Fracture | Andrés Neuman #InTranslation

What a wonderful reading experience!

From the beautifully designed hardcover dust jacket (the gold seams actually sparkle in real life), to the impressive translation that seems to have captured the beauty and thoughtfulness of Neuman's original story, Fracture is a journey to savour.

I knew I was in for a treat from the very first sentence, “The afternoon appears calm, and yet time is waiting to pounce.” This leads us into the startling realisation that we are about to feel the tremors of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Tokyo, along with our protagonist, Yoshi Watanabe.

The fear and shock of the magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by the images of the horrifying tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, take Yoshie back in time.

Time and it's passing, memory and what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget become the central themes in Neuman's story about Yoshie, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by default. Yoshie is a hibakusha, a person affected by exposure to an atomic bomb, in a country unable to talk about it. His life is fractured, broken. He spends the rest of his life trying to piece it back together.

Neuman is a writer not afraid to take a risk with his writing. 

He's an Argentinian man writing about a much older Japanese man, from the perspective of numerous women living all around the world (Paris, New York, Argentina, Madrid). We have Yoshie's narration about life in Tokyo now and his remembrances of the war, and we have these women reflecting on their time with Yoshie. What he was like at that period of his life, their views on how the war affected him and why their relationships with him ultimately failed.

Writing and reading is all about the journey into someone else's world. The oft quoted Atticus Finch saying about 'you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it' is very true about Yoshie's story. Neuman gives us multiple ways to climb into Yoshie's skin, because if he had left it entirely to the very reserved Yoshie, our insights would be greatly diminished. 

For some unknown reason, I've found it very difficult to adequately document my journey with this book. This response has taken weeks to complete.

Fracture was a slow, considered read. Thoughtful and thought-provoking. It delved into many of my favourite themes. From very early on, I considered this book 'a keeper', deserving of a reread and a much coveted position on my groaning bookshelf. I savoured every minute, every word, but I simply don't feel like gushing or raving or shouting about it from the roof tops. It's not that kind of book, I guess. It's contemplative and quietly spoken, much like Yoshie himself.

Sometimes, some books, just need to be sat with quietly.

The Guardian | Lucy Popescu | 9 June 2020

A prolific writer, Neuman – born in Argentina, now based in Granada – delights in language and linguistic ambiguity. In Fracture, he explores the fragmented nature of memory, emotional scars, a city’s wounds after a disaster and the cracks in a relationship caused by cultural difference. He draws profound parallels between collective traumas – Japan’s bombing, Vietnam in 1968, Argentina’s “disappeared”, Chernobyl and the 2004 Madrid train attacks. Recalling Japan’s enforced silence in the war’s aftermath, Yoshie’s Argentinian girlfriend, Mariela, ponders: “Maybe the most brutal thing is not that you were bombed. Most brutal of all is that they don’t even allow you to tell people that you’ve been bombed. During the dictatorship here they would kill one of your children and you couldn’t tell anyone.” 

Facts:

• Originally published in 2018
• Translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia in 2020
• Neuman is a poet, short story writer and columnist. 
• The late Chilean novelist Roberto Bolaño, said of him “The literature of the 21st century will belong to Neuman.” 

Epigraphs:

• If something exists somewhere, it will exist everywhere | Czeslaw Milosz (Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1980).
• Love came...after the kill | Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974 a US confessional poet & Pulitzer prize winner for Poetry 1967).
• I wonder if there is/any operation/that removes memories | Shinoe Shōda (born in Hiroshima 1910, she was a hibakusha. She died of breast cancer 1965. Tanka (II) finishes with Where is a cure/for my pain-filled heart?)
• ...and if my body is still the soft part of the mountain/I'll know/I am not yet the mountain | José Watanabe (1946 - 2007 a Peruvian poet with a Japanese father).

Favourite Quote:

...the ancient art of kintsugi. When a piece of pottery breaks, the kintsugi craftspeople place powdered gold into each crack to emphasise the spot where the break occurred. Exposed rather than concealed, these fractures and their repair occupy a central place in the history of the object. By accentuating this memory, it is ennobled. Something that has survived damage can be considered more valuable, more beautiful. (my highlights)

The Forest of Wool and Steel | Natsu Miyashita #JPNfiction

I wanted to love The Forest of Wool and Steel far more than I did in the end. 

A coming-of-age story about a piano tuner from a remote mountain region in Hokkaido had all the right ingredients for me - one as a former (very amateur) piano enthusiast and two, as a recent visitor to Japan. It was beautifully, elegantly written, with gorgeous chapter illustrations showing a piano slowly being returned to the wild. Nature, naturalness and nurturing were ideas that ran through the piece. It's tone was pianissimo (softly, softly), it's tempo larghissimo (as slow as possible).

I'm beginning to realise that even though I like the practice and philosophy of Zen, it's not enough for me in a story. I prefer richer, epic, detailed narratives - something I can really sink my teeth into.

I've been slow in working out that I prefer my Japanese Lit with a twist of magic realism and a decent dose of kookiness. Think Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami, my two favourite Japanese writers to date. The Forest of Wool and Steel was simply too sedate for me!

Despite the lovely, lovely passages about music, listening, tone and nuance, I was never really fully engaged in the story. The emotional heart alluded me. The story failed to take flight or go anywhere.

Facts:

• Published in Japan 2016 as Hitsuji to Hagane no Mori
• Made into a movie in Japan in 2018.
• Translated in to English 2019 by Philip Gabriel (who also translated most of Murakami's books).
• Winner of the 2016 National Booksellers Award.

Sadly, I had the same problem with Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, but in this case I was unable to finish the book. I simply didn't care enough about either of the protagonists to continue. Which is odd, as stories about loneliness and being alone are ones that generally draw me in. Perhaps the trick with stories about disconnection is not to disconnect your readers! Odd-ball romances have never really been my thing either.

I have since heard that Kawakami finished the book with a twist of magic realism, which is intriguing, but not enough in my current reading frame of mind to make me pick it up again. If I hadn't just finished a wonderful #slowread experience with Moby-Dick, I might be concerned that my modern technology brain has changed too much to appreciate a more gentle paced meandering story.

