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
            

Minka - My Farmhouse in Japan

Recently I've acquired the bad habit of picking up more than one book at a time, it's something I'm not fond of doing, but a book that I've had on the shelf to read for a long time now is John Roderick's Minka - My Farmhouse in Japan, which is an account of how he came to buy a farmhouse that has connections that date back to the age of the Heike monogatari, for 5000 yen, intrigued?, I'll leave it to you to track out a copy of the book for the fuller explanation, but the story involves disassembling the house and moving it from Shirotori to Kamakura.

Whilst also reading about the book on the internet I stumbled over an accompanying film that was made in 2011 by Davina Pardo which you can watch via the New York Times website or via here.

Minka My Farmhouse in Japan at Princeton Architecture Press

Yukio Mishima - Damian Flanagan - Critical Lives

The momentum of books on Mishima Yukio continues after the recently mammoth addition to the canon with Persona comes a more concise book from Damian Flanagan, an award winning translator of Soseki Natsume, published as part of the admirable Critical Lives Series by Reaktion Books. Flanagan's Mishima starts with Mishima's final hours, describing the sequence of events of Mishima's attempted coup before reversing back to examine how his early years were influenced by being torn between the overbearance of his grandmother with that of his mother and also of his father, who disapproved of his tendencies towards writing, this is described as instilling a trauma in the young Kimitake and there are similes made between the state of post-war Japan with that of Mishima's psyche, a pulling between adopting and attraction to Westernization with that of preserving Japan's traditional identity and characteristics.

 

Centre to this book Flanagan points to an event that he feels is perhaps overlooked in other books that have appeared about him, that after graduating Mishima received a watch from the Emperor, time would remain a central facet to Mishima, Flanagan points that the taking off of his watch was one of the last actions he undertook, and throughout the book highlights other incidences where time played a crucial part in his life, his strict adherence to publisher's deadlines, most affectively Flanagan points to Mishima's sense of the forces of time culminating in his writing of The Sea of Fertility, wanting to write a 'world explaining book' that would also transcend time itself, whilst writing the instalments of the book, Flanagan deftly demonstrates that for Mishima, time was running out, and aptly describing the events of November 25th as Japan's JFK day, the documentary The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima points out that a reportedly 10,000 people turned out for his funeral, Flanagan's conceptual or thematical approach in describing the events surrounding the writing of The Sea of Fertility and November 25th is a refreshing approach, in addition to it he also explores the significance of the sea in Mishima's writing as being a place void of time, these contrasts run parallel to the polarities found in Mishima himself, transforming himself from the aloof pale young man to the body builder of his later years, time seems to be at the heart of the writer who felt himself an anachronism at the age of twenty.    

 

As with the other biographies of Mishima what comes across succinctly is his prolificness as a writer, perhaps something that was encouraged by his mother who would provide ink and paper for him, it seems his writing schedule would begin at 11 at night, warming up with lighter stories and then moving onto his more literary works, Mishima's writing career and influences are chronicled, a striking image is that of the launch of A Forest In Full Bloom held in a blacked out restaurant during the bombing raids, and of his father resignedly accepting Mishima's writing career with the observation that due to the war he'd be dead soon anyway, reading of his initial ventures into his career as a writer there's a feeling that with his connections with the owners of a paper factory in a time of strict paper rationing this might have been a factor that perhaps may have tilted the balance slightly to his favour. Among his influences it always comes as a slight surprise that although Cocteau and Radiguet are often name checked, Genet's seems to be absent, Flanagan explores the Mishima - Dazai relationship/influence, and among other writers mentions the folklorist Shinobu Orikuchi, (Shisha no Sho), who Mishima gave a fictional portrait in the short story Mikumano Mōde translated by John Bester as Acts of Worship. Throughout the book there is mention of film adaptions of Mishima's works and those that he acted in, perhaps a filmography would have made an interesting addition to the bibliographies at the end of the book, the link between Japanese literature and cinema is a fascinating one.  

 

Toward the end of the book Flanagan summarises Mishima in relation to contemporary writers, noting in a way that in terms of writers being recognised in the West that the baton has been passed to Murakami Haruki, with the observation that Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase begins on the significant date of November 25th, throughout the book it's mentioned that Mishima was also consciously aware of trends in the zeitgeist, at times this was more successful than others, as with the success of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion over the subsequent court case surrounding After the Banquet's publication. Mishima left many enigmas behind, and to fully gauge the extent of his legacy would be interesting to estimate, maybe it would take a manga adaption of Kamen no kokuhaku to find Mishima at the centre of things again within a contemporary setting, but Mishima's abhorrence of the materialistic way of life still has relevance and leverage for the twenty first century. Essentially the book is inspiring and erudite wanting you to turn to the novels and the writing again, discussing Thirst For Love from 1950 we learn that Mishima had toyed with the idea of Etsuko's perspective being that from a male one, which spurns a reappraisal of this writer who pursued things to their fullest degree.

