her guilt?, it remains unclear. The story is full of incidences offering insights into the complex family relationships to one another, there's constant reappraisal of the relationship between Shiro and Haruko vs.  Mitsue and Kohei who have stayed behind remaining in the village as opposed to Shiro and Haruko having successful lives away. Another facet to this is that Mitsue is secretly attracted to Shiro, but these feelings through the events of the story undergo a transformation. The Phoenix Tree of the story's title refers to a sapling planted by Oba-san in ground opposite the house's veranda years before, as the estate is falling further into dilapidation it's possibly the only thing that'll remain, at the end of the story the family wonder what to do with it, a suggestion made is to transplant the tree or perhaps that Kohei will move in and look after it. Perhaps the kanji in the title of the story is different, the reader can't ignore the possibility that Kizaki is using the title with a slight play on words, as giri in Japanese is a term also meaning 'obligation' or the 'burden of obligation', finishing the story the impression left is that this is what is being passed on by Oba-san, or maybe the Phoenix tree or the wakagiri left behind is a symbol of an obligation or duty served. Overall a fascinating collection.

Carol A. Flath's translation of Rasuko and Aogiri won the Japan - U.S Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature.                                          

Lou-lan and Other Stories by Inoue Yasushi

Lou-lan and Other Stories is a collection of six stories by Inoue Yasushi, translated in an almost tag team kind of fashion by James T. Araki and Edward Seidensticker, published by Kodansha International, three stories are situated in ancient China and three have Japan as their setting. The first, the title story, Lou-lan, (translated by Seidensticker), traces the history of a remote town in a distant north western province of China beginning around 130 years BC, caught between many local warring factions and in addition the area is under threat by the expanding Han who send various emissaries and generals to the area intending to expand the empire. Throughout the story the name of Tun-Huang is mentioned on a number of occasions and incidences, but how the events of this story might overlap with those of the novel of the same name I'm not at all sure, but there are similarities in that Inoue expands the history of Lou-lan bringing it up to date with the re-discovery of it by the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, as in Tun-Huang which also brings the story into the beginning of the twentieth century with the expeditions of Sir Aurel Stein. Lou-lan tells of the displacement of the people of Lou-lan and the suicide of a monarch discovered centuries later. Whilst reading the descriptions of Lou-lan another story came to mind that also has a remote Chinese settlement landscape at its centre, Takeshi Kaiko's Ruboki/Runaway first published in 1958 two years before Lo-lan appeared, Inoue's story has a broader historical panorama than Kaiko's, Inoue's stories have a subtle moral twist to them, as in the story Princess Yung-t'ai's Necklace, (translated by Seidensticker), another set in ancient China, which follows a group of grave robbers attempting to raid a tomb but are disturbed during the act, a subplot is that the ringleader's wife is having an affair with his brother, both of whom are keeping watch outside, as they hear the advancing troops the ringleader rushes back to grab the necklace, but the brother closes the tomb on him by rolling back a large stone doorway, this story also leaps forward in time by some centuries to the discovery of the skeletal remains with the necklace in its grasp. The second of the stories set in ancient China is The Sage, (translated by Araki), which also has the tone of being a morality tale, where an old blind sage who acts as an attendant to a holy spring is toppled by a young councillor who wants to change the old ways, but the changes bring about catastrophic events for the community, their moral tone resembles the stories of Nakajima Atsushi, many of which are also set in ancient China.

 

The first of the stories set in Japan is one centred around archaeology in, The Opaline Cup, (translated by Araki), whose narrator witnesses the bringing together for the first time in fourteen hundred years two ancient cups, the story has a subplot at the beginning which retraces the premature death of the narrator's sister, who the narrator was trying to organise her marriage to one of his friends. The second story The Rhododendrons, (translated by Seidensticker), is narrated by a slightly cantankerous elderly scholar, Shuntaro Miike, who runs away to the shore of Lake Biwa overlooking Mt.Hira. As he returns to his favourite inn, (the Reihokan), his past encounters and visits with the place are recalled. The initial object of his spleen venting is his immediate family who he sees as being too disrespectful although he notes they are quick to bask in the glory of his awards and achievements as a scholar, his major work is in the field of anthropology and anatomy, his magnum opus which he suspects he won't live to complete is The Arterial System of the Japanese, which he is writing in German - Anterin System der Japaneur, his two passions are research and liquor. The narrative again is one that retrospectively looks back at various episodes in his life, the relationship between a fellow student who vows to leave him his body for research in the event of his death, he talks about an angel of death being near him in his youth and recalls the case of Fujimura Masao, (featured also in Soseki's, Kusamakura). Another major incident that brought him to the inn at Lake Biwa is the suicide of his son, Keisuke, who had an affair resulting in the woman becoming pregnant, rather than obeying his father in forbidding him to see the woman again the pair kill themselves by drowning, the suicide of his son seems to act as a dichotomy between the narrator and his son.

 

The last story, Passage to Fudaraku, (translated by Araki), is set in the middle of the last millennium set around an ancient religious practice in the Kumano area, in particular the Fudarakusan-ji. The story follows the Abbot of the temple who is next in line to carry out the tradition of taking the journey to Fudaraku Island - in other words setting sail for the Pure Land to serve Kannon. Through the Abbot, Konko, we are told of the departures of the previous Abbots who have taken the trip, some first hand from his own memory, others from anecdote, the rule being that it's expected that the Abbot make the journey by the time he reaches age of 61, the Abbot travels alone in the vessel escorted as far as Tsunakiri Island and then set adrift out into the deeper sea. At the start of the story there is much anticipation as to when Konko will announce the date of his departure. Out of the previous Abbots there were stories that only one managed to return with extensive knowledge of the Pure Land, another before departing has visions of Fudaraku, observing that - 'these people don't age as they serve the Buddha', although with deepening trepidation Konko observes that the journey will only spell certain death. Konko's apprehension mounts as the day of his departure draws closer, he falls into an almost catatonic state, remaining silent when people visit him wanting him to pass messages on to the Buddha. If you're a Japanese reader you can read more about this tradition on the Japanese entry on the Fudaraku jinja, which gives more information on this religious practice, boats were leaden with stones representing sins, and as in the story the chamber that the Abbot or Priest occupied on the boat had no doors and was nailed to the boat. Also the boat was fitted with four Torii, (seen here), representing the four gates of the Pure Land. These stories open vistas into the past that trickle back into the modern world.

