Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure

Perhaps on a first reading of Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, what first remains is a sense of distance imparted to the reader, although written and published in the immediate months after the disaster that hit Fukushima and the North East in 2011, Furukawa's blend of fiction and non-fiction, travelogue and memoir creates a space for contemplation and presents various perspectives of narrative, early on in the book the phrase 'use imagination for the good' reaches out and stays with the reader. With it's blend of voices Horses, Horses searches out for the narratives not found in official history books in an attempt to reclaim and present the authentic, there is a fascinating use of allegory within Furukawa's telling of the history of the horses associated with the area of the North East, in particular with Soma City which carries within it's name the word horse, reading this allegory and the way Furukawa has structured this element of the book brought to mind Julian Barnes's A History of the World in Ten and 1/2 Chapters, which similarly presents an alternate allegorical perspective of history. Furukawa pinpoints two figures from medieval Japan, Hideyoshi Toyotomi and Oda Nobunaga in his observations of historical paths.

The main branch of narrative of Horses, Horses is of Furukawa caught between writing projects and of the sequence of the events of the disaster unfolding, his personal history of this period is examined and then returned to when being both in and outside of Japan. This proceeds with him and colleagues from his publishers hiring a car to travel to the area to see how close they can go, (the slowly enlarging red circles of the exclusion zones feature), Furukawa toys with the notion of exposing himself to the radiation, and confronts suicidal feelings unexpectedly arising that he assumed he had over come in his youth. There's a measured economy to the prose, the reader very much gets the sense that although with the literary experimentation, the dipping into fiction and non-fiction, (in places in a talking direct to the camera type of way, with the appearance of a character from one of his novels in the car that they are travelling in), Furukawa is not attempting to place words where they cannot be placed, it very much feels that apprehension is never too distant from the surface.

Along the way there are number of names referenced, one of the first being The Beatles in particular their songs Strawberry Fields and Tomorrow Never Knows, with it's screeching sound at it's beginning which sounds similar to that of the squawk of a gull, poetically evocative of being at the coast and in a way a warning cry. A number of Japanese writers are mentioned, in particular Miyazawa Kenji and Nakagami Kenji, both writers Furukawa obviously has an affinity and strongly identifies with, similar themes and motifs appear in their works, animals, and the sense of alternate histories being written and born out of alternative myth. Another aspect that appears whilst reading the book is a rather pensive sense of apprehension and fear, this is highlighted in the quote that Furukawa borrows from Nakagami, and Furukawa later examines this fascination of dates - 3.11 - 9.11, and of how these events cannot be confined to a single day, although the book has the subtitle - A Tale That Begins With Fukushima, it also feels that it resembles a memoir of an approach. Throughout these narratives there are incidences of subtle poetical examinations of the second part of it's title - that of light and in one place the prose arrives at a stop and Furukawa turns to poetry to express himself. Throughout it's various modes of narrative Horses, Horses moves and posits questions in equal measure.


Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, translated by Doug Slaymaker and Akiko Takenaka is available via Columbia University Press
            

Triangle by Hisaki Matsuura

Forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press, Triangle is translated by David Karashima, it could be said that it could be added to the slowly growing number of titles that feature the presence of two celestial globes, although Triangle predates another well known one, (Murakami's 1Q84), by some years, it seems that perhaps the presence of two moons or two suns could become the common motif of novels with characters that find themselves caught in alternative realities, maybe one of the earliest appearances of this could be in The Invention of Morel by the Argentine novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares which was published in 1940. Perhaps the protagonist of Triangle, Otsuki, doesn't find himself in an alternative reality in a literal sense, but does find himself becoming embroiled in dark circles which he struggles to comprehend across this at times unsettling novel.

With an unsettling film at its centre the narrative style of Triangle also feels in places cinematic and could perhaps be described as being a blending of somewhere between Yamada Taichi and the darker side of Murakami Ryu, much of the novel is situated in Tokyo's Taitō District in particular San'ya, a notoriously rough and rundown area. Otsuki is a rather dissolute character, a recovering drug addict, who on returning home one night encounters an old acquaintance, Sugimoto, standing out in the street in only his boxers and vest, (this rather enigmatic incidence is returned to later in the novel and given it's fuller and darker context), through Sugimoto's insistence and the offer of easy work Otsuki is introduced to Koyama, an older man whom Otsuki begins to understands is a renowned calligrapher whose home is labyrinthine with glass panelling and conservatory, at first Otsuki imagines that he is needed to act as a translator into French, but Koyama shows him a film that he has been working on. The film is experimental in nature, a young woman or teenager is seen having sex with an older man, these scenes are cut and interposed with close up images of various insects, later Otsuki is introduced to the young woman as being Koyama's granddaughter, Tomoe, Otsuki is propositioned with completing the film.

To degrees the novel's concerns could be seen as being about the fabric of identity, over the course of the book and through scenes of violent intimidation and torture, at the hands of Koyama's brutal henchman, Takabatake, who also turns out to be the man in the film with Tomoe, Otsuki is faced with re-constructing and de-constructing his own identity, in the past he had burnt out in a normal 9 to 5 job, but finds himself unable to live with the alternatives and finds himself seeking again the reliable safety, albeit the emptiness of this kind of existence. Another interesting aspect to the novel is some of the parallels going on subtly with the narratives, Otsuki's voice is that of the contemporary man and his dilemmas, the extremes that he faces in the novel represent in a way extremes that the age faces, counter to his is Koyama's, the elder established man, in another way Koyama, who we believe at first to be a darkly cultivated aesthete offers the deeper, although much darker, philosophical voice, added to this the narrative poses some post-modernist musing about the fallible nature of representation in the arts. Throughout the novel, Otsuki is caught between two women, Hiroko, a married woman who he is a having an affair with who offers to leave her husband for him and also, Tomoe, the central and most enigmatic character of the novel, (there are at times rumours of levitation), whom Otsuki becomes increasingly infatuated with. Otsuki finds himself filming in San'ya above Takabatake's shop which in places is a curiously laid out and reconstructed replica of Koyama's house.

The threads of the novel begin to come together, or perhaps untogether when Hiroko's husband begins to drop clues after her disappearance, pursuing Otsuki over an incriminating ledger filled with names and also begins to fill in the blanks concerning Koyama whose past holds the truth to his assumed identity, Hiroko's past as well is not what Otsuki believed it to be and forges links to places he'd rather not acknowledge. Dalkey Archive describe Triangle as a moral tale gone wrong, and the darkness here seems to swamp the light, it fuses and defuses in almost equal measure, unnervingly, rather than concluding it seems to point to further darkness, further corruptions and whilst reading it provokes questions on the dilemma of how modern or contemporary novels might depict or mirror the contemporary world that create them.

