Monday 18 January 2010

The Setting Sun


The Setting Sun, Dazai's first novel was published in Japan as Shayo in 1947, translated by Donald Keene, who also writes an introduction which has dated slightly, in it he makes some interesting observations about the changes of attitudes in Japanese society. The current edition is available from New Directions. Donald Keene points out that The Setting Sun is one of Dazai's more objective works, although there's traces of Dazai throughout many of the characters in the book. Set against the austerity of the end of the war, it's narrated mainly by Kazuko the daughter of an aristocratic family, but due to the family's dwindling wealth they have had to move the family home from a house in Tokyo to a villa in Izu. It could be said that Dazai is writing from an autobiographical perspective, as he too came from a large wealthy family. Kazuko explains that ten years previously her father had died in the house they lived in at Nishikata Street, the departure from their old family home takes an emotional toll on their mother. They wait to hear from her brother Naoji, who has been away fighting, their uncertain as to if he's still alive, since moving into their new house, mother has weakened a great deal, much of Kazuko's time is spent looking after her, they talk of the past, Kazuko's earlier marriage that ended with her having a pregnancy that ended in a still birth, at that time her relationship with her husband wasn't going well, and mainly as a result of a careless remark it was thought that Kazuko was having an affair with an artist called Mr Hosoda. During the end of the war Kazuko had worked in a camp, 'What a dreary business the war was' she surmises.

They learn that Naoji is alive, and when he returns out of the blue, mother's condition deteriorates, Naoji heads straight for the local inn. They also learn that Naoji has become addicted to opium, a habit he had started at school, in imitation of a certain novelist. Kazuko's days are spent tending her mother and knitting, a pale pink wool she uses contrasts with the greyness of the sky, in a descriptive passage I really admired. Whilst her brother is away in Tokyo drinking with novelist Uehara, (this character seems to be the one that could resemble Dazai the most), she decides to tidy her brother's things that are still in the moving crates, she picks up one of his diaries entitled, 'Moonflower Journal', and starts to read what he has written. It could be said that Naoji's character reminds us of Dazai too, Naoji's writing could be seen as being very Dazai like, 'Learning is another name for vanity. It is the effort of human beings not to be human beings', he states in his polemic like entry. As her mother's condition worsens, the doctor's diagnosis that it's T.B and she passes away some days later. Kazuko's increasing anxiety grows, not knowing where things will end up, piece by piece, she has had to sell the family's belongings to get by, her attempt at addressing the problem is by writing letters to Uehara, imploring him to let her become his mistress, she wants his child, she had briefly met him before, whilst trying to sort out her brothers debt with the chemists, and their meeting had ended with him kissing her.

Through depicting the decline of an aristocratic family, themes familiar with those of many of Dazai's stories and novels appear, alienation, isolation, his character's struggle to fit in with society at large, in Naoji, who's use of drink and drugs is an attempt to disguise his inability to live, this soon wears out, he, like Yozo in No Longer Human sees only hypocrisy in the society around him. Although reading Dazai can be a saddening experience, his writing has an inspiriting quality to it. Something I find strange in Dazai's novels, is his character's observations on religion, which is usually the Christian religion, something I'd like to find out more about, Phyllis I.Lyons - The Saga of Dazai Osamu, a book I'd like to read, may offer an explanation. Sixty odd years on from when they were first published, Dazai's novels offer a chronicle of the times he lived in, from an inner perspective and to an extent in this novel an objective one, the dilemmas that face many of his characters still finds a validity in today's world.


