Dream Messenger by Shimada Masahiko

Set just before the 'Ushinawareta Junen'  (lost decade), after the economic bubble burst, I'd read alot about this book, published in Japan in 1989 as Yumetsukai, a lot of criticism likened Shimada's style with Murakami's, although similar in places they have quite different approaches, a novel in four parts, with numerous sub headings, it's difficult from reading only one of Shimada's novels to make a fair comparison. There are quite a few references in the novel about the price of real estate spiraling out of control, which was a major factor in the economic burst, and in the novel the president of a real estate company is taken hostage, as if in some kind of possible fictional compensation, (?).

Maiko Rokujo, a broker's analyst receives a letter from Mika Amino, which reads,'Please find my son', Maiko Amino's late husband was a property speculator, and shes now a wealthy widower. After agreeing to see Mrs Amino, Maiko finds that her servant is Takahiko Kubi, who was once a popular novelist who had fallen heavily into debt after pursuing the dream of building an off shore city. Finding that he couldn't pay off his loans and just as he was about to jump off a building to end it all, he had the idea that he could sell himself, he put an advert in the paper - 'Pay off my debts, and I'll be your slave', Mrs Amino obliged. Mrs Amino tells Maiko her story, that before she was married to her late husband,she had a son, Masao, with another man, and that he had kidnapped Masao, she last saw him when he was three, also that he had a favourite pillow, which he called 'Mikainaito'. Masao speaks three languages Japanese, English and Cantonese, which he learnt from his baby sitter. Mrs Amino had placed an advert, for information from anyone who knew anything about 'Mikainaito'. After receiving some strange replies, someone from New York knew something and had a description fitting Masao's, but now goes by the name Matthew. Maiko's job was to go to New York and find out more from this man.

The narrative following Matthew's story starts to appear in a fragmentary way, after being beaten up by a gang, then breaking into an abandoned hotel for the night, and conversing with 'Mikainaito', he can't remember the past ten days. Maiko meets with the New York man, who is Japanese, Katagiri Yusaku, who with his wife had started an orphanage for children gone astray, Katagiri also dabbled in child psychology, and this is where Matthew had first come into contact with his guiding spirit, giving him the name 'Mikainaito', all the children at the orphanage had one. Matthew could also make Mikainaito visit people's dreams, at first making him visit Katagiri's wife when she was in hospital, all the children sent their guardian spirits to her, to help her recover. He tells Maiko that the last time he had heard from Matthew was that he had returned to Tokyo and was working as a translator at a magazine. Matthew has begun working in the 'friendship' business, Katagiri and his wife had also started to rent the children out, in a kind of extension to his sometimes strange psychology/ philosophy. Matthew as a hired friend helps out an array of ailing characters; a depressed Professor, a mother jealous of her daughter, Mariko's strange addiction, he acts as a kind of therapist.

Through a friend he helps a nihilistic rock singer, Tetsuya Nishikaze with his English, but ends up running out when the singer's anger spills over, ending in the fumbled kidnapping of the real estate president. Matthew's closest companion back in the orphanage was Penelope, but before they went their separate ways, they agree to meet up every three years, the only friendship he's had, is his relationship with Raphael Zac, who he met in gay bar.Takahiko Kubi meanwhile has been searching the streets around Shinjuku in an attempt to find Matthew, his luck changes one day after a meeting with a fortune teller, telling him he will meet a man who will end his confusion. Kubi gets diverted, and ends up having a one night stand at a love hotel called 'Norwegian Wood', after that he has a meal with a tramp, who tells him he is descended from the Heike clan. Not really sure where to turn next, out of the night a man approaches him, Raphael Zac, the link that might enable him to trace Matthew. Murakami comparisons aside, and now twenty years old, the novel has aged quite well, I enjoyed reading it, a kaliedoscopic portrait of Japan in the pre-milenium. This translation was by Philip Gabriel and was published by Kodansha, I can only hope more of Shimada's back list will make it to translation soon.

