Sunday 25 March 2012

The Navidad Incident
















Amongst Haikasoru's latest offerings is The Navidad Incident, a Tanizaki Prize winning novel by Natsuki Ikezawa translated by Alfred Birnbaum, who has also previously translated Ikezawa's A Burden of Flowers and On a Small Bridge in Iraq. Coming with the subtitle, The Downfall of Matias Guili, the novel is a satirical and ingenious history of colonialism and the story of an entrepreneurial leader, Matias Guili, alluding on occasion to the La Navidad story of Christopher Columbus. Set on an imagined archipelago in the south pacific whose islands are a natural paradise, the island's politics are caught between the influences of America and Japan. The novel opens with Guili waiting for a delegation of Japanese veterans to arrive, although a spate of protests threaten to upset the visit, posters with slogans daubed on them appear posted up around the city, a torii gate is pushed over by a gang of youths. During the delegates visit other curious happenings occur, the Japanese flag is mysteriously engulfed in flames in mid ceremony and furthering perplexity the bus carrying the delegates completely vanishes along with the delegates inside it. From this puzzling turn of events comes a narrative of Navidad's history, colonised throughout the past few hundred years by various nations expanding their empires, occupied by the Japanese during the Pacific War and then as a protectorate of the U.S.A., and before this by the Germans and Portuguese. During the years of the Japanese occupation   Matias is taken under the wing of Lieutenant Ryuzoji, who arranges for Matias to study and work in Japan beginning his induction into the ways of trade and commerce and also igniting his infatuation with the country, in his presidential residence he surrounds himself with it's culture; a Japanese bath and maid, Japanese sashimi breakfast, a fitted tatami room with Kakemono with himself in portrait and is chauffeured around in a Nissan limo. Returning to Navidad after his time in Japan his eye for opportunity finds that he can make a bundle from importing Japanese hot pot ramen and through his political leanings and slight manipulation finds himself a presidential candidate  sponsored by Cornelius, Matias's political sage and mentor. His long presidency is interrupted by the brief reshuffle of power to his political rival, Bonhomme Tamang, who held allegiances with America who comes to a mysterious end. The story of Matias and Navidad runs along another story line, an additional  development in Navidad's relationship with Japan, is the request that a bay is used as a location to stock pile oil in the shape of moored Japanese tankers, Matias balances up the request and ponders how much he will make from it.

Along with Matias the novel introduces an assortment of characters each accompanied with a rundown of their history as they appear, Angelina, whom Matias meets in Manila proposed to and was turned down by runs a bar and brothel which Matias organised on a condition she insisted upon instead of marriage, a gay couple, (Ketch and Joel), who frequent the bar, and a newly arrived  waitress who has the talent of envisioning the future piques Matias's curiosity as being someone who could prove useful to him in the future, he decides to rename her Ameliana, she has a vision of the proposed deal with the Japanese concerning the stockpiling of the oil. Matias also at times confides in a ghost called Lee Bo or Leigh Beau, set in the eighteenth century his story takes in a journey on board a ship of the East India Company from Palau to Great Britain, this narrative too examines the implications and consequences of colonialism, all of these introductions act as brief stories within the story, creating numerous narratives that work into the main of the novel. Through these entwining narratives comes numerous reports of bizarre sightings of the missing bus of delegates, it's seen taking off behind a Boeing 737, an underwater fisherman catches a brief glimpse of it, another time it is seen walking into a bar and ordering a round of soft drinks, briefly it is seen in the night sky as a newly discovered constellation of stars before disappearing again. Ameliana is taking part in the Yuuka Yuumai celebrations festival on Melchor Island, Matias puts everything on hold to go incognito in order to spy on her.

The novel builds at it's own fantastic pace connecting all of these bizarre and wonderfully ingenious narratives and perspectives, sporadically through the novel we listen in on the conversation and rumour of the locals who gather to discuss the events going on and of Matias's dark history, and it's darkness becomes darker as the novel proceeds, the pertinence of this unofficial history slowly becomes more apparent, seeping out the truth, informing the reader of all of Matias's shady dealings and deeds, the Navidad Teihoku Hotel, replete with it's broken revolving restaurant seems to be an embodiment of all that Matias represents. Mixing satire with elements of magical realism this is a pitch perfect novel and translation which leaves a great deal for the reader to judge for themselves.