New Directions

Shayo (movie trailer)

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki














Finishing Kokoro my thoughts move on to which of Natsume's novels to read next, Natsume's prose in Kokoro is near to faultless, it's difficult to think of a book to follow it. The new edition of Sanshiro seems like it would be a good choice. Previous to reading Kokoro, the only other of Natsume's books I had read was Grass on the Wayside/Michikusa, and that was quite a few years ago. I read Edwin McCellan's translation of Kokoro from the Regnery/Gateway Edition , a new translation is on the way from Penguin, translated by Meredith McKinney, Penguin have also recently published Sanshiro and Kusamakura , which has previously been translated as The Three-Cornered World, so maybe some of the other novels will appear in new translations. First serialised in the Asahi Shinbun in 1914, Kokoro is told in three parts, written two years before Natsume's death it was his last completed full novel, Light and Darkness/Meian, was left unfinished. In some ways the first part of the novel reminded me of Stefan Zweig's novel Confusion, another novel that stems from the student/teacher relationship. Three historic events mentioned in the novel being the suicide of Nogi Maresuke (General Nogi in the novel), his involvement in the Satsuma Rebellion and also the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912, which ended the Meiji Era, find reflection in the lives of the characters in the novel. The sensei of the novel is very much a man of this time, his letter to the young student, which almost reads as a novel within a novel, taking up the last third of the book reiterates not only the generation gap between himself and the student, but also illustrates the shifts of social behaviour that was taking place in Japan at that time. A period of great change, one that would reshape Japan. The student and sensei's story, set against the events of the end of Meiji, give the whole novel a valedictory tone.

Beginning with the young student recalling how he first met sensei at the beach at Kamakura, he learns that the enigmatic sensei visits a grave every month at Zoshigaya. 'I could not have known that there had been in sensei's life a frightening tragedy,inseparable from his love for his wife', he observes. The closer he seems to get to sensei the more his misanthropic and reclusive ways become apparent to him, the older man's wisdom seems to be a great source of vexation for the younger man, 'Don't put too much trust in me,you'll learn to regret it if you do. And if you ever allow yourself to feel betrayed you will find yourself being cruelly vindictive.' Talking with sensei's wife he tries to learn the source of why sensei is the way he is, she tells him that in his youth sensei had a friend who died suddenly, an unnatural death, but she can say no more, she feels that she maybe the source of his unhappiness, but the truth of what the secret is in sensei's past remains elusive to them both it seems. Natsume's prose captures all the subtleties of the young student's fascination with sensei, and sensei's growing openness toward the student. The student's father suffers from a kidney disease,which the family fear will prove fatal, and he's called back to the family home to help look after his father, his father at first doesn't appear too ill, and for a while concerns over the students future job prospects seem to be the main concern, and after telling his parents about sensei, his mother encourages him to write to sensei seeking his assistance in finding him a position. Whilst waiting for a reply his father's condition takes a change for the worse. As his father deteriorates, his anxiety over sensei heightens when he receives a thick letter from sensei, he reads the line, 'By the time this letter reaches you, I shall probably have left this world-I shall in all likelihood be dead', the second part of the novel ends with the student torn between leaving his dying father, and rushing back to Tokyo to see if he can stop sensei from his suicide.

The third part of the novel is the story of sensei's secret told in the letter, he recounts his student days and of the character that he refers only to as K, but that you'll have to discover yourself. Kokoro was adapted into a film by Kon Ichikawa in 1955, and again by Kaneto Shindo in 1973.


Monday 11 January 2010

Shigeichi Nagano Magazine Work 60s




















Collecting together some of Shigeichi Nagano's magazine photos from the sixties, (some from the fifties too), this new book from publisher Heibonsha, is a great introduction into the photographer's work. Featuring colour and black and white images, it also comes in Japanese/English text, with a preface by Manabu Torihara, which gives excellent information on Nagano's history and influences, a brief biography is included as well as an interview with Shigeichi Nagano giving brief explanations behind the photographs.
 
Born in Oita prefecture in 1925, he studied at Keio University in 1942, after graduating he worked as a magazine editor. In 1958 Nagano visited Hong Kong for two months, and when he returned to Japan he exhibited the photographs he took there, which are collected in this book. At the end of the sixties he was the photographic editor at Asahi journal, where he employed among others Daido Moriyama. In 1965 he collabarated with Kon Ichikawa on the film Tokyo Olympiad.