Ghosts

 

Nearly falling into being a collection of journal entries, memories of the narrator's childhood are pieced together into a seamless stream of recollections. As a young boy at home in his parents house with his sister, playing games with a visiting cousin, hiding during a game of hide and seek in the dark, the boy would feel his arms, not sure where his being ended and the darkness began. It's a novel that explores the peripheries of existence in a number ways. Being a story that opens, with the question, 'Why this desire to relate what we call the past?', then continues to make the comparison that as a race we have a collected mythology, so too as individuals we carry our own mythology. Through the narrators pursuit of memories were also given an impression of the place where memory fades, likewise the minutiae of their beginnings are examined, for the narrator, who has a passion for all sorts of insects, mainly winged; moths, butterflies, may bugs, etc, the sun shining through the wings of a butterfly can trigger recollections of his youth. Were told of his parents, his father was some kind of scholar, not to be disturbed when in his study, and of the library at home with it's door handle that just turns and turns, only needing a slight push to actually open it, he remembers his father's smell, mingling with the odour of books and dust. His mother lived her early years abroad and has Western tastes, the tatami being hidden under a grey carpet, he was mesmerised by a mirror in her room, and by her bottles of perfume.

By the end of the war he turns eighteen, and as a young boy he lives through the war as if on vacation, he passes the entrance exam for a high school, but works at munitions factory. Due to bereavements in the family he is adopted by an uncle, who is studying medicine. One night after taking a hot bath, he notices a huge group of moths that have collected under the light of the veranda, watching them intensely he passes out, after that he falls ill due to a kidney infection. Another uncle owns a hospital in the suburbs of Tokyo, which is a large somewhat dilapidated building, next to a newly refurbished room you could find another falling into disrepair, a strange place, 'It was also quite easy for somebody to become ill in this house and nobody know anything about it until he was better again', he explains. After his sister dies, he walks in the mountains, and sitting down, there is a zen like moment, engulfed in an all encompassing silence, the impression that time has stopped moving, he keeps returning to the mountain ranges overlooking Matsumoto plain, his increasing interest in nature and mountains leads him to journey through the Japanese Alps, turning away from his fellow man, he pursues the path of self discovery. Sleeping in traveller's huts and many nights spent under the stars, he continues to examine memory and wonders do memories die?, and discovers that some of his deeply buried memories don't change, so deep down, they are immune to the affects of passing time, the face of his sister and mother come to him. He recalls too, through pictures that a friend of the family has of his mother in Lubeck and he talks of his interest in Thomas Mann.

Morio Kita was the son of poet Mokichi Saito, who was also Akutagawa's doctor. Kita originally studied medicine, but soon gave it up to focus on writing,although going onto qualify as a doctor, and in 1958 he went on six month trip to Europe, which he wrote about. His novel 'The House of Nire', (which I hope to read in the future) won the Mainichi Prize in 1964. 'Ghosts' was first published in Japan as 1954 as 'Yurei' by publishers Bungo Shuto, and published by Kodansha in 1991, in this superb translation by Dennis Keene. The jacket cover (detail above), itself a detail of a print by Chizuko Yoshida.

Kodansha International

 

Home-Coming

Home-Coming was the first Japanese novel to appear in English translation after the second world war, Secker & Warburg published an edition in the UK in 1955 and Knopf published it a year earlier in the USA, it's Japanese title was 'Kikyo', this translation is by Brewster Horowitz, there's also an introduction by Harold Strauss, who gives a brief explanation about Japanese literature of the day and recalls the times when he met Osaragi in Japan. Home-Coming was originally serialised in the Mainichi Shimbun in 1948. It covers the period at the end of the war, and the years after. Osaragi is mainly concerned at looking at the next generation of Japanese immediately after the war, and through them to envision how Japan might change. Kyogo is an interesting character at first leaving Japan to explore Europe and then on his return to Japan, he has a renaissance with it's culture and tradition, although he doesn't feel like he is part of old Japan, he knows he's has no part in the new generation. It's not a war novel in the same respect as Akira Yoshimura's 'One Man's Justice' or Shizuku Go's 'Requiem', it's an interesting look at Japanese society in the immediate post-war years.