                    

Rain in the Wind - Stories

After posting on the Kawabata Prize recently Rain in the Wind - Stories by Maruya Saiichi seems like an intriguing collection  to turn to, translated by Dennis Keene and published as part of Kodansha's Japan's Modern Writers series, although the collection could've been subtitled as being a novella and three stories as the longest story Rain in the Wind amounts to being close to 125 pages. On the jacket the Times Literary Supplement describe Maruya as, "A fascinating marriage of Borges and Nabokov with Japanese literary tradition", both of these authors are referenced to in the story Tree Shadows, the narrative is one that is relayed and passed between it's numerous characters although the whole is narrated by an unnamed narrator, sometimes interjecting to change its course or to pass and link it between characters. Through this sequence of linked narratives the motif of the shadows of trees invariably flickers in and out of sight. The story opens with the narrator trying to source the start of his obsession with tree shadows in particular he prefers those that appear vertically rather than horizontally, he reflects back to his adolescent viewing of Parisian street scenes painted by Utrillo, although he can't detect them there. Sieving his memories further he begins to realise that it's become a process similar to that of 'the impetus for the creation of fiction' which begins to open the story into another field of enquiry reflecting on the nature of fiction writing and the reliability of memory, there are further occasions in the story where Maruya tentatively explores other notions and themes, among them illegitimacy.

The ruminations continue in that the narrator is confident that he had read a story by Nabokov featuring tree shadows, he searches his collection and consults friends who have translated him but the story remains elusive, perhaps the narrator had written it and abandoned completing it thinking that it was too similar with one of Nabokov's?, the narrator notes remembering the emotional release in writing the story nonetheless. This forgetfulness on the part of the narrator begins to bring into question his reliability, but it reads being more of a case of literary amnesia, these self cross examinations and slight literary detective work lead to the, (fictional), writer Furuya Ippei, whose surname sounds strikingly similar to Maruya's. Furuya came to literature through journalism and teaching French at university level, his style and influence is affected from novelists both East and West from the eighteenth century. The narrative gives a panoramic description of Furuya's study room, unconnected items, the writer searching for scrapbooks for a photograph of the shadow of a tree to assist in writing an intricate subplot of one of his novels featuring the infidelity between a business man and a photographer's wife which the narrative dips into briefly before following Furuya as he begins to further consider tree shadow in his books and the relationship between himself and his characters.

There's further forays into the narratives of a couple more of Furuya's novels, The Ocean Current Bottle, which follows the illegitimate younger brother of a scholar of ancient Japanese literature, who fresh out of prison bungles an attempt at blackmail, a power cut interceding which provides the opportunity for some deeper life reflecting. Also the story Shooting a Butterfly, which follows the affair of a politician who looses consciousness after a fall, seeing the shadow of trees projected onto a wall he initally thinks that he is at an outdoor cinema. Real time reality begins to re-enter the story when Furuya is asked to give a lecture on the occasion of an anniversary of the creation of his hometown being made a municipal borough, Furuya re-edits a lecture contrasting the I - novel with that of the family memoir making a study with French and English books. The lecture includes referencing a Japanese pre-war novel, (the author of which Furuya decides against divulging), whose main protagonist discovers that he is the product of a union between his mother and grandfather, and he recounts a famous folklorist who vehemently believed his mother was someone else, scene by scene it feels that Maruya is pulling us into contemplating the scenario that perhaps that we take the identity of our parents for granted, what if they weren't who we presumed them to be?, these familiar identities exist in a confined framework. Before the lecture Furuya receives a letter from an elderly woman of his hometown, an admirer of his writing who requests a meeting after the lecture, at first he declines but he learns from another letter from the woman's family that she has been taken ill, and in what he suspects is a case of slight emotional bribery he relents to spare half an hour to meet the woman. This is a masterly story, Maruya's inclusion of the tree shadow motif and linking narratives creates a mesh of recollections that his characters find themselves staring into to unlock the truths of their pasts and by degrees their futures. The narratives overlap when Furuya finds himself staring at the shadow of a bonsai zelkova tree in the old woman's antique filled house and learns that perhaps his past was not how he believed it to be.

The narrative of the opening story, The Gentle Downhill Slope, is probably one of the more straightforward out of the four stories, following a young man's initiation into city life and through it, as he has come from the country, an initiation into the wider world, he stays with a cousin who likes to drink and visit brothels, the narrator on the other hand wants to study until he finds himself the attention of a gang of street robbers. The story is set in the immediate aftermath of the war, some of the buildings and cityscapes are described as being burnt. The second story I'll Buy That Dream, has a slight Joycean tinge to it,  narrated by a prostitute/hostess, Rika, it follows her relationship with a professor as she tries to keep her past away from him after telling him that she had plastic surgery. The professor wonders what she looked like previous to her operation and pressurizes her into showing her a picture of herself before.

The title story Rain in the Wind/Yokoshigure appeared originally in 1988 and if you are interested at all in Japanese poetry perhaps you might feel in some way that this story has been lying in wait for you, especially if your interests are in the free verse haiku of Taneda Santōka, the narrator is a scholar of medieval Japanese poetry who is told a story by his father who on his death bed recalls an encounter he had when travelling to Dōgo, (also the location for Soseki's Botchan), in Shikoku with a friend, Kurokawa, and a meeting with a mendicant priest. After reading a selection of free verse haiku and learning of the appearance of Taneda and of his movements around 1939 the narrator pieces together that perhaps that the poet and the priest his father and Kurokawa had met were the same man. The narrator although not at first interested in free verse haiku begins to find himself immersed in the poems searching amongst them to locate any reference to the meeting in Dōgo. After his father and then Kurokawa pass away the narrator only has the poems and studies of Taneda to rely upon for his detective work, in particular the narrators curiosity falls on the phrase yokoshigure, wind driven rain, which seems to stand out as being a cryptic clue. The story reads as a detailed piece of literary detective fiction exploring many associated themes, in particular those associated with Taneda Santōka, exploring his suicidal aspirations, the narrator constantly shifts his perspectives in the reading of his poems searching for clues.


Saiichi Maruya was born in Yamagata Prefecture in 1925 and won many of Japan's most prestigious literary awards including the Akutagawa, Tanizaki and Noma Prizes, he passed away in October of 2012.

     



       

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter



 

 

This year Studio Ghibli are releasing two films, one of them incorporating Hori Tatsuo's short story The Wind Has Risen, the other is an adaption of the 10th century folk story Kaguya hime monogatari, the film will be directed by Isao Takahata who has previously directed other films for Studio Ghibli including one of my favourites - Grave of the Fireflies. Kaguya hime monogatari is also known in English as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter/Taketori monogatari,竹取物語, like many other folktales and early stories, the identity of the original author of this folktale has never been fully or officially ascertained. Kodansha International published this edition, in it's Illustrated Japanese Classics series back in 1998, a modern rendering by Nobel laureate Kawabata Yasunari, translated by Donald Keene with accompanying illustrations by Miyata Masayuki, the book is dual text.

