Tag: Asian fiction

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāngzi

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Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāngzi

Taiwanese fiction

Original title – 臺灣漫遊錄

Translator – Lin King

Source – Review copy

I finished the last of the Booker International books for this year’s longlist yesterday. This was one of the last three I read. I won’t get them all reviewed till the end of the week. But I was pleased to have finished before the shortlist came out. This was a book that, like a couple of others, had been on a lot of people’s guesses for the longlist. I won the National Book Award for Translated Literature last year. It also won a prize in Taiwan.  The writer was raised in a rural village and identified as Chinese, but after university, she became involved in the Wild Strawberries Movement.  Against the visit of the Chinese politician to Taiwan. She studied Chinese Literature and has since also taken a degree in Taiwanese Literature.. This is her first book

CHAPTER I

Kue-Tsí / Roasted Seeds

“Hold on. What’s going on here?”

I couldn’t help but voice the thought out loud.

For, in that moment, I seemed to have been transported back

into the midst of Shökyokusai Tenkatsu’s Magic Troupe.’

Id crossed paths with Tenkatsu’s troupe long ago, before ra started high school. They had been on tour, and on the day they arrived in Nagasaki, my aunt Kikuko and I happened upon the opening parade.

The procession comprised a majestic formation of rick-shaws, rows and rows of them with no end in sightenough to rival an army regiment. The band rode at the frontmost rick-shaws, performing with remarkable gusto; after them came the women magicians, beaming and waving at the crowd in exquisite maquillage; they were followed by the male magicians in top hats. Other troupe members went on foot, encircling the rickshaws and ushering them along. They held up long poles with brightly colored flags-streaks of crimson, white, violet, and azure that were no less commanding than the band’s spirited music.

My chest thrummed and lifted, as though something had been strung from my navel all the way up into the sky

Each chapter was a dish along the way

The book is a clever little memoir of a Japanese writer in the late 1930s who heads out to Taiwan, then under Japanese rule.  This is the story of the year she spent in the island as we follow Aoyama Chizuko and her translator Chizuro as they go around on her lecture tour f the country she also samples a lot of the local dishes along the way this is a story that sees the two woman at first distant grow closer but also there is a lot about being under rule from anuother country that resentment that can simmer. in the background as they head around the country. The book is framed as her pieces from the year-long tour and presented as a book that has been found. This means we also get a lot of footnotes along the way as we see how different fictional translators dealt with the text.  There are also endnotes from the fictional family of the two women.  Added to that, we also have the food that is almost. Character in itself sets the taste buds racing.

Before that, I broke fast with white rice, pickled vegetables, seaweed, a raw egg, and grilled fish, along with miso soup with tofu and fish—the type of meal I would have had back on the Mainland. This dampened my spirits somewhat, and I did not fill my stomach, which in turn filled my head with thoughts of sweets as lunchtime approached. Fried bread sprinkled with sugar, cream cookies, yokan jelly, red bean buns-those delicacies were appetizing, but all were things that I could have eaten in Nagasaki. Taiwan, with its heat that brought torrents of sweat down my back, called for some more hydrating desserts. Cold o-gio, hún-kué, hún-înn, tshenn-tsháu-à tea, and tropical fruits teeming with juice-how I longed to try them!

More oof the food to mae your mouth water !

I think when the longlist came out, this was maybe the book I knew least about. I wish I had known more about it; it is a little gem of a book with a clever framing device of the memoir as a novel, but it is also a look back at Japan’s colonial rule over Taiwan. But also a nod and warning toward China, threatening to do the same.. It is also about how we view books, how they were altered across various versions, and how different translators tackled the book, showing how translation can be used as a weapon of propaganda in some ways. It is also an ode to Taiwan’s food. It is a book that makes your mouth water. I hope to try a few of the dishes along the way. Others may not have been to my taste. Have you read the book? Did it make your mouth water?

Marshlands by Otohiko Kaga

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Marshlands by Otohiko Kaga

Japanese fiction

Original title – 『湿原』朝日新聞社

Translator -Albert Novich

Source – Personal copy

I think when I said I want to review 200 books this year, I may have put a number, not an idea, to this year. 200 would be great, but one of the aims for this year is to read several longer books. I think in yesterday’s post I spoke about my attention getting less. Another way I have seen this is not reading epic books anymore, even though I buy a lot. This had been on my radar for a long time, when it was mentioned on a podcast. I think it was one of the last, if not the last, books that John O’Brien signed off for Dalkey Archive. The writer Otohiko was both a writer and a psychologist. A number of the books he wrote were set in France, where he studied and worked in the late fifties. This book was published in 1985. He won a number of big book prizes in his time. He also continued visiting some of his patients well into his 80s, long after he had retired. This is the second book from a writer who has written many books and is well respected in Japan!

“And now how do you feel?” asked Atsuo, leaning back a bit to avoid Yu-kichis fists, which he had begun brandishing to punctuate his recitation. “Do you feel like smashing something right now?

“Yeah, I do, he said, slamming the table hard enough to raise the proprietor’s eyebrows and elicit a restraining “Hey!” from him.

“What on earth do you want to smash?”

“Dunno.”

“Listen to me, said Atsuo. “There’s nothing you need to smash now.”

“If there isn’t anything, then I’ll fnd something” Yukichi said with an exag gerated wave of his arm, clearly drunk, his voice unnecessarily loud.