Triangle at Dalkey Archive 



              

"'Love'" and Other Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it comes to anthologies and collections I've a tendency not to read them cover to cover but to slowly read them story by story over a period of time, recently I've read Mishima's short story Tamago/Eggs, (1953), translated by Adam Kabat that was collected in Kodansha's Showa Anthology, a surreal satire that follows a group of students caught in a world of egg shaped authority figures, which is quite at odds with themes that are usually associated with Mishima's stories and novels, also reading Behold My Swarthy Face's recent questions and study guide for Tanizaki's Mr Bluemound, a slight tugging is now pulling me towards a reading of this story.

Fortunately an affordable copy of "'Love'" and Other Stories of Yokomitsu Riichi, translated and introduced by Dennis Keene, (Tokyo University Press), came my way recently, alongside Kawabata Yasunari, Yokomitsu, (1898-1947), is probably one of the most well known exponents of late Taisho/early Showa era modernism, together with other writers they famously formed the group Shinkankakuha. As it's been noted by many observers though  Yokomitsu seemed to keep his distance to any particular school of writing. 'Love and Other Stories' presents eleven of Yokomitsu's stories, including the story Smile/Bisho which was published posthumously the year after his death in 1947, also included is Spring Riding in a Carriage and the much discussed story Machi no Soko/The Depths of the Town, or Depths of the City as it's also often referred to. Reading the stories out of sequence the first that I found myself totally immersed in was After Picking Up a Blue Stone/Aoi ishi o hirotte kara, the narrative of which follows a man tripping on a stone which after he studies it notes it's blue hue, he briefly meets up with his girlfriend before getting the urge to return home to his sister in Kobe. Whilst there they receive a telegram from their mother in Korea informing them that their father has passed away, the narrator crosses over to Korea. On arrival he learns of the financial straits his parents were in due to the fact that they had lent money out, including to their neighbours where the father of the house is suffering from dysentery. The portrait of his parent's neighbour-hood is one of destitution, poverty is rife, a beggar stumbles around the neighbourhood where gangs of youths roam on drugs, the narrator finds that he has to adjust to the role of debt collector to find the funds so that he and his mother can return to Japan. It's while the narrator goes about this that he undergoes a kind of transformation, he breaks off his engagement with his fiancee, and when he picks up the box containing his father's ashes and feels the remainder of his bones knocking the edges Yokomitsu manages to transform his narrator's incredulous feelings about death and his inability to reconcile his father's passing to the point where the reader begins to question the tangibility of life, the narrator does manage to recuperate enough money to get their return fare and on his return he suffers a dissolution of his will and struggles to repress feelings of suicide. Toward the end of the story the narrator comes across a black stone and contemplates on what would have happened if it had been black to begin with, the arbitrariness of the paths life takes, or that of the decisions his characters make that lead them there is a reoccurring element in Yokomitsu's stories.

The following story, The Pale Captain/Aoi taii , sees some of the same events or scenes of After Picking Up a Blue Stone, although from a slightly different perspective, this experimenting quality works to expand the original story to the degree where it could be easy for the reader to begin to question which of them is the original story?. Here the narrative examines the household of his mother's neighbours in Korea to a further degree, the figure of the daughter is referred to almost in passing in After Picking Up a Blue Stone, but here much more detail is filled in her character, the narrator sees the potential of a possible relationship with her and the reason that he broke off his engagement becomes apparent, other plot lines hinted to in the previous story are also given fuller explanation in The Pale Captain, a masochism of the narrator becomes apparent in him when he reduces the daughter to tears as her father's illness has brought him close to death, but there's also the notion that this is an attempt to dissipate their joint grief, although there's also the notion that he is taking advantage of her, he leads her off to a place out of sight. Another key scene in The Pale Captain is toward the end and the narrator is walking in the muddied paths of the neighbourhood, we learn that the beggar has passed away and the narrator morbidly looks around for the death mask imprinted in the mud where the beggar fell face down, looking at the impression of the face, the scene has an over all feeling of a dark sublimity.

Two more of the stories work in the same way of examining the same events and characters from different perspectives, or from different points of time within the same story - Spring Riding in a Carriage/Haru wa basha ni notte and Ideas of a Flower Garden/Hanasono no shiso, Spring Riding in a Carriage follows the narrator as he nurses his wife who is dying of T.B, whilst reading the story it's hard not to see parallels with Hori Tatsuo's Kaze Tachinu/The Wind Has Risen, (Studio Ghibli adaption forthcoming), which must have been written around the same time, although Yokomitsu's approach is not quite so detached to the extent of Hori's. Yokomitsu's fascination with science has been well documented, this can be seen in some of the stories here, his prose sometimes  reads with an almost scientific detachment, which in places reminded me of Abe Kobo, particularly in the industrial setting of The Machine/Kikai, which follows a worker who through a set of shifting circumstances finds himself working in a nameplate factory, at first the narrator scrupulously observes the man who is senior, Karube, and his ingratiating ways, the situation worsens when after a large order is received a worker, (Yoshiki), from a rival firm is used to help them complete the order, suspicions arise that he is stealing the secrets of their work methods. The story also has a slight metaphorical quality to it, the machine as well as referring to the industrial equipment around them also refers to the process of living, or perhaps the struggle of existence, the narrator at various times re-examines his reasons and motives for staying in the job, he doubts the sanity of his boss whom it always seems to be loosing money.

Probably one of the fascinating elements of these stories is of Yokomitsu's ability to transcend and merge different styles, Machi no soko/The Depths of the Town, displays an interesting use of lyrical abstraction, it's essentially a plotless story, the narrative presents a panoramic perspective of a town/city scape, the story is a slow moving pictorial snapshot. The Defeated Husband/Maketa otto offers an in depth psychological portrait of a loveless marriage, seen through the eyes of the husband who we discover is caught between conflicting emotions for three women - his wife, who often cheats on him, a woman who works at a bookstore, and also Kanko, a woman from the narrator's hometown, whom the narrator feels is the only woman who truly ever loved him. Yokomitsu adds a twist to the portrait that every time the man suffers a defeat at the hands of his wife he falls into a cycle of self hatred and loathing, it seems almost impossible for the narrator to break out of this circle. After a visit from an old friend, Mishima, the narrator returns to his hometown and perhaps to potentially take up with Kanko, but this attempt at escape proves futile and he dutifully returns home to a devastating discovery, the story ends with the cycle being broken and the narrator finds himself out on the street, suddenly facing a tall building in front of him which represents his renewed sense of freedom and confidence.