The story opens in Japanese occupied Singapore with Saeko Takano and a painter called Kohei Onozaki surveying the hills around Malacca, they look at an old church where the explorer Francis Xavier had been buried for a time, Saeko had come to Singapore to open a restaurant. On her way back from buying diamonds in the town, (she hides them in medicine bottles, and gets soldiers returning to Japan to give them to her sister, saying you can't get this medicine at home), she meets Captain Ushigi who persuades her to return to Singapore with him, but first he has to meet someone, would she like to come too?, she agrees. They stop outside a Chinese fronted house, the person they have come to see is Kyogo Moriya, a Japanese who has been living in Europe, who had come to Singapore via Sumatra and had narrowly escaped being killed by Japanese bombers. Kyogo and Ushigi have different views on the war, Kyogo knowing that Japan will be defeated, 'War is a terrible thing' he says, Ushigi adamant that Japan can win.

Kyogo has a Chinese passport and is fearful over his European connections, worried he maybe suspected by the Japanese military police as a spy. Ushigi tells Kyogo that he has a boat leaving, but Kyogo is going to head back to Europe. On a rainy day Saeko and Kyogo meet unexpectedly, they discuss the war, Saeko is unsettled to find out that he knows that she's been buying diamonds, Kyogo tells Saeko that he has a wife and daughter in Japan, they go on to a club and dance together, and Saeko later presses him to tell her more about his family, but he won't, uncertain that they will ever see each other again they embrace. Unnerved that Kyogo knows about her diamonds, Saeko writes a letter to the Japanese military police about Kyogo's presence, and he's arrested. Saeko seems to hold love/hate feelings for Kyogo, you get the impression that she may hate him, as he makes her feel vulnerable, but at the same time she can't deny her attraction to him.

The novel skips forward to the end of the war, released from prison, Kyogo sees groups of defeated Japanese soldiers on the road,one commits suicide with a grenade, and he finds a knapsack tied to a tree with the words 'Salt' and 'Not Dirty' written on it, after seeing the soldiers he decides he has to return to Japan. Three years on and Onozaki and Saeko meet again in Tokyo, he's playing guitar in a club, she asks Onozaki about Kyogo, he doesn't know whats come of him, but a young man Toshiki who calls Saeko, Aunt Saeko even tho he's not related to her, offers to track down Kyogo for her. Kyogo back in Japan, happens to meet the young MP who had tortured him whilst he was in prison, and he gives him a beating. Ushigi and Kyogo meet and talk about their revived interest in Japanese culture, Kyogo's wife remarried, Ushigi wants to visit Midway to see where his son drowned, he feels shame that he survived the war, they still have different feelings about the war, Kyogo thinks Ushigi a coward for not facing up to his actions, he has a Japanese sentimentality that needs to be gotten rid off, Kyogo tells him.

The narrative turns to Kyogo's daughter's, Tomoko,who works for a magazine, and designs clothes as a side job, she has approached Onozaki for some illustrations for a novel about Malacca.Tomko's mother, Setsuko has remarried to Professor Tatsuzo Oki, a successful writer on Japanese society. On a visit to a bookstore they meet Yukichi Okabe who is working at the store, also Toshiki (Saeko's young friend), who is nearly the same age as Yukichi, Toshiki is planning on starting a publishing firm and needs Yukichi's help. Through Onozaki, Saeko learns of Tomoko, Saeko too has remarried but hers is a loveless marriage. When Saeko contacts Tomoko she asks her to work for her, Toshiki meanwhile has traced Kyogo,and whilst negotiating a book contract with Tatsuzo Oki, lets slip that he has Kyogo's address in Kyoto for Tomoko, when Toshiki leaves Oki flies into a rage with Setsuko, Setsuko had told him that Kyogo had died. Fearing that Kyogo will come and visit her which will cause more pain to her mother, Tomoko decides to go to Kyoto to meet her father.

