Sayonara, Gangsters

 

A novel I've wanted to read for quite a while but somehow hadn't got around to reading, Sayonara,Gangsters/ Sayounara Gyangu-tachi was published in Japan in 1982, translated by Michael Emmerich and published in English by Vertical Inc. The narrative of the book sometimes reminding me of Vonnegut and sometimes of Flann O'Brien's 1939 novel At Swim Two Birds, it blends surrealism, meta fiction, metaphor into a fantastic mix, the novel offers up many amusing scenes, and many unexpected twists and turns, including the poet Virgil as a refrigerator, an object called 'Some Incomprehensible Thing', (whose actions are incomprehensible to itself), a suicidal Ferris wheel, a security guard who doesn't know if he's working in a hospital or a hotel, to name but a few. The main protagonist is a teacher of poetry, the opening scenario is that of an assassination..by bubblegum, and then were introduced to a world set in what could be the future, a time though when you could change your name at the local city hall, everyone seemed to be doing it, although to change your name unofficially could have deadly consequences, a classmate of the narrator names himself, and the name kills him.Were also told about 'the gangsters' a notorious criminal gang. The poetry teacher meets a woman who he names The Nakajimi Miyuki Songbook, she has a cat called Henry IV, she hands him a piece on which she has written, Sayonara, Gangsters and explains that she used ,'to be a gangster but not anymore,so Sayonara,Gangsters is my name'. He recalls the time he met the gangsters, (in a bank raid), and takes us back to the time before he met Song Book, he had worked at a production line in a factory. He lived with a woman at this time and they had a daughter, who he calls Caraway but her mother calls Green Pinky.

He describes the Poetry School he teaches at, which used to have tens of thousands of students, when asked to describe his job he explains 'I do almost nothing here. Pressed to explain, I might say that my job is conducting traffic'. A visit from a Jovian (someone from Jupiter), who points out differences between concepts of death and time, pointing out that on Jupiter 'we have a time whose quantity is not fixed'. Takahashi's prose has a rolling snowball quality to it, often something alluded to in one chapter or paragraph will feature prominently in the following one,which throws together seemingly unrelated scenarios and objects to great effect, usually ending in philosophical reflection, and sometimes just abruptly coming to an end, which gives the narrative alot of buoyancy. The gangsters make an appearance again nearer the end of the novel when four of them turn up and demand a poetry lesson, one of them begs Songbook to return to the fold, they're poetry lesson seems to give way to being an inquiry into the ethics of 'gangsterism', but the encounter ends up being a decisive shoot out with the police.Comparisons with Murakami Haruki are inevitable, maybe Takahashi's has his foot pressed a little harder on the acceleration pedal. But like many reviews I've read of this novel, to try and sum it up would be inadequate to describe this intriguing reading experience.

Vertical Inc

Clear Water

Clear Water/Shimizu, (2003) by Hirano Keiichiro draws some parallels with Kajii Motojiro's story Lemon, where the protaganist wanders the streets of Kyoto, although the preoccupying thoughts of the two narrators differ markedly. Clear Water opens with the narrator hearing the sound of clear water dripping somewhere, and he has the feeling that something is happening to him, memories,'of a sun long ago, a memory of a day when the gigantic sun that covered everything over our heads drew away from us', it feels like he could be referring to some distant apocalypse, adding that 'In tears I gazed futilely at the scene,on and on'. But he's unable to decipher if the memory might have come from a movie, or something he thought up for a novel, and he contemplates 'Is there such a thing as an indubitable memory?', whilst drinking coffee and eating cookies he sifts through which of his senses seem to offer up the the best evidence of proving the existence of the cookie in his hand.

Looking out of the window he observes 'Sure enough the sun was scattering more fiercely than ever', walking out down Shimogawa Avenue he encounters some people, a woman sweeping leaves, a couple leafing through a guidebook, these people turn into sounds and vanish,the sound he says sounds like a splitting sound, thinking about were they might be vanishing to he thinks of his own death, 'But one day I realized that my own death had long since been lost in time' 'The spot were the drip lands is none other than death-but how to reach that point?', at each realization he arrives at....another drip, he observes. In Kitaoji Street more people he sees vanish with the same sound, and crossing the road he notes the stream of traffic. Coming to a halt at the Kamo River, he's mesmerised by the sunlight reflecting on the water's surface, 'I was crazed by the falling petals of sun', vision and sound begin to merge and watching the reflecting/scattering light he feels his sense of hearing contract, and is overcome by an encompassing silence, but his vision gains a lucid clarity as he watches cherry blossom petals as they drift down and fall on the water's surface.'Just as my hearing searches for a sound in the silence,my vision found it's way only as far as the expanding light', he wonders off down Kitayama Avenue,finding himself in Shichiku Street, he discovers an explanantion of his observations in a revelation. Clear Water/Shimizu is translated by Anthony H.Chambers and is in the anthology The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature:1945 to the Present, published by CUP, Hirano Keiichiro won the Akutagawa Prize for his novel Solar Eclipse/Nisshoku,a novel set in France just prior to the Renaissance.