Another story that seems to dip into different styles is The Carriage/Basha, another penetrating psychological portrait follows Yura, a man who is suffering from mental exhaustion due to overwork. Through arrangements made by a friend he takes a trip to an onsen for people suffering from similar complaints. At first he warily observes the other people at the onsen contemplating what maladies each of them suffer from, after a while he meets a man who starts talking to him enthusiastically about the skill of divining the future, later we learn his name is Dr Kona, another character that features is a man who displays erratic behaviour at first referred to as the Tenri man. Slowly another plot line emerges describing a village close by called Yumedono, (Keene notes the name "Dream Hall", also pointing to the octagonal hall of the same name at Hōryū-ji/ 法隆寺 Temple in Nara), which is home to a leper colony, the village is seen as being cut off from the civilised world, but Yura learns of a beautiful young woman who lives there who appears not to be affected by the disease. Through the progression of the story it becomes apparent that the woman is Dr Kona's daughter, Hanae, and as Yura becomes closer to Dr Kona the Tenri man's behaviour becomes more erratic, making advances towards Yura which spurs Yura into numerous conjectures, a scene at the onsen where the Tenri man licks the legs of Yura is one which could possible figure from a scene found in ero guro. Through Yura's hypothesizing he comes to the understanding that perhaps the Tenri man is jealous of his closeness to Dr Kona and Hanae who the Tenri man has feelings for, and also that potentially Dr Kona is trying to arrange it that Yura marries Hanae. At the center of these interests is Hanae, and Yura is left facing the decision to stay or to return to Tokyo, to the point where the carriage comes to return Hanae to the village, leaving him but a moment to make his decision. An important collection which it could be said is somewhat of a travesty to have been allowed to slip out of print.

Through Keene's translations we get an insight into the narrative power of Yokomitsu's stories, and finishing reading them provokes a reading of a number of other books, including -

Yokomitsu Riichi - Modernist - Dennis Keene

Kannani and Document of Flames - Yuasa Katsuei

Topographies of Japanese Modernism - Seiji M. Lippit

Shanghai - Yokomitsu Riichi

An interesting article on Shinkankaku at ejcjs

          

We, the Children of Cats

We, the Children of Cats collects together five short stories and three novellas from Tomoyuki Hoshino, 星野 智幸, translated by Brian Bergstrom with one of the stories being translated by Lucy Fraser and is published by PM Press. Hoshino was awarded the Oe Kenzaburo Prize in 2011 for Ore Ore/It's Me It's Me, it would be great to a see a translation of this novel into English in the near future, it looks like a translation of Hoshino's first novel by Brent Lue could be in the pipeline. Oe has said of Hoshino, "I see [in Hoshino] an ability to truly think through fiction that recalls Kobo Abe. This superlative ability makes even the most fantastical details and developments read as perfectly natural", PM Press also publish another novel from Hoshino The Lonely Hearts KIller/Ronrii haatsu kiraa, translated by Adrienne Hurley. Hoshino has also won the Noma Prize and has been nominated for the Akutagwa Prize twice, once for the novella Sand Planet - which is included here, a story Hoshino was inspired to write after watching the documentary Homesick in my Dreams by film maker Jun Okamura, the collection is also accompanied by a preface by Hoshino and an expansive and thorough  afterword from Brian Bergstrom. Hoshino's shorter fictions are at times composed of highly compressed inverse narratives, metaphors often turn inside out, reading them the reader has to usually keep an alert eye out on what is taking place in the allegorical. The pieces here give a wide and varied impression of Hoshino's concerns,  appearance and identity become porous, equational thinking is rethought and reproduces answers that challenge straight forward and preconceived notional thinking. In the opening story Paper Woman, reality and an imagined world converge, the inital narrator, (also named Hoshino), meets an author of a story about a woman who could only eat paper, eventually she herself turns to paper, the projected narrative supercedes over the opening one, the relationship progresses eventually spawning a son - Kazuyoshi. The story is a complex and highly allegorical one about the relationship between literature, author and reader.

In The No Fathers Club, which has also appeared in the recent anthology Digital Geishas and Talking Frogs, an imaginary world is initiated after the narrator watches a game of no ball soccer, a game played with an imagined ball, the description of this game seems to briefly capture in microcosm the spontaneously absurd animation of the modern world, this soccer game leads however to the The No Fathers Club, a club whose members fathers have died prematurely, the club is formed by the narrator and friend Yosuke and then later Kurumi, with whom the narrator seems to form an attachment to, Yosuke eventually leaves the club by stating that his (imagined) father committed suicide. Kurumi and the narrator organise a meeting with their respective fathers. Chino, translated by Lucy Fraser is narrated by a young man who gives up his part time jobs and travels to "a small country below Mexico" intending to join a group of guerrillas, examples of Hoshino's fascination of South America appear throughout many of these stories. The narrator seems to disassociate himself from his fellow Japanese, rich kids travelling on the cheap, pretending at roughing it out. When reaching the village where he's expecting to make contact with the guerrillas he meets a young Japanese woman who has beaten him to it and appears to have assimilated herself into the country, she only acknowledges him in Spanish, the narrator learns of her history and of how it has come about that she has remained in the village, in repeated episodes throughout the story the narrator is mistakenly identified as being a Chino, (Chinese), which provokes explorative questions on the nature of national identities, the story at various times and places brought to mind the fiction of Ikezawa Natsuki. We, the Children of Cats, follows Masako and Naru a young couple as they come under pressure from their family to have a baby, the history and nature of their relationship is partially explained through a series of passages relating a phone conversation they have, their history entwines with recent episodes from Japanese history, the Sarin Gas attack, the Kobe earthquake. The couple's decision not to try for a child is explored and juxtaposed against Masako's gay friend who is desperate to become a father, through a series of comparative reflections resolutions are readdressed, and in the background of this a visitation by a mysterious cat called Soccer. One of the most challenging stories is Air, opening with an excruciating graphic scene of a broken hearted man gripped in an act of self harm, inflicting pain in order to find some evidence of his existence, through the use of motifs consisting of a musical score by Toru Takemitsu and the narrator playing the flute given to him before the man at the centre of his affections,Tsubame, had left for Mexico, the story vividly explores the narrator's sexual identity. Attending a gay rights parade the narrator meets another uncertain participant, the dual nature of his sexuality and identity is represented with descriptions of an invisible physical self, which through his self harm has been tampered with.

