The Gun by Fuminori Nakamura

Although Nakamura's first novel, first published in 2003, and awarded the Shincho Prize, The Gun is the fourth novel of his to appear in English translation, this time by Allison Markin Powell, it's also great to see that the momentum of translations continues with another of Nakamura's novels on the way in 2016 also from Soho Crime, The Kingdom is set to be published in July. The Gun/Jū displays Nakamura's foray into dark psychologies with his central character Nishikawa who stumbles across a crime scene and procures from it a gun, listening to Nishikawa's inner ruminations can feel that we are taking a few steps into the realm of a character from Dostoyevsky, as step by step we begin to venture further and further into the world of a young man so disenchanted with life that the centre of his world begins to revolve around the found gun.

This obsession being essentially at the centre of the novel Nakamura's narrative inhabits a few other patches of distraction, firstly Nishikawa's relationships with two women in the novel, Yuko Yoshikawa, whom Nishikawa has the more deeper relationship and fascination with and also another woman whom Nishikawa eventually refers to as the 'toast girl' which is a more casual relationship, the pair seem to use each other solely to satisfy their own lusts. Out of the two women Yuko displays the more complexity as we see she and Nishikawa get closer then further away from each other, the reasons for this on her part never seem to become too obvious, a troubled past?. Secondly is the discovery that Nishikawa's biological father is dying of cancer, which seems to be an event that will shake Nishikawa off his obsession from the gun, and posits another possible opportunity to gain a differing perspective on his transfixation with it. Another similarity The Gun has with The Thief is the appearance of a child, a young boy, caught in an abusive situation with his single parent, similar also is the empathy the main character has towards the boy, and his desire to rescue him from his predicament. The Gun could be described as noir, and in many places it is, but there remains a deeper portrait of drab morality in all quarters of the novel which again could be described as resembling aspects from a Russian novel, this darkness Nakamura captures and conveys very well.

That said, the prose has a lightness to it making it highly readable and in places it makes for quick reading, at times it's unfolding events might be visualized in the form of a dark manga, when Nishikawa contemplates the gun and it's wider philosophy sometimes the images of thought bubbles appearing on the pages come to mind, and the ending bears the possibility as being visualized as filmic, in it's sudden and unpredicted way of turning the tables around over it's last pages. Through this though we see the beginnings of Nakamura's writing being drawn to the examination of one man's attraction to violence and follows him through his compulsion to act upon it, it's consequences for him remain on the pages beyond the end of this book, as deftly as the borderlines his characters find themselves drifting over.
  

The Gun at Soho Press     

The Thief - Fuminori Nakamura

 

 

The Thief is narrated by a compulsive pick pocket who steals beyond his needs and although being at the centre of the book there are a number of interesting characters floating around, off camera so to speak with lives which we are only given a glimpse of, most prominently is, Saeko, who the thief has had a relationship with in the past. The novel was awarded the 2010 Oe Kenzaburo Prize, and translated by Satoko Izumo and Stephen Coates, as of yet it's the only winner of the prize that has been translated into English, Yu Nagashima, who was awarded the prize in 2007 with Yuko-chan no Chikamichi has been translated into Spanish, and Toshiki Okada who was awarded the prize in 2008 for, Watashitachi ni Yurusareta Tokubetsu na Jikan no Owari, has been translated into German. Although quite a slight book its dimensions are at times broad, and in some ways its a novel of two parts, or perhaps a number of shifting perspectives of befores and afters. The thief, (in one quick scene his real name is revealed as Nishimura, is it?), is involved in a burglary where the real target is not money but a cache of documents, the crime involves himself, two men he knows and has a history with, but is organised by a bigger gang, headed by Kizaki who he is not familiar with but the money is good, although money seems to have relatively little value to him. After the burglary they are told  to leave Tokyo, parts of the narrative is made of the thief's memories of his friend Ishikawa, (whom he sees with a touch of sentiment, as being a master pick pocketeer), that drift back prior to the burglary, Ishikawa's history eclipses but falls short with that of the narrator's in the present tense, as we learn that Ishikawa was killed after the burglary by Kizaki.

 

Another story line that arises is that of the thief's relationship with a young boy who he observes stealing in a supermarket, noticing that the boy is being watched by the store detective, he lets the boy and his mother know that they have been seen, afterwards the boy attaches himself to the narrator following him to his apartment, the narrator falls into being a somewhat reluctant father figure to the boy giving him money to buy the items on a list given to him by his mother, rather than letting him to continue stealing them. The boy's mother works as a hostess, albeit as a slightly free agent, she provokes his memories of Saeko, and more details of their relationship begin to emerge. Kizaki re-appears with the request, (more of deadly ultimatum which potentially involves the boy and his mother), that the narrator carries out a couple of pick pocketing jobs for him. Whilst Kizaki sounds him out about the details of the two jobs, he relates a story about a French nobleman and a boy whose fate he chooses to control, in the story the malevolent nobleman orchestrates events in the boys life throughout his life as he gets older, the story sounds like it could have been lifted from the writings of de Sade but it presents an interesting conundrum about the nature of fate which is mirrored in the relationship between Kizaki and the thief, and also by a further extension between the thief and the boy that he is trying to steer onto the right path, it's an interesting moment in the novel, juxtaposing the harsh nature of fate whilst also pointing to Sartre's famous quotation: 'We are our choices'.

In some ways and places the novel is slightly formulaic, the omnipotent knowledge of the evil Kizaki reminded me slightly of Koyama in Matsuura's Triangle, but this aspect is redeemed in that the novel's concerns supersede them and creates a space to contemplate these themes and portrayals, and ultimately their consequences, there's a scene where the thief contemplates a scene from his school days, where the thief takes a valuable watch which breaks and his teacher scolds him by chastising that it was: Too good for trash like you!, and this comes across as being central to the book, a portrait of the distortion of values in a society where value is held or only estimated in material worth, by thieving the thief is attempting to escape or transcend these values, or in addition to deny their worth, and to keep that cryptic tower at bay.

The Thief at Soho Press and also Corsair

for Oe Kenzaburo Prize page at Kodansha         

Japan Earthquake Charity Literature Part 2

Since posting on this charity project two more short stories and an essay have been added to the Waseda Bungaku webpage. Nakamura Fuminori, whose Kenzaburo Oe Prize winning novel The Thief is due out in March from Soho Press, has the essay and observational piece 'When the Earthquake Hit', translated by Michael Staley, in which he recounts the day of the earthquake. From Jungo Aoki, who has been described as the Japanese Thomas Pynchon, comes the short story, Special Edition - Sack-toting Turtle Spotted in West Ikebukuro, translated by Ian McDonald, and Yoshikawa Yasuhisa's penetrative short story, Snow Dusk, Death Dusk, is translated by Lucy North.

Please remember to donate something via the Japanese Red Cross or through your country's Red Cross Society.

March Was Made of Yarn - Edited by David Karashima and Elmer Luke is published by Vintage in the USA in March, and also in the UK by Harvill Secker.

Japan Earthquake Charity Literature at Waseda Bungaku Department