Hirano Keiichiro (Japanese)

An Adopted Husband

Futabatei Shimei's novel, Ukigumo/The Floating Cloud, 1887 is acknowledged as being one of Japan's first modern novels, his other novels have seen translation into English, Heibon/Mediocrity, 1907, translated by Glen W.Shaw, Hokuseido Press 1927, and also Sono Omokage/An Adopted Husband, 1906, translated by Buhachiro Mitsui & Gregg M Sinclair, Alfred Knopf 1919. Futabatei Shimei, like many other Meiji era novelists found inspiration in reading Tsubouchi Shoyo's Shosetsu Shinzui/The Essence of the Novel, 1885-1886, which can be read online in a translation by Nanette Gottlieb, in the essay Tsubouchi advises writers to, 'write about living people, not from fancy', Futabatei was also influenced by Russian literature and translated Turgenev into Japanese. Futabatei Shimei was the pen name of Hasegawa Tatsunosuke, who took his name from hearing what his father said to him when he told him that he intended to study literature, 'Kutabatte shimee', (Drop dead!).

The adopted husband of the title is Tetsuya Ono, a professor of Economics and Finance, and a well respected teacher, adopted by the wealthier Ono family to marry their daughter Tokiko, at the time Tetsuya was at university studying when his father passed away, leaving him struggling to finance his studies, the Ono's saw Tetsuya as a wise choice, thinking that a prosperous future lay ahead for him, families in Japan without sons often adopted in a husband to also ensure the family lineage. The novel opens however, with Hamura, a friend of Tetsuya's, pressurizing him into giving his sister in law away as a governess to the president of Hamura's company, the womanising, Shibuya. Tetsuya's sister in-law Sayoko, was an illegitimate child, in her early twenties she had married before, but shortly after the wedding her husband died unexpectedly, Tetsuya has heard about Shibuya's bad reputation and dreads being the one to communicate the proposition to Sayoko and the family. Tetsuya describes the immorality of Shibuya's household and reports of him abusing his maids, after her silence, he tells her he was only joking regarding the proposition, Tetsuya observes how kindly Sayo is towards him, very differently than the way his wife Tokiko treats him. Seeing Tetsuya vexed over the situation she agrees to go to Shibuya's house. The Ono family, whose father, Reizo, died recently also have strained finances, leaving the burden of supporting the family to Tetsuya. Tokiko, Tetsuya's wife seems very manipulative, and Tetsuya's relationship with his mother in law is approaching animated civility. Tetsuya tries to put off Hamura from making a formal request to the Ono family but fails and mother agrees to Sayoko being Shibuya's governess. Tokiko notices a change in Tetsuya, and suspects that her husband no longer loves her, Tetsuya finds himself missing Sayoko's kindness. Tokiko's hysteria comes out by way of demanding that Tetsuya hire another servant and asking for more money from him, he responds by saying that Sayoko should return, Tokiko accuses him that he's planning to leave her and live with Sayoko, mother over hears this and prostrates herself before him, begging him not to leave, bowing deeply until her head touches the ground.

Sayoko returns to the house after Shibuya tries to force himself on her, Hamura calls again on behalf of Shibuya saying that he intended her to be his future wife, Tetsuya declines the offer on behalf of Sayoko, Hamura calls Tetsuya stupid for sticking to his ideals, 'This is because you're obsessed by the spirit of old books!'. This seems to be the novels underpinning thesis, the pursuit of the moral good, or following your truer path as in Tetsuya's case, pitted against the pursuit of material wealth and advancement in society, and in the case of Tetsuya, it could be said it poses the question of what happens to the man who follows his heart, as he begins to meet with Sayoko outside of the family home, and together they plan to live together, but he has to pay his way out of his adopted marriage to free himself. Sayoko is confronted with familial obligations, and the consequences of their affair begin to undermine her, along with feelings of guilt of taking her sister's husband. As the couple's affair becomes untenable, Tetsuya having no way out, despite taking up an offer of work abroad, takes the path to self destruction, the end of the novel sees Tetsuya as a broken man and Hamura as successfully wealthy man.

