Death by Choice by Masahiko Shimada

 

 

 

Death by Choice opens in the dream state of Kita Yoshio, in it a baby who appears as a judge sentences him to a death of his own choosing, Kita awakens as his plane touches down, returning to Tokyo after visiting his father's grave in Dazaifu. From early on in this well paced novel the premise is outlined quite simply that Kita has reached the decision to kill himself at the end of a week, the novel unfolds throughout chapters diaristically entitled by the passing days, when starting the novel the distant last chapter has the enigmatic title, 'someday', which casts the shadow of a question mark over how Kita's story might turn out. The novel rather than being a stickler for realism reads as a series of juxtapositions of the circumstances in the lives of the people Kita encounters who themselves by varying degrees have some relationship to death, though focusing on death the narrative inadvertently casts a turnaround glance to those living, their lives and values. The novel resembles being somewhere between bucket list and road movie, with ample space given over to moral circumspection, Kita sets out to fulfill some of his deeper desires in his last week, with his life savings to spend money is not much of a problem. After a rather spontaneous and chance meeting with the dubious  Yashiro, (the owner of a film company and a man with many resourceful connections), Kita's first liaison is with a porno star, Mitsuyo, and inadvertently with a group of her friends, one of these, Zombie has attempted suicide four times. Moving onto Atami the three encounter an ageing gangster who tells him of his life and he tries to install in them a sense of an 'enjoy life while you can' approach, this miniature narrative within a narrative has the feel of a morality tale. Another desire Kita would like to fulfill is to meet the star Shinobu Yoimachi, Yashiro begins to organize the meeting, and another is to meet with an ex from his past whom he had nearly married, whilst reading these encounters there's the anticipation  that perhaps one of them will convince or jolt him into changing his mind about his death by choice, as the week progresses Kita observes a countdown, perhaps this is my sixth last ever meal, he notes.

Throughout Kita's encounters Shimada's control of the mood in the narrative is remarkable, Kita seamlessly moves between a complete range of emotions and states of mind, probably one of the most well conceived scenes of the novel is when Kita returns to visit his mother who is beginning to show signs of senility. Looking around the house he notes how things have remained the same, a set of illustrated reference books that he used as a child have been in the same place for twenty years, although Kita's father has been dead for sometime his mother sets his place at the table thinking he'll be returning at any moment, when leaving Kita imagines how he and his father will appear in his mother's imagination - 'Yoshio and his Dad would be there in a corner of her brain, remembering things with an occasional laugh together, smoking, clipping their nails, flipping through the newspaper and easing out an occasional silent fart', despite it's irreverence the scene has a poignancy which is hard to escape. As the week passes the peripheral characters that Kita comes into contact with also have a close proximity to death, when pursuing his ex at a hospital he encounters a couple of patients talking who have a terminal disease, and earlier in the novel he meets an elderly couple who are intending to travel until they drop in what they call their 'fall by the wayside trip', and to make the gulf between life and death increasingly thinner we learn that their son had passed away due to cancer, in these scenes we witness different attitudes and responses to death and are reminded that Kita is heading towards it and most of these characters are trying to avoid it.

Kita's meeting with Shinobu Yoimachi is arranged, a star who's soul is being slowly sucked out and body sold off by those pretending to be her management, she turns to the bible. The two begin to form a genuine empathy towards each other which leads them into feigning her kidnapping by means of escape, as Kita too is trying to evade the parasitical Yashiro, which turns into a national man hunt for them, Yashiro employs an assassin in the shape of a doctor to track them down, which leads the novel's action to Niigata. As with the changing moods of the narrative, Shimada builds the tension within the narrative to climatic degrees and manages to continue to pursue it through the pieces after it has burst, which adds to the build up of the how, when and will of Kita's exit, the novel is probing and has in places a dark satirical edge to it which dips into the sublime when needed, accompanied by an author's afterword in which he explains his motives for writing the novel. Death By Choice is translated by Meredith McKinney.

Death By Choice at Anthem Press

 

Four new titles from Thames River Press

Another brief post to mention more good news of more forthcoming translations appearing this year. Thames River Press are publishing four titles in hardback editions from the JLPP list all due for publication next month -


God's Boat/Kamisama no boto by Kaori Ekuni, (translated by Chikako Kobayashi), a novel which sounds thematically similar to Kawakami Hiromi's Manazuru, involving a missing partner and a mysterious past, originally appeared in Japan in 1999. JLLP page.


Mandala Road/Mandaro do by Masako Bando, translated by Wayne P.Lammers, novel from Bando who writes children's fiction, this sounds like an intriguing title that spans two generations of the Nonezawa family, the JLLP page describes the key points being - An immense human drama played beyond time and space. - Overlapping love and hate relationships that never end between men and women. - A destiny full of ups and downs of a woman who came to Japan from the Malay Peninsula, more on this novel at the JLLP page.


A Thousand Strands of Black Hair/Chisuji no kurokami by Seiko Tanabe, (translated by Meredith McKinney), a novel that follows the lives of poets Akiko and Tekkan Yosano, an older novel that first appeared in 1975. JLLP page.


Death by Choice/Jiyu shikei by Masahiko Shimada, (translated by Meredith McKinney), have to admit that Death by Choice is probably the first out of these four novels that I'll go for, (review forthcoming!), follows Yoshio Kita a normal company worker who decides to commit suicide, he gives himself a week to explore and fulful his desires. The JLLP page gives the English title as Death Penalty, although Death by Choice seems to be more an exacting title, originally appeared in Japan in 1999.


It's really great to see another publisher take up titles from the JLPP and looking through the back lists of available translations there are still a great many novels yet to be published, so here's hoping.

Thames River Press

JLLP


Also to ammend this post with another title, in November Thames River Press will publish Jasmine/Jasumin a 2004 novel from Akutagawa and Tanizaki Prize Winner Noboru Tsujihara, translated by Juliet W. Carpenter.

Jasmine at Thames River Press

Fukko Shoten

Masahiko Shimada has launched an online book store, Fukko Shoten, (Revival and Survival), to help contribute to Japanese Red Cross and other organisations, other authors contributing include Nobuko Takagi, Banana Yoshimoto, Miri Yu.



http://fukkoshoten.com/

Japanese Red Cross Society

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.