 

The tale begins with the old bamboo cutter walking in the woods, he sees a light coming from one of the stems of bamboo, exploring further he discovers a young woman only three inches high, he also discovers that some surrounding stems are crammed with gold, he takes her home to be raised by his wife and becomes a wealthy man, the couple appear to be childless similar to the couple to be seen in the folktale Momotarō, the woman also seems to be imbued with a strange power, whenever the old man is in pain looking at her dissipates his discomfort, and also he finds that just the vision of her dissolves his angry temperament. After some time with her adoptive parents the woman grows to a normal size and the old bamboo cutter asks a diviner from Mimuroto to name her, he decides on Nayotake no Kaguya-hime, The Shining Princess of the Supple Bamboo. Over time the rumour of Kaguya-hime's radiant beauty begins to circulate and a number of suitors begin to make themselves known, among five of them are Princes and men of high rank. The old bamboo cutter getting more advanced in his age and thinking of her future implores Kaguya-hime to consider some of their proposals, although understanding that she is not his natural daughter she is not obliged to obey his wishes and she appears reluctant to acquiesce. She sets an almost near impossible challenge that; 'If one of the five will show me some special thing I wish to see, I shall know his affections are the noblest and become his wife' , Kaguya-hime's requested five objects include - from India the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, from the sea of Horai the branch from the tree with roots of silver and a trunk of gold, a robe of fur of rats from China, a jewel that shines five colours found in a dragon's neck and lastly; a swallows easy delivery charm.

 

The narrative begins to describe each man's quest in hunting out each of the requested items, each account ending in failure and marking the creation of a particular proverb. As these stories unfold a messenger from the Emperor has been dispatched to the bamboo cutter's house, as he too has heard about Kaguya-hime, but again she refuses to go to the palace, it's arranged that the Emperor will go to the bamboo cutter's house under the pretext that he is hunting in the area just to catch a glimpse of her. Slipping inside the house he grabs Kaguya-hime but she turns to a shadow, she laments that if she were born of this world she would go with him, the two have to be content with a relationship of exchanging letters and poetry.

 

The tale has often been referred to as an early science fiction tale, which maybe taking a slight leap in imagination, although after  Kaguya-hime explains to the old bamboo cutter of her origins from the moon and that soon she will be departing to make her return there, the thought arises that perhaps when it was written the moon may not have carried the same connotations as it might do in today's science riddled world, perhaps more of a celestial one rather than an extraterrestrial one, it'll be interesting to see how the ending appears in the film. Taketori monogatari is an evocative tale, one that ends on a truly monumental fashion that manages to work in an explanation of the naming of one of Japan's most iconic landmarks.

 

some related links ~

 

The World of Masayuki Miyata   (video for akafuji)

 

川端 康成,

 

Kaguya-hime monogatari 

 

online text from the version in Yei Theodora Ozaki's Japanese Fairy Tales

 

 

 

  

 

         

69 by Murakami Ryu

Practically found myself being pulled through this novel, as at first appearances I'd anticipated that it might read a little like Murakami doing Murakami as the theme and setting have some undeniable overlap, although the narrative throughout '69' has it's own distinctive pace and confidence, originally published in Japan in 1987 the novel turns 25 this year, this edition is the Kodansha one, although the novel will be re-issued by Pushkin Press next year. Set in the year 1969, (of course..), the events are seen from the perspective of seventeen year old Yazaki Kensuke, the narrative is a retrospective one although this doesn't really become apparent until the end of the novel. To what degree the events in the novel could be related to Murakami's life I'm not sure, but the setting is Sasebo, where Murakami was born and Murakami was also seventeen in 1969, an enjoyable aspect to Yazaki relating his story is at times at the beginning or ending of describing events are his imaginative elaborations on the truth, and then a quick correction by describing the true turn of events.

The novel evokes the prevailing mindset and mood of the period, the student movement, (Yazaki organizes a barricade at his school, painting slogans on the walls), and it's soundtrack, The Beatles, Dylan, Janis Joplin, and also the writers read, Camus, Rimbaud, Burgess, also the anti-Vietnam movement. The real motive for Yazaki's political motivations   become apparent, to impress the opposite sex, a subplot that runs throughout the novel is that he and his friends are organising a festival which he gives the name 'Morning Erection Festival', which will include the screening of an avant-garde film that they producing, which they hope will star girls from the school. The portrait that Yazaki gives is a searingly honest one, and at times unflinching which may sit uncomfortably in places, Yazaki can't help seeing through the pretensions of his teachers and to a degree others around him. Being a portrait of the juvenile years of a young man it's got everything you'd almost come to expect, girls, brushes with authority, gang fights, (almost), but at the end of the novel Murakami in a post script fills us in with what the characters have done with their lives subsequently. It's remarkable to note  that most of the references in the book are of Western things, maybe this is a true picture of 1969, (or the late sixties), in Japan, but it remains of course a snapshot from one perspective, Yazaki is likened to Chuya Nakahara at one point, although he struggles to picture this actor before remembering his real identity, perhaps this represents an unintentional repudiation of the past. The novel was translated by Ralph F. McCarthy, two of Murakami Ryu's short stories, The Last Picture Show and Whenever I Sit at a Bar Drinking Like This, I Always Think What a Sacred Profession Bartending Is, can be read at (Words without Borders).

The Twilight Years by Sawako Ariyoshi

The Twilight Years is a novel now forty years old, originally published in 1972 under the title Kokotsu no hito, I've also sometimes seen this novel referred to by it's more literal translation of The Ecstatic Man, Kokotsu can translate as a loosing of a sense of reality, the jacket description mentions that the novel sold a million copies within a year, which demonstrates the interest the novel garnered. The striking artwork on this edition from Peter Owen is by Louis Mackay, subsequently the novel has also been published by  Kodansha International. Examining the condition and perceptions of the elderly, the novel is set in the mid 1960's and as well as glancing back to the war period, the central character, Akiko, contemplates what will become of the elderly population in the future, she thinks ahead to the year 2000, and goes over the statistical forecast, the spiraling ratio of young and old, the novel can be read as an expose of society's conscious and unconscious attitudes towards the elderly, the central attention of the novel is the Tachibana family, like many Japanese homes the Tachibana's have built a cottage in adjacent land/garden for their grandparents, the household is a three generation home, with Akiko, her husband, Nobutoshi, and their son, Satoshi, still at home studying. Although having hito in the title the novel opens with the unexpected death of the grandmother of the family, as Akiko and the immediate family prepare for the funeral, their grandfather, Shigezo, begins to exhibit some worrying behaviour, the first signs of symptoms, confusedly he believed grandmother was sleeping while in actuality she had died. When Kyoko his daughter arrives for the funeral he fails to recognise her instead he only acknowledges Akiko, as he succumbs to his illness they unconsciously form a relationship close to resembling that of mother and child.