   

  

 

Yukio Mishima is part of the Critical Lives Series at Reaktion Books

 

 

文豪の家 - Bungou no Ie



A book that I've been intending for a while to give a brief synopsis of, Bugou no Ie, published earlier last year offers an insight into the houses lived in by a number of famous writers, know the house - know the writer, as the obi of the book mentions, perhaps if you wanted a literary tour of Japan this book would make a great companion, I like how the door behind the title is slightly ajar inviting us in.  The book offers a snapshot of houses lived in by writers mostly of Meiji to mid twentieth century, late Showa, there is a mixture of black and white and color photographs, along with floor plan layouts of the houses and notes of artefacts of the authors. Here's a list of the writer's whose houses are featured, Mokichi Saito, Takeo Arishima, Dazai Osamu, Haruo Sato, Yasushi Inoue, Soseki Natsume, Naoya Shiga, Hakusha Kitahara, Takuboku Ishikawa, Toson Shimazaki, Doppo Kunikida, Ranpo Edogawa, Kojin Shimomura, Yakumo Koizumi, Seicho Matsumoto, Junichiro Tanizaki, Rohan Koda, Nobuko Yoshiya, Saneatsu Mushanokoji, Sakutaro Hagiwara, Katai Tayama, Saisei Muro, Fumiko Hayashi, Kyoshi Takahama, Ogai Mori, Ashihei Hiino, Shoyo Tsubouchi, Kunio Yanagita, Tatsuo Hori, Roka Tokutomi, Bokusui Wakayama, Shiki Masaoka, Kenkichi Nakamura, Saika Tomita, Kenji Miyazawa, Yaeko Nogami. Probably out of these the house lived in by Yaeko Nogami in Nagano is amongst my favourite, an old property it's roof is thatched, situated near a tree, leaves have fallen on it, giving the impression that the roof has created it's own ecological system, with a mixture of thatch, moss and leaves. The book is published from x-knowledge, a publisher whose focus is on architecture, they publish the magazine, My Home +, who have also earlier this year published a companion book to this one focusing on Literary Landscapes, which looks at landscapes associated with authors and their works - another to hunt out.  

x-knowledge

the book at amazon.jp and also the companion book Literary Landscapes   

Yoshimoto Takaaki 吉本 隆明

 

 

A book that I wanted to remind myself of before it disappears over the horizon of my memory, published back in February, (2013), by Kawade Shobo, an interesting hardback commemorative of Yoshimoto Takaaki, by Yoshida Jun, full of quotes and passages taken from his books juxtaposed against photographical portraits. Although I didn't make a note of the translator, the quotes and passages are in English translation, among the many photographs there's a small number documenting his meeting with French philosopher Michel Foucault during his visit to Japan. 

the book at Kawade Shobo Shinsha.

Yoshimoto Takaaki's entry on wikipedia

Twelve Views from the Distance

 

Spread across twelve chapters, Mutsuo Takahashi's, Twelve Views from the Distance, is an absorbing memoir of his childhood years, originally appearing in serialized form in 1969 it was subsequently published as a book the following year, opening with a description of a photographic portrait of his mother the description is expanded in recalling the occasion of it being taken, the falling snow outside associated with her early disappearance, we're reminded that, 'the snow of memory often falls in a warped path'. Rather than pointing or correlating to the events of the external world too explicitly Twelve Views from the Distance is an evocative personal memoir, throughout the twelve chapters or views Takahashi looks over formative moments and examines their rippling after effects. Covering the years from his birth in 1937 to 1952, we learn of his father's, premature death by acute pneumonia exacerbated by overwork, the remaining family's return to his paternal grandparents home in Nōgata, his older sister passed away very shortly after due to meningitis, their deaths came so close they were cremated in the same coffin. Through describing these events Takahashi describes at times in pictorial detail his grandparents home and surrounding neighbourhood and the children he played with, within the house a room that appeared to captivate him was his Uncle Ken'ichi's room, recalling an episode when he was beaten by him for not ceasing to cry, Takahashi observes the intimacy of the punishment, an event that only the two of them were witnesses to, he suspects that the violence that erupted in his Uncle was a venting of emotions arising from other exterior circumstances, his uncle worked on the railroad before his akagami card arrived calling him to the front.  An event that is returned to throughout the chapters is his mother's mysterious disappearance, initally his grandmother had told him she wouldn't be away for long, but it wasn't until a package arrived months later from China that her whereabouts became known to him, when she returned Takahashi observes that something was not the same, degrees of intimacy had changed.