To read Sono Omokage/An Adopted Husband online visit the translations to read online post.

for the Iwanami edition of Sono Omokage

The Unfertilized Egg

The Unfertilized Egg/Museiran, is a 2004 short story from Junko Hasegawa, translated by Philip Price, the central character/narrator, Moriko, is a woman who has just had her thirty sixth birthday, she observes that thirty six is a bad age for women. She's been having a relationship with her boss, Aono, who is married, and has a son, although the rest of the staff at her job aren't aware of this. Returning from a late night out with her friend Rei, she sprawls out on her bed and soon falls asleep, 'helter-skelter to the depths of unconsciousness, until I'm nothing more than sediment on the floor of my brain'. She dreams that she's in the supermarket, and a muscular arm with blackish-red skin passes her an egg, accidentally she breaks it, 'what the hell are you doing?', she hears an angry voice ask. She hides the pieces of broken egg in the water that they use to keep the tofu in and then promptly wakes up. Sitting in her small studio like flat Moriko contemplates how much Aono actually knows about her, they've been seeing each other for four years, so she thinks it's more than just a fling, he's overseas on business at the moment, he doesn't know that she lives 'like some desperate teenage runaway'. As Moriko recalls a conversation she had with her grandmother that for three generations in they're family mother's were born in the year of the horse and had the same blood type, B. We also hear of her anxiety of what her co-workers think of her, at thirty-six without a steady relationship, no children, the narrative slips into Moriko's obsession 'with first time' movies, as she works at a film importing company, although she receives the news that she is about to be made redundant, after thinking it over, adding up the factors, she comes to the realization that maybe Aono was the one who made the decision to sack her, she emails him but gets no reply.


She has more dreams of eggs, in them she's beginning to keep hold of them without breaking them. She goes for another night out with a friend, and when she returns to her building she stops, 'and look up at the dark, square window of my apartment. Of all the windows in the block, only mine looks like a gloomy cave - a reflection of the hopeless life of the woman who lives there', she doesn't want to go home in her apartment building, and her sense of not knowing where to go, depicts her sense of directionless. During another night out with colleagues she learns that a rumour is going around that Aono is away as he got another of her colleagues pregnant, Moriko ends up sleeping with Uchiki. Eggs feature increasingly as the story continues, and can be taken literally and also as a metaphor of Moriko's unfulfilled desires and aspirations, in one point Moriko dreams she is in a torture scene from medieval France, tied to a pole, thinking she's about to be pelted by stones, she realizes the crowd are throwing eggs and she ends up covered in yellow yolk. This is an at times surreal and wry story about the anxieties faced by a woman approaching middle age, caught between facing unemployment, and also suffering from the pangs of the desire to have a child.


The Unfertilized Egg/ Museiran can be found in - Inside and Other Short Fiction.

















Jlc4

Manganese Dioxide Dreams

Manganese Dioxide Dreams sounds like it could be a story from Haruki Murakami, although it was written by Tanizaki Junichiro in 1955, it's Japanese title is Kasankamangansui no yume, the title intrigued me, not being very scientifically minded I turned to the internet to find out what Manganese Dioxide actually is, after learning what it is my mind couldn't figure how Tanizaki had worked this into his short story. The story is narrated by what we guess is a man advanced in his years, he worries about his blood pressure, and like Tanizaki mentions in his In Praise of Shadows he has a western style toilet fitted in his house. On an excursion to Tokyo with his wife, Tamako and the maid, Fuji, during the August heat, to arrange wedding dresses for Etsuko, who's presumably their daughter. Departing from the women he visits the cinema to watch the film 'Blue Continent', afterwards heading back to the inn they are staying at he finds himself unable to relax, disturbed by the heat, and the noise of building work adjacent to the inn, reluctantly he takes some of his sleeping pills, and dozes for a short time. Many of Tanizaki's works are peopled with characters prone to masochistic tendencies, being one of Tanizaki's later works, you get the impression that the narrator of the story has a sense of lethargy about him, instead of appearing outwardly masochistic himself, Tanizaki has inserted the masochism by means of the narrator giving us quite an in depth synopsis of Henri-Georges Clouzot's film Les Diaboliques which he goes to see later in the story, his characters here seem to be spectators. Sex being another of Tanizaki's story's common subjects features here too, but again as something which is viewed, his wife and Tamako persuade him to take them to a strip show, he disagrees at first thinking that a man accompanying his wife would be in poor taste, but then hearing that the film is not too risque, he takes them, the venue is mostly filled with foreigners. During the film his wife nods off to sleep, and afterwards the only thing he can remember about the film is an episode featuring a bath scene with the actress Harukawa Masumi. In the evening they have a Chinese dinner. The next day the women sort out the wedding dresses, and he watches Les Diaboliques, he learned of the film whilst watching a trailer for it before seeing the film Nana. Before catching the train home to Atami, that evening they have a large Japanese dinner in Tsujitome of Kyoto cuisine of Hamo, you get the impression he's a slight misanthrope, as he observes on the journey home, 'At that hour the second class coaches shouldn't be crowded, but tonight they were full as far as Ofuna, the ripe smell of humanity making the damp heat all the worse'.