 

As time passes Shigezo's condition begins to deteriorate, a doctor identifies either senile dementia or melancholia dementia, his symptoms resemble Alzheimer's, the burden of looking after Shigezo seems to be pushed onto Akiko, Nobutoshi works full time and although Akiko works full time as well she ends up being the predominant carer and skipping work to care for him, at first this is done much to her consternation, Akiko too, at first, is seen as part of society that finds the elderly as a hindrance, although her concern begins to outweigh her beleaguered belligerence, to witness this change engages and involves the reader into the gradual moral turnabout of the novel. Told largely from Akiko's perspective the narrative is dotted with revelatory observations and experiences she encounters whilst looking after Shigezo, when taking him to a day centre she is surprisingly told that she is a very caring daughter in law, as many of the other  families who have elderly members there usually show no interest. There are many instances and observations that highlight the suffering of the working woman, both in job and at home, although here it's mainly the latter, the narrative does occasionally come from Nobutoshi's perspective, it's difficult to recall a moment when he shows concern for his wife working hard to look after his father, instead he admonishes her for waking him in the night for help when Shigezo begins to soil himself. Nobutoshi cites as an excuse the fact that Shigezo no longer recognises him, many times thinking that he is a burglar, and calls for the police to be called, another facet for concern of Shigezo's behaviour is that he runs away from home. An instance that illustrates the plight of women is seen when contemplating about when they too will become old and their husbands die, Kyoko admits that 'After all, a woman enjoys the greatest happiness as a widow'. At the end of the novel Akiko's attitude undergoes a transformation befitting the role of a concerned daughter in law, although this seems to emphasize how she stands alone and is pitted against a wall of indifference, which is what the novel conveys very effectively. The novel also witnesses an array of different attitudes from the perspectives of the different family members, Satoshi seeing his grandfather deteriorate pleads with his parents, "Mum, Dad, please don't live this long!",  but at the centre of the novel Akiko is the one whose experiences begin to transform her feelings and attitudes, the novel ends on an almost polemic note.

 

The Twilight Years, along with Fumiko Enchi's The Waiting Years, (a recent find in a charity shop), is one of those translations that I've been meaning to read for some time, another novel concerning aging that I'm looking forward to reading is Furui Yoshikichi's White Haired Melody, translated by Meredith McKinney. A non-fiction book of interest is the comprehensive looking Faces of Aging: The Lived Experiences of the Elderly in Japan, edited by Yoshiko Matsumoto and published by Stanford University Press. The Twilight Years is translated by Mildred Tahara who also translated Ariyoshi's The River Ki. The Twilight Years is also listed as one of UNESCO's Representative Works. This coming Monday - I think, will be 敬老の日, Keiro no Hei, (Respect for the Aged Day), a recent article in the AJW Asahi reports that nearly one fourth of the Japanese population is 65 or over.   

 

           



Snakelust by Nakagami Kenji

Snakelust was published by Kodansha International back in 1998, and is a translation of seven stories written by Kenji Nakagami by Andrew Rankin. Nakagami's stories depict the harsh world and lives of the burakumin, often incorporating elements and episodes from his own life, he was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for his short story Misaki/The Cape in 1975, notably Nakagami was the first author born in the post-war period to be given the prize. When moving to Tokyo, unlike many writers Nakagami worked in many manual handling jobs, and would often write in Jazz clubs. Oddly there are more studies of Nakagami in English than there are actual translations of his works. The stories here move between the contemporary and the medieval in their setting, his stories find their expression with a mythic-like quality and share interconnecting motifs, a reading of the short story The Immortal from his short story collection The Kumano Collection sees it also set in Nakagami's native Kumano following a holy man wandering through the forest who encounters a woman, and features a fleeing noble cortege, and includes scenes reminiscent here in the short story Crimson Waterfall.

 

The Mountain Ascetic/Shugen follows a man from Kumano as he tries to establish himself in Tokyo, the opening of the story begins with a description of the mountains echoing with the mingling sound of cicadas and Buddhist chant, coming to a close on the decaying corpse of a nameless monk, still the chant emanates from the pile of bones. The narrative leads on to a description of a man, described as being 'more muscle than brains', a man barely able to contain his passions, a drinker, due to his violent temper his marriage falls apart, and he returns to Kumano. Giving up cigarettes and alcohol the man wanders into the mountains in search of finding some form of reconciliation within himself, whilst walking he experiences three visitations, due to his exhaustion he believes that they could be hallucinations, the first is of a ghostly monk, which he identifies as being his dead brother who had committed suicide aged 24, the second is of a picnic scene with a mother, child and grandmother, the mother is crying. The third is of three men stacking stones lamenting about the misfortune that another of them has met, two of the men appear to be disfigured, one man has no hands, he moves the stones with the stumps of his wrists, another has no legs, the third man is dressed in white, perhaps swathed in bandages. Walking further the man finds himself chanting a sutra over and over, the man recalls his brother and a violent episode towards his wife, his frustration reduces him to tears, eventually he succumbs to sleep. In the night he is awoken by the sound of chimes in the darkness, he finds that it's source is from a monk performing an absolution of sorts. The visions that the narrator saw on the mountain seem swathed in enigma, mountains for Nakagami are places inhabited with spirits and have huge significance in these stories, landscapes that are open to a vast imaginative canvass where his characters find deep spiritual expression, each of the scenes the man sees could be seen to be representing the culminating scene within their own story.

The Wind and the Light/Somoku, in some ways is a companion piece to The Mountain Ascetic, it opens again in a mountain setting, Nakagami sets it near Odaigahara, with a man suffering from arrow wounds stumbling through the forest, coming across another man, at first it's seems uncertain to tell from which person the narrative is coming from, or the time period its set in. The man without the arrow wounds begins to assist the wounded man, after sometime the wounded man begs to be thrown off the cliff. Like the previous story the narrative flicks between the narrator recounting episodes from his past, the flashback sequences here sees the man recall a time in his youth when he had kept pet finches, his memory focuses particularly on a blind bird that he would grab in his fist and almost squeeze to death, and another memory sees him mistakenly open an egg with a living chick inside, he becomes rapt with guilt, he identifies himself with a character from Kamo no Chomei's Hosshinshu. Helping the man down from the mountain he begins to feel the man's pain, this transference of pain and also of spirits is another prominent motif in Nakagami's narratives, the wounded man suddenly bursts into tears asking why is it that he's helping him and begging to be left or killed, in the distance voices can be begin to be heard calling the wounded man. As in the The Mountain Ascetic the narrator has a brother who had committed suicide in the past, and the man suddenly comes to the realization that the wounded man is his brother visiting him with a message.