The first of the three novellas is Sand Planet, whose main character, Yoshinobu, is a reporter who writes up cases for Saitama Prefecture Police Press, initially following Yoshinobu as he investigates a poisoning of lunch boxes at an elementary school the novella takes in three, or perhaps four other narratives as it progresses and then finishes by linking them together. The main theme of the story is one of redemption and of the re-establishing of life's validity. Whilst investigating the poisoning Yoshinobu receives a call to investigate homeless people in the Urawa Forest, through meeting a local councilors friend, Yayoi Sakai, Yoshinobu learns of the story of her brother, Misao, who had emigrated from Japan after the war. Whilst this narrative is unfolding there runs another developing narrative line of Yoshinobu's own, the story opens with the death of his father and the family's decision of burying him in the garden, once this fact is discovered by their neighbours, the family are punished, Yoshinobu is in the process of redefining his life and it's meaning and through out there are episodes in which he finds solace and a sense of regenerative power through laying with the earth. The narrative moves on, later after Yoshinobu's mother passes away Yoshinobu drives to the forest and witnesses an elderly man talking to himself in a broken verse, of Urashima Taro, the Republica Dominicana, the man seems to be enacting out a performance for an audience of only one. Another of the narratives begins with the story of a group of missing elementary children who are found in the Sayamma Hills who are from the same school that witnessed the poisoning, Yoshinobu tracks down a homeless woman who had looked after the children for one of the nights that they had been missing. She describes that the children refused to speak and showed her a booklet that they self produced telling that they had taken a vow of silence, 'words have reached their end', one of the pages reads. As the narratives begin to appear to relate to each other Yoshinobu writes up his piece and notes to himself in an Abe-esque observation - 'This is the truth. We mustn't let facts deceive us'. The two following novellas collected here are Treason Diary and A Milonga for the Melted Moon. Finishing these stories and novellas is like stepping back from a vista where the world has briefly appeared in it's truer or more original and realigned form, shot through with dynamic paradoxes and an unerring ambition to challenge, taking uncharted routes and reconfiguring truths that do indeed lodge themselves in the reader, unreservedly recommended, my thanks go to PM Press.

We, the Children of Cats at PM Press

Tomoyuki Hoshino's page at PM Press

        

Wind and Stone

This novel by Masaaki Tachihara, (1926-1980), tells the story of an affair between a gardener, Kase, and his clients wife, Mizue, she had first encountered Kase some years previously when he worked as an assistant gardener for her parents. The narrative moves quickly telling the story of Mizue's parents death and that of the suicide of her brother after his business fails, Mizue marries to Shida Eiji and begins to raise a family, after moving into a new home Shida employs Kase through a mutual recommendation. The novel weaves between incorporating informative elements and historical texts from traditional Japanese landscape gardening and exploring the emotional complexities faced by each character as the consequences of the affair begin to take their toll. The narrative follows Kase as he plans and constructs the Shida's garden, this process takes many months to implement and is informed by the changing seasons, in between his visits to see how the garden is growing Mizue begins to feel Kase's presence in the garden, she feels that the stones are his eyes keeping watch over her, and that each time she looks at the garden some new aspect about it occurs to her, elements that she had at first not noticed. Kase is a man with a history which still encroaches into his life, already married twice, although these failed due to his absence whilst away working, Emiko still visits him. When Kase travels to Yamagata to work on the garden of an artist Mizue's feelings begin to reach a new level of turmoil, she is gripped by guilt by their meetings, not so much as a woman but as a mother.

Each chapter begins with Kase reflecting on books from the history of Japanese landscaping including, Sakuteiki, 作庭記, commonly known as The Records of Garden Making, and recalls that as a youth he had runaway to visit the gardens at Tofuku-ji Temple in Kyoto, his thoughts on what he agrees and disagrees with classical gardening align with his feelings on the affair and Mizue. The balance of the perspectives of the characters is quite a panoramic one, within the novel aspects of the characters lives which are not related to the affair come into view, with Shida we encounter him when he is dealing with business relating to his family owned business of curing hams. At an intervention of sorts from his mother, Kase is introduced to another woman in Kyoto, Tamiko, whose husband had recently died, the two families know each other and are trying to arrange the marriage, Kase manages to keep the fact that he is seeing Tamiko from Mizue but this is only temporary. The novel is full of allusions to the traditional, but at its core has a devastating sense of emotional bereftness in the wake of the affair, the novel's characters are reduced to the elemental forces referred to in it's title and through Kase's observations. 

What attracted me to reading this novel was the discovery that Yoshida Kiju had based his film Jyouen on one of Tachihara's novels and with this in mind whilst reading I envisioned reading this to a degree a'la Yoshida, some scenes in particular stood out in particular when seen from this perspective. Tachihara was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize and won the Naoki Prize in 1966, the novel was translated by Stephen W. Kohl.

Wind and Stone at Stone Bridge Press 

more information via Kamakura City website on Tachihara Masaaki

Read as part of the Japanese Literature Challenge 6

Embracing Family by Nobuo Kojima

Embracing Family/Houyou kazoku won Nobuo Kojima the first Tanizaki Prize awarded back in 1965, like his earlier short story, The American School, (trans.William F.Sibley), the novel shares its setting immediately after the Pacific War, (although maybe a few years later), and explores the effects of the presence of the occupying forces, in The American School it is viewed through a group of teachers as they march towards the school they are scheduled to teach at, in Embracing Family it's seen through the domestic setting of the Miwa family. Shunsuke is a Professor who has lectured on Japanese Literature in America and also within Japan he lectures on the American way of life, he is married to Tokiko and they have a son, Ryoichi and a daughter, Noriko, with few characters to the novel it at times resembles the framework of a play. An addition to this family setting is a maid, Michiyo, and also an American soldier, (George), who has gone AWOL, his presence in the household has been initiated by another American called Henry whose mistress is Michiyo's sister. Through an accusation by Michiyo that Tokiko and George are having an affair the novel turns its attention to examine the fragilities of Tokiko and Shunsuke's marriage, the novel operates on different levels, addressing and presenting various issues, although in comparing it to The American School, in Embracing Family the differences, and to a degree the opposing aspects between American and Japanese culture appear more referentially. Tokiko persuades Shunsuke that perhaps Michiyo is manipulating the truth and that George had forced himself on her, she had kept quiet in order not to wake the children, Tokiko points out as well to the fact that Michiyo's accusations have the potential to ruin the family's reputation, but at the same time Tokiko seems to want to prolong her contact with George who represents an escape from the drudgery of her domestic servitude. Shunsuke arranges to meet George with Tokiko in an attempt to establish the truth but the meeting ends with Shunsuke yelling at George, "Yankee, Go home!".

