Book Review | Botchan by Natsume Soseki

Tags

book review, Botchan, Huckleberry Finn, japan, japanese, Matsuyama Ehime, Natsume Sōseki, Soseki, Tokyo

Botchan by Natsume Sōseki

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

‘Botchan‘ is an amusing account based on the ups and downs of the teaching profession which is closely related to Soseki’s own short-lived stint as a teacher in Matsuyama. It is one of the most widely read novels in Japan and I can see why; anyone who has ever been a student or a teacher can completely relate to the many naughty things teachers AND students get up to. Schools were and still are utterly insane environments, and will drive even the calmest person mad.

This is very much a summer read. It is mischievous and light-hearted with tones of Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn‘ running through it, as Botchan our slightly arrogant narrator, describes his early days as a juvenile delinquent and his karmic comeuppance as a pompous maths teacher. In the beginning Botchan comes across as a naughty kid who never really applies himself to his studies (unlike his brother) and is therefore always getting into all sorts of trouble. However, after his mother’s tragic death he learns to grow up pretty fast. His father and brother look upon him as a waste of space, yet Kiyo the family servant, treats him like a prince, always telling him how he will one day be a ‘great man’.

Never really having any real aims or goals, Botchan soon realises he must do something with his life. When his father dies and his brother sells the family house and moves away to set up his own business, Botchan decides to enroll himself in the Tokyo Academy of Physics, but even this is without any real enthusiasm. A few years later he is graduated and by chance offered the job of mathematics teacher in the backwater town of Matsuyama of all places.

On arrival he realises that Matsuyama is not as refined as Tokyo and it’s people (in his eyes) are equal to that of neanderthals. His observations of the townspeople, students and other professors of the faculty are hilarious as he gives his colleagues nicknames (he never refers to them by their real names anyway). The best thing about Botchan as a character is his inability to see his own shortcomings, yet he moans when bad things happen to him. His students torture him with names like ‘Red towel’ and tease him about his love of onsen’s and noodle bars.

Very soon he discovers that being a teacher means you cannot do whatever you want out of school hours. Living in such a small town means word gets around, and anyone who has ever taught will understand how your actions out of school could so easily be used against you. I found this to be a really faithful account of first-time teaching and how certain events still resonate today even though it was written back in 1906.

Highly recommended to all those entering the teaching profession for a bit of light entertainment. It will certainly take your mind away from all the lesson-planning and essay writing one needs to do during the ITT and NQT years!

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Book Review | ‘Kitchen’ by Banana Yoshimoto

Tags

banana yoshimoto, book review, Cancer, Grief Loss and Bereavement, japanese, kitchen, Soy sauce

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. Where tile catching the light (ting! Ting!)”

Imagine a book that tasted like a drop of vanilla essence floating in dark soy sauce, smelled like clean linen on an unwashed body and felt like a cat purring on your lap during a violent thunderstorm. That is ‘Kitchen‘. It’s so deceptively simple, yet so full of emotion that it had me reeling. Often I would find myself at the end of a sentence, yet like an arrow loosed from a bow the thrust of it would carry and carry, until it travelled straight into my heart. Yoshimoto’s prose is like a time machine that took me back to some very difficult events in my life, and like her protagonists I was surprised that I too found myself in the kitchen when things looked very bleak indeed.

What is it about food that gives us comfort when facing loss on an earth-shattering scale? Following instructions on how to prepare a dish, making a cup of tea or touching the utensils and knowing their individual functions is an odd yet completely rational way of somehow inserting order into a life invaded by chaos. I think Yoshimoto’s idea of the kitchen as a place of domestic healing and love is something I can definitely identify with.

“Me, when I’m utterly exhausted by it all, when my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody’s home, then I despise my own life – my birth, my upbringing, everything.” 