Snakelust/Jain, a story that was adapted to film by Kazuhiko Hasegawa, was released through A.T.G in 1976 under the title Seishun no satsujinsha/ The Youth Killer, Nakagami wrote the screen play which is a close rendering of this disturbing tale of family dysfunction taken to murderous degrees. In the story Kei's intrusion into the family is felt more prominently than in the film, it could be said that  Jun is tormented by his mother's jealousy which unleashes his pent up rage. Makeup/Kessho sees familiar motifs that appear in this collection, the figure of a brother who had committed suicide features in the background, the narrator works at a timber yard, (the family business in Jain is in lumber), and also the narrator keeps birds, here once he reaches breeding a hundred birds or pairs he then lets them go, watching as they disperse across the neighbourhood. In Kessho the protagonist is a man who is separating from his wife, the narrative is built up with thematically linked observations about the make up worn by key women from his life, his sisters,  mother and wife. The men in Nakagami's stories appear as men with a robust physicality, but as the jacket of the book describes - Again and again Nakagami confronts us with the disturbing fact of man's ultimate helplessness before the power of female sexuality.

Kurenai no taki/Crimson Waterfall and Oni no hanashi/A Tale of a demon are set in old Japan, A Tale of a Demon is a short story of a warrior from Koga deceived by a demon living on the Tatsumi Bridge, which Nakagami sets in the old Province of Omi, (now Shiga Prefecture), who appears to him as a beautiful young woman. Crimson Waterfall, a violent tale set in feudal times follows a noble cortege escaping from warring factions through a forest in Kumano, and is told mainly from the perspective of the princesses bodyguard, the group is made up of him, the princess and two ladies in waiting. The story follows the guard as he lusts after the princess, killing the ladies in waiting when they become separated from her, he tells her that they were caught and killed by the pursuing bandits. At night whilst she sleeps he rather gleefully contemplates her vulnerability, the story ends fulfilling the title's implied bloodiness. The last story is Juryoku no miyako/Gravity's Capital, an erotically charged story where the old and the contemporary begin to converge. From it's opening the story had me completely absorbed - She is standing in the doorway bathed in a stream of early morning sunlight when she says she's seen a god come soaring across the sky and land in the zelkova tree in the middle of the field. This story is largely told through the perspective of Yoshiaki, a construction worker who lives in the mountains who moves from site to site, intending to stay just for a night with a girl he meets. In the morning the girl begins to tell of a Prince that visits her during the night, at first he doesn't believe a word, as the story unfolds and the more he becomes involved with the girl, the more he becomes to realize that she is suffering a form of possession from the ancient Prince. He tries to smother the visions and the voices she hears and sees with his own passion, but putting his ear to her chest he too begins to hear a voice emanating from within her.

Studies in English:

Nakagami, Japan: Buraku and the Writing of Ethnicity
Anne McKnight
University of Minnesota Press, 2011

Negotiating Identity: Nakagami Kenji's Kiseki and the Power of the Tale
Anne Helene Thelle
Iucidicium Verlag, 2010

Out of the Alleyway - Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction
Eve Zimmerman
Harvard University Press, 2008

Dangerous Women, Deadly Words: Phallic Fantasy and Modernity in Three Japanese Writers
Nina Cornyetz
Stanford University Press, 1999

Works in English:

The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto
translated by Eve Zimmerman
Stonebridge Press, 2008

Snakelust
translated by Andrew Rankin
Kodansha International, 1998

The Immortal
Short story translated by Mark Harbison in the Showa Anthology
Kodansha International, 1985

Works in French:

Nakagami is more widely translated in French than in English, the publisher Editions Fayard publish five of his novels, and Editions Philippe Picquier publish Misaki/Le Cap and also Kiseki/Miracle. 

The Dark Room by Junnosuke Yoshiyuki

Anshitsu/The Dark Room by Yoshiyuki Junnosuke was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 1970, translated by John Bester and appeared in Kodansha's Modern Writers series. The novel is narrated by Shuichi Nakata a writer in his early forties, whilst meeting up with Toru Tsunoki, the two had worked on the same literary journal, we learn that his wife Keiko had died twenty years previously, Nakata suspects that Tsunoki had an affair with his wife, the pair go out drinking and Tsunoki offers Nakata to write a diary for a magazine column, it can even be fictional Tsunoki informs him. Nakata learns that it's to be about his relationship with two women that he meets that night, Tae and Maki. As the novel progresses the reader could be tempted into thinking that the novel is going to be revealed as being the diary itself, but the magazine article soon slips into the background as Maki and Nakata meet up again. Maki confides with Nakata that he is different to other men she has encountered in as much as Nakata doesn't make her sick with repulsion. Nakata's attempt at forcing himself on Maki comes to nothing when she begins to question him, 'Let's call it a day' she says, simply concluding his attempt. Nakata is a character with few redeeming characteristics, his use of prostitutes, and there is much evidence in the novel of abusive relationships, Nakata also sees two other women Takako and Natsue who either have first hand experience of violent husbands/partners, or know other women in the same the situation, but Yoshiyuki's inclusion of this could be read as him highlighting the issue, although Nakata sees his relationship with these women in nearly purely physical terms. Nakata's narrative has an undertone of despair, and to a degree an emotional isolation, at first he doesn't get emotionally involved with the women, but the distance he keeps slowly gets eroded as the novel progresses.