 

As well as giving a broad portrait of his immediate family Takahashi's book is full of instances of his grandparents passing down stories particular to the district, the book subtly reverberates with local legends and stories of neighbours falling into ruination, the wife of a wealthy man who suddenly one day, as if possessed moves out and lives under a bridge, the cry of the slightly menacing Yosshoi bird echoes across the narrative, another figure that is neither it seems too distant is that of Fudō-myōō. As Takahashi grows older he depicts the harsh and at times darkly savage power games played out amongst the groups of children at the schools he attended, malevolence never seems  too distant in Takahashi's narrative either from other children or the possibility from his family, and the backdrop to this is the spectre of the war.  In the chapters The Shore of Sexuality and also to a degree in Princes and Paupers Takahashi remembers the emergence of his burgeoning sexual inclinations, and in Imagining Father gives a portrait with the fragments of memories he has of his father, and connects with the discovery of a piece of copied text that his father had written out that he found hidden away by his mother, in this chapter Takahashi observes that people or presences that are absent can sometimes be the ones that leave the deeper affect.

 

Skies of Blood opens with evocative memories of skies that feature in the memories of his youth, sunlight and blood seem to metaphorically merge in the sky, later in the chapter Takahashi goes onto re-examine the violence endured in his youth -

 

As a little boy, whenever I saw the blood swelling and congealing on the surface of the sky, I would think of Mother. This did not only happen during her absence when I was living with Grandmother or was being passed from one household to another. Even after she returned, I continued to think about her as I watched the sunset. She was often away, and every time she left, I was exposed to the violence of my Grandmother, my aunt, and other adults. That would only make me miss my kind and gentle mother all the more, when she returned, however, I never again found the kindness I had been waiting for. Instead, what confronted me was another kind of aggression. The violence she displayed toward me was something that ran deep in her veins and that even she could not control once it had been awakened. When I encountered violence in my own mother, it only made me yearn all the more for what I believed motherhood should be - eternal kindness.

 

The final chapter, Communities outside the World, Takahashi recounts meetings with those at the peripheries of society and the book closes with a meditation on the location of himself within memory. Throughout reading Twelve Views from the Distance the reader can't help but be infused of the power of narration that emanates from it, either orally as seen being exchanged in many instances within the book, or as in it's entirety in the one that Takahashi has written. Takahashi's collection Poems of a Penisist has recently been re-published by Minnesota University Press. Twelve Views from the Distance is translated by Jeffrey Angles.    

 

Twelve Views from the Distance at Minnesota University Press.           

 

 

 

       

Persona - A Biography of Yukio Mishima

 

Recently reading an article in the Daily Mainichi it pointed out that within the space of a year in Japan there had been published 10 non-fiction titles on Mishima, as it's just over forty years since his committing seppuku Mishima still generates a great deal of interest, it probably could quite easily be thought that Mishima remains Japan's most controversial author. Persona, by Naoki Inose, along with Hiroaki Sato is an expansive book,  where as the two previous biographies of Mishima have given more of a straightforward account of his life Persona gives his life and works a much broader contextualisation, although the authors of the previous biographies can relate their personal relationships to Mishima, Persona is afforded with a more detached view, and as we move further away from the events of not only his life but that of the Japan of his day we are treated to a panorama of historical and political events. In the first segment of the book there are detailed portraits and explorations of Mishima's lineage and of his ancestry, this makes for an informing historical study  within itself, as it incorporates the sociological and political upheavals and their implications of the emerging Meiji era, an indelible question that arises and seems to stand out from the various episodes and rebellions of the time being- 'is modernization the same as westernization?', which seems to encapsulate the dilemma of the period, one that would perhaps continue to an extent into the subsequent one. This genealogical portrait leads  us to Hiraoka Kimitake growing up under the watchful eye of his domineering grandmother who installed an appreciation of culture in the young Kimitake, later as he began to write his father was initially very opposed to his writing destroying manuscripts when he found them, although he would receive encouragement from his mother.