“Uncle, theres no fun in just breaking things. It’s no good if you don’t have an explosion. See? If you want to get an explosion, there’s got to be some kind of strong resistance. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what they’re up to,” he said, pointing to the television. “First they get the riot police mad, see? Set up the resistance for the big bang!”

talking about making a bomb early on in the. book will come back later

 

This book is an epic book. It slices into the heart of post-war Japan, and I love the use of the main character, Atuso Yukimori, who at the start of the book seems a simple mechanic who works near the university. It is because of this that he starts a romance with a girl from the university, Wakako, who is about half his age. The book is pivoted on the events of the summer of 1968, when the world burned in student protests.(When I saw he had been in France, this is the time of the French riots as well!) SO when a bomb goes off, the police home in on these two. The book serves as part prison journey, part look at one man’s post-war journey in Atuso. He was in a special unit during the war and after the war he feel on very hard times and into a world of crime. But his life is on the straight and narrow, even if his lack of knowledge of how the newer car works tickles his colleagues. He shows what a great mechanic he is with old engines.  The book focuses on the investigation into the crime, the time spent in prison, looking back on the past, and even on his childhood in the marshlands. It descends into a drama of who is innocent, but also how the past affects the present, and whether we can ever escape what we have done.

She opened a wooden door. It was a little bar, consisting of a single counter that was filled to capacity with customers. “Well, well, come right in!” The bar’s proprietress gave them a professionally effusive greeting. “Unfortunately, she continued with a gesture at the full counter, “all I can offer is a place in the back.”

“That’s fine,” said Wakako. “This is Mr. Yukimori. He was one of my teachers in high school.” The bar’s “mama” gave a reverential bow.”Welcome, Mr. Yuki-mori. Very glad to have you.”

The space in the back was a tiny tatami alcove whose three walls were occupied by shelves of dishes. They each pulled up a zabuton, barely managing to squeeze in on either side of the foot-high table.

“TIl bring you something in a jify, Mr. Yukimori. Wakako sprang up and busied herself behind the counter. She helped Mama serve customers – whom she seemed to know — with a practiced hand. Finally, she returned with a bottle of whiskey, water, and dishes of meat-and-potatoes, oden, and cuttlefish. They had a toast with whiskey and water.

“Come here often?”

As the couple start heading out he is much older than her

I had waited ages to get to this, and I wish I had read it the day it dropped through the door. It is one of those epic novels that captures the fallout of a moment, the bomb, but not just what happened after, what led up to that point. The class of pre-war and post-war Japan, the speed at which life moved forward in the sixties. One mans past and how do we escpae it was almost div=ckensian at times when they talked about the marshlands I thought all we need it a chained Atsuo running across it for it to echo Magwich. But there is also a nod to Kafka in the way the trial and case unfold, and the two get caught up in it all. I recently saw a YouTube essay about how art exists around the world and why, in Japan, it is seen as a whole. At times, those epic scenes, like the noise of a Japanese web screen full of information, are viewed as a whole. This book is like that, viewing the whole post-war years and the effect of the war, but also the huge changes of the period. The late sixties led to the tension, the bombing, and the violence as two generations rage against one another. This book does so on an epic scale, following two people caught up in the events and the bombing. It is also about the past, and can we escape our past? Again, a nod maybe to time in France, Atsuo is modern Jean Valjean, parallels are there, younger women in his life, a police officer who becomes obsessed with him, and never quite being able to escape one’s past? Do you have a favourite epic Japanese book?

 

 

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

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Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Japanese Non-Fiction

Original title – 職業としての小説家, Shokugyō to shite no Shōsetsuka

Translators – Phillip Gabriel and Ted Goossen

Source – Personal copy

I move on to Haruki Murakami for my second book for the Japanese Literature Challenge 26. This is the eighth book I have reviewed since the blog began; it has been three years since I last reviewed a book by him. I had this on the shelves for a while and was looking forward to it because I’m a fan of what I talk about when I talk about running, and this collection about him as a writer appealed to me. I always admire how writers work, and I’m curious about how their lives as writers have come about, and maybe Murakami’s generation of writers is the last to be able to live as full-time writers. The first half of the collection was published in parts in a Japanese magazine.

WRITING NOVELS IS, to my way of thinking, basically a very uncool enterprise. I see hardly anything chic or stylish about it. Novelists sit cloistered in their rooms, intently fiddling with words, batting around one possibility after another. They may scratch their heads an entire day to improve the quality of a single line by a tiny bit. No one applauds, or says “Well done,” or pats them on the back. Sitting there alone, they look over what they’ve accomplished and quietly nod to themselves. It may be that later, when the novel comes out, not a single reader will notice the improvement they made that day. That is what novel writing is really all about. It is time-consuming, tedious work.

The lonely life of a writer

I suppose the best essay for me was the second one, about how it is almost by accident that we have Murakami. He had written his first book, Hear the Wind Sing, whilst working in a Jazz bar, and sent it to a Literary magazine competition, not expecting anything, then won the prize. Of course, the rest is history. He also talked in that bit about Agota Kristof and how she had written her novels. Elsewhere, he gives speeches in schools about how to be a writer. There is another essay in which he discusses his later books. It starts by discussing how he has come across the characters in his book and how he used to admire Somerset Maugham’s use of them. Then he moves on to later works of his, which I have wondered about. I have struggled with some of his later novels. I may go back after reading this and look at them again later. He also talks about prizes, where he is coy and uses other writers’ words on the Nobel prize winning, of course, he has been on the list as a potential winner for years.

Hear the wind sing is a short novel, less than two hundred manuscript pages long. Yet it took many months and much effort to complete. Part of the reason, of course, was the limited time I had to work on it, but the real problem was that I hadn’t a clue how to write a novel. To tell the truth, although I had been absorbed in reading all kinds of stuff my favorites being translations of Russian novels and English-language paperbacks-1 had never read modern Japanese novels (of the “serious” variety) in any concerted way. Thus I had no idea what kind of Japanese literature was being read at the time or how I should write fiction in the Japanese language.

Hear the wind sing is one of my favourite books by him

I enjoyed this collection less than What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I feel I may have grown out of Murakami as a reader in recent years. Looking back, it was in 2014 that I last reviewed a novel by him. Perhaps it is the fact I hadn’t connect with his later books and loved some of his earlier books but also in hindsight wonder if they would still be as good as they were when I read them twenty years ago. I still have a hope he may write that Magnus opus that he hasn’t quite written, if that makes sense. He wrote great books, but not one super book. If you are a fan, it is an insight into his mind as a writer, his views on character prizes and other things. But for me, I loved the humour and the more personal insights he shared in the book. What I talk about is a more personal memoir; this is more about his craft as a writer and the writer’s world than Murakami the man. Of course, the piece on Literary prizes. Will he be republished if he wins the Nobel Prize in the coming years? Have you read this book?