There are a couple of instances in the first half of the novel where the story wanders, Nakata reflects back to his college days, when he was sent to recuperate from an illness in the country,Yoshiyuki himself had a lung removed due to pulmonary tuberculosis, Nakata stays on farm where one of the sons (Torao) goes on to be a genius within his area of study, but Nakata one day discovers that Torao had a brother and sister who were born with mental deficiencies, their existence is covered up by the family who hide the two in the attic of the farm buildings. Another slight diversion in the text comes earlier on when Nakata reads an article about prostitution after the war,in it prostitutes are interviewed about their experiences, during the interview they all mention a female customer they had, a woman that stuck in their memories, 'She was lucky, having something to live for. You know, somehow were not really living at the moment. What do you mean, 'not really living'?. she's asked, I mean living just because there's nothing better to do'. It could have been added as a thematical link, as Nakata begins to realize that Maki is a lesbian, her relationship with Nakata she sees as not being the real thing. The women in Nakata's life begin to drift away from him, Maki falls pregnant with his child but decides to move to America to raise the child, eventually Natsue is the only woman in his life. They meet up and Nakata learns that Natsue was nearly beaten to death by her previous husband, their relationship gets darker. It's great to learn that Kurodahan Press are planning to publish soon Yoshiyuki's Noma Prize winning story in Toward Dusk and Other Stories.   

Watcher from the Shore

This deeply contemplative novel by Ayako Sono was published by Kodansha in 1990, originally appearing in Japan in 1980, and won the Woman's Literature Prize, translated by Edward Putzar from the Japanese title Kami no yogoreta te, which translates as something quite different from the given title, but Watcher from the Shore is a fitting title. The novel's narrator Sadaharu, opened a gynaecological clinic some years before, he chooses a spot as close as he could find next to the sea, although he has a good reputation he is not clear from paying off his debts and loans he took out in order to start his surgery. Sadaharu's relationship with his wife is somewhere between deterioration and distant, although they have a daughter. His wife spends a lot of her time away from the family home, how and why their relationship has arrived at this impasse is none to clear. Sadaharu likens his job as a gynaecologist as to that of an automobile repair shop, we follow him as he treats his patients, 'sexual matters were simply medical phenomenon' he surmises treating a woman with candida. He gets a call from Yoko Kakei, her American husband died in an airplane crash in Sagami Bay, since then she has travelled, she invites Sadaharu over that evening, when he arrives he finds she already has a visitor, Father Munechika, a local priest, after a few drinks Sadaharu talks over some of the cases he has attended to, the two men find they have more than they assumed in common, both deal with the aspect of human nature most people keep hidden, the conversation turns to calculating the number of abortions performed in Japan over the past years. As the two men talk, the differring approaches to the ethics of each men's calling is subtly examined, and interestingly in this novel their conversation is not confrontational, but the two men seem to illuminate what the other doesn't know or understand about the topic of their discussion. In the middle of the novel after visiting an orphanage for abandoned children, Sadaharu points out that maybe in some cases it's more humane not to let a child come into the world to suffer deformities acquired before birth, Father Munechika responds by saying that it's not up to man who decides who lives or dies, God decides, anything resembling life is better than not having life at all he concludes. Sadaharu's frustration at one patient's mother in-law surfaces, 'For people like this such things as respect for life were merely convenient words, to be used only when a convenient reason existed. Probably there were those in society whom people want to see live, but by the same measure there were those whom people would rather see die. In either case,judgement was related to profit and loss. His mind thus occupied, Sadaharu coldly walked away'.

Through Sadaharu's patients, the novel examines the ethics and attitudes of abortion, illegitimacy and adoption within society, Sadaharu's convictions are dramatically questioned when an abortion he performed didn't succeed, his patient contacts him again, her feelings toward her pregnancy have changed, and she decides to keep her baby, Sadaharu's convictions as a physician are subject to question through out many of his patients cases.Through one of his patients he learns that his wife met up with the father of one of his patients in a trip to Los Angeles, these suspicions about his wife add further uncertainty about his feelings for his wife. Sadaharu's evening visits to Yoko continue, one night she lends him a copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh, a book he'd never read before, he's much taken with the scene of the flooding, 'He didn't mean that it was good that humanity had perished, but the vision of humanity dying so quickly before the overwhelming force of nature was a vision to shake the soul'. The novel I think is now no longer in print, the back jacket image above features art from a painting by Tatsuo Takayama.

The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P

Whilst reading The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P/Oyayubi P no shugyo jidai, I was reminded slightly of Jeffrey Eugenides 2003 novel, Middlesex, a book which gives a fictional portrait of a modern day hermaphrodite, some of the territory covered in Big Toe P seems to overlap with that of Eugenides novel, or perhaps the other way around. The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P was published in Japan in 1993 and became a bestseller, Kodansha International published the novel last year, 2009 in a translation by Michael Emmerich. The novel opens with Mano Kazumi visiting her novelist friend M. (a fictional cameo of author Rieko Matsuura perhaps?), they discuss the recent suicide of Kazumi's friend/boss Yoko, the relationship between Kazumi and Yoko runs as an undercurrent which is referred to throughout the novel to examine Kazumi's emotional make up,the two characters are contrasted,Yoko the stronger,and Kazumi as her slower on the up take employee. During Kazumi and M's conversation, Kazumi mentions that she had a vivid dream that the big toe on her right foot had turned into a penis, Kazumi asks M to pull her sock off to double check, and when she does, to their amazement 'The big toe of her right foot was a penis', the two consider the possibility that maybe her attribute could be a curse from Yoko. Leaving M's, Kazumi receives a call from her boyfriend Masao who is trying to avoid a call from his friend Haruhiko, recently shunned by his group of friends as he pinched someone else's girlfriend.Masao and Kazumi are planning to marry, anticipating how Masao will react to her news, Kazumi begins to contemplate sexual relationships from both male and female points of view,'It's a wonderful thing, the existence of two different sexes' she observes. During a role playing game in which they are pretending to both be males, Masao discovers her toe penis, but at the same time Haruhiko turns up in a rage, and Kazumi begins to suspect the two could be possilby having a gay relationship, Haruhiko blurts out that he and Masao once had a three some with a girl, Kazumi runs out of the flat. Meeting up again Masao explains his relationship with Haruhiko, that they aren't having a relationship, and Masao begins to slowly adjust to the change in Kazumi's toe.

