Kanai-kun - Matsumoto Taiyo/Tanikawa Shuntaro

  

Recently stumbled upon this collaboration between Tanikawa Shuntaro and Matsumoto Taiyo published back in January by Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun, needless to say I'd very much like a copy.

 

More information at the publisher. (includes a video walk through of the exhibition with Matsumoto). and more. 

 

the book at Amazon

 

only a few days left to catch the exhibition, if you happen to be in the area, via TAB

A Kiss of Fire - by Masako Togawa



 

Sometime ago I read and enjoyed Togawa's The Master Key which won the Edogawa Rampo Award way back in 1962, recently a copy of A Kiss Of Fire came my way and the jacket art alone grabbed my attention, although unfortunately I can't see mention of the artist's name anywhere, which is a shame, the book, Hi no seppun was translated by Simon Grove and published in the U.K by Chatto and Windus and previously in the U.S by Dodd, Mead and Company. A Kiss of Fire is a novel that's slightly difficult to fit into any one genre, perhaps it could be best described as an off kilter crime novel, something that I remember from reading The Master Key is of the originally inventive twists and turns Togawa incorporates into her storytelling. At it's beginning three boys witness a fire that kills an aspiring painter, when interviewed the boys claim that they saw a man shaped like a bat who breathed fire ascending the stairs of the building, one of the three boys was the painter's son. After this introductory opening, which sets up the preliminary scenario the novel accelerates forward twenty six years later revisiting the lives of the three boys whose lives have each gone their separate ways, until that is until a spate of arsonist attacks. Ikuo is now a fireman pursuing the elusive arsonist, but in the process he becomes so embroiled he becomes a suspect as his ID and wallet are discovered in the stomach of a lion who falls victim to the arsonists flames. Ryosaku is now a detective who is also on the arson case, in the process he becomes involved with Ikuo's girlfriend Chieko, finally of the three boys is the painter's son Michitaro who has become a director of the family's insurance company. Under chapters named The Fireman, The Detective, The Arsonist, Togawa begins to put the pieces together, at first each of the characters are unaware that they are the three friends who in their youths witnessed the fire that killed Michitaro's father.

 

Over this progressing narrative it becomes slowly more clearer as to who the arsonist is, or so we think, in the meantime Ikuo has self doubts that he might be the arsonist, as an actress he has an affair with is killed by an arson attack, and a pair of jogging shoes linking him to her incriminates him to the degree that he remains suspect number one, but as Ryosaku points out as Ikuo was under police surveillance he is ruled out as a suspect. A clue that begins to emerge is that of something seen by Ikuo in the fire twenty six years previously, running up to the second floor Ikuo had caught Michitaro's father in a compromising position with a young nurse. The story is full of some interesting side plots and arresting motifs that at first seem to sit out of place with the rest of the advancing story, of a local temple where Michitaro's grandmother visits and places a sutra, and of stone effigies that resemble dogs or lions, these things Ryosaku picks up on in the course of his investigations, the temple is also fighting a neighbouring development to turn land adjacent to the temple into apartments. A motif that appears as details of the scenario of the original fire unfold is that of a dog with a burning tail used as a fuse to light the fire, another trigger of a fire later in the book is that of a crystal ball placed in a window to magnify the rising sun's rays to ignite the flames.

 

The deeper mystery of the novel is the reason or motive of the attacks, the main options are that it could be to cover up the escalation of a sham insurance claim linking back to the death of the lion which was secretly highly insured, another is that the arsonist was carrying out his crimes to satiate an almost orgasmic thrill he got when starting fires, or another path begins to lead to Michitaro's grandmother whose husband started the insurance company wanting to avenge the death of her son, the painter, Togawa's great ability is to draw this picture that links each of these different paths so closely together that it's left only to the final stage of the book for all to be made clear. Towards the end of the novel Michitaro is at the centre of a kidnapping plot, in the name of the book Togawa uses it in relation to the dangerous attraction of fire and also of it being utilised as an instrument of vengeance, another imaginative motif that that appears in the novel is the bundle of burnt matches used in the original fire preserved by Michitaro's grandmother as a strange slightly macabre momentum. The novel does show it's age in a number of places, (in one scene I think Ryosaku is described as wearing a 'safari' suit), although this does add to the flavour of the novel and it seems more erotically charged than I remember The Master Key being, but I enjoyed this greatly for Togawa's originality and inventiveness.      

 

As well as her writing Masako Togawa is also known as a chanson singer and also as a writer for television and for her many appearances on television. Aside from The Master Key and A Kiss of Fire another two novels have been translated Slow Fuse and The Lady Killer which won the Naoki Prize, although I think they are all currently out of print it would be great to see these reappear with a reissue.   