The Navidad Incident: The Downfall of Matias Guili at Haikasoru





Thursday 15 March 2012

Loop







 

It's been a long time since reading Ring and with a translation of Edge due to be published in April I thought I'd catch up with one of Suzuki's back titles. The translation of Loop is by Glynne Walley whose forthcoming translation of Yoshinori Shimizu's 1992 novel Ninja to SushiNinja and Sushi is a book I've been eagerly waiting to read. Big blockbusting novels usually induce a slight feeling of apprehension and trepidation, although Suzuki's novels have come to represent cornerstones in the landscape of both Japanese popular culture of the 1990's, and then globally as the phenomenal bestseller was exported and adapted to film, and then given a Hollywood makeover. My memory of reading Ring is slight, so I anticipated that some of the connections here were going to pass me by, as I've yet to read the Ring spin off collection Birthday, but the novel stands on it's on plots and themes well enough, in the second half of the novel the story line of Ring is actually re-introduced and connected to the one going on in Loop. The central character, Kaoru, a young man whose father had worked on an A.I experiment, a massively ambitious project involving an array of super computers dotted about the globe, the first few chapters of the novel is set during Kaoru's formative years, late nights spent talking about scientific theories with his father, Hideyuki, are recounted, Kaoru begins to make connections between two maps printed off his computer, one showing areas of longevity in the world's population and another showing areas of gravitational anomalies on the earth's surface. Kaoru's mother has a healthy scepticism of science, and her interjections seem to inspire as much as they deflate her son's enthusiasms for his subject. Kaoru notes that the two maps show that the high area of longevity and gravitational anomalies share the same locations in some spots on the planet, notably around the four corners region in north America, being a somewhat mathematical prodigy, Kaoru begins to deduce more connections. Coincidentally Kaoru's father, Hideyuki is set to go there on a work assignment, and he makes a promise to Kaoru that they will one day go there.

The narrative moves on some years later and the projected trip has been cancelled due to the discovery that Hideyuki has a new strain of a virulent cancer, the narrative is filled with descriptions of biological scientific theorizing and describes this new strain of cancer in detail, it's course and source remains elusive to the scientists studying it. Whilst visiting his father, Kaoru comes to know Reiko and her son Ryoji who is also  receiving treatment for cancer, Kaoru is employed by Reiko to tutor Ryoji, whose father passed away, Kaoru's and Reiko's relationship grows, he learns that she is also a carrier of the disease. At the hospital Kaoru meets Professor Saiki who allows Kaoru to study the cancer in his father's blood cells. Through his father's suggestion Kaoru meets Amano who had worked with Hideyuki on the loop project, and through him Kaoru learns of Kenneth Rothman who had also worked on the project, and learns of his last known address in a remote town in the Mojave desert. Kaoru begins to come to the understanding that the new strain of cancer and the loop project are somehow connected, after discovering that Reiko is pregnant with his child, Kaoru decides that he must travel to the site in north America and find Rothman.

Although the plot to the novel is quite a simplistic one, the ideas and connections that Suzuki puts forth in it are fantastically imaginative, the comparison or juxtaposition of the loop project being a replication of reality within a computer with that of the  proclamation from Genesis that 'God created man in his own  image', puts forward the notion that we are already living in a form of virtual or replicated reality, that is if you happen to be a believer, and the novel witnesses a process of scientific reincarnation taking place in it's tumultuous finale.

Loop at HarperCollins

Koji Suzuki at Vertical

at amazon

Monday 5 March 2012

March was made of Yarn























Recently bought a copy of March was made of Yarn, edited by Elmer Luke and David Karashima, the book collects fictional and non-fictional pieces, manga and poetry, a compilation of stories and reflections on the tsunami and nuclear crisis caused by the earth quake of March last year. The book opens with a poem, Words by Shuntaro Tanikawa, translated by Jeffrey Angles and closes with a historical story by David Peace, which takes the reader back to the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and it's aftermath centering around the writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke. Some of the pieces refer to the Earthquake more literally than others, but all carry a poignancy that provoke reflection and inform. Hideo Furukawa's piece Sixteen Years Later, In The Same Place, translated by Michael Emmerich, traces he and his wife as they return to their native Fukushima for their wedding anniversary and describes the initial damage caused by the earthquake and how this has impacted on the lives of his family and also of the consequences of the nuclear meltdown. The story conveys very accurately that this is the only beginning of a disaster that will take decades to recover from. The brief manga is from Nishioka Kyodai, (who are brother and sister), entitled The Crows and the Girl and is translated by Alfred Birnbaum. Other contributions are from Tawada Yoko, Murakami Ryu, Ogawa Yoko, Ikezawa Natsuki, Kawakami Hiromi, Kawakami Mieko, Abe Kazushige, and many more, and of course needless to say their respective translators, I won't go into too much further detail on the pieces, other than to recommend buying a copy and reading it, royalties from the book will be donated to charities working towards the reconstruction of North Eastern Japan.

The book is published in the U.K by Harvill Secker and in the U.S.A by Vintage.

Japanese Red Cross

Video at IFRC