As well as describing Mishima's formative years as a writer, initally poetry and then short stories, Persona  offers a glimpse into his influences, like many Japanese writers of the time we learn of his indebtedness to the translator and poet Horiguchi Daigaku, who translated Radiguet, Cocteau and Morand into Japanese. As the narrative of the biography follows Mishima's progress it often sidesteps into explanatory descriptions of political changes and shifting social attitudes that would inform his writing, which often take two or three steps away from the subject before working their way back, these prove to be highly informing and an aid to con-textualize Mishima and his writing. Probably the lengthiest of these is given over in describing the writing of Confessions of a Mask/Kamen no Kokuhaku, events of the novel are contrasted with those that occurred in his real life, the famous scenes of the novel are carefully examined, the medical examination which he failed to pass, the discovery of the painting of The Martydom of St Sebastian by Guido Reni, (later whilst recounting his travels in Europe we learn of when Mishima saw the  painting in the original). Another episode which we get the impression that left a deep and marked impression on Mishima was his meeting and relationship with Mitani Kuniko, the sister of a friend, whom he missed the opportunity of marrying which would be the source of a deep inner regret, subsequently he learned of her engagement on a date that would later become significant, 25th November. The biography illustrates Mishima's prolificness in great detail, if not writing for multiple monthly magazine articles whilst also his novels and plays then we see him travelling to research his writing,  passages from a notebook for one such excursion for The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea is given, in it we read abstract descriptions of the setting, it's fauna, the departure times of the ships, designs of  naval uniforms. After the war Mishima appears to have been on a one man mission to create a literary revival akin to the one that W.B Yeats initiated, Mishima being the antithesis to many writers of the day most notably Dazai, who was at the height of his popularity when Mishima was at the start of the ascension of his, Dazai's suicide acted as a catalyst in Mishima between the concepts of a writer's death with that of the death of a man of action, the distinction between the intellect and the physical is something that seems to have grown wider as his life progressed.

Persona delivers to us a Mishima we are familiar with and also one we are not so, reading the book we recognise the key events and moments in his life but there are also many incidences and details here perhaps not given as much attention to in the previous biographies, the times he spent in New York and also in Persona there is larger emphasis given over in exploring Mishima the playwright. The book originally written for the domestic audience references many titles that have yet to be translated and it provokes speculations  on which of Mishima's books may appear in translation next?, Kyoko's House, Beautiful Star, or the first collection The Forest in Bloom?, it would have to be said that any new translations are long overdue.

Persona at Stone Bridge Press

Tales of Tono

 

Perhaps it's something about this time of year that sets my reading interests wandering away from Japanese Literature, it's hard to fathom the real reason for this, I think I remember it happening to me around about the same time last year, here's a list of non-Japanese authors that I've read recently -

Sven Lindqvist - The Myth of Wu Tao-Tzu
W.G Sebald - After Nature
Gustave Flaubert - November
Andre Breton - Nadja
J.K Huysmans - Against Nature
Girogio de Chirico - Hebdomeros
Julian Green - Paris
Edouard Leve - Autoportrait
Denis Johnson - Train Dreams
Villiers de L'Isle Adam - Cruel Tales (ongoing)
Alejandro Zambra - Bonsai
Georges Rodenbach - Bruges la Morte

There's little resemblance to the list that I thought I was going to read, but I'd still like to read the titles from my previous list, among books that I'm hoping to reach over the next few months - The Red Laugh by Leonid Andreyev, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray by Jorge Amado, Lesabendio by Paul Scheerbart, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov and The Republic of Wine by Mo Yan, but chances are I'll end up reading only a fraction of these and discover a whole crop of other titles that I want to read. After enjoying Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra, Ways of Going Home is a book I'm looking forward to in January.

Whilst reading my way through some of the above a book that I've been picking up in between and returning to is Tales of Tono recently published by Tate Publishing, the Tate Modern, in London has an ongoing exhibition of Moriyama and Klein and have also published a career spanning book of Moriyama, which contains some newly translated texts, but I thought I'd go for Tales of Tono, a book originally published in Japan nearly forty years ago. The photographs are accompanied by essays by Moriyama, (translated by Lena Fritsch who also contributes an essay, Simon Baker also contributes an informative essay), in which he explains his reasons for choosing Tōno, situated in Iwate Prefecture, and in the first essay Moriyama mentions two authors connected with Tōno, the folklorist Kunio Yanagita, whose book Tono Monogatari/The Legends of Tono is available in an anniversary edition, translated by Ronald. A Morse, published by Lexington Books, the other author Moriyama mentions who has connections with Tōno is poet and short story writer Miyazawa Kenji. Moriyama talks of Tōno being his imagined furusato, (hometown), and his fascination of maps, looking through the photographs they begin to take on a meditation on topography, representative of a certain time and place, when I look at these pictures the feeling that I'm looking at a scene which has been paused in the middle of a film and that at any moment a slow movement will begin, and the imagined film will spring back into momentum, this sensation always occurs to me when I look at photographs. The photographs are largely presented in black and white, with very few in colour, they capture an almost ethereal Tōno, a night time matsuri festival caught in flash light, the fabric designs of washing hung out takes up almost the whole of a frame, a hut of stored logs appear as a series of white circles of differing sizes in the blackness. Shop fronts and vending machines take on a starkness that remains undetected in the world of colour, but in the black and white, the substance of dark and light begin to become reversed, is it night time or day time?, sunlight or moonlight?.