The segment of the story set at home is when Tanizaki makes some startling connections within the narrative, his wife sometimes suffers from nightmares, and he has to wake her, sometimes she finds it hard to breath when she comes out of her dreams, she feels 'gripped by an indescribable sensation', fearing she may die on the spot. Usually a sound sleeper, even after visiting the toilet in the night he can usually get back to sleep, but tonight he has trouble and takes a Rabona and two Adalin, he gradually slips into a realm between sleep and unconsciousness, 'I enjoy the myriad vague imaginings,now forming, now vanishing, like foam on the sea, until at some point they merge with real dreams'. The image of the 'hamo:the pure white flesh of the eel, the impid, slippery-liquid that encased it', from this image comes that of Harukawa Masumi in the bathtub, but this changes to the murdered (?) Michel in the bath from the film Les Diaboliques. Another 'weird figment' comes to him of his western toilet, something seen here recalls an encounter of eating red beets for breakfast, and then the image of Simone Signoret, which in turn leads to an image of a Grecian torso, leading finally to an account from Records of the Grand Historian, (The Shih Chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien). It's one of those story's, that when you come to the end of, you marvel at where the narrative has taken you, Manganese Dioxide Dreams can be found in The Gourmet Club, a sextet of stories from Tanizaki, translated by Anthony H. Chambers and Paul McCarthy, I'll leave it to you to discover where the Manganese Dioxide enters the story.

The Bells of Nagasaki

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

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

The Man Who Loved Others as Himself

Nagasaki City Peace and Atomic Bomb Museum

New Writing in Japan

The early 1970's saw Penguin Books publish the New Writing in...series, which devoted a volume of prose and poetry of each country it covered, the cover of the Japan edition features a detail from a painting by Kawabata Ryushi, and was edited by Geoffrey Bownas and Yukio Mishima, in Geoffrey Bownas's translator's preface, the shock of Mishima's suicide of some months previously is felt, Bownas recalls the last time he met Mishima and looks back at the last movements of the author's life . The collection contains many of the big names from Japanese literature and also some that are not so recognised outside of Japan, many of the translations are by Geoffrey Bownas, although other translator's pieces are featured. Mishima's story Patriotism is included, which has recently been republished by New Directions. The Catch by Oe Kenzaburo is included here, translated by John Bester, the story also featured in the anthology in The Catch and Other War Stories. The Cosmic Mirror is a short story by Haniya Yutaka, Haniya was born in Taiwan in 1910 and was imprisoned during the war due to his political leanings, the story is set in the realm of sleep and dream, here the protagonist has learned the skill of controlling his movements within his dream. As he progresses within his dream we follow him as he makes his way to a room in a cellar, which is at the bottom of a very long and dark staircase. In the room hangs a mirror that has a strange light to it, the character tells us that since he was young he had come to regard mirrors as the 'tool of the devil' , and that they offered glimpses into other worlds, night after night he returns to the room staring into the mirror. One night he stares very closely, putting his eyes up close to the mirror, and cupping his hands to block the light from within the room, he stares again, concentrating his vision on the blackness of the pupils of his eyes, he begins to see movement.

Yoshiyuki Junnosuke's story included here is Sudden Shower/Shu-u(1954),which won the Akutagawa Prize, it tells the relationship of Hideo Yamamura who works in an office on board a steam ship, and that of the prostitute he visits, Michiko. After visiting her a number of times Hideo realizes that he has feelings of jealousy when he contemplates her being with her other customers. Together they visit a fortune teller who foresees that Michiko will succeed in her life, recently she has been contemplating leaving her profession and maybe opening a flower shop. Hideo has to travel away to a colleague's wedding, whilst away Hideo finds it harder and harder to keep Michiko out of his thoughts, after seeing what he believes was a look of relief on her face when she discovered that he's actually single and not married. When he returns from the wedding, his jealousy seems to be at breaking point, when he's told that he has to wait before he can see her as she's with a customer. Junnosuke's prose is taught in capturing Hideo's confusion at trying to decipher if her feelings for him are real, or just a tool being used to keep him returning. Kobo Abe's Stick and Red Cocoon, two well anthologised stories, also in the prose segment of the book stories from Ishihara Shintaro and Yasuoka Shotaro. Inagaki Taruho is a writer I've been looking forward to explore, whose book One Thousand and One Second Stories is soon to be reissued, the piece included here is Icarus.