Facts:

• Published in Japan 2001 as Sensei no kaban.
• Translated by Allison Markin Powell in 2017
• Published as The Briefcase in the US in 2012.
• Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize.

Both books were read (or not) for Meredith's Japanese Literature Challenge 13.

My other Japanese Lit reads  over the years:

• If Cats Disappeared from the World | Genki Kawamura
• A Cat, A Man And Two Women | Junichiro Tanizaki
• Convenience Store Woman |  Sayaka Murata
• Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow | Banana Yoshimoto
• Kafka on the Shore | Haruki Murakami
• The Travelling Cat Chronicles | Hiro Arikawa
• On Love and Barley: Haiku of Basho
• The Guest Cat | Takashi Hiraide
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running | Haruki Murakami
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage | Haruki Murakami
• The Sound of the Mountain | Yasunari Kawabata
• 1Q84 | Haruki Murakami

Week 3 - Non-Fiction November

Week 3: (Nov. 11 to 15) – Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert (Katie at Doing Dewey): Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

As discussed in my week 2 Non-Fiction November post, I'm keen to know more about the GDR, life behind the Wall and the impact of the Wall coming down in 1989. So if you have any expert knowledge on this topic, please feel free to share in the comments.

However this week, I will turn the non-fiction gaze back to me, to show off  highlight some of the stuff I know, thanks to books!

Previously I have explored the Holocaust, Coco Chanel and Napoleon.

My 2014 Holocaust and Coco Chanel Be the Expert post is here.
My 2017 Holocaust Be the Expert post is here.
My 2018 Napoleon Be the Expert post is here.

This year we will travel to Japan.

My fascination with Japan goes back to my high school days when I studied Japanese for two and half years. Sadly, I am nowhere near as proficient in the language as that impressive claim might otherwise sound. But my obsession with cherry blossoms, tea ceremonies and Hiroshima dates back to this time.

I vaguely remember watching the TV series of Shogun back in the early 80's, but priests running around old Japan with swords failed to really capture my imagination. Not long after, A Town Like Alice was turned into a TV drama in Australia starring a young Bryan Brown. Here I learnt about many of the Japanese atrocities that happened in Malaysia in WWII. When my family moved to Cowra and I started taking Japanese classes, these were the two stories which formed my main views about Japan.

Quickly I was caught up on Cowra's own very personal history with Japan during WWII via the so-called Cowra Break-Out. Cowra still maintains a Japanese war cemetery from this time and now has a beautiful Japanese Garden created by Takeshi "Ken" Nakajima. This is where I caught the Japanese fetish for cherry blossoms. For five formative years during my teens, whilst we lived in Cowra, visiting the gardens in the spring time was the thing to do and something to look forward to. Long before selfies and hashtags, I was hooked on getting photos of swirling pink blossoms!

During my China phase in my twenties, I read a number of stories and histories that depicted the Japanese soldiers in China between the two world wars and into WWII. It was not a happy experience for the Chinese.

Over the years I have also read and watched a number of stories about the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, life in Changi prison, the fall of Singapore, the battle of Midway, the Kokoda Trail, the Burma Railway, the Vyner Brooke nurses captured in Singapore and James A Michiner's Sayonara.

It has only been in the past decade or so that I have finally started reading books set in Japan, written by Japanese authors.

Murakami was my first love, but I have broadened my range into Japanese classic literature, popular fiction and haiku (including Basho's travelling haiku classic Narrow Road to the Interior).

You can check out ALL the books on my blog that have been labelled 'Japan' or you can read about my non-fiction picks below.

• The tsunami of 2011 has spawned many books including Strong in the Rain by Lucy Birmingham & David McNeill. But my favourite was Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry - an in-depth study into the effects of the tsunami on one particular community.

• I adored Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I'm not a runner, but this books still resonated on so many levels. Highly recommended.

For tales of modern travellers in Japan try:

• Jane Lawson's Tokyo Style Guide - full of amazing vibrant photography.
• Neon Pilgrim by Lisa Dempster - a terrific description of a young woman's attempt to walk the 88 Temples of Shikoku.
• Peter Carey wrote a slim volume about taking his teenage son to Japan in Wrong About Japan.
• And I wrote a post in which I discuss the best travel guides to take to Japan.

Children's books also feature on my backlist:

• Yoko's Diary edited by Paul Ham was an award winning book about the story of a Hiroshima victim and her half-brother, who survived.

I continue to LOVE books about the food and culture of Japan. Most of these are still reads in progress, as I dip in and out of them when I can.

• Tokyo Local by Caryn Liew & Brendan Liew
• Tokyo by Steve Wilde & Michelle Mackintosh
• Rice Noodle Fish by Matt Goulding
• Shinrin-yoku by Yoshifumi Miyazaki
• Onsen of Japan by Steve Wilde & Michelle Mackintosh

And because I can't help myself, I have a collection of non-fiction books about Japan, waiting for me to have the time to read them. Have you read any of these? Which ones should I prioritise?

• Lonely Planet's Best of Japan
• Hokkaido Highway Blues by Will Ferguson
• Riding the Trains in Japan by Patrick Holland
• Absolutely on Music by Murakami and Ozawa
• Autobiography of a Geisha by Sayo Masuda
• The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
• Men Without Women by Murakami
• Hiroshima by John Hersey
• Lost Japan by Alex Kerr
• On the Narrow Road: Journey into a Lost Japan by Lesley Downer
• The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan by Ian Buruma

It took 35 years, but last year, for my 50th birthday, I finally saw cherry blossoms in Japan! It was a truly magical experience. Worth the wait in pink gold!

If you have any more inspired choices about travelling, living or eating in Japan, or any biography/history recommendations about the Japanese experience of WWII, I'd love to know.

Arigatou-gozaimasu ありがとうございます

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

If Cats Disappeared from the World is an odd little book. I say odd because I'm not quite sure how I'm going to review it best.

Obviously, it has a cute cover designed to attract the attention of any cat lover (me) and a title that would greatly concern said cat lover. I'm also a fan of Japanese literature. So this should have been a no-brainer for me. But maybe that's where the problem lays.