 

Masako Togawa's entry on Wikipedia

 

for a glimpse of the jacket art - A Kiss of Fire at Library Thing

 

Hi no seppun at Amazon.jp

       

Light and Dark: A Novel



Light and Dark is a novel to be best read with the phone off the hook and the internet left unconnected, in this new translation by John Nathan it comes in a page shy of 420, originally published in 188 instalments in 1916 of the Tokyo and Osaka editions of the Asahi Shinbun,  Sōseki passed away before being able to finish it, although on his desk was left the blank paper with the number for instalment number 189 written in and waiting to be filled. As with all unfinished novels the mystery hangs over what was meant to be, reading the book feels slightly akin of finding oneself within a confined space but with the added dimension of the door being left open at one end. John Nathan in his introduction points out that in it's incompleteness it is complete, everything we need to know is there in what we have, perhaps it brings to mind the conundrum that faces all artists of when is their painting actually complete?. Perhaps it could also be said that with Light and Dark you could approach a reading of it with these two perspectives in mind, one of it being presented as a novel and secondly of the original appearing in instalments, of the events arriving sequentially. Columbia University Press have presented a fantastically produced edition of the book with the original illustrations from Natori Shunsen, a master of yakusha-e, heading each of the numbered instalments and when slipping the book's jacket off, the hardcover comes with an illustrated embossed cover and the page cut comes deckle edged, it's a handsomely produced edition to behold.

At the centre of Light and Dark is Tsuda and O'Nobu, newly wedded, Tsuda being slightly the eldest, they are still dependant financially on monthly contributions from Tsuda's father in Kyoto, which at the beginning of the novel begins to cease being paid, perhaps this is a possible punishment for past deeds?. Reading Light and Dark is no small commitment on the reader's behalf, it is a substantial read, being more lengthy than I Am A Cat, whilst reading invariably the mind turns to contemplate Sōseki writing it in his state of deteriorating health and of also noting at the same time some aspects and familiar motifs associated with the author that occur within the text, in one scene a visit to London is recalled,and dotted through the book are occasional references to Chinese poetry and proverbs, in another brief and fleeting scene the ethics of Naturalism are shown to be ineffectual, added to this Tsuda suffers from stomach lesions for which he his operated upon. Much of the drama of the novel is mainly passed through few characters, the character that appears to receive most of the attention and study is Tsuda who spends most of the novel recuperating from his operation, whilst in bed he receives visits from among others Kobayashi, who is imminently departing for Korea, Kobayashi is a man, although they may have shared a friendship in the past, is in ways the antithesis of Tsuda, towards the end of the book there is a showdown between the two where the men vent their scorn toward each other and their different senses of morality, throughout the book Kobayashi has held the upper hand to Tsuda's assumed respectability as he knows an episode from Tsuda's past which he threatens to relate to O'Nobu, it comes down to a question of money, where again Kobayashi is again unable to resist from exacerbating and demonstrating Tsuda's moral bereftness, it could be said that Kobayashi is testing out elements of the moral pretensions of the day, it's left to us whose right holds out. Throughout the book the reader's sense of empathy shifts between Tsuda and O'Nobu, (as it does more subtly between Tsuda and Kobayashi), a subplot earlier in the book is the possibility of a miai in the family and this provokes O'Nobu to revaluate her marriage compatibility with Tsuda, who by turns we get the impression has had his hand slightly forced into the marriage, the interplay of these considerations on their parts it could be said is back dropped by the world of stifled conventions that have no interest in real or true desires.

Across its panoramic vision it could be said that Light and Dark is a novel of varying contrasts, the title is one that rather being represented in any one scene, (among these ones which we are left with), but one that is hinted to in a number of scenes of one being thematic, throughout these we're reminded of Sōseki's interest in Buddhist thinking and of life's continual dualism, as seen in Uncle Fujii's theories on male and female relationships, in which moments of enlightenment are reached and constitute a larger circle of harmony then disharmony, rather pointedly O'Nobu criticizes Fujii by admonishing him, 'You're so long winded Uncle'. The secret in Tsuda's past withheld from O'Nobu is also something described as being something kept in the dark, these contrasts can also be seen when Madam Yoshikawa visits Tsuda and discussing Kiyoko-san she asks him 'I imagine you still have feelings for Kiyoko-san?', he replies with 'Do I appear to have feelings?' Madam Yoshikawa replies with, 'For just that reason. Because they don't appear'. Reading Sōseki there's always a sense of drifting between worlds, Meiji into Taisho, which also enables to step out and transcend the age of their setting. An aspect that imbues his work is a sense of the organic that filters through, there's  almost an utter lack of pretension in his characters which impresses them and their predicaments into the reader's sphere of empathy, and although he was tackling contemporary issues of his day there's a feeling in his writing that despite all being impermanent he sees things from the fixed point of the heart, through all it's wanderings, be they through the labyrinth of corridors of a distant onsen, of the opposing predicaments of love and then to end on the enigma of a smile.



Light and Dark at Columbia University Press     

 

Granta 127: Japan

 

Granta 127: Japan is now out and launches tomorrow at the Free Word Centre in London, a number of extracts and translators notes are available to read at Granta online, as well as additional pieces in full, including Hush ...Hush Sweet Charlotte by Kazushige Abe in a translation from Michael Emmerich. Very much looking forward to reading this. 

 

Granta 127: Japan