There were some really memorable passages that were shockingly accurate about the raw, keening pain of bereavement. Those that have been through it will probably relive that sadness and find comfort in Yoshimoto’s writing, as the only road to recovery is to convince yourself that you are not alone, even though you may feel that way. And so the most heartbroken characters in the book find others who truly know what ‘rock-bottom’ means. For instance, my favourite character Eriko happens to be a transvestite who decides to undergo major surgery and become a woman after losing his wife to terminal cancer. Yoshimoto never once refers to the reasons behind Eriko’s life-altering decision, but it’s extraordinary how she lets us read between the lines and come to conclusions that sometimes the mania of trying to bring a person back may even entail ‘becoming’ that person at all costs. In this edition there is another short story which has a similar character, a high school boy who lost his girlfriend and brother in a car accident, and finds the only way to cope with it is by wearing his girlfriend’s school uniform. All in all, one can make parallel’s between how men and women cope with loss and it seems women are the stronger sex in Yoshimoto’s world.

“At that moment I had a thrilling sharp intuition. I knew it as if I held it in my hands: In the gloom of death that surrounded the two of us, we were just at the point of approaching and negotiating a gentle curve. If we bypassed it, we would split off into different directions. In that case, we would forever remain just friends.” 

‘Kitchen’ therefore is a strange juxtaposition of happiness, grief, laughter and tears that looks at the different ways people cope with carrying on with life despite all the odds. There are those who keep their feelings hidden and smile in the face of adversity while some change gender just to liberate themselves from the pain they feel. From transvestites to high school kids, Yoshimoto’s cast is colourful and varied as we realise that everyone sooner or later, will be touched by death and through it learn to appreciate every day as a blessing.

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Last Night’s Twitter Find, ‘Japanese Fart Scrolls’… (Prepare Thyself)

Tags

art criticism, Bizarre, Christie, Fart, Flatulence, Humor, humour, japanese, Recreation, Stephen Fry, Waseda University

Hmm, what may a Japanese Fart Scroll be? That is the question. Well, I never knew either until I spotted Stephen Fry (King of QI) tweet on this rather elusive subject. Two clicks later I was amazed to find… well, these.

And my education was complete 🙂 I confess, I have seen stranger things, but still the mind boggles. Let me assure you that these fine scrolls are actually geniune. They are called the He Gassen (literally The Fart Battle) and a whole bunch of them were once auctioned at Christie’s for a handsome amount. If interested, you may find the full archive at the Waseda University website and the original post of the blogger who has brought them to light. I’d dearly love to know at least the name of the ancient artist who oh-so elegantly took the time to paint these images. The biggest question that remains is ‘what purpose do they serve?’ Is there a secret meaning to the pictures?

All I’m saying is I wish my blogger friend all the luck in the world during his research into the scrolls (yes, a whole new area of academic study people!) and I hope he gets to the bottom of it (no pun intended). In the meantime all that’s left is to admire the scrolls for their comedic worth and marvel at the creativity of the artist, or rather his specific flavour of toilet humour! My favourite out of the lot is below, and it definitely requires some technique!

Part 1: Farting in a bag makes formidable ‘fart-bomb’…

Part 2: Which you can then use to defeat your opponents!

There is a lot of weird literature out there, but I wanted to put the spotlight on this rare, lesser-known side of Japanese culture. Whatever you are doing this week folks, I hope you will remember the fart scrolls and that it will put a smile on your face.

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Book Review | ‘Almost Transparent Blue’ by Ryu Murakami

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Anthony Swofford, book review, Coin Locker Babies, Haruki Murakami, in the miso, japanese, Japanese literature, Miso Soup, ryu murakami

Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a story about a bunch of disaffected Japanese youths who waste their time with gratuitous sex, drugs and violence. ‘Almost Transparent Blue’ is the other Murakami’s debut novel which was received to critical acclaim and won the coveted Akutagawa prize. It is also one of the must read books on the 1001 list. This is not an easy book to read and I’m sorry to say that it’s not as good as ‘In the Miso Soup’, although it has its moments. Favourite bits include the opening chapter and the bit where they are at the American air base during the thunder and lightning sequence.