Describing in the next essay his departure for Tōno, his enthusiasm for his project is infectious to read, travelling on a diesel train on the Kamaishi Line, his anticipation in seeing the famous landmarks mentioned in the folk stories collected by Yanagita, Mt. Hayachine and Mt. Rokkoshi and the Sarugaishi River, the fact that the locals he asks are ignorant of these places provoke a series of reflections for Moriyama. Mentioning the inclusion of a portrait of himself in the book I began to contemplate on the sequencing of the photographs as they appear in the book with how they corresponded with the route Moriyama travelled as he explored Tōno. Moriyama describes his determination to photograph everything that takes up his field of vision, his guest room, landscapes, cemeteries, the streets and fields, portraits of the people, the gravel of the roads. He describes his longing to meet kappa, oshira sama and zashiki warashi, the spirits of children who if seen are portents of good fortune, all of which figure in the Tono monogatari. A particular portrait that strikes me is of a young person, I can't ascertain the gender, the picture is grainy like a negative, the details of the eyes are hidden in shadow, it could sound a slight cliche to describe the photograph as haunting, but for me the image has a searing quality to it, and I've found myself returning to it again and again. Among the final essays through autobiographical sketches Moriyama makes parallels with photography and folklore, to read of his descriptions of photography as a form of narration provokes the viewer to examine and re-examine the photographs. Moriyama describes his struggle with imagined places with that of real places. Tales of Tono is a remarkable book for different reasons, for the photographs and also for the translated essays that give us a glimpse into the process of a unique photographer.

William Klein and Daido Moriyama is on at the Tate until 20.01.2013  

 



a man with no talents

 A Man With No Talents/San'ya gakeppuchi nikki, Oyama Shiro's highly engaging memoir from 2000 covers the period of him moving from Kamagasaki, one of the largest quarters in Japan for day labourers in Osaka, to San'ya in 1987, which was then Tokyo's equivalent quarter, the memoir covers his experiences during the period before and after the bubble economy burst, and throughout  what  Oyama refers to as the Heisei recession. He initially begins in describing how he came to be a day laborer, finding himself unable to face the life of a salaryman, he begins to describe his life of disassociation from what many see as the conventional life, steady job, wife, children, the presence of this disassociation is an aspect that is never to distant in him relating his experiences. Oyama appears as an outsider not only in his perspectives of mainstream society but also in his observations and relationship to San'ya, although in San'ya Oyama reflects - 'One's true self is that which exists in the gaze of other people. Here in San'ya, I have continually practiced the technique of bringing my inmost self closer to the self that others have come to expect; for someone like me who must live out his days in San'ya, there is nothing more to do in life than refine this technique'. He tells us of the close living conditions in his doya, (bunkhouse), at first he lived in a cramped communal room, eight to a room, with one tatami mat for each worker, but was unable to tolerate the lack of privacy, he managed to move into a room where the bunks were divided with curtains, Oyama describes using additional cardboard to strengthen the flimsy partitioning. He describes the smell of the men, those who have come off the streets, and also the sounds of the men, which becomes a part of the portrait of the psychology of men living in close quarters, the slow testing of each other.

The main source of work for the day laborers was through the San'ya Welfare Center, where men would queue up in the early hours, (2-3 am), in anticipation of it opening, Oyama describes these episodes which sometimes could turn violent, Oyama reflects on the before and after of the bursting of the economic bubble, and it's impact on the day laborers. The nature and at times complex relationship between the laborers is described, an episode where he encounters a couple of Korean workers who tell him that they feel sorry for him, Oyama gives portraits of the transient workers and of those that remained for a longer length of time, Tsukamoto, a man that similar to Oyama led a life that was completely cut off from his previous life is determined that he'd wander off and end up in Aokigahara, Oyama points out how this route he has taken has severed himself from the past, noting I think in the added post script that the last time he had seen any of his family was three decades previous, (he mentions the last time he  saw his niece). Although at times his opinions of his fellow workers dips into the caustic, it's also imbued with a wry sense of humour, (in his relationship with Saito for instance), and also a sense of incredulousness at their desire to still partake in ideals that Oyama is trying to distance himself from.

In one of the chapters Oyama charts his taking up walks along the Sumida River and across it's various bridges, and describes the emergence of the blue tarp covered shelters, and in particular a Murota who built a hut on the bank of the Arakawa Canal, this mixing of descriptions of his life in the doya and those homeless living on the streets occupies the latter part of the book, the dangers facing the homeless, of being robbed from the mogaki, who prey on drunken workers after they've been paid, and in one episode of a gang of 12-13 year olds throwing rocks at him. In his post script he describes his thoughts and feelings at actually finding that he had won the Kaiko Takeshi Prize with the manuscript of the book, the award also came with a cash prize which he intended to make last as long as possible, he ponders on how his family in all probability remain unaware that he won a literary prize, and also of his intention of moving out of the doya and living on the streets of Shinjuku, the reader can't help on pondering Oyama's fate or current situation. The memoir was translated by Edward Fowler who has also written on his experiences of living in San'ya in San'ya Blues, Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo.