After the turmoil of the affair eventually dissipates, through Tokiko's instigation the family purchases a plot of land, forty minutes from Shinjuku, (which slightly reveals the novel's age), to build a designer new home which features a Western bath room and other examples of Western design, radiators, etc, it acts as a kind of a hybrid between the two cultures, but Kojima adds a symbolical element to it's description in that the ceiling develops a leak when it rains. Shunsuke's impression of the American way of life appears more pragmatic as opposed to Tokiko's which remains slightly more idealistic. It becomes apparent that Shunsuke too had had an affair before he left for the war, although within the novel it doesn't seem to count as much as Tokiko's affair, Tokiko openly states that if she were younger she would have gone with George, and he counters that he had no feelings for the woman he had an affair with, the couples arguing is often reduced to Shunsuke and Tokiko equally accusing each other that - you don't understand what it's like to be a woman/you don't know what it is to be a man, their arguments are frustratingly unresolved, which give them an intense tangibility, to the extent that in the novel Shunsuke suffers physical pain at the things Tokiko says to him, he consults a doctor. Although I struggled to reconcile in places with the way that Shunsuke thinks about women, for instance at the end of the novel when he is looking for a second wife, and to degrees the perception of women within the novel as a whole is one that I'd like to think is something leftover from the old world, despite this Tokiko comes across as an incredibly strong character although her strength disguises a vulnerable and uncertain inner world, in the past we learn that she has had plastic surgery and her teeth strengthened, the fact that she and Shunsuke sleep in separate rooms adds another complex aspect to their married life, which is a taught one but at the same time quite open, Shunsuke ponders whether he should have actually allowed the affair to continue, and confesses that he perhaps regrets his marriage.

Not long after moving into the new house Tokiko discovers a lump in her breast and the novel begins to turn in a completely different direction and tone, events and things said in the past can be viewed and reassessed from the viewpoint of this new perspective, the novel carries a great sense that time is finite and is a constantly moving line crossing the lives of it's characters, pushing the reader unconsciously to contemplate these perspectives. Whilst Tokiko is in hospital the narrative follows the domestic scene continuing at home that Shunsuke struggles to maintain as well as following his inner anguish, at many points he has an almost uncontrollable desire to share his inner world with the external one, the narrative juxtaposes to palpable effect Shunsuke's inner turmoil with that of the indifferent world going on around him. The back of the book has a quote from novelist Shimada Masahiko  that, 'Embracing Family should be read by all American readers', obviously that between the forty odd years since its publication the novels contemporary message has faded somewhat but its has lost nothing in the power of its unflinching humanism.

Embracing Family at Dalkey Archive Press  

Single Sickness and Other Stories

Recently published in paperback as a part of Cornell University's New Japanese Horizons Series is a selection of short stories by Masuda Mizuko, translated by Lynne Kutsukake, although it is a slight cliche to say it but the only drawback with this absorbing collection was it's length, it would have made even further rewarding reading to experience the same number of stories over. The stories are accompanied with an introduction by Lynne Kutsukake giving some biographical insights into Masuda and the stories selected, five of them here originally appeared in Japan in Masuda's collection Water Mirror/Mizu kagami from 1997, these stories feature linking events which give the perspectives of these narratives an additional dimension, an episode where a woman is stabbed by her violent partner is seen from different viewpoints of the characters in the different stories, although the event occurs at the periphery of each of the central story lines. All of the stories except for one, (Dream Bug) are narrated by women who to some extent find themselves in events that leave them unravelled from the fabric of society, Masuda's prose has an incredibly understated subtle way of describing extraordinary events in everyday language, in Horn a woman discovers that a horn about the size of a wart is beginning to grow on her head, she gets away with covering it with a plaster, but with it the horn also enables the woman with a psychic ability to read the minds of those around her, on the whole the woman is non-plussed by the mundane nature of their thoughts, the story ends with her feeling ambivalent  about her feelings over the responsibility that may come with this power. The stories predominately feature narratives centering on independent women who have been the victims of abusive relationships, as in the first story Smoke where the protagonist's memories of her abusive partner are provoked when she is pushed to the ground by a man running past her. The stories give a menacing portrait where violence and psychological uncertainty encroach into the domestic setting, Ginko in Smoke immediately after being pushed returns to her apartment and takes an automatic solace in performing domestic chores, opening one of the huge official refuse bags she steps in and finds that she feels a security pulling it up over her head, these feelings begin to shift when a report on t.v turns to a murder case where the female victim's body was discarded in rubbish bags similar to the one she is in. The story Water displays a subtle use of the association of ideas which form into an understated metaphor left to the reader to piece together, the central character Ikuri has written a love letter to a fellow worker, (Akira), who works in the engineering section, the narrative carries her expectation of his reply, only to be interrupted by a complaint from the tenant, (Takayama), in the apartment below her's complaining that water is dripping from her apartment into his, the story gives the notion of the soiling of a pure love.

The title story Single Sickness is seen through Fukue who works at a Pathology research laboratory experimenting cancer cures on mice, taking a leap into the unkown she decides to escape and hands in her resignation, the story expands on the enclosed, mainly male dominated world of the department, the power struggles and the shuffling for promotion, especially seen through the research student, Matsuki, who is vying for Fukue's Senior Lecturer job when she leaves. Fukue's narrative sees her observing the duality and slight futile nature in her work, infecting the mice but at the same time searching for a cure, - The goal was to take an incurable disease and turn it into a minor ailment, the narrative lingers around the ethics of animal experimentation with the man who breeds and handles the mice. The centre of the story lies around the bitter irony when Fukue feels a pain in her breast, and after a consultation she is told that she has a lump the size of an azuki bean, but further tests would be required. Later she is seen by another doctor who diagnoses mastitis, he patronizingly berates her, citing the cause as not having a baby - When women don't perform the duties nature assigned them, this is what happens - they get punished with things like mastitis or uterine inflammation. The final story Dream Bug follows Hideo as he checks up on a coffee shop left behind after his uncle Katsuzo dies, as the story develops Hideo discovers that his uncle was ostracised from the family, the reason remains enigmatic, Hideo discovers a box of old photographs, and a woman who at first worked for his uncle figures but their relationship remains unclear, maybe she was a prostitute. Hideo retains a certain admiration for his wayward uncle, who lived at odds with the rigidly traditional path of his father, but still managed to make a small business for himself. The story incorporates a dream like connection between the dead uncle and Hideo, his father calls Katsuzo 'Yumenmushi', and Hideo dreams of the dream bug who must be kept happy being fed on sweet dreams - And if you had too many bad dreams, your mind would soon be filled with holes chewed by the yumenmushi. Once it had eaten everything, you could never dream again. This collection not only opens up a series of engrossing narratives of marginalized women caught in transistion but also paints a striking picture of the Japan glimpsed at their peripheries.

