Wednesday 20 July 2011

Making Love















 
 
I've not read many novels or stories set in Japan which are written by non-Japanese, largely novels like these I imagine must be difficult to write, to get the balance between describing any country not of your own without it sounding like a fictionalized travel guide is a tricky feat to accomplish. Faire l'amour/Making Love, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale is a novel in two parts from 2002 has been sat on my shelf to read for a while, another short story collection I've been intending to read is Michael Gardiner's Escalator, (Polygon, 2006). The novel opens with the narrator confessing that he keeps on him a small bottle of  hydrochloric acid, which one day he anticipates using, the motives as to why he keeps this with him at first are unclear, his narrative begins to describe his relationship with Marie, a fashion designer and artist who has travelled to Tokyo to exhibit in Shinagwa, his narrative at first switches between describing the first night of their relationship back in Paris and then to describing the last nights of their relationship in Tokyo, the love between them had begun to diminish, their trip to Japan seems to represent the last flicker, the narrative has a valedictory nature to it. Toussaint's  prose describes to some degree the accessories in which the narrator finds himself, whether describing the sheer blackness of Marie's underwear or the sleeping mask she wears when they make love, the placing of these things in the text gives the impression at first that the narrator could be describing a crime scene, the lights of Tokyo that can be seen reflecting from the window of their Shinjuku hotel room at times seems to be the only thing of the external world that threatens to interrupt the slow disintegration between them, although while their making love they receive a message informing them a fax has arrived for them downstairs in the lobby. The narrator finds himself staring into a mirror clutching the small bottle of acid, describing a self portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe and whilst reading the novel the photography of Nan Goldin came to my mind, not many novels provoke me into thinking about photography but this one with it's descriptive prose caught me reading it like a photographer.

The narrator leaves Marie sleeping and goes for a nocturnal walk around the corridors and lobbies of the hotel until he finds himself at the hotel's rooftop swimming pool where he takes an impromptu skinny dip. Afterwards he takes in the night time skyline of the city, and contemplates the earthquake that people describe as the 'big one', the narrator also contemplates the ending of the affair, these emotions are mixed with the exhaustion of the flight, and with descriptions of those who sent the fax back in Paris, the narrative briefly straddles lives that are existing in different time zones. The descriptive nature of the novel seems to involve an attempt at dismantling the city, reducing it to a more of an elemental force. Meeting up with Marie in the main lobby the two still living in their European timezone go out for  noodles, as dawn begins to break they feel a tremor, which is the centre of conversation when they meet with the organisers of the exhibition in Shinagawa. During this meeting Marie suffers a mini breakdown and after she regains her composure the narrator leaves early and takes a random excursion around Tokyo's subway  before taking the shinkansen to Kyoto to visit a friend. Toussaint's prose manages to  circumnavigate and include a number of different themes, the narrator's exhaustion from travelling which also manages to include his emotional weariness at the ending of the affair, his shifting perspectives is one of being an outsider and of regaining a new sense of himself as the affair is coming to it's end, although whether this actually happens is left in slight ambiguity. The precise reasons and details behind their separating is not fully explored or given, and a sense that the narrative is skimming the surface of the narrator's feelings comes across, the reader is left to read alot in to the idiosyncrasies of the circumstance of the story, the inclusion of the bottle of acid acts as an interesting metaphor which the narrator utilizes at the end of this resonant novel.


Making Love at The New Press

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Norwegian Wood


I find it hard to believe that it's been nearly eleven years since I read Jay Rubin's translation of Norwegian Wood so it was impossible for me to watch Anh Hung Tran's adaption sparing too much thought about making comparisons to the original book. This is the third of Anh Hung Tran's films that I've seen, The Scent of Green Papaya, (1993), has to be one of my favourite films, the other by him that I've seen was Cyclo,(1995), which is a mesmeric piece of film making, so I guess I found myself watching the film largely disregarding the fact that it was adapted from Murakami's novel, although obviously the thought never remained that distant. The film runs for a little over two hours and I guess that if it followed the novel in it's entirety it would have lasted a lot longer, the sequences also run differently than they do in the novel, which also throws attempting to make comparisons to the novel further into difficulty, but for me not having read the novel for such a long time and perhaps for someone who has come to the film without having read the book, (if there was such a viewer?), it made me want to return to the novel, and perhaps for someone who hasn't read it, the film I think would want them to track down a copy of the book.
 
The soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood seemed in places a little bit out of place, sometimes as if it was composed for a different film, although the tracks by Can worked really well, Greenwood's subtler guitar based pieces seemed to fit really well, along with the more atmospheric pieces, although the string arrangements I sometimes found difficult to reconcile with what was happening on screen, it gave the actors an animated quality which worked a little unevenly at times. The Beatles song features only twice in the film, once sung by Reiko, (played by Reika Kirishima), and again at the closing credits, music is an integral aspect to Murakami's novels it's great to learn that YMO legend Haruomi Hosono appears as the record shop owner where Watanabe works.  Kenichi Matsuyama gives an understated performance as Watanabe, caught between the emotionally fragile world of  Naoko and Midori, (played by Kiko Mizuhara), Matsuyama's next movie appearance is in Sabu's Usagi Drop based on Yumi Unita's josei manga Bunny Drop which will also be shown as an animated T.V series. Watching the film for me made me think that Naoko, (played by Rinko Kikuchi), is perhaps the central  character to the story that the rest of the characters revolve around, (although in another sense it could be Kuzuki's suicide, played by Kengo Kora), which I don't remember feeling to such a degree when reading the novel.
 