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura

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My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura

Japanese crime fiction

Original title – Watashi no Shōmetsu (私の消滅)

Translator – Samm Bett

Source – Review copy

I am a terrible reviewer of my review copies. I sometimes just get in my own groove, and books get put aside and forgotten. I am such a mood reader and always want to be me as a reader. I have been sent books and have not got to them, but with this being Japanese challenge month, I found this and remembered I really enjoyed Cult X by the same writer when I reviewed it. Nakamura is one of those crime writers who is as much a literary writer as a crime writer. In Japan, this is reflected in the fact that he has won a couple of major book prizes for his earlier works, and some of his books have also been made into films. His books defy genre, really, and this book is one such book.

I guess it started with the tuneral.

A girl who lived nearby was kidnapped and discovered dead. The younger sister of one of my

classmates. People sweating through their black funeral clothes milled awkwardly about. I was in the third grade, and watched these strangers dressed in black surround my classmate. His parents stood nearby, holding a portrait of the lost girl.

They had apprehended an unemployed man in his thirties, who went on to testity to having lured the girl into his car and murdered her when she began to kick and scream. The

man had a hulky build and wore ratty basketball shoes. I had seen him wandering around

town several times, leaning a little forward as he walked.

As he reads the diary in the opening chapter and a death

My Annihilation is a book made of one man’s diary, in part, as we meet a man in a remote mountain lodge as he reads this diary of a serial killer, Royadi Kozuka, the man who has written this dark diary of the events and killings he may have committed. But this book is one of those that folds on itself as the man who is reading ther diary is trying to be the man in the diary and as we get further into the book he is held at a mental institution as th pyschatrist try to untangle to identity of the man and the writer of the dirasy and how these all fit together wutha woman that has died called Yukari and we see her desperate past life. AS the multiple threads unfold, the story and tale are revealed, but there are also gaps in the narrative, with black pages between the chapters. As I said, this is a writer who loves to play with the style of writing but also the way a story is told.

He was a quiet kid, easy to miss. The adult couples in his family were at odds with one another, and sometimes his grandfather beat his grandmother and his father beat his mother.

Because his parents were both busy working, he was looked after by a man named Taka, who had

an emotional disorder and was unable to use both his legs. After Taka went away and Miyazaki’s grandfather died, a noticeable change came over him. He began inflicting violence on his parents and on animals while obsessively collecting anime and manga.

Children can become unstable with thedeath of a parent or close relative, but by the time his grandfather had died Miyazaki was already twenty-five years old and inordinately distraught. When he saw a little girl on her own, he told himself “I’m gonna catch that kid” and said something to her. Of particular interest was his perception of himself during that moment.

What makes a kiler ?

 

I wish I had got to this earlier, as it is not only one of the most inventive crime books I have read, with many layers like peeling an onion back, even to the tears of the horrific crimes we see along the way. But the use of past, present, and identity all collide at times. Who is who, why has x and y happened all unfold, but not always as you think they will, the truth always seems to shine through. This has the darkness, at times, you find in a writer like Bolano, that feeling of not quite knowing what is going on, that you draw from Kafka’s works. But also the brutal nature of mental health treatment that brought me back at times to one flew over the cuckoo’s nest with its mention of electrotherapy, etc. I was also reminded of Pamuk’s crime books by another clever writer. I could see this making a great mini series, with the various threads, since it would suit a mini-series format, since we know each part slowly comes together like a complex jigsaw puzzle. One for Kafka fans, fans of clever crime books that keep you thinking about who is who and about identity and revenge! I’m sure I have said this before, but Soho Press does some of the most inventive book covers. Have you read any books by Fuminori Nakamura?

Set my heart on fire by Izumi Suzuki

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Set my heart on fire by Izumi Suzuki

Japanese fiction

Original title – ハートに火をつけて! だれが消す

Translator – Helen O’Horan

Source – Library book

Well, on to the third of this month’s Women in Translation Month, I move to Japan and a writer whose other books in English so far have been a short story collection, and the novel by Izumi Suzuki is her first to be translated into English. Izumi died young and, like the women in her book, lived at night in Tokyo, where she moved as a hostess, nude model and actress. When she was young, she had a brief marriage to an avant-garde saxophonist, the sort of chap who played in one of the jazz clubs in her book.I had read the short story collection by her and not really connected, but this felt more real-life than her stories did to me. I may reread her short story collection after reading this.

I’m more of a Gibson man myself. I mean, the Green Glass guitarist used an SG. I guess different Fenders sound different, too. You’ve got Telecasters, Stratocasters … The Tele’s nice and tight. Stratocaster’s more bluesy?

He took out a Hope cigarette and a little sleeve of cardboard matches.’God, what should I do!’ I lay back and writhed about on the bed.You just never think ahead? He plucked off a match and lit his cigarette. ‘Oh no, I just set my Hope on fire!’ Look, if it works out in the end, it’s all good to me. I take it as it comes.’

This reminded me of friends I had when young into guitars and how they sounded !

 

The main character in the book a woman in her twenties living her best well a life at night on the back streets of Tokyo is a thinly veiled version of the writer herself it captures a wom an stuck in the night time world of Tokyo of the mid 1970 bars full of yoi8ung men like the wooman in the book just trying to escape there world wether through playing music, drinking having affairs of  r drugs these are the dark side of Tokyo nights. Obviously culled from her own short marriage, and then shortly after her husband divorced, they lived together. He died of an overdose. This world is full of mirror images of him and many of the men she must have met during those years. It is a doomed life of men and a woman making three wrong choices. all to a backdrop of seventies rock, jazz, and Japanese psychedelic bands of this time. I felt it needed a Spotify playlist of the bands.