The strongest aspect of the book is its gross imagery and the unfathomable sadness of lost youth. The characters (of which the narrator shares the same name as the author) are all stuck in their own desolate vacuum of apathy, moving from one moment to the next in a haze of indifference. Murakami’s image of post-war Japan drags the reader down the dark alleyways of an insular and unyielding culture. His characters allow us to penetrate the stereotypical lacquerwork of strong Japanese moral values and gaze at the ‘other japan’, the one that lives side-by-side with Western ideals. This drug-like cocktail is at once fascinating and repulsive.

Maybe it’s just me, but there were times when this novel didn’t make any sense, but then again this is a ‘mood heavy’ book, and there is not a pronounced plotline, so the narrative sort of echoes the tumultuous lives of decadent Japanese youths. This book reminds me of ‘Exit A‘ by Anthony Swofford which had a better storyline and is also set around an American airbase in Japan. Both novels contain a central theme of degeneration and crime, but ‘Almost Transparent Blue’ is decidedly more corrosive and far more bold than Swofford’s offering.

This is an R-rated book so beware. There are many alarming scenes but nevertheless it is a daring exploration into wordsmithery by Murakami. Considering it was his first novel, (and written when he was still only a student!) it deserves some applause for its pluck. Can’t wait to read ‘Coin Locker Babies‘!

For more on Ryu Murakami, see my review of ‘In the Miso Soup’.

Rating: 2/5 stars.

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Book Review | ‘The Doll and Other Stories’ by Daphne Du Maurier

Tags

anime, Beginners, book review, daphne du maurier, Fiction, gothic fiction, japanese, locus solus, Manderley, raymond carver, raymond roussel, rebecca, science fiction, the monk

The Doll Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Here is an early showcase of Du Mauriers’ literary prowess and her interest for certain themes that she would develop later into full length novels. In this little medley of tales one can spot a prototype of ‘Manderley’ house as well as recurrences of the blood-red azaleas that have become synonymous with it (the haunted setting of her most acclaimed novel ‘Rebecca’).

Overall, the stories centre on the varying degrees of sexual degeneration and the disintegration of relationships. These are explored from different angles, be it through the eyes of a prostitute or an emotionally disturbed violinist. I got a sense that as a young writer, Du Maurier understood the value of subtlety, as even her most extreme story mostly hinges on the power of suggestion. As in the fashion of the great gothic novels like ‘The Monk’ nothing is openly described but more or less alluded to.

Surprisingly, most of these were written during the authors younger years when I suppose her sexual curiosity was at its’ peak. But even then she approached her material with a maturity far beyond her years. This was raw talent trying to find its ultimate shape and form on some very sharp and often risqué ideas.

One particular story (and I can’t review without mentioning it) stands out as the most shocking. Nearly all her stories probe the dark recesses of the human psyche in one way or another, but this one tale really had me bewildered with its’ brazen pornographic twist. ‘The Doll’ is a story I can only describe as lurid and bold. It is dripping with sexual immorality and during its’ time must have caused quite a stir, as the immorality stems from a woman. The story is accessed through a fragment of letters discovered washed up on the shore. While the author is unknown, the account is legible enough to be understood, which turns out to be a strange confessional of an ex-lover who reveals one woman’s dark secret and her sickening fetish for a life-like, mechanical doll called Julio.

Now forgive me, but I didn’t know they actually HAD sex dolls back in the late 1800’s, especially ones that functioned. There is something very creepy about the thought of a cultured woman, carrying around this portable boyfriend in her trunk. The idea has a faint science-fictiony feel to it as I am reminded of the Japanese anime ‘Ghost-in-the-Shell: Innocence’, where the plot revolves around a load of ‘gynoids’ (robotic geishas) that suddenly go homicidal. Nothing like that happens here of course, but throughout the anime deep psychological questions were asked about why the dolls were created, and what they really represented outside their obvious functions. Because of this, I actually found myself attempting to relate with the doll as opposed to the other two characters, which as you can imagine made things more disturbing! Another book I should mention(and have not read yet) is ‘Locus Solus’ by Raymond Roussel, a surrealist take on the absurdities of scientific experimentation and the book which inspired a big part of the anime in question.