It was so lightly written and felt so detached (zen?) in style that it barely scratched the surface of my consciousness.

It had it's moments. There just weren't enough of them.

There were quirky moments like the Devil turning up to bargain with the dying narrator, whilst wearing bright Hawaiian shirts. And the cat who woke up one morning speaking in the refined voice of an English gentleman. The message about the power we give our possessions was an interesting one, and gives one pause to consider what you could give up forever to save your own life.

But mostly it was a sweet, uncomplicated tale about living in the moment and embracing those you love.

Love has to end. That’s all. And even though everyone knows it they still fall in love. 

I guess it’s the same with life. We all know it has to end someday, but even so we act as if we’re going to live forever. Like love, life is beautiful because it has to end.

Facts:

• Published in Japan 2012 as Sekai kara Neko ga Kieta nara
• Debut book by film producer Genki Kawamura
• Made into a movie by Akira Nagai in 2016
• Translated into English by Eric Selland 2018

Favourite Quote:

There's a limit to how well we know ourselves. We don't know what we look like to others, and we can't know our own future, and we can't know what our own death will be like.

Favourite Character:

• Cabbage, the cat, of course, especially when he started talking! 

Favourite or Forget:

• This was a HUGE hit in Japan and I can see why. As a fan of Japanese stories this one didn't live up to my expectations (I prefer the more complicated Murakami version of Japanese writing), but I'm not sorry I read it. 
• The stuff about materialism and the effects of technology on our modern lives will linger long. 
• Like many Japanese stories, what at first appears to be slight and sweet actually has subtle layers that get into your psyche as time goes by. 
• It's a small novel that could be gobbled up in one sitting, but I would suggest going slower. By taking your time, you allow the layers to sift into your consciousness and you will get the most out of your reading experience.
• When I first finished this book, I thought it was a forget. But over one week later, it is growing in my mind in significance.
• It may not be a firm favourite, but I won't forget it either.

Book 20 of 20 Books of Summer Winter
Wahoo!

Strong in the Rain by Lucy Birmingham & David McNeill

Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was not exactly what I was expecting.

Before visiting Japan for the first time last year, I read Richard Lloyd Parry's Ghosts of the Tsunami. Parry, like his American counterparts, was (and still is) an (English) journalist based in Japan. His book focused on the effects of the tsunami on one small town on the coast where an entire school of children was lost to the overwhelming wave. His book evolved over several years of interviews with survivors and was finally published in 2017, six years after the tsunami.

Strong in the Rain (published in October 2012) was a more immediate response to the disaster of 2011 and focused on the reaction of the government, media and locals to the nuclear threat that teetered on the brink of major catastrophe for days and days and days.

As a result, it was more report-like in structure and execution than Parry's book which was more personal, and told in a narrative non-fiction style. Both styles have their place and perhaps if I had read Strong in the Rain when it was first published I would have been more engaged with it.

Not that it wasn't interesting, it just didn't grab me the way Ghosts of the Tsunami did. That sense of immediacy had passed.

I did learn that the title came from a well-known Japanese poem by Kenji Miyazawa which has been translated below by Roger Pulvers.

Strong in the rain
Strong in the wind
Strong against the summer heat and snow
He is healthy and robust
Free from desire
He never loses his temper
Nor the quiet smile on his lips
He eats four go of unpolished rice
Miso and a few vegetables a day
He does not consider himself
In whatever occurs
His understanding
Comes from observation and experience
And he never loses sight of things
He lives in a little thatched-roof hut
In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove
If there is a sick child in the east
He goes there to nurse the child
If there’s a tired mother in the west
He goes to her and carries her sheaves
If someone is near death in the south
He goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid’
If there are strife and lawsuits in the north
He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness
He weeps at the time of drought
He plods about at a loss during the cold summer
Everybody calls him Blockhead
No one sings his praises
Or takes him to heart

That is the sort of person
I want to be

It's easy to see how this poem could embody the Japanese national spirit, although not so sure about the blockhead part!

Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan 2011

Birmingham and McNeill interviewed six survivors in six different areas to personalise the disaster. As you would expect, all their stories were compelling and heart-breaking. For someone who has never experienced that extreme type of earthquake and tsunami in person, it was often hard to fathom the extent of the destruction. But I could admire their courage in resilience in carrying on afterwards.

One of the relief workers talked about 'post traumatic growth' where 'people have power to face their own grief and gain control of their lives.' I first came across this idea in Leigh Sales book Any Ordinary Day and find it encouraging to know that it is possible to not only survive a traumatic event but to ultimately use it as a growing experience.

I learnt a lot about the history of quakes and tsunamis in Japan and the various preparations that the Japanese had put in place - seawalls, breakwaters and floodgates, early warning sirens and action plans - so many of which completely failed.

But it was the total failure of adequate preparation surrounding the Fukushima power plant that Birmingham & McNeill focused on. From the government, to TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials and media outlets that failed to prepare, report or acknowledge what was really happening. Obviously scaring everyone unnecessarily does no-one any good during a crisis, but denying and ignoring the facts could be equally devastating and even life-threatening.

One of the shocking facts that came out of the court case afterwards, was TEPCO arguing that it was not responsible for the radioactive fallout as it didn't "own" it. "Radioactive materials...that scattered and fell from the Fukushima No. 1 plant belong to the individual landowners there, not TEPCO."

OMG!! Surely this ridiculous claim was challenged at subsequent court hearings.

The Epilogue went on to provide some information on how various towns were coping with the clean up, preparing new and improved warning systems and commemorating the event. From ocean parks, to cherry tree plantings to mark the high water mark, to elevated housing. 

I'd be interested in finding out how things have progressed seven years on. If you know of any more current books on this topic, please leave me a note in the comments.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. This week I snuck my poem into the review!

6/20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 16℃
Dublin 16℃

A Cat, A Man And Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki

The Japanese have a curious relationship with cats in their literature. It's intense, tender, humane, faithful and compassionate.