I thought he’d have left long ago.

We’d arranged to meet at eleven o’clock by the Honmoku bus stop. Thanks to the mental retardation I retained from my childhood, I’d taken the Tokaido Line instead of the Toyoko Line and gone to Yokohama Station, and then the train was delayed. By the time I arrived it was past twelve-thirty.

Joel was standing there, serene. Looking like he’d walked straight out of the photos on that album sleeve. Slender and tall like a tree without leaves, not moving an inch.

I wondered whether he might be an idiot. I quickly parked my own blunder and looked down on him incredulously.

What man waits nearly two hours for a woman whose face he’s never seen? If it was in a café, perhaps – I suppose he’d have found ways to amuse himself, but even then he’d have to be a guy with nothing much going for him.

In the club and a man she had seen lioved the descrition of how he looked

I like this book; it is almost auto-fiction. i read it is a nod the the tradtional I novel a japanese form of bildsroman. IT captures what must have been the young Izumi Suzuki years in the jazz bars and her marriage to one of those men that played in a band in those bars at the time, a doomed relationship rather like her own life, which was far too short 1. Still, It also captures the world of the early Murakami novels but from a female point of view as she drifted through the Japanese Jazz bar, and this is a world where the women would eat the men in Haruki Murakami’s novels alive. There is no evidence she knew Murakami, but this is the same nightlife he portrayed in his early novels. In particular, this could almost be a third novel alongside his first two novels, which are both set in the Tokyo nightlife and Jazz bars, but it is a darker version of that. She actually lived those nights of men drunk, drugged, cheating on their wives as they shared her bed and moments of passion. Have you read any of her collection, or this novel?

Do you have a favourite book set mainly at night ?

 

 

People from Oetimu by Felix Nesi

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People from Oetimu by Feix Nesi

Indonesian fiction

Original title – Orang-Orang Oetimu

Translator – Lara Norgaard

Source – Personal copy

I moved to Asia and the third book I have reviewed from Indonesia. This time, it is published by one of my favourite publishers, Archieplago Books. Their books are just lovely. So, when I saw this a while ago, it was one I had to buy from them. Felix Nesi is from West Timor. The book looks back at the dark history of his part of Indonesia, and he has conducted research on this period, particularly focusing on slavery in the past. He is also a writer from the Iowa Writing Programme. He also has a bookshop, library and runs a book festival. I always love it when writers give back to their community by encouraging reading and writing.

The armed men kept their distance as they walked behind her, fortifying their courage with the few fragments of prayers to their ancestors they’d managed to memorize. Women and children hesitantly trailed behind the men, curious and afraid. Since the stranger lurched forward without so much as a glance to her surroundings, more and more town residents joined the crowd. Some men were still unsure of themselves and would rebuke the others for getting too close, wary of the possibility that the creature might radiate witchcraft. When the throngs reached a storefront – one of the few thatched buildings in town that proudly displayed its slogan, “Stay Steadfast and Prosper” – the appalling woman collapsed to the ground. The moment her bottom hit the rough, broken pavement, she started to cry intense, loud sobs; she reached both arms to the sky and then punched her bloated stomach. It was the first time Laura had cried since her mother and father were killed, and it had been a very long time since she’d made any sound at all. Nothing could hold back her thundering wail.

The violence is hard to read at time

The book moves between periods of time from the Jaopanese invasion of the island the independence movement against Portugal in the seventies. But the book opens with a locals in village gathering in  the local police station to watch the 1998 World cup . The locals are all wanting the Brazilians to win against the french. This is a game I remember watching back in the day this is something I love connecting with a book over and event. Then we see how the independence movement was handed over from the Portuguese government. The book drifts through he years This shows both the brutal time of the seventies, but then also sees how the Japanese treated the locals back in the forties. It is a book that is dark and captures the brutal history of his homeland, but also contains a glimpse of human life, especially in the story of the 90s, which revolves around football. Additionally, there is a sense of uneasy nature to the locals and their world. It captures the brutal nature of the country’s history over the years through the story of one village and its locals.

That said, it’s not as though every officer took such delight in beating people up. There were other soldiers stationed on the southern edge of town; they also wore uniforms and went into the center of Otimu to buy cigarettes and razors at Prosperity General Store. These men were muscular and always seemed to be smiling, since they had slightly buck teeth (as was often the case with people from Java). If they passed by the mototaxi stop, they’d share a pack of cigarettes with the boys and ask if anyone knew of girls they could sleep with. Other than Neeta, that is, since she was a little crazy. She had a very big mouth and was famously good at sucking cock, but she also got a kick out of gossiping about how small Javanese soldiers’ dicks were compared to those of the Timorese militia, which made the men uncomfortable. Since the moto-taxi stop was right in front of Oetimu High School, the boys promised that the soldiers would be the first to know if there was ever a young girl who decided to become a prostitute.

The military and how it effects the locals

I feel this captured the brutal world of Timor, a country which, iunntile maybe the last twenty years, had seen so much violence from the Japanese invasion to the cruel end of the Portuguese rule and the first government of the country, and then the wanting of East Timor to be its own country. It connects the timelines well through the characters we meet in the book, but also it use the folk history of the place to weave into the brutal tales. I think this is a nod to people Marquez and the other Indonesian writer I have read Eka Kurniawan. It captures the post-colonial struggle in Timor, a place that was torn apart during this time. IT faces the past and doesn’t dwell on the violent aspects. Have you read any books from Indonesia?

Wildcat Dome by Yuko Tsushima

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Wildcat Dome by Yuko Tsushima

Japanese fiction

Original title – ヤマネコ・ドーム

Translator – Lisa Hofmann -Kuroda

Source – review copy

I have meant to review another book by this writer, who is the daughter of Dazai Osamu and uses a pen name for her books. Her half sister is also a writer and a number of her other family members have been ninvolved in Japanese goverment this book came out later in her writing Career but also linked to the present of the Fukushima Nuclear disaster and also events in the war are all interlinking into this story one that sopans the decades and also crosses reality at times. I must admit that this is a book that lingers with you as a reader, but also requires a closer reading than I did. But i will giver you my take on the book.

