Three-Dimensional Reading

Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction, 1911-1932

 

 

Simply put this anthology contains some essential reading, aside from one story, Yokomitsu Riichi's The Underside of Town, the stories here are firsts seen in English translation, Three Dimensional Reading comes with the subtitle: Stories of Time and Space in Japanese Modernist Fiction, 1911 - 1932, so the time line is set primarily across the Taisho era along with a small overlap with late Meiji and early Showa, the anthology is also accompanied by some remarkably detailed and imaginative artwork by Sakaguchi Kyohei. The spaces concerned vary in nature over the stories, external, internal, and with one situated in colonised Korea, many of them it could be said are Tokyo-centric, the anthology brings pieces together by well known names of the age such as Soseki, Kawabata, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, as well as some who are lesser known in English, in particular a story that I was looking forward to reading being Hori Tatsuo's Aquarium, from 1930, translated by Stephen Snyder, a story of an obsessive lesbian love, after recently reading Hori's later short story Les Joues En Feu, (1932), which is also a nuanced psychological study of a same sex love triangle set in a boy's high school dormitory, Aquarium has a more subjective feel, and of being a tale related rather than being from an internal psychological viewpoint.

Edited by Angela Yiu, who also translates a number of the stories the book is divided into three segments each highlighting a particular theme - Scenes of the Mind, Time and Urban Space and the third part being Utopia and Dystopia, each of the stories are accompanied by fully comprehensive introductions by Yiu. All coming under the umbrella of being examples of modernism the stories do vary stylistically, Yiu's translation of Yokomitsu's Machi no Soko does reflect the story's more abstract elements to slightly further degree than perhaps the previous one by Dennis Keene, abstraction is something that can also be seen in Ryutanji Yu's Pavement Snapshots, translated by Alisa Freedman and Angela Yiu, a story which in a way resembles Yokomitsu's Machi no Soko as it offers a city view, although where Yokomitsu's is at times more panoramic, Yu's is more quick fire in it's representations although remaining multifarious in it's scope. An interesting aspect throughout some of these stories is the points of overlap between them, authors referencing each other or each others works, another aspect which is curious to note is the absence of any female voices within the collection.

The temptation is there to give a synopsis of each of these stories, each of which carry their own unique perspectives, Tanizaki's A Golden Death, translated by James Lipson and Kyoko Kurita, is a story that first appeared in 1914, which reads as being an inspiration for Ranpo's Strange Tale of Panorama Island, (1926), which sees the narrator in a protracted disagreement with his school friend, the son of a wealthy family on the aesthetics of beauty, as in Ranpo's Strange Tale, the story features the building of a fantastical theme park complete with living statues and interpretations of famous, (predominately Western), artworks, Mishima criticised the story. Sato Haruo's A Record of Nonchalant, translated by Yiu is a fantastical dystopian vision which astonishes when pausing to consider it was written in 1929, set in the twenty ninth century the story conveys the injustices and prejudices of a tiered society, between the haves and the have nots, daylight and the air that you breath are commodities under strictest control in this subterranean world turned on it's side, in some ways it could be seen that the story in some ways could have served as an inspiration for Abe Kobo's 1949 story Dendrocacalia. Inagaki Taruho's Astromania, translated by Jeffrey Angles is another story that bears witness to a subtle convergence between East and West which sees two young friends construct a diorama. A fascinating and informative collection offering highly valued perspectives on modernist literature of the period. 

Three-Dimensional Reading at University of Hawai'i Press

online gallery of art by Sakaguchi Kyohei        

New Murakami Haruki collection - Onna no inai Otokotachi

Piece of book news, just as Murakami Haruki's latest novel is due to appear in English the author has a new collection due for publication on April 18th, his first collection since Tokyo Kitan-syu was published back in 2005. Published by Bungei Shunju, 女のいない男たち - Onna no inai Otokotachi - Men Without Women, brings together six stories, five of which have appeared previously in the publisher's magazine, including the story 'Drive My Car', which saw the author caught in controversy. The collection also contains one story, the title story, previously unpublished.