A Man With No Talents at Cornell University Press


         

Blinking and Flapping

An intriguing title that I'll be keeping an eye out for when funds allow is Blinking and Flapping from Yasuhiro Suzuki,

From Seigensha -

Focusing attention on small discoveries in everyday life and natural phenomena , Yasuhiro Suzuki makes works that are sensuous, using familiar materials and technology. Getting alot of attention both inside and outside Japan, this book introduces the thinking process of this talented artist. Photos, drawing, bilingual texts, (by himself and 4 contributors), included.

"Yasuhiro Suzuki's sketches resemble the mathematical formulas a mathematician scribbles all over the blackboard" - Kenya Hara, (Graphic Designer).

Blinking and Flapping at Seigensha Art Publishing

more at Spoon and Tamago.

From Trinity to Trinity

In her introduction translator, Eiko Otake,mentions the small number of writings of Hayashi's that have seen translation into English, the appearance of From Trinity to Trinity from independent publisher Station Hill Press is a much valued addition. From Trinity to Trinity charts Hayashi's pilgrimage to the Trinity site in New Mexico, the test site of the first atomic bomb on July 16th 1945, which she made at the end of the last millennium. Eiko Otake also gives a description of how her translation came into fruition and her correspondence with Hayashi, recounting her meetings with the author, and gives a biography of Hayashi and an overview of her major works. Hayashi was born in Nagasaki but raised in Japanese occupied Shanghai, her family was the only Japanese family on her block but was treated as an equal, the sense of viewing things as an outsider would inform her writing as a chronicler, she describes herself as being an 'un-Japanese Japanese'. The family returned to Nagasaki when Kyoko was 14, and she worked in a munitions factory, as the family settled on the edge of the city, Kyoko was the only member of her family exposed to the bomb, being a hibakusha she found not only alienated her from society at large but also within her own family. After the war she suffered from radioactive sickness but fled Nagasaki and married a man twenty years her senior, they had a son, a courageous act as cases of second generation radioactive sickness and abnormal births were becoming known. Hayashi began writing chronicling the lives of hibakusha, The Site of Rituals,also known as The Ritual of Death/Matsuri no ba won the Akutagawa Prize in 1975, in 2005 The Complete works of Hayashi Kyoko/Hayashi Kyoko zenshu were published in eight volumes.

Hayashi first travelled to America in 1985 when her son moved there to work, although wanting to visit the Trinity Site for many years it wasn't until 1999 that she could make her pilgrimage, Hayashi refers to the site as the 'hibakusha's birthplace', the site is only open to the public twice a year. Enroute to Los Alamos, Hayashi and her friend stop at the National Atomic Museum where Hayashi not only examines the exhibits but is also conscious of the other visitors to the museum, Hayashi examines her feelings as she takes in the museum, noticing that her feelings of being a hibakusha welled up in her only after a man sitting near to her gets up and leaves. At one end of the museum hangs a portrait of Oppenheimer, who Hayashi reminds us was once celebrated as a national hero, but who also fell from grace. On the wall also hangs the route map that Boxcar took, taking off from Tinian to Nagasaki, then returning to Okinawa. As Hayashi and her friend drive closer to the base Hayashi reflects on the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe who made the Rockies her home, observing the barrenness of the landscape on the road to Los Alamos, Hayashi notes, 'These stones that fell off the cliffs are the dead of the Mesas', nature and observations of the movements of time are a central aspect to Hayashi writings, informing us of the lives of the hibakusha, many episodes experienced in the book which are set in the present tense provoke memories from the past. As they and the other visitors sign into the site and wander in the still radioactive wilderness Hayashi comes face to face with the memorial set in the wilderness, From Trinity to Trinity ends with poetry from Ito Yasuko.

Station Hill Press

       