The photo's themselves are much like the photo-journalism of Cartier Bresson, who together with Robert Capa was a major influence on Nagano. Nagano's pictures include elements of street photography, catching Japan unposed, one of the pictures I'm sure uses montage, a beach scene where the sea seems to overlap with the sand which reminded of Nakaji Yasui's montage pieces. Along with photographers like Ken Domon and Ihei Kimura, Nagano was part of the growing school of photo-realism in Japan. Some pages of the book can be seen at the link below. The book is available here and here.





Saturday 9 January 2010

The Lemon










'The Lemon' is a 1925 short story by Kajii Motojiro, born in Osaka in 1901, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at an early age, which tragically took his life at the age of 31. A small number of his stories appear in English translation, although there's no collection of his available in one volume, some are available in various anthologies. The Lemon is one of his stories that was very popular in Japan, achieving great notoriety, with many of it's admirers emulating the actions of the protagonist's at the end of the book. It has a modernist feel to it, Kawabata highly praised Kajii's stories,with an ending that I found, whilst reading, impossible to predict. Along with five other classics of Japanese literature, it looks like The Lemon will be adapted into a short film.

The narrator walks the streets of Kyoto, through rundown streets, trying to escape a sense of melancholy weighing him down,feeling at odds with his surroundings. Suffering from tuberculosis,with no money, he finds a certain pleasure in the simple things he sees, the wrappers of fireworks in shop window displays. Walking along Teramachi he comes across a green grocer's store,and discovers what could be an elixir, in the shape of a lemon. Finding that the lemon has instilled in him a temporary reprieve from his sufferings, he walks into a book store. Going to the art section he is suddenly seized with a flash of inspiration.
Cold Green Tea Press, a DIY publisher have recently released an illustrated chapbook edition of the story, translated by Chinatsu Komori and Kenneth Traynor, which is available here.

Cold Green Tea Press



Wednesday 6 January 2010

No Longer Human














With a new film adaption of No Longer Human/Ningen shikkaku on the way, also a full length animation, I thought it was time to read Dazai's novel. The novel is made up of three notebooks, the third being in two parts. Widely regarded as Dazai's masterpiece, Yozo's story runs parallel in parts with Dazai's life story, first published in 1948 just after his death, the novel is the second best selling novel in Japan, Kokoro,  by Soseki apparently is the first. Translated by Donald Keene who also writes the introduction in which he points out that critics of 'The Setting Sun' never referred to his writing as 'exquisite', I guess he means what I have read in other criticism that some writers could be seen as using 'exoticism' in their writing. Keene also points out that in No Longer Human, the influence of Western writers on Dazai is evident, there is not many direct references to Japanese culture in the book at all, Yozo lends a copy of 'I am a Cat' to one of his cousins, and mentions that he never really liked sushi, that's about it.

The story of Yozo is very much the story of Dazai's, born into a large family, being brought up on a country estate, his father a politician, not being able to fit in with the people around him, constantly playing the clown to avoid scrutiny, somehow knowing that to enter into the deceitful realm of the adult world, doom will not be far away, the novel is a polemic against society, and Dazai's constant battering and confusions at the relationship between the individual and society,trying to decipher how each influence each other, the drunken dialogue's between Yozo and Horiki I found particularly intriguing, as well as his thoughts on religion. Yozo makes his way to Tokyo and art school, but spends most of his time drinking with Horiki, and the descent into alcoholism, which leads to his drug addiction begins. He has a brief flirtation with a left wing party, which he has no real great commitment to, Yozo constantly sees the farcical in things,and for this reason he always remains outside. Happiness is something which appears to be at an impossible distance away, unobtainable. After surviving a suicide pact he had with a woman who died, he's cut off from the family and lodges with a friend of the family, but soon runs back to his drinking companion Horiko, the novel covers the events of Dazai's life.

It reads very much like a fictionalized autobiography, but you get the feeling when reading Dazai that he's keeps himself distant from the narrative, but the sense of honesty in his books is immediately disarming. Yozo appears to be a character with many flaws, and through the cracks, perhaps you can see a glimpse of the fragile state of Dazai's thought and emotions. For quite some time I'd read about Dazai, but could never fathom what his books would be like to read, I think 'The Setting Sun' is a work in a different direction which I'd like to explore soon.


New Directions