Kazu’s thoughts drift back to Yonko, whom he is seeing for the first time in a long while. Though when he thinks about it, he realizes it’s only been about two years. But how long ago that seems now. The truth that Mitch and Hide had stumbled across was so frightening that Yonko and Kazu stopped talking, unable to look at each other or even talk on the phone. They tried to forget, since there was nothing they could do, no matter how much they wished otherwise. For two years, they tried to convince themselves:

I’ve forgotten, I’ve forgotten. All this time, enveloped in an unnatural silence. As they continued to avoid talking to each other, they hoped their connection might fade on its own. Though perhaps what they really wanted was to escape their own past.

Kazu imagines Yonko running through the city, livid.

She remebers her firend Kazu and later we find out what happened in the past

As I said, this is a book more about modern and post-war Japan than about the characters in the book and the loneliness between reality and dream, like a world that exists. At the heart of the story are two characters, Mitch and Yonko, meeting years after they were both in an orphanage. Alongside another boy called Kazu, the two boys were inseparable as kids. Something happened, and what the book does is link the past of post-war Japan and these feral children, kids of GIs and Japanese women. In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the book presents the two characters facing past events in their present. What Yuko does as well is incorporate a lot of colour themes that recur in the book Orange, which in Japanese is Daidai, meaning the tree and generations. I’m not sure if this is what she meant in the book. It is one of those books, wonderfully written about a long-past tragedy, told through the eyes of a friend. Also, time spent in a dome in their youth, where they saw many things that may have been dream-like events, when they were told about there being a drowning of water and Japan vanishing.

Mitch has gone completely silent now, and there is nothing Yonko can do but hang her head and ponder what that “really bad” thing could be. The sandy mud is on her sleeves now. Her red coat grows heavier by the minute. As soon as they get to the station, she is sure her mother will yell at her for not being more careful. And then Yonko won’t be able to ask her anything at all. What were you all talking about last night, Mom, did something sad happen, she wishes she could ask. But children can’t just go around asking questions of adults— especially questions that might cross the boundaries of the innocent world that adults have constructed for them. Adults are always on guard against children, keeping them far away from their secrets.

Mitch has his own past

As I said, this is one of those books that is more about themes than characters, focusing on loss, loneliness, Japan’s distant past, and its post-war years. About growing up and always being an outsider. Having a secret. But also about the thin line between a child’s dream world and reality, and what that means now and then to those involved. As I said, this book may benefit from being familiar with her body of work a little more. This is the third book by her that I will have read. But perhaps also a little more knowledge than I have of post-war Japan and how being half-Japanese and American would have affected those born in those heady post-war years. There is the spectre of Nuclear war and also Nuclear disaster, as this was written in the aftermath and effects of the Fukushima disaster. Colour also plays a part in her writing. I was reminded of the Trois Couleurs films and the way they used colours to reflect a theme, and I think this has a similar thread running through the film. Have you read this book? What is your take on it?

Han Kang wins the Nobel

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Han Kang is a South Korean author known for her poignant and thought-provoking works that explore themes of identity, trauma, and the human condition. Born on November 27, 1970, in Gwangju, South Korea, she gained international acclaim with her novel “The Vegetarian,” which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016.

Her writing often blends elements of the surreal with deeply personal narratives, reflecting the complexities of life in contemporary Korea. Other notable works include “Human Acts,” which delves into the Gwangju Uprising, and “The White Book,” a meditation on loss and memory. Han Kang’s literature is characterized by its lyrical prose and emotional depth, establishing her as a significant voice in modern literature. I love this winner. This book touched me so much. She wasn’t on my radar as a winner, and it is great to see an Asian winner and a female writer win. I am also pleased for Deborah Smith her English translator, that has done so much for Asian fiction over the last few years

The Full Moon Cafe by Mai Moochizuki

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The Full Moon Cafe by Mai Moochizuki

Japanese fiction

Original title – 満月珈琲店の星詠み

Translator Jesse Kirkwood

Source – Review copy

This is one of the books I read for Women in Translation Month. I have been a fan of the quirky Japanese novels we have seen a lot over the last couple of years. So when I was asked to review this, I said yes as I like a little light read like this occasionally. Mai Mochizuki Has written several books.  she had a series called Alice in Kyouraku Forest series. This is the first of a new series of books set around a mystical cafe that only appears on a full moon. Mai was born and raised in Hokkaido and now lives in Kyoto, where the book itself is set. This is the first of a series of novels. Following the ever-moving Full Moon Cafe as it moves around Koyto, it helps some souls in that city.

I was living in some absurd fairy tale. Maybe I’d fallen asleep? I mean, this kind of thing only happened in dreams. Yes, this had to be a dream. Once I had convinced myself of that, I began to relax slightly.

In response to my question, the three cats exchanged a series of glances, then nodded vaguely.

‘You could say so, yes,’ said the tuxedo cat.

‘Though this isn’t our real form, either. said the Singapura, scratching behind his ear. Just as he was about to go on, the tuxedo cat cleared his throat loudly. The Singapura hastily clapped a paw to his mouth.

‘The Full Moon Coffee Shop has no fixed location,” said the master of the café. It might appear in the middle of a familiar shopping street, by the station at the end of the railway line or on a quiet riverbank.

And at this café, we don’t ask for your order? He put a paw to his chest and bowed cermoniously

As the cafee first appears on a street in Koyto

This book has a bit of everything in it: Cats; of course, Cats are a symbol of good luck in Japan. So when, every full moon, a cafe appears around the Kyoto area that is staffed by Cats and helps someone who in the past has helped a cat, so in turn, they get help. Every appearance also sees them feeding the person they help these make up some of the chapter headings. We meet five people in need of the cafe and the Cat’s help. This involves astrology and sometimes just a little logic and being at the right time at the right place. As we see each person problems solved.AS those clever cats show each other the path they need to take, this is a book that is maybe a perfect autumn read.