Onna no inai Otokotachi at Bungei Shunju

Amazon

  

Cage on the Sea



Recently published by new imprint Bento Books Cage on the Sea by Kaoru Ohno looks to be a novel of epic proportions, translated by Giles Murphy the book is available in a number of formats, to read more about this novel, an interview with author Kaoru Ohno and more on Bento Books click over to their website.

Cage on the Sea at Bento Books

Triangle by Hisaki Matsuura

Forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press, Triangle is translated by David Karashima, it could be said that it could be added to the slowly growing number of titles that feature the presence of two celestial globes, although Triangle predates another well known one, (Murakami's 1Q84), by some years, it seems that perhaps the presence of two moons or two suns could become the common motif of novels with characters that find themselves caught in alternative realities, maybe one of the earliest appearances of this could be in The Invention of Morel by the Argentine novelist Adolfo Bioy Casares which was published in 1940. Perhaps the protagonist of Triangle, Otsuki, doesn't find himself in an alternative reality in a literal sense, but does find himself becoming embroiled in dark circles which he struggles to comprehend across this at times unsettling novel.

With an unsettling film at its centre the narrative style of Triangle also feels in places cinematic and could perhaps be described as being a blending of somewhere between Yamada Taichi and the darker side of Murakami Ryu, much of the novel is situated in Tokyo's Taitō District in particular San'ya, a notoriously rough and rundown area. Otsuki is a rather dissolute character, a recovering drug addict, who on returning home one night encounters an old acquaintance, Sugimoto, standing out in the street in only his boxers and vest, (this rather enigmatic incidence is returned to later in the novel and given it's fuller and darker context), through Sugimoto's insistence and the offer of easy work Otsuki is introduced to Koyama, an older man whom Otsuki begins to understands is a renowned calligrapher whose home is labyrinthine with glass panelling and conservatory, at first Otsuki imagines that he is needed to act as a translator into French, but Koyama shows him a film that he has been working on. The film is experimental in nature, a young woman or teenager is seen having sex with an older man, these scenes are cut and interposed with close up images of various insects, later Otsuki is introduced to the young woman as being Koyama's granddaughter, Tomoe, Otsuki is propositioned with completing the film.

To degrees the novel's concerns could be seen as being about the fabric of identity, over the course of the book and through scenes of violent intimidation and torture, at the hands of Koyama's brutal henchman, Takabatake, who also turns out to be the man in the film with Tomoe, Otsuki is faced with re-constructing and de-constructing his own identity, in the past he had burnt out in a normal 9 to 5 job, but finds himself unable to live with the alternatives and finds himself seeking again the reliable safety, albeit the emptiness of this kind of existence. Another interesting aspect to the novel is some of the parallels going on subtly with the narratives, Otsuki's voice is that of the contemporary man and his dilemmas, the extremes that he faces in the novel represent in a way extremes that the age faces, counter to his is Koyama's, the elder established man, in another way Koyama, who we believe at first to be a darkly cultivated aesthete offers the deeper, although much darker, philosophical voice, added to this the narrative poses some post-modernist musing about the fallible nature of representation in the arts. Throughout the novel, Otsuki is caught between two women, Hiroko, a married woman who he is a having an affair with who offers to leave her husband for him and also, Tomoe, the central and most enigmatic character of the novel, (there are at times rumours of levitation), whom Otsuki becomes increasingly infatuated with. Otsuki finds himself filming in San'ya above Takabatake's shop which in places is a curiously laid out and reconstructed replica of Koyama's house.

The threads of the novel begin to come together, or perhaps untogether when Hiroko's husband begins to drop clues after her disappearance, pursuing Otsuki over an incriminating ledger filled with names and also begins to fill in the blanks concerning Koyama whose past holds the truth to his assumed identity, Hiroko's past as well is not what Otsuki believed it to be and forges links to places he'd rather not acknowledge. Dalkey Archive describe Triangle as a moral tale gone wrong, and the darkness here seems to swamp the light, it fuses and defuses in almost equal measure, unnervingly, rather than concluding it seems to point to further darkness, further corruptions and whilst reading it provokes questions on the dilemma of how modern or contemporary novels might depict or mirror the contemporary world that create them.

Triangle at Dalkey Archive