There's a lot of exploratory dialogue between Masao and Kazumi exposing and exploring the two's thoughts and approaches to sex and sexual identity, maybe things alluded to in Middlesex are explored a little more in depth here, I read Middlesex quite a while ago, so my comparison might be hazy, Kazumi's newly attributed androgyny also seems to overspill onto other people that discover her toe too, and it's not long until cracks appear in the veneer of Masao's acceptance. One day his anger spills over and he tries to severe her toe, running away she finds refuge in a neighbour's apartment, the blind piano player and composer, Shunji. Looked after by his overbearing cousin Chisato, Shunji seems to be everything that Masao wasn't, Kazumi soon discovers that Chisato has been ripping off Shunji, and Kazumi slowly learns the reason for Shunji's ambivalent attitude towards sex, and their relationship grows. Chisato's overbearingness soon looses it's strength, and she introduces Kazumi to her new boyfriend, who turns out to be,a little incredibly, Haruhiko. Through conversations with Haruhiko there are further explorations into sexuality and sexual politics, Haruhiko's philosophy is quite close to adopting an 'anything goes' approach, but Kazumi has a much more reasoned rationale, and she's constantly sieving her emotions and experiences to reach her conclusions. Through Haruhiko, Kazumi learns of a travelling troupe called 'The Flower Show', a private show, featuring other people with unusual bodies, similar to Kazumi's, she's interested in meeting and possibly joining them, Shunji is also willing to go along, although we get a foreboding sign when Kazumi reflects on taking there phone number from Haruhiko 'I now regretted that I had let Haruhiko cajole me into even doing that'. Through The Flower Show, she meets the nihilistic Tamotsu and his girlfriend Eiko which leads Kazumi further into exploring the relationship between love and desire. The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P is an epic 447 pages but it's a deeply absorbing read, it won The Women's Literature Prize, a recent novel by Rieko Matsuura called Kenshin (2007), won the Yomiuri Prize.

 

Kodansha International

JLC4

Points and Lines

 

Points and Lines/Ten to sen was first published in Japan in 1958, Tsuneo Kobayashi adapted it for a film in the same year, and it was later filmed again as a tv series starring Kitano Takeshi. Many of Matsumoto's books have been adapted to film and television, another notable one being The Castle of Sand/Suna no utsuwa, directed by Yoshitaro Nomura with Tetsuro Tanba as Matsumoto's famous detective Imanishi, Castle of Sand appears in Imanishi Investigates translated by Beth Cary published by Soho Crime, Points and Lines is the book that produced a 'Matsumoto boom' after it's publication, it seems it's influence extended beyond the detective genre, as Dennis Washburn notes in his afterword to Tsutomu Mizukami's Temple of the Wild Geese that after reading Points and Lines Mizukami returned to writing after a ten year hiatus with the novel Fog and Shadow /Kiri to kage. Points and Lines opens with the discovery of what appears as a double love suicide, two lovers are found dead on a beach, the lovers, Otoki and Kenichi Sayama had taken Potassium Cyanide, at first it looks like an open shut case, but with the discovery of a dining ticket for one found in Kenichi's pocket,Torigai, a detective for the local police force begins to suspect that something doesn't quite add up. When the relatives of the deceased come to collect the bodies, a work colleague of Otoki, (who used to work as a waitress in a local restaurant), comes with her mother,she informs the police that she had seen Otoki leave with a man on a train, she had been at the station to see off one of her customers,who had insisted that she see him off at the train station.

It transpires that Kenichi Sayama had worked for a ministry that is under investigation for fraud, and Kiichi Mihara of the Metropolitan police force is sent to investigate the apparent suicides. Torigai passes on what he has learned about the case and Mihara agrees with Torigai that this may not be the simple case that was first presumed. Interviewing Tatsuo Yasuda the customer of Otoki's colleague who had seen Otoki and Kenichi leave on the train, the fact that maybe Yasuda had prearranged this meeting to use it as an alibi begins to form in Mihara's mind, Yasuda goes on to tell Mihara that he was away on business in Hokkaido during the time the suicides occurred. Thus unfolds the mystery Mihara has to begin to unwind, scrupulously studying train timetables, cross checking statements until, piece by piece, painstakingly he begins to dismantle Yasuda's alibi in a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Seicho Matsumoto began his prolific career when he was forty, he won many awards in Japan including the Akutagawa award in 1952 for his historical story Story of the Kokura Journal/Aru kokura nikki den. The short story The Face/Kao won the Japan Detective Story Writers Prize and can be found in the collection The Voice and other Stories. The translator James Kirkup wote in his obituary of him that he was a 'Japanese immortal'. Points and Lines was first published in English by Kodansha in 1970 translated by Mariko Yamamoto and Paul C.Blum, for more, read Dorothy Dodge Robbin's excellent piece on Matsumoto at Salem Press.

H

H :A Hiroshima Novel, is a book that has appeared under different titles, originally published in Japan in 1984 by Kodansha with the title Hiroshima, then in it's first English translation in 1990, it's title was 'The Bomb', then finally in the 1995 paperback edition here as, H :A Hiroshima Novel. The image above is a detail of the paperback edition , the original artist is unnamed. The translation into English is by D.H Whittaker. I've wanted to read this book for quite a while and started it not really knowing what to expect, Makoto Oda's novel opens in the desert near the Mexico border, just at the start of the Pacific War. Joe likes to go running in the mountains, and in the area that is known as White Sands. Joe works for Will on the old man's ranch and goes to church on Sundays to meet girls, one in particular, Peggy has had feelings for Joe for sometime, but hasn't acted on them. She learns that he's the famous runner, just like local hero Chuck, a native American who competed in the Olympics. Peggy has an older sister Susan and other characters around the small village/settlement are introduced, Mr Griggs who runs the local chemist, Ken who plans to buy the ranch from Will who will move on to Florida, he wants Joe to stay on at the ranch but Joe doesn't like Ken too much, besides after Pearl Harbour his draft is imminent. Chuck and his nephew Ron meet up in the desert, and Chuck talks about the Hopi , of Sotuknang and the Tawa, (in the novel spelt Taiowa), sensing they will be amongst the chosen to survive into the new world when the present world is about to be destroyed, they find a cave in the desert which they plan to use as a sanctuary.

Mr Griggs lost a leg fighting in the last war and his thoughts turn to a Japanese who fought along side him called Tajiri, that night he has a dream that he is on a bombing raid with Tajiri, strangely in the morning he recieves a letter from Tajiri saying that he is now in an internment camp, protesting that he had fought in the American army in the last war,but despite this he's imprisoned. Mr Griggs feels he alone is powerless to help his old comrade. People in the village start to complain about the Native Americans beliefs that they can't go to war, believing that they are related to the Japanese, rumour goes around that the Army are planning to take the land the Native American settlement is on and use it as some kind of testing site. The narrative focuses on life for the Japanese in the internment camp, along with Tajiri's family is the Nakata's from Hiroshima, in the camp groups are formed into those loyal to Japan and those with leanings to the Americans. One of Nakata's sons Tommy had returned to Japan, staying with an uncle, he's bullied at school. Time moves on in the village and Will returns on a visit from Florida, Joe's been drafted and Susan's husband Al sends letters back, he's fighting in the Pacific Islands, Ken tells him about the research center built behind his old ranch, in which their building some kind of rocket.