Jiro Osaragi was a prolific author, mainly known for writing historical fiction, his last novel, 'The Century of the Emperor', was a history of the Meiji Restoration, featuring hundreds of characters, and told of the restoration from many different view points, it was serialized in the Asahi Shimbun, who also created the Osaragi Jiro Prize after him. 'The Journey', another of Jiro Osaragi's novel was also translated into English.

Jiro Osaragi Society (in Japanese)

Hear the Wind Sing

Originally published in Japan in 1979, Alfred Birnbaum's translation appeared in the Kodansha English Library series in 1987. This book and 'Pinball 1973', (which is the harder of the two to get hold of a physical copy), haven't been widely available at the author's own behest. I wondered for a while, on the cover at the top of the illustration it reads, 'Happy Birthday and White Christmas', this apparently was the title of the book when Murakami submitted it to the literary magazine Gunzo. It's a small book, 130 pages

to the novel, with an additional 35 pages of notes for the Japanese reader, as this series is aimed at helping Japanese readers of the English language. It's Murakami's first novel.

The narrator of the novel acknowledges he learnt everything about writing from the fictional writer Derek Heartfield, who jumped off the Empire State Building in 1938, clutching a portrait of Hitler in his right hand and an umbrella in his left. The story of a student,  (were not told his name), in his early twenties, who has returned home for summer holiday (Aug 1970), from studying Biology in a Tokyo University. In it he describes how he came to meet the Rat, a character that features in Murakami's other early novels. As

a youth the narrator tells us he didn't say much, and was taken to a psychologist for testing, he was silent until the age of 14. He visits J's Bar and drinks beer with the Rat, they exchange their observations on life. He tells how he woke up next to a woman, can't remember her name, he tells her that the previous night she drunk too much and was sprawled out on the floor of J's, in her wallet he had found her address, and taken her home, and kept watch over her,intending to leave but fell asleep, he didn't do anything, he reassures her. They part when she has to go to work, her character, and the Rat's seem to me the two main characters of the novel, we see them through the narrator's detached observations, he never appears judgemental of them, Murakami's narrator's I find have a certain aloofness to them sometimes, it's almost as if they are acting as counsellor to the characters around them.

A hiccuping DJ from a radio station phones him with a dedication from a mysterious girl we never learn the identity of, he attempts to find her,believing it to be someone from his school days, but fails to trace her. Going into a record store he meets again the woman who he found drunk at J's, who invites him over, a few days later, for beef stew, during the meal they seem to be getting closer, she tells him she's going away for a while, when she returns they meet again and among other things, she confides in him that she had had an operation,also she tells him how she hears voices of people telling her things, usually scolding her, themes that Murakami explores further in his later works, can be seen here, loneliness, alienation. In a separate narrative, he recalls the three girls he has slept with,

the third hung herself, he didn't know why, he suspects that she didn't either. The Rat's reading habits are noted throughout the book's progression, and Murakami's love of music is evident, you could quite easily make a compilation LP with all the tracks referenced in the book. The book was also adapted to film by Kazuki Omori in 1980.

I think I fall into the category of liking Murakami's longer novels over his shorter novellas, and his short stories I really enjoy, so I'm looking forward to reading 1Q84, and also seeing the film version of  'Norwegian Wood', which is due at the end of next year. I've seen

'Tony Takitani', but to start going into Murakami's works on film, might need to be explored in a separate post.

 

Kodansha-Intl.com

 

Haruki Murakami

 

Agua

Pushkin Press books never fail to impress me,

the jackets of their books always catch the eye,

the cover of Eduardo Berti's novel, Agua, is a

photograph by Italian Futurist photographer

Maggiorino Gramalia, called 'Spettraizzazione dell'Io'.

