A Riot of Goldfish

First published in Japan in 1937, A Riot of Goldfish/Kingyo ryoran by Kanoko Okamoto has recently been published by the Hesperus Press,translated and with an introduction by J.Keith Vincent, this collection of two novella size stories comes with a foreword from David Mitchell, (Cloud Atlas, number9dream and most recently The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet). A Riot of Goldfish spans the end of the Taisho and early Showa eras and has as it's central character Mataichi, a student of fish breeding. The story starts with his sense of failure as he examines the results of his latest breed, disappointed, his attention turns again to the Chapel at the top of the cliff,where he can make out Masako sitting, knitting. Masako is the daughter of one of his father's best customers, the wealthy Teizo Araki, Mataichi's story is told in a retrospective style that sometimes skips between tenses. As a child Mataichi used to tease and taunt Masako, but as the two begin to grow up Mataichi can't help himself marvelling at Masako's growing beauty, to the degree that 'he could barely surpress his hostility'. Teizo frequently visits Mataichi's father's fishery, and eventually becomes a patron to Mataichi, paying for him to study in the Kansai area, Mataichi learns that Teizo has also paid for three other men to study ,which adds a slight confusion to Mataichi's thoughts. Before he leaves Masako invites him out for tea and as they walk down the street Mataichi is almost overcome by Masako's beauty, but he begins to put his feelings in check, and the conversation turns to the arts of goldfish breeding, Mataichi is left not knowing if she has any feelings for him or not. Whilst away studying Mataichi becomes a recluse but manages to become the object of attraction for a local girl, Yoshie,he writes to Masako about Yoshie in an attempt to coax out a hint of her true feelings for him, but the letters she writes back are scarce and filled with an indifference which rouses his curiosity and confusions even further, until he learns that she is pregnant and plans to marry. As Mataichi comes to the conclusion that Masako is now unattainable he sets out to reproduce the beauty he saw in her by creating the most beautiful breed of goldfish in emulation. It's incredible to learn through Vincent's introduction that Okamoto wrote fiction for only three years before dying from a stroke at the age of 49. Kawabata moved by one of her stories about the Tokaido Highway took a copy with him on a trip and retraced the route of it's protaganist.


The second story, The Food Demon/Shokuma was published in Japan in 1941, Besshiro is a cooking instructor to the daughters of the wealthy Araki family, Besshiro's arrogant streak is despised by the daughters but as Besshiro's story is revealed we learn that his arrogance is a symptom of thwarted aspirations. The story is told again in a retrospective style which retraces how Besshiro arrives at the point where the story opens. The Food Demon is a fantastically evocative character study, Besshiro's exasperation's are summed up when he arrives home from work with, 'his face frozen into an expression on the verge either exploding with anger or bursting into tears'. He lives with his wife and son in a house owned by his employer, Besshiro and his wife constantly worry of ruining the tatami, one the proviso's that his tenancy relies upon. The story follows Besshiro back to his beginnings to when he meets up with Higaki who runs a restaurant, and describes Besshiro's frustrations at trying to impress the artistic and intelligentsia clientele of the place, failing to prove himself with his paintings Besshiro tries to impress a visiting intellectual with his cooking skills, the woman recognises that aside from being completely delicious that the meal was created with love, and this is a theme to both of the stories the characters pursuing the purity of beauty, Besshiro trying to escape from his poverty stricken life becomes instead the victim of his own aspirations?, but after watching Higaki die from cancer his life takes another route, The Food Demon is filled with a bitter wisdom, and touched with a deep humility.


 Hesperus Press

From Trinity to Trinity

In her introduction translator, Eiko Otake,mentions the small number of writings of Hayashi's that have seen translation into English, the appearance of From Trinity to Trinity from independent publisher Station Hill Press is a much valued addition. From Trinity to Trinity charts Hayashi's pilgrimage to the Trinity site in New Mexico, the test site of the first atomic bomb on July 16th 1945, which she made at the end of the last millennium. Eiko Otake also gives a description of how her translation came into fruition and her correspondence with Hayashi, recounting her meetings with the author, and gives a biography of Hayashi and an overview of her major works. Hayashi was born in Nagasaki but raised in Japanese occupied Shanghai, her family was the only Japanese family on her block but was treated as an equal, the sense of viewing things as an outsider would inform her writing as a chronicler, she describes herself as being an 'un-Japanese Japanese'. The family returned to Nagasaki when Kyoko was 14, and she worked in a munitions factory, as the family settled on the edge of the city, Kyoko was the only member of her family exposed to the bomb, being a hibakusha she found not only alienated her from society at large but also within her own family. After the war she suffered from radioactive sickness but fled Nagasaki and married a man twenty years her senior, they had a son, a courageous act as cases of second generation radioactive sickness and abnormal births were becoming known. Hayashi began writing chronicling the lives of hibakusha, The Site of Rituals,also known as The Ritual of Death/Matsuri no ba won the Akutagawa Prize in 1975, in 2005 The Complete works of Hayashi Kyoko/Hayashi Kyoko zenshu were published in eight volumes.