I couldn’t forget the cats’ words. After the Age of Pisces came the Age of Aquarius. The age of spirituality – and the internet. A time when the individual was truly respected. In an era like that, maybe I was lucky to be writing game scripts. Maybe this was actually an opportunity – one I shouldn’t let slide.

Even if I wasn’t allowed to include any breathtaking love scenes, I could still write wonderful stories. Instead of just aiming for average, I’d create the best side characters I could.

As long as they made people feel as if they were edging closer to a blissful romance with the main character, then as a writer, I’d have done my job.

And what did I need in order to do it well?

The cats words help a writer think clearer

I like this sort of lighter read; I think we all need a palate cleanser of a book every now and then. This is that sort of book fun. What more could you want than walking and talking cats to a coffee shop they run as well and then throw in astrology? You have a mix of things many people can’t resist. Imagine if Russell Grant and the Baron from Studio Ghibli Cat returned to film (I know he was in another of the films from the studio as a model of the Baron in the shop), opening a magical cafe that appears overnight on a full moon, This would be the book. It is a fun read. I read it in the evening, and for me, that makes it the perfect autumnal read. Sit with some coffee and maybe a dessert like those in the book and over an evening, as the nights draw in, find out the going ons in the Full Moon cafe. Do you have a series or type of book you read that is lighter or as I say a palate cleanser of a book?  Do you like quirky cat books?

Winstons score – B solid book Walking Talking Cats a bit of coffee culture and a feel-good factor what more could you want for a nights reading.

The Bridegroom was a Dog by Yoko Tawada

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The Bridegroom Was a Dog by Yoko Tawada

Japanese fiction

Original title – Imumukori

Translator – Margaret Mitsutani

Source – personal copy

You know what? I am slow with my reviews for WIT month. The weather is hot here in the UK. I am going to try and catch up on some reviews the next few days. This caught my eye on holiday last month. I had read scattered all over the world by her. I am always amazed that Yoko Tawada writes in both Japanese /German. This particular story has been translated from Japanese. I think the US edition of this book has a couple of other stories thrown in. Still, we have just this one story by her in a nice little hardback book, one of those books that is perfect for reading on a summer evening, a novella about a teacher, a myth she makes up and what happens after that.

‘The Bridegroom Was a Dog'” Miss Kitamura began, and the children listened carefully until the end, but the tale was so long that the younger ones got mixed up when they tried to tell it at home, and the older ones were too embarrassed to repeat it,

so curious mothers were left to piece together the fragments they’d overheard for themselves, but, anyway, the story went like this. Once upon a time there was a little princess who was still too young to wipe herself after she went to the lavatory, and the woman assigned to look after her was too lazy to do it for her, so she used to call the princess’s favorite black dog and say, “If you lick her bottom clean one day she’ll be your bride “

Her weird myth after talking about The Crane Wife

Mitsuko is a teacher at the Kitamura school, which is a cram school, but she is a strange one with a weird set of rules and how she deals with her pupils. The tissues she has a strange habit with them, leading to her being talked about by both the pupils and teachers. But she is good at another job.But when one day, she decides to make up her own myth after talking about one of the most famous Japanese myths, the Crane wife. She twists this to a myth about a bride betrothed to a Dog. But what happens when, a short while later, a young man appears in her life with Cannine-like teeth? Has fantasy and reality crossed over in this tale? When he arrives and says did you get my telegram? I wondered if they still have telegrams in Japan as a small aside. Taro, the young man, starts to enter her world.

The town where all this happened was made up of two distinct areas to the north and south: in the north were the modern housing developments that had sprung up along the railway with the station at its hub, while the southern district that lined the Tama River had prospered since ancient times, and yet many people in the Tama region didn’t even know it existed, even though the public housing complexes that drew people to the north had only been in existence for about thirty years, whereas

the south was really old, with the remains of ancient pit houses discovered near the river-human dwellings that dated back farther than you could imagine –

The town described her

This is one of those weird, quirky books I love from Japan. It does have a bizarre storyline and some really odd sexual and hab it’s in it, but in a way that adds to the quirkiness of this story.Yes, it is bizarre, and maybe in a way, I feel the US edition may be better as it had a couple of other stories, but if you don’t fancy this novella, it means there isn’t anything else. I can see this as one of those books that can divide opinions. For me, the surreal ideas behind it actually brought the main character to life in her job as a cram school teacher, which in itself is a job that is intense and hard for the pupils attending the school. It is a book with little habits and things like that well observed, those quirky bits that can make a narrative, and we don’t always see a person do, but when we do, we can’t miss it if that makes sense. Then I did wonder if it was meant to be a tale set a long time ago with the mention of a telegram unware if Japan maybe still has telegrams or if this is to make it set in a certain time post-war Japan I’m not sure really but if you have a thought on this I’d like to know  I look forward to more books from Yoko. I know another one is due soon. Have you read this quirky tale ? Do you like a really short book you can read in the evening?

Winston score – B quirky, surreal sex may need a couple other stories.

ALI and Nino by Kurban Said

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Ali and Nino by Kurban Said

Azerbaijan fiction

Original title -Ali un Nino

Translator Jenia Gaman

Source – Personal copy

I love it when Simon and Karen announce the year of the club every six months. For me, it is an excuse to go down a rabbit hole and find interesting and exciting books to read for the year. Anyway thuis was the first choice for 1937. It has a great story. First, Kurban said it was a Non de plume. But over time, who it was isn’t known for sure. There is a whole wiki page about this on my edition that points towards Lev Nussimbaum, a writer who escaped Azerbaijan and a friend of someone else, the Austrian countess Elfriede nEherfenfels, also thought to be the writer of this book at some point. Another writer put forward by his son is Yusif Mirbaba oghlu Vazirov, a writer also connected to Baku, where the book is mainly set. The book came out i n1937 uin Austria given its timing would been contirversal. The book saw the light of day for a second time when it was found and translated into English by the translator in the fifties. Since then, it has been translated into thirty languages. It is a classic take on the forbidden love story.