But I digress. As I read ’The Doll’, I got the feeling that this was evidence of Du Maurier playing in the sandbox of her ideas. There is an experimental quality to each story, but recurring characters like Maisie the prostitute shows she definitely had something in mind. It is also here that one can see early sketches of her now infamous Rebecca. If you like this book I recommend Raymond Carvers ‘Beginners’ for further reading, which is far sharper and more modern.

View all my reviews

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Book Review | ‘Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami

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book review, hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world, Haruki Murakami, japanese, Tokyo

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“You’re wrong. The mind is not like raindrops. It does not fall from the skies, it does not lose itself among other things. If you believe in me at all, then believe this: I promise you I will find it. Everything depends on this.”

“I believe you,” she whispers after a moment. “Please find my mind.”

Even though I read this two months ago, I am still processing the many memorable, often beautiful and sometimes terrifying images that Murakami has left imprinted on my mind. As a Murakami fan, I have read enough of his work to establish an impression of his writing style; but ‘Hard Boiled’ has blown that to pieces.

This novel is one that challenges notions of the psyche, memory and self. It plays around with theories of Quantum Physics as the story is batted back and forth from one separate, insulated world to another. Can a person exist in more than one place at a time? If so, what happens when one entity becomes aware of the others existence? What would you do if you were caught in such a dilemma? What happens when that much-needed membrane of ignorance is broken?

Murakami, with his fistful of crazy characters and seemingly random symbols and metaphors grapples with these and other off-the-wall questions by constructing a hybrid narrative that is part cyber-thriller and part folkloric mythos. As the chapters alternate from one reality (or unreality) to another, the reader begins to see surreal correlations between the two worlds.

Right and left, left and right. Like two sides of a brain that run side by side, but can never be reconciled or come in contact with each other; so the two nameless protagonists of this story begin by skirting along the veil between the conscious and unconscious worlds. On one side lies the Hard Boiled Wonderland; the metropolitan hubbub that is Tokyo city. On the other is the End of the World; a haunted village where shadows wither and die and strange golden beasts graze the plains. Two men exist in these places; two men who begin to question the laws of the places they live. On the periphery of their senses, they both feel the presence of the other and so begins a battle of awakening.

The delicate symmetry between the realities is juggled with expertise by Murakami, who in this novel is beginning to show that he is very capable of managing a large and eclectic cast of characters. What I found enjoyable was the ‘merging’ of the two worlds and especially the originality of the more fantastical aspects of the story. It was nice to see some Japanese mythological creatures appearing in unexpected places (the INKlings or kappa make many appearances).

This is one of those books that one can’t really talk that much about. Saying anything more about the plot or characters would give away a lot of spoilers. But one thing is for sure, this is definitely worth reading, if only for the cliffhanger ending.

View all my reviews

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Quick Review | ‘Nocturnes’ – Kazuo Ishiguro

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book review, Fiction, Haruki Murakami, japanese, kazuo ishiguro, nocturnes, Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

‘Nocturnes’ comprises of five loosely interwoven stories that tell tales of the relationship between man and music. Set at nightfall, each piece has its own flavour, with characters in different romantic predicaments that culminate to a moment of revelation.

As I was reading this I couldn’t help thinking about this great concept. After all, I’m one big believer in the thing called the ‘soundtrack to life’. It’s funny how songs flavour and shape the happiest and saddest moments of our lives. So it was with excitement that I picked up ‘Nocturnes’, hoping it would be one of those wonderful reads that takes you back to the times when songs and life’s bittersweet lessons met in a glorious serendipitous requiem. But alas, it wasn’t so.