The Bells of Nagasaki

I first heard of The Bells of Nagasaki/Nagasaki no kane whilst reading John W.Dower's Embracing Defeat,and again recently I was reading through a new book from Iwanami Shoten called Nagasaki Urakami Cathedral 1945-1958 An Atomic Bomb Relic Lost and was reminded of it again. The translator, William Johnston in his excellent and thought provoking introduction depicts the events leading up to the use and decision of using the atomic bombs, through the Potsdam meeting, the Franck Report, to Oppenheimer's feelings of committing a sin. He also mentions Albert Einstein's enthusiasm for exploring the idea of Atomic energy turned and how he wrote to President Roosevelt to persuade him not to use the bomb, although this letter was found unopened on the President's desk shortly after the president's death. Johnston describes the author Takashi Nagai, a doctor of the radiology department of the University of Nagasaki, with his knowledge of radiology and atomic power, his account of the bombing sometimes goes into giving scientific explanations of how the bomb was created, and the of the immense force it unleashed. The book was originally published in 1949, although at first it was banned by the occupying forces, but after protests from friends of the author, the Department of Defence gave permission with the proviso that it appeared with an appendix describing Japanese atrocities in the Philippines. The book begins with eye witness accounts, Chimoto working in the fields, seeing the plane and the small object falling through the sky, a bomb!. Shielding his eyes from the flash, when he looks again the blast is flattening tree's up the side of the mountain like an invisible bulldozer, other's who saw it recall it as 'a huge lantern wrapped in cotton'. Nagai's narrative moves to his own experiences after the blast, he was pinned to the ground by some fallen debris, his first thoughts are of how he will care for the wounded, as the surviving staff and students begin to recover themselves from the initial blast they realize that the dean, (Nagai), was buried alive and they begin to figure out how to reach him, one observes 'it must have been a bomb like the Hiroshima one', Nagai manages to free himself. The narrative briefly moves to Professor Seiki's account, who was knocked unconscious, when he comes around the sky is filled with a grey cloud, the 'sun was a reddish brown disc, it was dark like evening, it was cold'. Surveying the scene, whole departments of the university building had disappeared replaced by a sea of fire, with corpses lying everywhere. Nagai's team begin to collect themselves they start treating the wounded, knowing they faced a huge task, Nagai tells his team they 'must confront with quiet determination', Nagai himself was suffering from a severed artery. Soon though the hospital building catches fire, and the survivors have to be removed to the safety of a nearby hill, a few hours after the explosion black rain began to fall, and as the fires were taking the oxygen from the air, some people began suffering breathing difficulties. In the evening they watched as Urakami Cathedral suddenly burst into flames.

Nagai's narration follows the efforts of his team as they begin to make their rounds, with limited supplies and food they begin administering care to the wounded and dying. Returning to the ruins of the university they see the skeletons of their colleagues 'if only it were a dream'. They establish a base at Fuji-no-o,some distance from the centre and continue to make their rounds to the surrounding villages, tending survivors,one by one though the team begin to succumb to their wounds, and signs of atomic sickness begin to appear, walking back from their rounds Nagai's leg freezes up with pain, although this didn't stop him visiting the wounded 'I knew that if I went I would probably die but, thinking that to offer my life for one unknown person would be a worthwhile sacrifice, I set out on my journey'. On returning his condition worsens and feeling the symptoms of Cheyne-Stokes respiration he fell into a coma, but remarkably he recovers. The last segments of the book are given over to Nagai's scientific observations about the effects of radioactivity and cases of treating atomic sickness, and also his faith,building a hut near the centre of where the bomb struck he continued to study it's effects, he notices the decrease in radioactivity is rapid and disagrees with the theory that it would take seventy five years to clear.Talking with some visitors to his hut some time after he tells them, 'All these human lives, all this material wealth, all this time, all this mobilization of the powers of the human race - if all this had been directed to peace'.

The Man Who Loved Others as Himself

Nagasaki City Peace and Atomic Bomb Museum

Camera Obtrusa

Camera Obtrusa published recently by Kaya Press, continues their innovative translations of titles from Japan, I'm looking forward to seeing forthcoming titles from them. The book's introduction written by Abe Mark Nornes, the author of the book,  Forest of Pressure, looks back on his own meetings with Hara Kazuo and Ogawa Shinsuke, and notes the differences between the two directors work. Abe Mark Nornes goes on to mention the work of another great documentarist, that of Michael Moore, who whilst working on his own film Roger and Me, happened by chance to see Hara's The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, and afterwards felt inspired and exhilarated, seeing in it something similar to his own film-making. The two directors met up and talked about their different approaches to documentary film making. The subtitle to this book is The Action Documentaries of Hara Kazuo, as Pat Noonan,who translated the book, describes in his foreword that documentary making for Hara is 'an act of communication between himself and his subjects'. The book actually comprises two books by Hara, the first being Camera Obtrusa/Fumikoeru Kamera, published in Japan in 1987, which is largely autobiographical, starting from reflections on his childhood experiences, his relationship with his mother in particular is returned to later in the book, leading onto his first encounters with film and photography, and working with directors Shohei Imamura and Kei Kumai. Also here Hara starts to bring into question notions of what we think of when we think of what constitutes the private and the public, and looks into his own method of film making,'while capturing my subject on film-I'm inevitably forced into situations from which there's no turning back' and also 'Whatever happens keep the camera rolling', many of his films are a cathartic experience not only for the viewer, but for those involved in the making. We learn that at many points whilst filming when it looked like things might come to a premature end,that he would be faced with paying back the loans he took out to fund the making of his films. The second book comprises the production notes he made whilst filming The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On.