Neko to Shōzō to Futari no Onna or A Cat, A Man and Two Women by Junichiro Tanizaki is a short novel that is a prime example of this feline devotion.

There are oodles of gorgeous descriptions of cats being cats, that any cat lover will know and love intimately - from cats snuggling up with you under the covers on a cold night, to stretching up to put their front paws on your thighs, begging for a tempting morsel of your dinner.

But this particular cat, Lily, becomes a bone of contention, a tug-o-war between the two women and the man in the title. Lily's fine cat behaviours are only appreciated by her male owner, Shozo. His two wives are jealous of his dedication and love for Lily.

First wife, Shinako is banished in favour of the new wife, Fukuko, who cleverly professes her love for cats...that lasts as long as it takes her to realise how much time and how much attention Shozo actually showers on Lily.

Shinako decides to get back at Shozo by requesting Lily as part of her divorce settlement. Fukuko agrees to the arrangement, although she is then concerned that Shinako is only doing so to get Shozo to visit her, to see Lily, in the hope she can win him back. Such dastardly, manipulative actions by everyone concerned litter the entire story. And don't get me started on Shozo's ghastly mother trying to orchestrate herself into a financially comfortable retirement by bringing in a wealthier daughter-in-law.

All this is done so subtly and gently by Tanizaki, though, that you barely realise how awful they are until the very end. Lily is the shining star of this story - the only one with any integrity, who remained true to her own nature the entire time.

I suspect there are also some subtle conventions about Japanese society that Tanizaki was exploring here as well - Shinako's mention of her lack of education. The specific locales that each woman was raised in. Lily's status as a Western breed, "with soft, silky fur: a pretty female, unusually elegant in form and features". These are all typical Tanizaki themes according to Tony Malone, who says in WHO IS JUNICHIRO TANIZAKI? Quarterly Conversation published on March 12, 2018,

One of these is Tanizaki’s interest in the world outside Japan and his examination of the effect that foreign culture was having on the Japanese way of life at the time of writing...

Tanizaki was also an astute observer of differences within his country...

Tanizaki has one other recurring focus; even a cursory glance at his work will reveal an obsession with the erotic and the female form...

He is clearly a man of many faces: a serious writer with a fascination for tradition and the past; an observer of cultural differences, both internal and external; a man obsessed with women, at times denigrating them, but at others acknowledging their mastery over men; a writer always looking to experiment with a variety of styles and genres. Above all, though, Tanizaki is a man we may be unable to measure by means of his writing, as what we see is what he wants us to see.

Favourite Character: Lily of course

Favourite Quote:

A soft, velvety, furry thing began silently working its way under the top quilt. Lily pushed with her head, burrowing down to the foot of the bed where she roamed about for a while before climbing back up. Putting her head inside the breast of Shinako's nightgown, she stopped moving, and after a while began to purr, very loudly and happily.

My cat Maisie, used to do exactly the same thing.

Favourite of Forget: The adult characters were less than admirable, but Tanizaki's descriptions of Lily's behaviour were so delightful that any cat lover will be won over.

Facts: 

• Tanizaki was born 24th July 1886 and died 30th July 1965.
• He was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964.
• He translated The Tale of Genji from old Japanese into the modern language.
• A Cat, A Man And Two Women was translated by Paul McCarthy
• The Tanizaki Prize was established in 1965 by the publishing company Chūō Kōronsha. It is awarded annually to a work of fiction or drama of the highest literary merit by a professional writer.

Books in Publication Order:

• 1910 刺青 Shisei "The Tattooer"
• 1913 恐怖 Kyōfu "Terror" 
• 1918 金と銀 Kin to Gin "Gold and Silver"
• 1919 富美子の足 Fumiko no ashi "Fumiko's Legs"
• 1921 私 Watakushi "The Thief"
• 1922 青い花 Aoi hana "Aguri"
• 1924 痴人の愛 Chijin no Ai Naomi a.k.a. A Fool's Love
• 1926 友田と松永の話 Tomoda to Matsunaga no hanashi "The Strange Case of Tomoda and Matsunaga"
• 1926 青塚氏の話 Aotsukashi no hanashi "Mr. Bluemound"
• 1928–1930 卍 Manji Quicksand
• 1929 蓼喰う蟲 Tade kuu mushi Some Prefer Nettles
• 1931 吉野葛 Yoshino kuzu Arrowroot
• 1932 蘆刈 Ashikari The Reed Cutter
• 1933 春琴抄 Shunkinshō "A Portrait of Shunkin"
• 1933 陰翳礼讃 In'ei Raisan In Praise of Shadows
• 1935 武州公秘話 Bushukō Hiwa The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi
• 1936 猫と庄造と二人の女 Neko to Shōzō to Futari no Onna A Cat, A Man, and Two Women
• 1943–1948 細雪 Sasameyuki The Makioka Sisters
• 1949 少将滋幹の母 Shōshō Shigemoto no haha Captain Shigemoto's Mother
• 1956 鍵 Kagi The Key
• 1957 幼少時代 Yōshō Jidai Childhood Years: A Memoir
• 1961 瘋癲老人日記 Fūten Rōjin Nikki Diary of a Mad Old Man

Book 3 of #20BooksofSummer (winter)

I finished this book on the Monday of our Queens birthday long weekend, where Sydney enjoyed a glorious 22℃ winter's day.

Summer in Dublin reached 15℃!

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I'm loving Japanese literature more and more. The modern stuff in particular, appears deceptively simple, but as you read, and for weeks afterwards, you become aware of layers of meaning.

The Convenience Store Woman is no exception. On the surface it appears to be a light tale about the life of a young woman who has been a convenience store worker for 18 years. But underneath is all this stuff about Japanese culture, societal expectations, belonging, purpose and how we cope with people who are different from the 'norm'.

Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

It's obvious, although undeclared that Keiko is probably on the autism spectrum. She has major issues with empathy, routines and socialisation. Her family have always wanted to 'cure' her. She has spent her life keeping her 'mouth shut' and trying to be 'normal'.