It’s hard to place as to where the disappointment lay, but I think it has something to do with a misplacement between the characters and the music. They just didn’t seem to fit together. Either there was too much music and not enough ‘story’, or the story drowned out the music. The third story in particular held some vile characters. There was a vile married couple who seemed to think their way of life was the best and anyone else was simply a loser. I didn’t care for any of them, nor did I connect with their shallow needs and two-dimensional personalities. The women were always too wishy-washy, not at all like real women. The men were either too passive or the total opposite. In a novel where I expected music to temper these extremes, I found it only served to excite it.

Ishiguro is a great author, and I’m certain that his other works are much better than this. I think this would have been a novel better written by someone like Haruki Murakami, who frequently uses Jazz themes as a delicate undertone in his novels. Murakami would have captured and shaped the mood of each story far more successfully than Ishiguro.

If you wish to read a novel with musical undertones, I suggest ‘South of the Border, West of the Sun’ by Haruki Murakami (click for my review). It’s far superior to ‘Nocturnes’ and it has just the right amount of moody nostalgia to satisfy the reader.

View all my reviews >>

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Quick Review | ‘South of the Border, West of the Sun’ – Haruki Murakami

Tags

book review, Fiction, Hajime, Haruki Murakami, japanese, love story, south of the border west of the sun

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The passage of time is hard to understand. It runs to its own improvised beat, slowing down and speeding up according to the moment – just like a jazz tune. There are times when the world seems to grind to a painful halt, your breath catches in your throat and your heart beats wildly at the sight of a ghost from the past. Then there are times when it seems the years have slipped by like a thief in the night, taking with it your youth, your dreams, your very ‘self’.

“There are some things in this world that can be changed and some that can’t. And time passing is one thing that can’t be redone. Come this far and you can’t go back.”

Yes, the hours of our borrowed life come and go like the tide of a distant shore rising unexpectedly to the cusp of our existence. Sometimes it leaves cryptic messages in its wake, dredged from the murky depths of memory; and at other times it withdraws in cruel silence, erasing the delicate footprints to our past.

Murakami’s novel follows Hajime, a middle-aged man, who recounts the erratic ups and downs of his incomplete life. It documents his loves and losses, his betrayals and sacrifices, his fears and desires. ‘South of the Border, West of the Sun’ is a story full of a very human reminiscence of what might have been, if only things were different. It underlines the instinctive need felt by all people for recognition; a recognition that can only be fulfilled as a reflection of the self in another human being. In Murakami’s novel this translates into a fervent, never-ending search for Hajimes first love Shimamoto, a mysterious girl with a lame leg.

What began as childhood friendship slowly blossomed into something more, but just as Hajime and Shimamoto began to bond, Hajime had to move to another neighbourhood. However this separation does nothing to sever the bond between them and years later when Hajime has settled down with two children, Shimamoto once again enters his life; this time with devastating consequences. Hajime must cope with the burden of choosing between right and wrong and the intoxicating desire that has matured within him for Shimamoto.

Despite the bad decisions that permeate Hajimes life I found myself thinking of him as a character. I neither liked nor disliked him. Instead to me he was just a disembodied voice, narrating the erratic flow of his story – pointing bravely to the rights and terrible wrongs of his personal journey. The women however were very vividly portrayed. I identified with their emotions far more readily than I did with Hajimes’. The fates of the women in particular concerned me, especially the haunting state of Izumi, a girl full of life and laughter, that experiences a most mind-blowing betrayal she certainly does not deserve.

Murakami is a word-artist in this beautiful, realistic yet painful analysis of love and heartache. He paints as honest a portrayal of male mid-life crisis as can possibly be written laden and the consequences of uncontrolled desire. Recommended to men and women alike, especially those who wonder why we sometimes do the things we do, and suffer the fate brought onto us.

I give this 4/5 stars. I’m still thinking Murakami has a better story in him, and I’m hoping to find it.