Masuda, (b.1948),  has been nominated for the Shincho Prize and also the Akutagawa Prize six times and has won many other awards including the Noma New Writers Award, the Izumi Kyoka Prize, the Ministry of Education Fine Arts Award and the Ito Sei Literary Prize.

more details on Single Sickness and Other Stories at Cornell University's East Asia Program              

"Panic" and "The Runaway"

A collection of two novellas by Takeshi Kaiko published in 1977 by Tokyo University Press, translated by Charles Dunn, the first, Panic/Panikku, originally appeared in Japan in 1957 and opens in the animal ward of a Forestry Department building where the narrative's protagonist, Shunsuke, is demonstrating how effective weasels could be in combating the possible outbreak of an epidemic of rats, dropping four into the weasels compound he switches off the lights, we hear the rustling movements of the animal and when the lights are put back on, the rats are lying motionless, spotted with blood.  Shunsuke, an employee at the department is pitted against the petty bureaucracy and in-competence of his superiors, who publicly renounce his ideas but secretly pin their hopes on the success of his plan. Through the course of the narrative we learn that the potential surge in the rat population of a mountainous area which covers the borders of three prefectures is caused by the blossoming of a rare bamboo-grass, an event that only occurs once in every 120 years, the rats feed on the seeds of the plant. At first the Head of Department is in denial that any problem will arise confident that they will rely on stronger poisons to control the increase of rats.

The beginning of the narrative sees Shunsuke struggling against his superiors and colleagues as he works on preparations against the potential outbreak, Shunsuke keeps a secret point system marking whenever the Head concedes whilst in debate with him. Shunsuke's frustrations deepen  when a superior who has been at the centre of a scandal from another department is moved to theirs, Shunsuke observes he has absolutely no knowledge of Forestry and has been moved solely to keep him from the public eye. At first the story is confined mainly between Shunsuke and his superiors but as the epidemic of rats begins to gain the story expands to describe the escalating hysteria and it's effects on the mountain community as rumour of the events begins to circulate. Eventually what has been anticipated comes to pass, and the area becomes engulfed in rats who eat and gnaw at almost everything in their path, attacking unguarded children in their cots, Shunsuke discovers additional  unscrupulous dealings when he realizes that the weasel supplier is selling back to the Department the weasels that they had only just released into the wild to cull the rats, perhaps the Head is involved?. Shunsuke sets up a reward system to those who capture the rats and resorts to mobilizing primary and middle school children to lay out poisoned rice balls as traps, and an incinerator is used at the Department to dispense with the corpses of the rats. The narrative temporarily pulls the reader into siding morally with Shunsuke, but during the course of the story it slowly becomes apparent that Shunsuke too is entangled in the acute power games being played out by the Head of Department and the Bureau Chief, the story intricately constructed,  leaves the reader with the impression that the narrative is one that transcends the narrator. The pandemonium caused by the rats acts as a metaphor representing the human interactions going on within the story and makes a comment about society at large, the scramble for self advancement. Set around this story of human fallibility a well crafted allegorical tale emerges in which suggests that it's human aspirations or perhaps the human predicament combined with societal forces that tilts the balance, an uncontrollable force, which will potentially end as depicted here in metaphor, in suicide.

The Runaway/Ruboki originally published in 1958 is an all together different story, in his brief introduction Charles Dunn mentions that Kaiko was also a translator of science fiction, although set in a rural town in ancient China, The Runaway/Ruboki reads at first a little like a science fiction story, vividly describing a time and place unfamiliar and often brutally violent. The narrator, a young unnamed man initially describes his home town in terms of the walls that surround it, made from the tampered Yellow Earth by those who live there, the walls take on the aspect of being a living organism, weathered by the winds and rain the perimeters seem to be constantly shifting. Set in a time of civil war the town is subject to invasion by roaming warlords, the residents keep a lookout and hoist hastily made flags similar to those flown by their potential invaders in the hope that they will be spared from attack, the narrator recounts an episode when one of these flags is misinterpreted, and the clothier and his family are brutally tortured and killed in front of the rest of the town. Opposite the town set in cliffs the narrator describes a set of caverns where some of the more brave flee to across the desert and away from the destitution of the town, his father is murdered in a passage that begins with the line, 'I'll tell you about the murder of a normal man'. The town is ruled by a succession of different armies and warlords, until the ascension of a new Emperor, an aristocrat from the north as the narrator describes and rumour abounds of a massive new capital. The narrator describes an era of stability in the town, a gradual release from 'feelings of psychological apprehension', this is not set to last as the town is visited and divided up by the Emperor's soldiers, drafting the men of the village. The men are marched to another city where more men will be rounded up, rumour goes around that they will work on the construction of a great wall, many men die en route and are replaced by farmers  coerced into joining the labour convoy, and any caught trying to escape are decapitated as this is believed to prevent them from being reborn,  severing the line in reincarnation.

When they arrive at the construction site they realize that the planned construction will use millions of men and hundreds of thousands of guards, they come to realize that they will also be constructing a new palace for the Emperor, they give their names and dates and place of birth and are given a crude and bloody tattoo on the forehead. The Emperor's tyranny extends to all those involved in the construction, architects, wardens, administrators, anyone found slacking is subject to barbaric execution, buried alive so that only their heads are exposed, the workers are then made to march pass compacting the earth and crushing the buried. The worker's conditions are described, the human stench of their digs, the men drink a cheaply made wine, gamble and turn to homosexuality.

A six day inspection ceremony takes place where the purpose and dimensions of the wall are explained by the rulers, -"The Great Wall was a challenge to space and time; it forms a single line linking the myriad ages; it will be a shattering blow to the barbarians", hatred the coerced workers may feel towards the Emperor is diverted to the barbarians, the narrator observes. The construction of the wall is described, taking in valleys and building into cliffs, they also become subject to attacks by the nomadic Hsiung-nu and the guards counter attack by indiscriminately killing anyone seen near the construction site, regardless of age or sex. Throughout the last part of the story the narrator observes the gradual disintegration of his individuality during his labours, and it's tempting to contemplate an allegorical meaning to this story, although this could also be seen as another aspect in the nature of Kaiko's writing as a whole. The narrator comes to the realization that the wall serves no great purpose as the area still comes under attack at night by the Hsiung-nu, and suspects a rebellion will arise, and contemplates running off into the desert and taking his chances with the Barbarians.

Kaiko Takeshi, 1930-1989, was seen as a writer who held leftist leanings although it's been observed that he didn't adhere to any set theory or political agenda, another of his stories Giants and Toys/Kyojin to gangu is a satire of two chocolate manufacturers caught in a sales battle, it was adapted to film by Masumura Yasuzo, translated by Tamae K. Prindle in Made in Japan and Other Japanese Business Novels, published by M.E Sharpe. Kaiko was also an opponent to the Vietnam war and nearly lost his life  there as a news correspondent, out of his experiences came the 1968 novel, Into a Black Sun/Kagayakeru yami. The current Shinchosha edition of Panic is accompanied with Kaiko's 1957 Akutagawa Prize winning story The Naked King/Hadaka no O'sama. Other translations into English include the novel Darkness in Summer and the short story collection Five Thousand Runaways, which I now hope to read soon. Panic and The Runaway is listed on the UNESCO list of representative works.