Hara gives full backgrounds on his films, Extreme Private Eros:Love Song 1974, Goodbye CP, A Dedicated Life and probably the most well known The Emperors Naked Army Marches On, (1987), although there's a great deal written about Japanese cinema, translations of books by directors are few and far between, I can only think of two, there's Akira Kurosawa's 'Something Like An Autobiography', and also Kiju Yoshida's book; Ozu's Anti-Cinema, so this book is a great addition for anyone interested in Japanese Film. He describes meeting his wife Takeda Miyuki whilst working at a school for the handicapped, and through these experiences he made the film Goodbye CP (1972), a film following people who suffer from cerebral palsy. Hara explains the background to how he came upon the idea for the film being that at that time Shuji Teryama's book; Throw Away Your Books,Rally Into the Streets! was very popular, and whilst taking his students to the shops, he'd say let's throw our wheel chairs away and rally in the streets!, as a kind of a joking parody, when he started contemplating issues surrounding the disabled, Hara reminds us that this was before public access for the disabled was as common place as it is now. He goes onto explain that previous films he had seen about the disabled had always presented the film looking at them, so what he wanted to do was 'reverse the gaze', to see things from the disabled perspective. He talks also of his frustration that when the film was first screened many people misinterpreted it.


Kaya Press

A conversation with Hara Kazuo

Hyperart:Thomasson

Walking back from a lunch break, Genpei Akasegawa and two friends had walked passed what has now come to be known as 'The Yotsuya Staircase', unconsciously walking up one side, walking along the small platform and then walking down the opposite side. A small flight of stairs, seven in all on each side, with a wooden banister, much the same as many other stairs, although when looking at it, something was amiss, usually the platform would lead to a door, but here there was no door, looking at them, they seemed to be a completely useless flight of stairs. Perhaps at some distant point in time there had been a door at the top but now that it was no longer there, it had rendered the stair's use obsolete. On closer inspection they came to see that a section of rail from the banister had come off and been replaced by a new piece of wood, they surmised that not only it being a staircase that actually led to nowhere, it was also being preserved and maintained as such. So begins Akasegawa Genpei's book, that had appeared originally as columns in photography magazines from the mid-eighties, it was published in Japan by Chikuma Shobo Publishing back in 1987.

Realizing that he was moving on from l'art pour l'art, to le stairs pour le stairs maybe, Akasegawa termed this art 'Hyperart', and debating it over with his students they decided they needed a more precise name for their discoveries, and they came up with the name: Thomasson. Gary Thomasson a baseball player who had then recently been signed by the Yomiuri Giants encapsulated everything that the art signified, since starting his career with the Giants he had failed to contact bat with ball, although being paid a mint he served no great purpose. So the momentum for the hunt of Thomassons begins and they discover the 'defunct ticket window of Ekoda' (sealed with plywood), 'the pointless gate at Ochanomizu', (looks like a gate but completely sealed with concrete), mysterious eaves that jut out of walls protecting vanished mail boxes removed long ago. Many examples prove to be puzzling to solve, a floating doorway appearing high in a wall that belongs to the basement of a house?, and the photograph used as the book's cover from a report sent in from a reader in Urawa, noticing a wall of a dry cleaners that appeared to have a blip in the middle, closer inspection revealed that it was in actual fact a doorknob for a door that was sealed over, 'what's more, the doorknob actually turned' the report concludes. Soon with numerous reports of sitings and photographs being sent in by the magazines readers, some from Paris and China, it becomes clear that Thomassons are not only a Japanese phenomenon, Thomassons can be found wherever humans create buildings. Collecting together paintings, models and photographs, Akasegawa hosted the worlds first exhibition of Thomasson artefacts which he called 'A Neighbourhood in Agony', and the interest garnered bus tours to visit the locations of sitings. Told in compere like prose, the book explores the unconscious nature of architecture, which in turn has created some truly unintentionally inspiring objects which questions what we have come to think of what constitutes as art, or architecture.

Translated by Matt Fargo, who provides a summary of his thoughts about translating the book, Reiko Tomii also provides an in depth essay on Akasegawa Genpei, who has also won the Akutagawa Prize in 1981, under the pen name Katsuhiko Otsuji, and is also a key figure within the Japanese art world since the early sixties, involved with groups like Hi-Red Center and Neo-Dada, in 1963 he was at the centre of the 1000 Yen Note incident. Published by Kaya Press the book is full of photographs of Thomasson's and also has trailer which you can see here, (at 2.02 check out the picture Iimura Akihiko took of himself standing at the top of a chimney, no guide ropes!), and if you have seen a Thomasson take a photograph and fill in a report and mail it here.

Kaya Press