The poetry that Mishima and Bownas chose comes from the poets, Tanikawa Shuntaro, Tsuji Takashi, Yoshioka Minoru, Anzai Hitoshi, Tamura Ryuichi, Shiraishi Kazuko, Takahashi Mutsuo, tanka from Tsukamoto Kumio and Mizushima Hatsu's modern haiku. Most of these I've got to know through this collection, Shiraishi Kazuko has recently had a collection published by New Directions, My Floating Mother,City. Takahasi Mutsuo has six poems included here, some taken from his un-translated collection, Rose Tree, End of Summer, a dark poem about obsessive love. This is quite a unique little anthology for a number of reasons, which is sadly out of print at the moment.

Child of Fortune by Yūko Tsushima

Yuko Tsushima's Child of Fortune/Choji was published in 1978 and won the Women's Literature Prize, it's a novel I've been meaning to read for a while. Published by Kodansha in 1983, the paperback edition features artwork by Sandra Dionisi, Child of Fortune was translated by Geraldine Harcourt, who also translated Tsushima's The Shooting Gallery, a collection of short stories and the novel, Woman Running in the Mountain, speaking in her introduction about Woman Running in the Mountain of it's 'minute dealing of the heroine's daily grind' which makes it 'accessible and yet demanding', the same could be said to a certain degree of Child of Fortune, there's not a great deal of straight forward dialogue, instead Tsushima's prose goes into exploring the thoughts and reflections of the leading character Koko Mizuno, at the beginning of the novel the narrative dips in and out of episodes from her history and past relationships, episodes in the story in present tense lead to memories of past events. Her daughter Kayako, whose about to take her high school entrance exams, stays predominately with her Auntie Shoko, visiting her mother just on Saturday nights, and as the narrative progresses, Koko's character and situation is slowly unveiled. She divorced from her husband Hatanaka, the reason remains uncertain, just mismatched, she tells Kayako that he's going far away, but after a while through a friend, Osada, it's arranged so that Kayako stays in contact with her father. Koko teaches piano at a music store, and through the stories of her past we learn that she had relationships with Osada and also Doi, a married man. Through this excellent translation we get a good picture of Tsushima's controlled prose, depicting Koko's experiences as a single mother, in her late thirties, defiantly independent, her sister looks after Kayako, thinking that Koko is an inadequate parent, Koko striving to live her life the way she wants, Koko is exposed to the pressures of not conforming to what society regards as the ideal mother.

The story line from the past and the one in the present tense merge when it's revealed that Koko is pregnant with Osada's child, and at first she doesn't tell anyone, hiding the pregnancy, letting people think that she's just putting on weight. Koko struggles with whether she should go through with the pregnancy or not, weighing up how Kayako will react, she had an abortion before when she became pregnant with Doi's child, and on a spurr of the moment decision she gets a taxi to the doctor's surgery, but when she gets out she feels movement in her stomach. Changing her mind she decides to go to Shoko's house and announce that she's pregnant, and to raise the child on her own. But when she arrives, and talking over another matter, Kayako ends up shouting at her mother and storms out of the house. The novel opens with Koko dreaming of an ice mountain, 'cold and abrupt, it wouldn't allow her emotions free play like any ordinary dream', and Koko's dreams figure quite largely in the novel, events slightly recognised, along with memories of her life as a younger girl, and her relationship with her brother, who was born retarded and eventually succumbs to pneumonia. She phones Osada intending to tell him that she's pregnant, but can't find the courage to tell him, but he calls around to her apartment the following day, and discovers for himself, Koko is on her way for her first check up at the hospital. The results of the doctors examination are surprising and show again the subconscious pressure that Koko has been enduring.

Yuko Tsushima, daughter of Osamu Dazai, has won many literary prizes for her fiction, including the Tanizaki Prize and the Noma Prize.The Silent Traders, which shares themes similar to those found in Child of Fortune, won the Kawabata Prize, is a story centred around a family visit to Rikugien, and a meeting between an estranged father and his children, told from the mother's perspective, can be found in the collection The Shooting Gallery.