The film is superbly shot, the scenes of Naoko's rural retreat seemed to match how the novel seems to visualise it, the shots also of Watanabe by the sea after Naoko's suicide were beautifully captured, I've not yet checked the location of some of the filming, the feel of the rest of the film evokes the time period it's set in, with Watanabe walking indifferently amongst protesting students near the start of the film. The novel is obviously a tricky one to transfer onto screen due to Watanabe's inner contemplative narratives which would be difficult to convey in film, although it remains a beautifully presented film and would find it hard to imagine it to disappoint. Anh Hung Tran didn't opt for a voice over narration by Watanabe and has chosen to depict the dialogue and what is seen in the novel in a straight forward way, the emotional scenes are caught with great effect, adapting from literary works is largely an ambiguous enterprise, the film acts in a way as an accompanying visual extension of the original novel but also succeeds as a finely crafted film in it's own sense.    

Norwegian Wood site

Norwegian Wood at Soda Pictures

 

Tuesday 5 July 2011

The Devil's Disciple





















The second Japanese title published recently from Hesperus Worldwide, is this collection of two novellas from Shiro Hamao, 濱尾 四郎 (1896-1935), a public prosecutor with aristocratic lineage, this fluid and at times poetical translation comes again from J. Keith Vincent, (A Riot of Goldfish), who was the joint recipient of the 2011' U.S Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature'. Both of these short pieces were originally published in the literary magazine Shinseinen, in 1929, these were the first stories that Hamao had published. The Devil's Disciple/Akuma no deshi is a tale of thwarted love between the genders and takes the form of a written confession, Shimaura Eizo finds himself accused of murdering a young woman and awaiting trial but as he confesses to Tsuchida Hachiro, who in his old university days Shimaura became infatuated with, it could be that he is charged with the wrong murder. The confession starts by recalling their  university days together where the two young men formed a relationship, the older Tsuchida became a mentor to the younger Shimaura who fell under his guidance, teaching him the world of literature, introducing him to Poe, Doyle and Freeman also lecturing him on the world of Carpenter and WhitmanI found myself stimulated by the criminal and the bizarre, Shimaura writes. But Shimaura was dumped when Tsuchida  becomes attracted to a younger man at the university. Devastated by this split Shimaura drifts into a desolate life until he meets Sueko, he acknowledges the difference between himself and Tsuchida finding that he is attracted to both sexes. The two find a mutual affection but this relationship comes to an end when a husband is found for Sueko, and Shimaura quits the university and finds himself drifting again, picking up translating work and writing articles for magazines, he manages to scrape by, but always keeping enough money aside for alcohol and his 'sleeping powder'. He meets Tsuyuko who becomes his dutiful wife despite it being on his side a loveless marriage, at first Shimaura can tolerate the situation but his wife becomes a source of irritation to him, her obsessive subservience further annoys him. Randomly he meets Sueko on the street and learns that her husband died in the Kanto Earthquake, and she now lives alone. By this time Shimaura has become quite addicted to sleeping powder and takes vast prescriptions, quantities that would usually kill a person not used to it's effects. Trying to provoke Tsuyuko into leaving him proves fruitless as she tolerates him being with other women, Shimaura begins to spend more time with Sueko, wanting to get rid of Tsuyuko, Shimaura devises a way of murdering her, although due to a tragic intervention, things don't go the way he had planned.

The second story is called Did He Kill Them?/Kare ga koroshita ka, this story is at first narrated by a barrister who becomes embroiled in what at first appears to be an obvious case, he examines the circumstantial evidence, a married couple are found murdered, stabbed to death, the woman's lover is found at the scene with a bloodied blade. This seemingly obvious scenario harbours an intricate maze of hidden attractions between the four characters that Hamao masterly weaves without revealing the actuality of it until Otera Ichiro's last statement is found after he has been executed for the murder of Seizo Oda and his wife Michiko. At the heart of this story, (as Ichiro suspects), lies perhaps a sadistic game, Michiko a beautiful young woman is caught, or so it appears in an abusive marriage, although appearances lead to much darker motives, she takes pleasure in toying with young men's affections, as Ichiro discovers that Michiko has feelings for his friend Tomoda Takeshi, Ichiro's jealousy begins to push him to the brink, the second half of the story switches to being Ichiro's telling of the actual events. Out of the two novellas presented here this one lingered with me the longest after putting the book down and captures Hamao's ingenuity at crafting a complex psychological study from a seemingly simple opening. The translation of these stories broadens further the picture of early Showa Era literature, the stories dip into a number of genres; legal procedure, (as Hamao was a public prosecutor), detective noir, and ero-guro-nansensu, (erotic grotesque nonsense), the influence of these can be read in these stories. In his introduction J. Keith Vincent highlights that Hamao was an early advocate of gay rights, noting that in pre-modern Japan homosexuality was widely accepted, but by the 1930's modern sexual theory had recast it as a pathology and a perversion. Hamao was one of the first writers to oppose this. Hamao was a contemporary of the mystery writer Edogawa Rampo but died early in 1935.

The Devil's Disciple at Hesperus Press

Japanese Literature Challenge 5