The Navidad Incident

Amongst Haikasoru's latest offerings is The Navidad Incident, a Tanizaki Prize winning novel by Natsuki Ikezawa translated by Alfred Birnbaum, who has also previously translated Ikezawa's A Burden of Flowers and On a Small Bridge in Iraq. Coming with the subtitle, The Downfall of Matias Guili, the novel is a satirical and ingenious history of colonialism and the story of an entrepreneurial leader, Matias Guili, alluding on occasion to the La Navidad story of Christopher Columbus. Set on an imagined archipelago in the south pacific whose islands are a natural paradise, the island's politics are caught between the influences of America and Japan. The novel opens with Guili waiting for a delegation of Japanese veterans to arrive, although a spate of protests threaten to upset the visit, posters with slogans daubed on them appear posted up around the city, a torii gate is pushed over by a gang of youths. During the delegates visit other curious happenings occur, the Japanese flag is mysteriously engulfed in flames in mid ceremony and furthering perplexity the bus carrying the delegates completely vanishes along with the delegates inside it. From this puzzling turn of events comes a narrative of Navidad's history, colonised throughout the past few hundred years by various nations expanding their empires, occupied by the Japanese during the Pacific War and then as a protectorate of the U.S.A., and before this by the Germans and Portuguese. During the years of the Japanese occupation   Matias is taken under the wing of Lieutenant Ryuzoji, who arranges for Matias to study and work in Japan beginning his induction into the ways of trade and commerce and also igniting his infatuation with the country, in his presidential residence he surrounds himself with it's culture; a Japanese bath and maid, Japanese sashimi breakfast, a fitted tatami room with Kakemono with himself in portrait and is chauffeured around in a Nissan limo. Returning to Navidad after his time in Japan his eye for opportunity finds that he can make a bundle from importing Japanese hot pot ramen and through his political leanings and slight manipulation finds himself a presidential candidate  sponsored by Cornelius, Matias's political sage and mentor. His long presidency is interrupted by the brief reshuffle of power to his political rival, Bonhomme Tamang, who held allegiances with America who comes to a mysterious end. The story of Matias and Navidad runs along another story line, an additional  development in Navidad's relationship with Japan, is the request that a bay is used as a location to stock pile oil in the shape of moored Japanese tankers, Matias balances up the request and ponders how much he will make from it.

Along with Matias the novel introduces an assortment of characters each accompanied with a rundown of their history as they appear, Angelina, whom Matias meets in Manila proposed to and was turned down by runs a bar and brothel which Matias organised on a condition she insisted upon instead of marriage, a gay couple, (Ketch and Joel), who frequent the bar, and a newly arrived  waitress who has the talent of envisioning the future piques Matias's curiosity as being someone who could prove useful to him in the future, he decides to rename her Ameliana, she has a vision of the proposed deal with the Japanese concerning the stockpiling of the oil. Matias also at times confides in a ghost called Lee Bo or Leigh Beau, set in the eighteenth century his story takes in a journey on board a ship of the East India Company from Palau to Great Britain, this narrative too examines the implications and consequences of colonialism, all of these introductions act as brief stories within the story, creating numerous narratives that work into the main of the novel. Through these entwining narratives comes numerous reports of bizarre sightings of the missing bus of delegates, it's seen taking off behind a Boeing 737, an underwater fisherman catches a brief glimpse of it, another time it is seen walking into a bar and ordering a round of soft drinks, briefly it is seen in the night sky as a newly discovered constellation of stars before disappearing again. Ameliana is taking part in the Yuuka Yuumai celebrations festival on Melchor Island, Matias puts everything on hold to go incognito in order to spy on her.

The novel builds at it's own fantastic pace connecting all of these bizarre and wonderfully ingenious narratives and perspectives, sporadically through the novel we listen in on the conversation and rumour of the locals who gather to discuss the events going on and of Matias's dark history, and it's darkness becomes darker as the novel proceeds, the pertinence of this unofficial history slowly becomes more apparent, seeping out the truth, informing the reader of all of Matias's shady dealings and deeds, the Navidad Teihoku Hotel, replete with it's broken revolving restaurant seems to be an embodiment of all that Matias represents. Mixing satire with elements of magical realism this is a pitch perfect novel and translation which leaves a great deal for the reader to judge for themselves.

The Navidad Incident: The Downfall of Matias Guili at Haikasoru

the briefcase

A novel I've been very much looking forward to is Hiromi Kawakami's second appearance into English translation, after greatly enjoying the poeticism of Manazuru, the prose of The Briefcase has again a subtly understated simplicity to it that enables the reader to find themselves almost unawarely placed into the intricacies of the relationship between, Harutsuna Matsumoto, the ageing retired teacher, and Tsukiko Omachi, one of his former students who is now a woman facing middle age. The story is presented episodically, beginning with a chance meeting between the two again when they order exactly the same dish in a bar they both are eating in, the novel is presented through the perspective of Tsukiko, as the two become reacquainted the narrative begins to reveal episodes from her past, although a woman who has far from lived a sheltered life, we get the impression that she still lives in the same neighbourhood that she went to school in, re-meeting sensei, as Matsumoto is referred to by her throughout the novel, has provoked in her the realization that up til now she had been living a slightly oblivious existence, the world begins to appear in a new perspective.

After a few more meetings Tsukiko is invited to sensei's house, and discovers a collection of ceramic teapots from the boxed lunches that he and his wife bought from railway stations on their travels, background details of sensei's life aren't expanded upon greatly which adds a slightly enigmatic quality to him, although we learn that sensei's slightly bohemian wife passed away after leaving him. The little snippets of information about his characteristics we know are given to us through Tsukiko's observations, his dislike of having someone else pour his drink out for him, and throughout a reading of the novel the question of the contents of sensei's briefcase hovers  at the peripheries of our thoughts. Some of their meetings are pre-arranged and some occur by coincidence, as the relationship develops, it's nature is enigmatic, Tsukiko's growing attachment to sensei becomes apparent in her narrative, an episode when in their favourite bar a drunk begins to ask how many times a week they slept together, begins to provoke the reader into questioning the nature of the relationship. Following the two's outings together sees them go on a market excursion, Kawakami's  narrative  captures  Tsukiko's growing sense that the relationship is slightly absurd when she finds herself asking what is she doing? when she finds herself halfway up a mountain on a mushroom hunting trip with sensei and Satoru, the owner of their favourite bar, the novel is full of fantastic descriptions of Japanese dishes that makes you want to eat and drink while reading.