The convenience store is a place where Keiko feels like she belongs. She follows the manual assiduously and learns from (copies) her colleagues in the way they dress, talk, do their hair etc. Routines are her big thing though. She judges weather conditions to perfection so she knows when to stock/promote hot food or cold, she lines up the food in perfect rows, carefully lining up flavours and labels and sorting oldest to newest. She is the model employee and loves her job, finally feeling like she is 'normal' and functioning member of society.

But sadly, society still does not see her as 'normal'. A new employee who pokes fun at the store routines and manual upsets the rhythm of her life and she learns from her sister that, "ever since you started working at the convenience store, you've gotten weirder and weirder."

Keiko's one brief attempt at a relationship shows her what 'normal' might be like, although there was nothing usual or typical about her time with Shiraha in the end. It was an eye opener for her to realise though, that her family and friends were more comfortable with her in an unhappy, dysfunctional relationship and unemployed rather than being happily single and working in a job she loved and was good at. You begin to wonder who the odd people really are after all.

Her attempts to be 'normal' didn't worked. Certainly the scene with her sister and crying baby nephew shows us, the reader, how far from normal human reaction Keiko really is. Her thought processes at this moment are rather startling and concerning; I would certainly not be leaving my baby alone with her!

And this is where Murata has cleverly left it open for us to sometimes feel fear of Keiko and her robotic, almost psychopathic tendencies, but mostly we feel concern for her and just want her to be accepted for who she is. In the end, we're on her side, just wanting everyone to stop dumping their issues about 'normal' on her, so she can be happy in her work.

The convenience store is where Keiko belongs, and when she finally realises that her "very cells exist for the convenience store," we know that she will be as okay and as happy as she possibly can be. She knows what she is and she's content with that and no longer cares what anyone thinks. In the end this is a love story - a love story between a woman and her convenience store!

Favourite Passage:

For the human me, it probably is convenient to have you around, Shiraha, to keep my family and friends off my back. But the animal me, the convenience store worker, has absolutely no use for you whatsoever.

Go girl!

Favourite or Forget?

I loved this slim story a lot. It has given me a lot to mull over about society, appearances and conformity. It was weirdly comic with a dark, almost gothic edge to it. It's a favourite but I will not be rereading it. I will pass it on to my fellow book club members to read for our April meeting.

Facts:

The Convenience Store Woman won the 2016 Akutagawa Award.
Won the Foyles Book of the Year for Fiction 2018.
Picked as one of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2018.
Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
It was Murata's tenth novel.
Throughout her writing career, Murata has worked part-time at a convenience store in Tokyo.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Portobello Books 2018

First published: 2016

pages: 163

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

I've loved Japanese literature for many years now, but since visiting Japan earlier this year, my fascination and interest has exploded! Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto popped up on several lists as a great contemporary example of Japanese literature.

Kitchen is a slim book containing two stories - Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow - both deal with death, grief, mothering and healing. Kitchen is the longer of the two and I was enchanted from page one. The language is deceptively simple and at times I worried that it was too simple. I wasn't sure if this was a translation issue or part of Yoshimoto's urban grunge charm. Except that somehow, very quickly, with no fuss or bother, Mikage's tragic tale crept into my heart and stayed. 

Yoshimoto has created two beautiful, tender tale about loss and how to move forward from it. Her writing is suffused with innocence and warmth. Although her characters experience discontent and confusion, loneliness and urban angst, ultimately there is hope and love. 

In her Preface, Yoshimoto says,

Growth and the overcoming of obstacles are inscribed on a person's soul. If I have become any better at fighting my daily battles, be they violent or quiet, I know it is only thanks to my many friends and acquaintances.

Both these stories are testimony to this belief. Friendship acts as a band aid for heartbreak. Being connected and making room for others in your life is what gets you through the tough days. For Yoshimoto's characters, this connection often occurred around the rituals of food, eating and tea drinking.

A dream-like almost mystical element imbued her work as well. Both stories have a dash of magic realism or other-worldliness, that I found to be appealing in a very Japanese way. The emotion is subtle and subdued and the cast of characters quirky and eccentric in a 1980's version of Harajuku style. I suspect that this particular version of Japanese gender fluidity might meet with some raised eyebrows by current Western thinking, however it felt culturally and historically appropriate to my burgeoning knowledge of Japanese society.

Yoshimoto said that her two main themes are 'the exhaustion of young Japanese in contemporary Japan' and 'the way in which terrible experiences shape a person’s life'.

I'm not really sure that I spotted the exhaustion of which she speaks, but there was certainly an ennui and disconnect with the more traditional values of Japanese society.

I decided to not include any quotes in this post, because when I tried, they didn't work out of context.

If you enjoy minimalist, zen-like Japanese literature, then I think this will work for you. But if Murakami, Yoko Ogawa, Hiro Arikawa or Takashi Hiraide are not your thing, they stay away from the Kitchen!

In 1987 Yoshimoto won the 6th Kaien Newcomers' Literary Prize for Kitchen. In 1988 the novel was nominated for the Mishima Yukio Prize and in 1999 it received the 39th Recommendation by the Minister of Education for Best Newcomer Artist. In 1988 she also won the 16th Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature for the novella Moonlight Shadow, which is included in most editions of Kitchen.

First published in 1988 and translated into English by Megan Backus in 1993.

Tokyo Style Guide by Jane Lawson

Thankfully Jane Lawson's book, Tokyo Style Guide is more of a walking tour of Tokyo than a pure style guide, as my interest in shopping is minimal. Unfortunately, it's also a hardback book, so it didn't get to come on holidays with me. I browsed it a little before leaving, but have thoroughly enjoyed going through it properly now that we're back - it has helped to make sense of some of what we saw and experienced as well as providing fodder for next time! 

This is not a comprehensive travel guide for all the things to see and do in Tokyo.
It's best used in conjunction with other guides (unless you're a complete shopping junkie, then Jane is your guru!)

Most of Lawson's walks feature specific shops and areas of Tokyo renown for their stylish wares or style icons, but there's also a lot of important, practical stuff, like where to get a good coffee, yakitori and tasty dumplings. Lawson also includes temples, parks, markets and other interesting sites that the first-time, overwhelmed visitor to Tokyo might miss. We skipped most of the shopping experiences in this book but I still found lots to inspire me in planning where to go and what to expect.