View all my reviews >>

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Quick Review | ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ – Haruki Murakami

Tags

book review, Haruki Murakami, japanese, Laika, Sputnik Sweetheart, Sumire

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ is a novel that works its way quietly through the mind, awakening the senses and forcing you to look at the world through a different window. Like many of Murakami’s characters, we are introduced to a set of young adults, who have somehow made it through the first stages of their life, but seem to be lost as to where they go from there.

Sumire, a young college drop-out with dreams of being a Japanese Kerouac meets Miu, a woman twice her age who she slowly begins to fall in love with. Confused by her reaction to Miu, Sumire turns to K, her college friend who harbours his own secret love for Sumire. Identifying Sumire as a young woman with no definable goal in life, Miu takes her under her wing and introduces her into the world of enterprise. Under K’s watchful gaze, Sumire begins to blossom into a different, more confident woman. This transformation however gives rise to other more serious problems, until one day Sumire mysteriously disappears and in her wake, strange truths begin to disturb the surface of everyone’s past.

Murakami’s chosen leitmotifs, symbols, and stories often seem totally disassociated, but in this novel they manage to fall like tetris-pieces into a beautiful pattern that is both disturbing and beautiful at the same time.

In this novel, the loss of ones soul, the ridding of the pubescent self and the haphazard journey into ‘becoming’ an adult is portrayed as lonely and full of painful sacrifices. We may have friends to keep us company along the way, but what purpose do they really serve? The title ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ is well-chosen, as the haunting story of Laika (the poor dog who was sacrificed for scientific progression) returns again and again to hammer home how humans often sacrifice their closest life companions in order to understand more about the mystery of themselves.

After reading four Murakami books, I see that his writing stands out from the rest of his peers for its controlled simplicity. The man has a story to tell, and his job is to tell it as clearly as possible. When a person has a story, they don’t waste time embellishing the background. And so it is that everything he writes stands out fresh and bold and strong. I find that this is an advantage, as he never tires his readers, but leaves them with a set of impressions that linger long after the story is finished.

View all my reviews >>

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Book Review | ‘Paradise’ – Koji Suzuki

Tags

Asia, book review, Fiction, japanese, Koji Suzuki, love story, millenia, Mongolia, paradise, soulmate

Imagine: a man and a woman are at a party, they have never met before. Suddenly their eyes meet from across the room, life stops, the music dies out, and their hearts simultaneously skip a beat. They gravitate towards each other, following an instinct deeper than animal attraction, and one says to the other, ‘I’m sorry, but you remind me of someone’. And the other smiles knowingly, and replies, ‘Yes, it’s like I’ve known you my whole life’.

I know it sounds slightly clichéd, but love at first sight does happen. But the question remains; how and why? With ‘Paradise’, Suzuki tries to explain the phenomena of love through ancient mythologies, by underlining that love is a promise made between two souls who swear to find one another again; a promise that resurrects and renews itself with every body it gives life to, ready to find the lost ‘other’.

“What if your soul mate isn’t encountered once in a lifetime but once in a millennia?”

As the quote above states, this book is a unique love story that spans a millenia. We begin with the scene of two young lovers who are cruelly separated on the wild steppes of Mongolia, just as the long prophesied freezing over of the ocean between Asia and the ‘lost continent’ occurs. One of them is fated to travel across this icy wilderness to reach the promised land of what is now called ‘America’, the other travels South and eventually reaches a paradise of tropical islands. Yet despite the wanderlust, this undying love traverses the unchartered world, only to meet again thousands of years later, incarnated in the bodies of two strangers.

This novel shows a side of Suzuki that is not well-known. His writing of love is that of high, spiritual immortality. In ‘Paradise’, Suzuki teaches us a thing or two about soul mates. He allows us to travel from one moment in time to the next, visiting different people, and watching how the destiny of two souls finally converge to fulfil the promise they made to each other.

A very powerful novel, and perfect for those who do not care for soppy romanticism. Definitely worth a read.

I give this 5/5 stars.