Hayashi first travelled to America in 1985 when her son moved there to work, although wanting to visit the Trinity Site for many years it wasn't until 1999 that she could make her pilgrimage, Hayashi refers to the site as the 'hibakusha's birthplace', the site is only open to the public twice a year. Enroute to Los Alamos, Hayashi and her friend stop at the National Atomic Museum where Hayashi not only examines the exhibits but is also conscious of the other visitors to the museum, Hayashi examines her feelings as she takes in the museum, noticing that her feelings of being a hibakusha welled up in her only after a man sitting near to her gets up and leaves. At one end of the museum hangs a portrait of Oppenheimer, who Hayashi reminds us was once celebrated as a national hero, but who also fell from grace. On the wall also hangs the route map that Boxcar took, taking off from Tinian to Nagasaki, then returning to Okinawa. As Hayashi and her friend drive closer to the base Hayashi reflects on the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe who made the Rockies her home, observing the barrenness of the landscape on the road to Los Alamos, Hayashi notes, 'These stones that fell off the cliffs are the dead of the Mesas', nature and observations of the movements of time are a central aspect to Hayashi writings, informing us of the lives of the hibakusha, many episodes experienced in the book which are set in the present tense provoke memories from the past. As they and the other visitors sign into the site and wander in the still radioactive wilderness Hayashi comes face to face with the memorial set in the wilderness, From Trinity to Trinity ends with poetry from Ito Yasuko.

Station Hill Press

       

144th Akutagawa Prize winner announced

The Daily Manichi reports today the announcement of the awarding of the 144th Akutagawa Prize,the prize was shared between Mariko Asabuki for her novel Kikotowa  and also Kenta Nishimura for his novel Kueki Ressha.The 144th Naoki Prize winner was also shared between two authors, Nobori Kiuchi for her novel Hyosa no uta and also Shusuke Michio for Tsuki to Kani.

Kikotawa centers around two women Kiko and Towako who reunite after 25, Nishimura's novel,Kueki Ressha, follows a young man employed as a manual worker who hardly makes his monthly rent payments,filled with rage the man develops self destructive feelings.

Nobori Kiuchi's novel Hyosa no uta,has a historical setting,set just before the Meiji restoration,following the exploits of a samurai who has fallen on hard times,and works trying to lure customers into a red light district in Tokyo.Shusuke Michio's novel,Tsuki to Kani,follows a young fifth grader as reality begins to kick into his imaginary world.

For the original Daily Manichi article.

The Moon over the Mountain

Nakajima Atsushi was born in Tokyo in 1909, his father came from a family of scholars specializing in the classics of ancient China, this was to influence not only his reading but would inform the majority of his writing. Newly published by Autumn Hill Books,a non profit independent publisher and translated by Paul McCarthy and Nobuko Ochner, (who also include an informative afterword on Nakajima), the stories selected in The Moon over the Mountain are mainly set in ancient China, the stories were originally published in Japan in the years 1942-43. After leaving Tokyo University Nakajima took up a teaching post whilst at the same time beginning to write short stories and starting a manuscript of his novel, Hikari to kaze to yume/Light, Wind and Dreams - a novella of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson, which was published in Japan 1942, the same year as Nakajima's premature death at the age of 33, Nakajima, who suffered from asthma died from pneumonia. Nakajima seems to be strikingly at odds from other writers of his time for not writing about the war.

The Moon Over the Mountain is the first collection of stories by Nakajima to appear in English, the first story Sangetsuki,which has also been known by the name The Tiger Poet is one of Nakajima's most well known stories, was studied in Japanese schools. A tale of a frustrated poet, Li Zheng, who gives up his post as a local official to devote himself to poetry, failing in his attempt to fulfill his life's desire of becoming a great poet he falls into madness and one night runs off into the wilderness after hearing his name being called. This violent emotional change within himself also appears to provoke a physical transformation. The narrative jumps forward slightly and takes up with Yuan Can an old acquaintance of Li Zheng who is travelling into an area known for being a domain for a wild tiger. After sometime Yuan Can's party hear the roar of a great tiger coming from the bush, but as they draw near Yuan Can can hear the sound of human sobs, Li Zheng begins to tell of his misfortune and Yuan Can begins to realize that it's his old friend Li Zheng who laments of his transformation. Transformation seems to thread in and out these stories, in the first it is seen as a manifestation of suffering and later in the story On Admiration: Notes by the Monk Wu Jing it appears as a well sought after craft. Nakajima's finely crafted stories blend existential inquiry with that of ancient Chinese story telling, where the human and animal world often mix,  in the story The Master a young archer who wants to master his skills turns out to be a danger to his tutor who refers him to a mountain hermit for further training, he's forced to learn how to 'shoot without shooting' in a story that turns the notion of learning on it's head. Many of the stories are set in the ancient Chinese state of Qi and tell of courtly intrigue and can be read as resembling morality tales, where those who appear to be the victims of wrong doing often find their end after being the perpetrators of wrong doing, the stories are far from predictable. As in the story Forebodings which begins with warriors comparing undergarments and ends with the states of Chu and Chen at war, at the centre of this narrative is the beguiling beauty of Xiaja whose beauty subtly commands a destructive power. Nakajima's stories often drop subtle clues and pointers which will often end up being the decisive thread within a story, as can be seen in Waxing and Waning which again concerns an exiled Duke and familial power games, the reader cannot afford to miss a line in Nakajima's finely written narratives.

These translations offer up to the English reader a great opportunity to explore a unique voice amongst Japanese literature, to read an excerpt from this collection follow the links through at the publishers website.

The Moon over the Mountain - Autumn Hill Books