I don't know a great deal about Futurism in Japan

apart from Hirato Renkichi .The Futurists were

well known for embracing technology, and for

their desire to disregard/destroy the old, so it's

a good choice for this novel which is set at a pivotal

time, when the world was turning to electric power

as an energy source, as a character, (Resende)

in the book says ' the first part of my life living in

candle light, the second part in the world of cinema,

radio, electricity.'

Luis Agua is a travelling representative for an electrical

company, going from place to place, selling this new

power. He's thinking of settling at a village, someone

mentions to him the village Vila Natal , and he

decides to visit. In 1920 the village has only horse drawn

carriages, and on his arrival he discovers that everyone in the

village has gone to an auction at the castle, Senhora Fernanda,

the owner of the castle is selling some pieces of art.

Through Mister Roger, an Englishman, Agua learns that

Fernanda is recently widowed and that her husband,(Antunes Coelho),

had left a strange clause in his will, that she will not inherit the

family's fortune until she has remarried. The paintings she

has put up for auction are revealed as forgeries by Mister Roger,

although a bracelet Fernanda is wearing catches his eye,but

he's told that it's not for sell. Agua learns that Fernanda has

a fiance 25 years younger than herself, called Broyz. Agua

informs Mister Roger of his intention of settling in the village,

and is offered a room in the Englishman's house, Agua declines

the offer as he has to leave the village for a few months to

clear up some work matters.

Fernanda falls ill, and she summons Broyz to her bedside to

tell him that she doesn't love him, but wants to escape the

trap of her husband's will, she offers he can have one third

of the castle's wealth, but has to leave soon after they

are married. He tells her that he loves her and agrees on the

condition that she gives him the bracelet. It transpires that

he is in debt to Mister Roger, Broyz pawns the bracelet to

clear his debt. Agua returns to the village,and finds that a

local doctor (Dr Alves) has taken the room offered by Mister Roger,

so he finds lodgings elsewhere. The local clergy,

(Father Teresino), has started sermoning against the advent

of electricity, God created the night for sleeping and rest,and

sees electricity as man's interference with the ways laid out

by nature (God). Agua eyes the castle as being a great way

to demonstrate to the rest of the village the benefits of

electricity.

On the day of Fernanda and Broyz's wedding a plane is

spotted in the sky, and lands on the castle's grounds, the

pilot is the enigmatic Captain Acevedo, an acquaintance

of Fernanda and the castle from a long time ago and a pioneer

of aviation. Time passes after the wedding and Broyz can't

bring himself to leave Fernanda and the castle, although

he had agreed to do so as part of the conditions to the

marriage. Fernanda's manservant Fabio has to inform him

that he is banned from visiting Fernanda in her room, who

is now bedridden due to her illness and Broyz suspects that

he is the victim of a vendetta made up by the servants,to

oust him from the castle. Fernanda gets weaker and weaker

and passes away one night, the cause believed to be Cholera,

or possibly African fever, not long after an epidemic breaks

out, the village and neighbouring area gets sectioned off by

the government, the servants flee through fear of contagion,

only one stays (Alma), who cooks Broyz his meals, alone in the

castle, the days go by, their relationship grows. Letters from a

mysterious man called Tomas arrive, claiming he is the legitimate

heir to the family fortune and castle, Broyz harbours suspicions

that maybe Alma could be behind the letters, but she leaves

the castle and a letter to Broyz saying she is going to find

out the truth behind Tomas, the sender of the letters...

The novel is punctuated with Kafka like scenarios, and

the story has more turns than a spiral staircase, the

riddle of the strange will of Antunes Coelho and the

true identity of the mysterious Tomas is well hidden

in Berti's tight prose and had me guessing right

until the end. Alberto Manguel provides an afterword

and the translation is by Alexander Cameron & Paul Buck.  

 

Pushkin Press

Eduardo Berti (in Spanish)