Lawson stresses the 'magic' of finding your own way, 'getting lost in Tokyo is to be expected, so take a deep breath and make it part of the fun.' I was very grateful to have read this particular section BEFORE going to Tokyo. We only got a little bit lost once, although one or other of us got bamboozled by directions numerous times, just luckily not both of us together! (Which probably what makes us such a good travelling combo). It's not always easy to go with the flow when you're tired and stressed in a strange country, but Japan was certainly one of the easier countries in which to do so.

What I really loved about Tokyo Style Guide though were the pages and pages of fabulous, colourful street photography. They prompted me with good ideas before heading off as well as giving us lots of good memories when we got back home.

Lawson's other helpful tips included wearing slip on shoes and checking your socks for holes.

She went through some useful phrases which included the Japanese characters so that you could feel confident about walking into the right toilet block or out of the correct doorway.

Some of the train travel info was out of date as the big wide world of phone apps has made this much easier in just two years.

Tokyo Style Guide was a December 2016 publication - a lot can happen in Tokyo in 18 months!

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

After returning home from our trip to Japan, I wasn't ready to let it go, so when I finished Memoirs of a Geisha, I turned straight to this glorious historical fiction set in Korea and Japan for solace. Not that Pachinko was a comforting read as such. There was tragedy, sadness, grief, loss and war. But there was also love, loyalty and strength of character.

Basically Pachinko is an epic multi-generational story. The consequences of a brief love affair by a young Korean girl with an older married man impacted several generations. The repercussions of the affair brought about great change and great joy as well as tremendous suffering and opportunity. 

Min Jin Lee explores the nature of belonging via all her characters. I hadn't realised how many Koreans had immigrated to Japan during the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 -1945 and how much discrimination they faced, and continue to face. After the war they were given the opportunity to move back to Korea, and some tried. But they often found that they had become so Japanese to their Korean neighbours that they were rejected. The political division into north and south Korea also prohibited the return of many former nationals. Yet they didn't belong in Japan either. 

To belong somewhere, is it country, language, culture, education, family, nature or nurture?

The Japanese call the Koreans who came to Japan during this time zainichi (foreign resident staying in Japan). They are a distinct minority group in Japan that are differentiated from even the Koreans who immigrated to Japan in the 1980's.

The Japanese, like most countries in the world, have not readily or gracefully accepted cultures and peoples who differ from themselves. Sunja's story highlighted all the discrimination, subtle and institutional, that this group of Koreans endured and the impact it had on individuals, families and the community as a whole.

I didn't like the cover at all when I began the book (I preferred the prettier pachinko-style smaller format and international covers) but by the end I became quite attached to the young woman on my cover. Her stoic stare gradually revealed the pain and determination to survive in an hostile environment. And I got to wondering who was this woman and what was her story.

As Lee found when she researched this book,

the Korean Japanese may have been historical victims, but when I met them in person, none of them were as simple as that. I was so humbled by the breadth and complexity of the people that I met in Japan that I put aside my old draft and started to write the book again.

It is this human complexity that she conveys so well in Pachinko.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

I like to think that I have taken my 'what to read whilst travelling' choices to an inspired level of brilliance, but I really outdid myself with our recent trip to Japan. Reading Murakami in Japan now feels like the ONLY place to read Murakami!

Not only does the usual Murakami weirdness make sense when you're actually in Japan, but you also realise just how important the environment is to Murakami and his characters. His descriptions of the trees, forests, waterways and urban spaces are everywhere as you move around the country. As are the crows.

In this case, the boy named crow is a mentor to our young protagonist, Kafka Tamura, perhaps an alter ego, a Japanese Jiminy Cricket. Whatever crow is or isn't, right from word one, Murakami is flagging that symbolism, mythology and psychology will be our prime concerns in Kafka on the Shore.

In Japanese mythology, crows are seen as a sign of 'divine intervention in human affairs' (wikipedia). Western mythology tends to associate the crow with bad news or as a harbinger of death. They're selfish, spread gossip and neglect their young. And they're everywhere in Japan. They sit on telegraph wires, fence posts and roof tops. You often wake up to their cawing, even in the city.

Cats are the other creatures that dominant not only Murakami stories, but many Japanese stories, yet curiously I didn't see one single cat in three weeks, let alone a talking cat! The opposite of the crow, cats are creatures of good luck, although still often associated with death and hauntings.

Silence, I discover is something you can actually hear.

There is no denying that Murakami is on very intimate terms with kooky.

If the talking cats weren't enough, a cameo appearance by Johnny Walker and Colonel Sanders of KFC fame might tip you over the edge. A reference to the (fictional) Picnic at Hanging Rock as an example of another group loss of consciousness event caught my eye. Did Murakami know that it was an urban myth? Is that what he was implying about his own story? The sense of mystery and other-worldliness was certainly a shared atmosphere between the two stories.

I was also amazed by truck drivers who suddenly became classic music afficiandos, quiet librarians who turned out to be sex fiends and sex workers who quoted philosophers. What's not to love? The kookiness gets under my skin and into my head. Just like what happened to me with his previous books.

1Q84 is still roaming around in my head, Colourless Tsukuru less so, but it's still a memorable book experience.

Things outside you are projections of what's inside you, and what's inside you is a projection of what's outside you. So when you step into the labyrinth outside you, at the same time your stepping into the labyrinth inside. 

One of the really enjoyable aspects to reading Murakami in Japan is the place names. Suddenly they really mean something. Most of the action in Kafka takes place in Takamatsu on the island of Shikoku. 

We didn't get to Shikiko with this visit, but we did see one of the huge bridges, from a distance, that joins Shikoko to Honshu and we spent some time at the station that is the interchange for the JR line that goes to Takamatsu. Seeing the name of the city featured in my book up in lights suddenly grounded this surreal story into reality.