My father went for advice to the Mullah at the mosque, who declared that all this Latin was just vain delusion.

So my father put on all his Turkish, Persian and Russian decorations, went to see the headmaster, donated some chemical equipment or other and I passed. A notice had been put up in the school stating that pupils were strictly forbidden to enter school premises with loaded revolvers, telephones were installed in town, and Nino Kipiani was still the most beautiful girl in the world.

His view on his girlfriend Nino the most Beautiful girl in the world.

The story follows a couple of the titles from when. They are at a Western school in Baku as kids. The struggle this leads to as Ali, although he goes to the school, is from an Azerbaijani family of Persian descent and is Muslim. Where as Nino is from a Georgian family and is Christian. So what follows is their love and wanting to marry. Getting first his family and then her family to agree to the wedding. All this is against the backdrop of the Cosmopolitan Baku of the time. It was full of Oil money, and many different people lived together there then, but the oil meant it was eyed by the Soviets to the north. The book is told from Ali’s perspective and what I loved is how he captured the feel of the city at that time. The twenties near the world is destined for war, but in this desert city, this leads to the people wanting their own freedom to escape the fear of the hammer and sickle to the North and the Soviet forces. Add to this the families want the best for their sons and daughters. Ali’s family is well known, and her family are royal in their way, as some call her a princess. What price is happiness as they have to escape their world of wealth? This is a story of deep love between two people and how it can win out.

When the first excitement was over I sneaked to the tele-phone. I had not spoken to Nino for two weeks. A wise rule demands that a man should keep away from women when he stands at life’s crossroads. Now I lifted the grip of the unwieldy apparatus, turned the bell and shouted into the mouth-piece: ‘3381!’ Nino’s voice replied: ‘Passed, Ali?’

‘Yes, Nino.’

“Congratulations, Ali!’

‘When and where, Nino?’

‘Five o’clock at the lake in the Governor’s Garden, Ali.’ I could not go on talking. Behind my back lurked the curious ears of my relations, servants and eunuchs. Behind Nino’s— her aristocratic mother. Better to stop. Anyway, a bodiless voice is so strange that one cannot really enjoy

I love the way the love affair goes so old fashioned to these days.

This has it all an exotic setting a world on the bring of madness of the war. A pair torn by family, religion and race, he is Asian and Muslim, and she is European and Christian, but at the heart of this all is the love between them. One mind turns to incredible stories of love, Romeo and Juliet, or something like The English Patient, with its exotic setting, a cosmopolitan time in Baku before the Soviets took over the country. Or even Florentino and Fernina come to mind in Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera of how love sees through everything. I also loved the place, the Baku of the time, which reminded me of how someone like Pamuk Captures Istanbul in his fiction. There is an eye for the details of daily life that makes the prose in this book leap off the page. It also reminds me why I always read books for the club year week, and that is the voyage of discovery of books like this that would have passed me by. Have you read this book or any other book from Azerbaijan?

Winston’s score – A – the hidden gem of a book about a love affair, the power of love, set in the wonderfully cosmopolitan Baku before Soviet rule.

 

 

A perfect day to be alone by Nanae Aoyama

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A Perfect day to be Alone by Nanae Aoyama

Japanese fiction

Original title – Hitori biyori (ひとり日和,

translator – Jesse Kirkwood

Source – Review copy

I take a side step from Booker International with today’s post. I look at a book from Jpan as one of the big missing things from this year’s list was the lack of a Japanese novel. Here we have a book from 2007 from one of the rising stars of Japan. Well, as this is the first Adult novel from this writer to be translated into English, it also won the Akutagawa prize when it came out in 2007. The writer has cited Francoise Sagan and Kazuo Ishiguro as influences on her writing. This book sees a young woman sent to live with a relative as she has just turned 20, and her mother has had to take a job in China, leaving Chizu living with the 71-year-old Ginko and the two cats that live in the ramshackle Tokyo home she has been sent to live at.

When I got back to the house, Ginko was sitting under the kotatsu blanket, doing some embroidery. The blanket’s unusual thickness was explained by the fact that it was actually a series of different blankets: a heavily pilled beige one followed by a brown one, and on top of that a red feather quilt.

“I’m back.”

“Oh, hello again, replied Ginko, pushing the reading glasses that had slipped down her nose into place. Trying to block out the memory of my pathetic exchange with Yohei, I flashed her a good-natured smile as I slipped my jacket onto a hanger.

“Fancy some yokan?”

“Oh, yes please.”

 

The two are in different worlds in a way

The book I read at the same time I saw Perfect Days, the recent Wim Wenders film, not that they have a lot in common, but the main character’s apartment in the film maybe felt like the sort of area the Chizu is sent to live. The book follows the young woman over four seasons as she takes lots of pointless jobs and she collects items from people, but at the heart of the book is a lonely woman making her way through a busy city living with an elderly relative and her cat pictures and her embroidery is a world away from where the young girl wants to be as we see her glimpse others lives, but her own life is lonely and that sort of weightlessness ine feels at that age not knowing where life will go but want it to go somewhere she does the mindless jobs but hasn’t found her path going home to a flat that rumbles as the trains go by. A female coming of age in a modern city.

Today’s event started at seven in the evening. That meant I had to be at the company’s office in Chofu by half five, where I’d get changed, do my makeup, attend a briefing, and then go and get the banquet hall ready.

I hadn’t told Ginko I worked as a hostess. I figured she wouldn’t even understand the concept, so I’d just told her I was washing dishes at a banquet hall. If I’d really talked her through everything the job entailed, shed probably conclude it was some sleazy operation. I didn’t want to have to defend my choices, and in any case I was planning on moving out as soon as I had some cash saved up.

In the meantime, I just wanted to enjoy myself and avoid rocking the boat too much.