 

The novel shifts to telling the story of Eul Sun a Korean girl living in Hiroshima, and the hard life she has, marrying a Korean man much older than herself, he gets drunk and beats her, he eventually succumbs to tuberculosis. Again the narrative switches to another new character, Keiji from Osaka who has relocated to Hiroshima, attending the same school as Tommy Nakata,(or Tomio now that he's in Japan), Tomio caught in the bullying, bullied in America for being Japanese and then bullied in Japan, accused of being a spy by the other children. Keiji's cousin Kikuko is set to marry Lieutenant Hashida. In the village in the desert Chuck is found dead at the bottom of a precipice, some believe it was suicide. Mr Griggs is awoken early one morning by a light like a 'magnesium flash',and then the bang, George, a Native American witnesses it too from his prison cell, refusing the draft, he's imprisoned. Joe, on his third mission flight over the Japanese mainland gets shot down, as the crew bail out they ask, 'Where are we?', 'On the outskirts of Hiroshima' the answer comes. Kyoko, a friend of Kikuko, has been asked to visit a foreign exchange student in hospital, Hassan, on her way she sees some Americans who had been captured after they're plane had been shot down, (Joe). Kyoko manages to persuade the nurse to let her visit him although visiting hours hadn't started, when one of the nurses looking out of the window sees in the sky the silver reflection of the bomber and a black dot.

 

The second part of the novel, which is very brief only a few pages long, concerns Joe as he stumbles around the bombed ruins, blindfolded when captured he avoids being blinded by the flash,memories of Peggy and running in White Sands come to him,and hears a voice telling him to keep walking. Desperate for water he finds a river,then he's spotted by a group of children, most of them suffering from their burns, they discover he's American and they pull him to the ground. The last part of the novel is set in probably the 1980's in a hospital ward, Dan Peshrakai,a Native American who worked in the mines, extracting uranium for the center is dying of cancer. A boy is admitted to the ward, born blind, he too has stomach cancer, his parents died drinking contaminated water from a river near the mine. The boy exhibits strange behaviour, when asked what his name is,he tells them Ron,and he calls Dan, Chuck, after a while, Uncle Chuck. An American army veteran is put on the ward also suffering from cancer. The novel is interesting in a number of ways, although set against the backdrop of the Hiroshima bomb it looks at it's effects before it was dropped and after, also exploring numerous themes, race relations, Japanese internment camps, in this fictional account of the first nuclear testing, the Hopi way of life is explored quite in-depth in the book, and permeates throughout the novel, something I never knew about this until I picked up this novel. Another novel by Makoto Oda has also appeared in English translation, 'The Breaking Jewel', which I'd like to read in the future.

Makoto Oda at Time

Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters

Dream Messenger by Shimada Masahiko

Set just before the 'Ushinawareta Junen'  (lost decade), after the economic bubble burst, I'd read alot about this book, published in Japan in 1989 as Yumetsukai, a lot of criticism likened Shimada's style with Murakami's, although similar in places they have quite different approaches, a novel in four parts, with numerous sub headings, it's difficult from reading only one of Shimada's novels to make a fair comparison. There are quite a few references in the novel about the price of real estate spiraling out of control, which was a major factor in the economic burst, and in the novel the president of a real estate company is taken hostage, as if in some kind of possible fictional compensation, (?).

Maiko Rokujo, a broker's analyst receives a letter from Mika Amino, which reads,'Please find my son', Maiko Amino's late husband was a property speculator, and shes now a wealthy widower. After agreeing to see Mrs Amino, Maiko finds that her servant is Takahiko Kubi, who was once a popular novelist who had fallen heavily into debt after pursuing the dream of building an off shore city. Finding that he couldn't pay off his loans and just as he was about to jump off a building to end it all, he had the idea that he could sell himself, he put an advert in the paper - 'Pay off my debts, and I'll be your slave', Mrs Amino obliged. Mrs Amino tells Maiko her story, that before she was married to her late husband,she had a son, Masao, with another man, and that he had kidnapped Masao, she last saw him when he was three, also that he had a favourite pillow, which he called 'Mikainaito'. Masao speaks three languages Japanese, English and Cantonese, which he learnt from his baby sitter. Mrs Amino had placed an advert, for information from anyone who knew anything about 'Mikainaito'. After receiving some strange replies, someone from New York knew something and had a description fitting Masao's, but now goes by the name Matthew. Maiko's job was to go to New York and find out more from this man.

The narrative following Matthew's story starts to appear in a fragmentary way, after being beaten up by a gang, then breaking into an abandoned hotel for the night, and conversing with 'Mikainaito', he can't remember the past ten days. Maiko meets with the New York man, who is Japanese, Katagiri Yusaku, who with his wife had started an orphanage for children gone astray, Katagiri also dabbled in child psychology, and this is where Matthew had first come into contact with his guiding spirit, giving him the name 'Mikainaito', all the children at the orphanage had one. Matthew could also make Mikainaito visit people's dreams, at first making him visit Katagiri's wife when she was in hospital, all the children sent their guardian spirits to her, to help her recover. He tells Maiko that the last time he had heard from Matthew was that he had returned to Tokyo and was working as a translator at a magazine. Matthew has begun working in the 'friendship' business, Katagiri and his wife had also started to rent the children out, in a kind of extension to his sometimes strange psychology/ philosophy. Matthew as a hired friend helps out an array of ailing characters; a depressed Professor, a mother jealous of her daughter, Mariko's strange addiction, he acts as a kind of therapist.

Through a friend he helps a nihilistic rock singer, Tetsuya Nishikaze with his English, but ends up running out when the singer's anger spills over, ending in the fumbled kidnapping of the real estate president. Matthew's closest companion back in the orphanage was Penelope, but before they went their separate ways, they agree to meet up every three years, the only friendship he's had, is his relationship with Raphael Zac, who he met in gay bar.Takahiko Kubi meanwhile has been searching the streets around Shinjuku in an attempt to find Matthew, his luck changes one day after a meeting with a fortune teller, telling him he will meet a man who will end his confusion. Kubi gets diverted, and ends up having a one night stand at a love hotel called 'Norwegian Wood', after that he has a meal with a tramp, who tells him he is descended from the Heike clan. Not really sure where to turn next, out of the night a man approaches him, Raphael Zac, the link that might enable him to trace Matthew. Murakami comparisons aside, and now twenty years old, the novel has aged quite well, I enjoyed reading it, a kaliedoscopic portrait of Japan in the pre-milenium. This translation was by Philip Gabriel and was published by Kodansha, I can only hope more of Shimada's back list will make it to translation soon.