This is only my fourth Murakami (see my Author Challenge tab for details) so I'm not sure I can safely name all his common themes and ideas, but there are a few that I've clocked. Going into the woods/fear of getting lost, weird sex, talking creatures, dreams, random jazz references, loneliness and silence. And for me, the reader, there is an over-riding sense of bewilderment (WTF was that about?) as well as an overwhelming sense of wanting more (whatever it was a think I like it!) 

I'm caught between one void and another. I have no idea what's right, what's wrong. I don't even know what I want anymore. I'm standing alone in the middle of a horrific sandstorm. I can't move, and can't even see my fingertips.

Murakami doesn't wrap his stories up with a neat, tidy bow or resolve many of the story lines. This should be totally frustrating...and it is, but somehow you love being kept in the dark and confused at the same time. Perhaps it's the likeable characters? Or perhaps it's the not so subtle way he plays with your head? Or perhaps it is the hope that the next book he writes will bring you one step closer to understanding this maddening man and his ability to suck you into his world. 

Every one of us is losing something precious to us....Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at least that's how I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories.

Image source

Murakami likes to do the whole books in books thing. Kafka's backlist was an obvious start -The Castle, The Trial, Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony in this case. But he also referenced The Arabian Nights, the complete works of Natsume Soseki, a book about the trial of Adolf Eichmann (I can only assume it was Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem), Electra by Sophocles, The Tale of the Genji and 'The Chrysanthemum Pledge' in Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Ueda Akinari.

So many tangents, so many connections, which one should I tackle next?

Travel Guides - Japan

My recent trip to Japan was a long time in the making.

I've been wanting to go ever since I studied Japanese at school.

I'm not sure why I didn't prioritise it earlier in my travelling career, except for the vague notion that I've had that I should do the bigger long-haul trips to Europe and the America's in my younger years and save the shorter, closer-to-home trips for later.

Certainly there was no jetlag before, during or after our time in Japan (not like our trip to Cuba and Mexico 18mnths ago where I was shattered for the entire first day in Cuba and for several days again when we finally got home).

We started planning Japan about a year ago.

We knew we wanted to catch some blossom time, but it also had to fit around our work schedules, B17's HSC exam timetable and Mr Books club football commitments.

I patiently waited until August 2017, though, for the latest Lonely Planet Japan to be published before really getting into the nitty gritty of the planning.

At work we're regularly asked which is the best travel guide.

Every trip I take, I decide to do a thorough comparison, to help me answer this question, but every trip leaves me with even more indecision than before I started. There are simply too many variants involved - the type of holiday you want, the author of the particular guide, your mood, the country you're visiting etc.

After Vietnam, I felt that the LP was good for the day-to-day on the ground stuff, like where to get tickets, how much they cost, how to get to and find the various places and what plugs, visas and shots you might need. I found the Eyewitness books good for the history of the country (great to read on the plane) as well as highlighting favourite venues to visit with maps and great colour pics. The Wallpaper city guides had great walks, a focus on the architecture (& shopping, although I've always ignored that section) and good suggestions for drinks and meals. The Trip Advisor app was our main go-to for restaurants and experiences at this time. Their rating system helped to narrow down the often overwhelming choices available.

In Cuba the LP helped us to work out where we actually wanted to go. It was such an unknown adventure, we didn't even know where to start. Yet it was the Eyewitness guide that filled in the gaps for some of the smaller towns that we stayed in. In the bigger towns and cities, the LP walks were a fabulous way to orient ourselves and to see a great cross-section of the area. In Havana, I grew frustrated with the LP because of how they divide the city up into the various suburbs for what to see and do, but then put all the sleeping, eating and drinking sections together at the end. When I'm staying in Centro Habana, I want ALL the stuff associated with Centro Habana to be together. I don't want to have to flick around trying to find a good place to grab a rooftop cocktail! Which is where the Wallpaper Guide came in handy again. Cuba is also where we embraced AirBnB for the first time. All but one of our stays was found on the app.

In Mexico, the Eyewitness guide had fabulous maps and walks around most of the ancient sites. As did the Moon Guide, but everything in the Moon guide was catered for American tourists only, from giving all the prices in US dollars (as opposed to the Mexican peso!) to where to find American food and other places that American likes to hang out together. Useful only for helping us to cross off certain places to not go to for dinner or to hang out! It also had some odd comments that we found skated very close to offensive.

With all this under my belt, I thought that for Japan we would use the LP to plan some of the bigger stuff as well as do their walks, use the Eyewitness Travel Japan for the history and iconic sites, AirBnB for accommodation and Trip Advisor for food.

For the record we have never knowingly stayed in a LP recommendation for accommodation. I have looked at their options over the years, but they're either too expensive or not actually anywhere near where we want to be. Back in my pre-internet, pre-app, backpacking days, the LP did help me track down YMCA's and Youth Hostels. But now I prefer a quieter, cleaner, cosier form of accommodation, embedded in the local community, which is why AirBnB has been perfect for us. 

We take the time to read all the reviews and comments. We look for English speaking hosts, and factor in things like distances public transport, restaurants and other things to see and do. We adjust our expectations for every country we travel to. We take the time to find places that sound like they will suit us and meet our needs and we leave honest reviews that take into account all these factors. Cuba and Japan are two very different countries which demanded two very different styles of travel, yet AirBnB worked beautifully for us in both. 

Trip Advisor used to be great, but the current filters are not very useful and keep going back to the default ones they want you to use. It is still handy to check out nearby restaurants and experiences when you first arrive in a new city, but it's getting harder to sort out the ads from the genuine reviews. I still write honest reviews, but I've become warier. Most of our Japan eating experiences came from friends, our AirBnB hosts or the good old-fashioned serendipitous walk by.

The LP helped me to narrow down my choices about where to actually visit. When I first sat down to fill in the blanks for our 3 week trip, I was overwhelmed - the new edition was so thick with options. So I started with the lovely colour top 25 photographs and a piece of paper. I wrote down which of the iconic sites and places I really wanted to see. Then I read through the 'First time in Japan' and the "If You Like' sections. Each chapter then had a small box of highlights for that region/city.