On another meeting she goes with sensei to a cherry blossom viewing party held at their old school, old teachers and old pupils gather for the party, Tsukiko meets Kojima, a fellow student who has since divorced his wife, the pair leave the party early and Kojima  asks Tsukiko for more dates, but she finds that she's not attracted to him. Meeting with Kojima seems to tap into a whole wreath of nostalgic memories for the pair, although never does Tsukiko admit to ever having had a crush on sensei when she was at school, these passages see Tsukiko  acknowledging the passing of time and the tide of it washing her up on an unfamiliar shore, reminiscing and being with Kojima she observes, 'it seemed like we had ended up within a time that didn't exist anymore'. Tsukiko is a fascinating character study, there is ample room to discuss her psychology at length, it could be said that the reason she develops an attachment to sensei is that she sometimes appears to be in a fragile emotional state at finding herself in an onset of spiritual dilemma in the face of approaching her middle age, but in Kawakami's prose the story can also be read with all the innocence of being a simple love story, although albeit being a slightly unconventional one being one  that spans the generation gap, but this is the truer path of love. If this were a movie there are moments where it could be seen that Tsukiko is caught speaking directly into the camera, the narrative speaks out to us and sees Tsukiko ask the same questions the reader will find themselves asking, the answer perhaps lies in reading this fine translation.

The Briefcase/Sensei no kaban is translated by Allison Markin Powell and published by Counterpoint Press, the novel was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 2001. The first chapter of The Briefcase, (The Moon and the Batteries), is available to read as a sampler at Granta's online site.

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. 

Clear Water

Clear Water/Shimizu, (2003) by Hirano Keiichiro draws some parallels with Kajii Motojiro's story Lemon, where the protaganist wanders the streets of Kyoto, although the preoccupying thoughts of the two narrators differ markedly. Clear Water opens with the narrator hearing the sound of clear water dripping somewhere, and he has the feeling that something is happening to him, memories,'of a sun long ago, a memory of a day when the gigantic sun that covered everything over our heads drew away from us', it feels like he could be referring to some distant apocalypse, adding that 'In tears I gazed futilely at the scene,on and on'. But he's unable to decipher if the memory might have come from a movie, or something he thought up for a novel, and he contemplates 'Is there such a thing as an indubitable memory?', whilst drinking coffee and eating cookies he sifts through which of his senses seem to offer up the the best evidence of proving the existence of the cookie in his hand.

Looking out of the window he observes 'Sure enough the sun was scattering more fiercely than ever', walking out down Shimogawa Avenue he encounters some people, a woman sweeping leaves, a couple leafing through a guidebook, these people turn into sounds and vanish,the sound he says sounds like a splitting sound, thinking about were they might be vanishing to he thinks of his own death, 'But one day I realized that my own death had long since been lost in time' 'The spot were the drip lands is none other than death-but how to reach that point?', at each realization he arrives at....another drip, he observes. In Kitaoji Street more people he sees vanish with the same sound, and crossing the road he notes the stream of traffic. Coming to a halt at the Kamo River, he's mesmerised by the sunlight reflecting on the water's surface, 'I was crazed by the falling petals of sun', vision and sound begin to merge and watching the reflecting/scattering light he feels his sense of hearing contract, and is overcome by an encompassing silence, but his vision gains a lucid clarity as he watches cherry blossom petals as they drift down and fall on the water's surface.'Just as my hearing searches for a sound in the silence,my vision found it's way only as far as the expanding light', he wonders off down Kitayama Avenue,finding himself in Shichiku Street, he discovers an explanantion of his observations in a revelation. Clear Water/Shimizu is translated by Anthony H.Chambers and is in the anthology The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature:1945 to the Present, published by CUP, Hirano Keiichiro won the Akutagawa Prize for his novel Solar Eclipse/Nisshoku,a novel set in France just prior to the Renaissance.

Hirano Keiichiro (Japanese)

The Unfertilized Egg

The Unfertilized Egg/Museiran, is a 2004 short story from Junko Hasegawa, translated by Philip Price, the central character/narrator, Moriko, is a woman who has just had her thirty sixth birthday, she observes that thirty six is a bad age for women. She's been having a relationship with her boss, Aono, who is married, and has a son, although the rest of the staff at her job aren't aware of this. Returning from a late night out with her friend Rei, she sprawls out on her bed and soon falls asleep, 'helter-skelter to the depths of unconsciousness, until I'm nothing more than sediment on the floor of my brain'. She dreams that she's in the supermarket, and a muscular arm with blackish-red skin passes her an egg, accidentally she breaks it, 'what the hell are you doing?', she hears an angry voice ask. She hides the pieces of broken egg in the water that they use to keep the tofu in and then promptly wakes up. Sitting in her small studio like flat Moriko contemplates how much Aono actually knows about her, they've been seeing each other for four years, so she thinks it's more than just a fling, he's overseas on business at the moment, he doesn't know that she lives 'like some desperate teenage runaway'. As Moriko recalls a conversation she had with her grandmother that for three generations in they're family mother's were born in the year of the horse and had the same blood type, B. We also hear of her anxiety of what her co-workers think of her, at thirty-six without a steady relationship, no children, the narrative slips into Moriko's obsession 'with first time' movies, as she works at a film importing company, although she receives the news that she is about to be made redundant, after thinking it over, adding up the factors, she comes to the realization that maybe Aono was the one who made the decision to sack her, she emails him but gets no reply.


She has more dreams of eggs, in them she's beginning to keep hold of them without breaking them. She goes for another night out with a friend, and when she returns to her building she stops, 'and look up at the dark, square window of my apartment. Of all the windows in the block, only mine looks like a gloomy cave - a reflection of the hopeless life of the woman who lives there', she doesn't want to go home in her apartment building, and her sense of not knowing where to go, depicts her sense of directionless. During another night out with colleagues she learns that a rumour is going around that Aono is away as he got another of her colleagues pregnant, Moriko ends up sleeping with Uchiki. Eggs feature increasingly as the story continues, and can be taken literally and also as a metaphor of Moriko's unfulfilled desires and aspirations, in one point Moriko dreams she is in a torture scene from medieval France, tied to a pole, thinking she's about to be pelted by stones, she realizes the crowd are throwing eggs and she ends up covered in yellow yolk. This is an at times surreal and wry story about the anxieties faced by a woman approaching middle age, caught between facing unemployment, and also suffering from the pangs of the desire to have a child.


The Unfertilized Egg/ Museiran can be found in - Inside and Other Short Fiction.

















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