Sadly, I barely used the Eyewitness guide at all. I found the history section very dry and uninspiring and it didn't cover all the places we were planning on going to (whereas the LP did), so I didn't pick it up again. I also picked up a LP Best of Japan not long before we left, but ran out of time to read it & decided not to pack it to save on weight and space. The road map of Japan came along for the ride, but we used the MapsMe app the whole time instead. The map was handy, though, in the early stages of planning to see where all the places where in relation to each other. The final two books on my pile were a LP Pocket Kyoto & Osaka and a LP Tokyo.

The LP Tokyo was an old edition. I tore out the map and marked out the walks as suggested by LP for Shinjuku and Shibuya (the 2 areas where we were staying). I also tore out the two chapters for these suburbs and just took them along instead of the whole book. The Kyoto & Osaka book was brand new so I didn't want to tear it up (yet!) The Pocket guides really are handy for tucking into your pocket or handbag, although nothing any of the books said prepared us for 4 days in Kyoto during Golden Week!

Golden Week crowds at Fushima Inari-Taisha, Kyoto

I felt very prepared for this trip and had a number of things I REALLY wanted to do. I got to tick most of them off. The rest can wait for the return trip! Mr Books fell in love with the JapanTravel app which he used to plan all our train travel. We like to be organised at the beginning, then as we became more confident in using the trains and buses and negotiating the crowds, we're happy to make stuff up as we go along.

In the end, it was the Lonely Planet books, MapsMe, AirBnB and JapanTravel apps that got us around Japan with the best results.

I will happily conduct more intensive research and guide comparison for future trips!

My blossom photos.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

During the planning stages of my trip to Japan I asked around and checked on Goodreads for the best books set in Japan. At the top of nearly every list I came across was Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

When it was first published in 1997, and later when the movie was released in 2005, I avoided it at all costs. My impression was that it would be some kind of tacky white American male wish fulfilment fantasy story. Not at all my cup of tea, green or otherwise!

However I succumbed to popular opinion and packed it in my travel bag with many reservations. At best, I thought it would be a good book for the plane when I needed something light and easy to consume.

As it turned out serendipity was on my side.

I also took Murakami's Kafka on the Shore to Japan. In fact, I had started reading it a few days before departure. My review for it will turn up here soon. I finished it, about halfway through our time in Japan, as luck would have it, on our first night in Kyoto.

Starting Memoirs of a Geisha in Kyoto was an inspired thing to do. We stayed in the Higashiyama area, just a handful a streets away from Gion, the main geisha area in Kyoto and where the book was set.

I knew about the controversy surrounding the author and whether or not he had permission to name the geisha who provided him with a lot of the information for the book. From this I had assumed that the book was based on her life story. It wasn't until I finished the book and read Golden's acknowledgements page that I realised this assumption was not entirely correct.

Although the character of Sayuri and her story are completely invented, the historical facts of a geisha's day-to-day life in the 1930's and 1940's are not....Mineko Iwasaki, one of Gion's top geisha in the 1960's and 1970's, opened her Kyoto home to me during May 1992, and corrected my every misconception about the life of a geisha.

 A quick check on the internet, showed that Golden had been sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by Iwasaki who claimed that Golden had agreed to protect her anonymity. Golden claimed otherwise, saying he had tapes and notes to the contrary. They eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money. Iwasaki then went on to write (with Rande Gail Brown) an autobiography titled Geisha of Gion (2002) which claimed to tell the real story.

Both books were best sellers and both books have been loved and hated in equal measure on Goodreads. Golden for paternalistic inaccuracies and Iwasaki for grandiose, emotionless boasting.

From what I have been able to ascertain (and please correct me if I'm wrong) there were various levels or ranks of being a geisha. The highest ranking geisha were from the Gion, Pontocho and Kamishichiken districts. A lower rank of geisha were the so-called onsen geisha, or hot spring geisha, who worked in towns famous for their hot spring baths. Lower still were the ones who worked in a jorou-ya (brothel). A maiko was a junior or apprentice geisha.

Geiko Tomeko 1930's

Another controversy surrounded the mizuage ceremony as described by Golden in his book. This is the process by which a maiko became a fully fledged geisha (or geiko as geisha were called in Kyoto). Golden describes his character's virginity being sold off to the highest bidder. It was a pretty ghastly moment in the story and I wondered at the time just how true it was.

Initially I was relieved when a google search indicated that Iwasaki strongly refuted that this ever happened to her and that no such custom ever existed. However further reading seems to indicate that it was in fact a common practice, even for the higher ranking geiko (Sayo Masuda and Liza Dalby). 1959 is the key date here though, as this is when mizuage was made illegal along with other acts of prostitution.

Mizuage still exists as a form of initiation from maiko to senior maiko, but without the sex. The ceremony now focuses on the change of hairstyle and 'turning of the collar' on the kimono. According to her autobiography, Iwasaki became a maiko at age 15, in 1964, five years after the change in law.

So after all that, did I actually enjoy the book?

Yes, I did.

I read it as historical fiction, not as a memoir, and thoroughly enjoyed the glimpse into another world in another time. It was a quick, easy read. The romantic element felt unbelievable, rather Cinderellish really. For me it let down the historical aspects that I enjoyed learning about. It also happily mentioned the names of streets, buildings and streams that I was able to walk down, through and around, imagining what it must have looked like 70 years ago.

I could do nothing but step into my shoes and follow her up the alleyway to a street running beside the narrow Shirakawa Stream (that's a tautology by the by - kawa and gawa means river or stream). 

FYI: Hitler adopted the swastika from an ancient Hindu, Buddhist symbol denoting a temple.
It is still used in Japan (& other Asian countries) to indicate the site of a Buddhist temple.
Confronting to the Western eye, but true.

Back in those days, the streets and alleys in Gion were still paved beautifully with stone. We walked along in the moonlight for a block or so, beside the weeping cherry trees that drooped down over the black water, and finally across a wooden bridge arching over into a section of Gion I'd never seen before. The embankment of the stream was stone, most of it covered with patches of moss. Along its top, the backs of the teahouses and okiya connected to form a wall. Reed screens over the windows sliced the yellow light into tiny strips.