Then she takes a job that maybe risky

This is the flip side to a story like Please Look After Mother of Ozu’s Tokyo story, about a younger person lost in the city. There is often talk about loneliness in this modern age with everyone so absorbed in ther smartphones and the world seemingly quicker than it was a few decades ago. What she has captured is the world just as this is happening, the first ripple of what is ahead it is 2007 so smartphones are just taking oiff this is the year iPhone appeared. We have a hint of a case for many a young woman or man in any modern city: loneliness. In fact, the title in Japanese is being alone. I mentioned the film Perfect Days. This is like the niece in that film, a girl lost in her world. Maybe we have a sharp comic, at times, looking at the world. Some great clashes iof generations between Ginko and Chizu. But as the year goes on, we see the character grow till, in the end,, we see a different girl, well a young woman really. I am reviewing this early as it is one of those books that I feel will be popular when it comes out. Have you a favourite tale of loneliness ?

Winstons score – A tokyo story for a modern age a girl lost in the city and lost in herself most of the time.

The Rainbow By Yasunari Kawabata

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The Rainbow By Yasunari Kawabata

Japanese literature

Original title- 虹いくたび (Niji ikutabi)

Translated by Haydn Trowell

Source -personal copy

In January, I read far more Japanese novels than I could review. This is a new translation from the Nobel prize-winning writer Yasunari Kawabata. He was the first writer from Japan to win the Nobel prize. He was given the prize for his narrative mastery, and his great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind. Is what the Nobel committee said about him as a writer. I have only reviewed one other book by him, and that was Snow Country. So when I saw this new translation of one of his works coming out from Penguin, I made sure I got a copy when I saw one. The tale of the two sisters in this book, having the same father and different mothers in postwar Japan, appealed to me.

Momoko hesitated, afraid of accidentally revealing the secret behind her new hairstyle. With her sister at home, it had become suddenly difficult for her to leave for her rendezvous.

Her emotions getting the better of her, Momoko’s voice turned brash. “Asako. Now that you’re back from Kyoto, there’s something you want to ask Father, isn’t there?” she asked, turning around. “I know. There’s no need to hide it.

It was a lie, wasn’t it, when you said you were going to see a newly married friend?”

“It wasn’t a lie.”

“Oh? So it wasn’t a lie. You went to see your friend, but that wasn’t your main reason for going, was it?”

Asako hung her head.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Momoko paused, softening her tone. “And did you find this younger sister of ours in Kyoto?” Asako stared back, taken by surprise.

The two sisters and the mention of the third out there

The book focuses on the two half-sisters living with the widow’s father. Momoko had lost her mother to suicide, and her m, mother never married after her father got her pregnant. Then n her half-sister Asako had lost her to illness. So, the pair both ended up with the architect’s father. But when Asako gathers from her father, there may even be a third sister, the daughter of a Gheisa in Koyto. In a way, the three of them are reflections of the world they are in post-war Japan. The struggles with Tradition and the future are creeping in as the traditional buildings are overshadowed by the modern city. The quest for this third sister in a way is the thread that runs through this book. The book captures the same world we see in OZus films. In some ways, the sisters could be from a film by the master himself. The two sister clash as Momoko has a boyfriend in many ways she is the most modern and this is a story of family secrets and sibling relationships.Also, how the world they have all known is moving on so quickly.

Since the end of the war, countless villas in the resort town of Atami—the properties of former princes, of former nobles, and of former industrialists—had been transformed into inns and hotels.

The Camellia House was one such villa, having belonged to a former prince who had held the honorary title of Fleet Admiral.

Asako’s father, Mizuhara Tsuneo, pointed out the window of the car as they passed by the entrance. “Do you see those two villas? They don’t really look like inns, do they? That one belonged to a prince, and the one over there belonged to a marquis. The marquis was descended from royalty, but I heard he was wounded during the war. His leg, you see.

Now they say he’s been sentenced to forced labor as a war criminal.”

The world ios changing as the villas change and become other things

I was a fan of Snow Country, and I connected with this book as well. I am a massive fan of post-war novels, wherever they may be, but especially in Japan, which in many ways saw the most significant shift in its world. This is from the same time as Tokyo’s story is set in a way. In fact, the way they all talk is similar to Momoko, who, in a way, reminds me of the son in Tokyo story caught up in the fast-moving modern world as the others are all trailing behind her and all lament the world they have seen gone more. In a way we see how Kawabata feared how quick his country was moving on this was serialised in 1950/52 a year before Tokyo story but his fear is the same as in the fear of the traditional Japan that the younger sister seems so far away from. I like his sparse still, and the world he described that is now gone, you feel. Have you read his books? Where would you go next in his book?

Winston’s score – +B Solid look at post-war Japan through two sisters and their father.

Masks by Fumiko Enchi

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Masks by Fumiko Enchi

Japanese fiction

Original title – Onna Men,

Translator –  Juliet Winters Carpenter

Source – Library

I am bringing a new voice to the blog today. I had seen this Vintage cover just before Christmas; someone had posted it somewhere, and I liked it I then looked and found it was a writer I had missed. Privately tutored in literature. She began writing in the late thirties with a play and some early novels. and wrote during the war. Burt was bombed out of her house at the end of the war. She was married to a journalist. She had numerous health struggles in her life, and this novel came out in the fifties when her writing focused on female psychology and Sexuality. This book took its inspiration from the main character from the Tales of Genji.

Yasuko was the widow of Mieko Toganö’s late son, Akio.

Their marriage had lasted barely a year before Akio was killed suddenly in an avalanche on Mount Fuji. After the funeral.

Yasuko had not gone back to her parents but had remained in the Togano family, helping her mother-in-law edit a poetry magazine and auditing Ibuki’s classes in Japanese literature at the university where he was assistant professor. She was also involved in a detailed study of spirit possession in the Heian era, a continuation of research that Akio had left unfinished. Ibuki and others supposed she had chosen this as a way of staying close to her husband’s memory.

Yasuko introduced as her husband dide on Mount Fuji

The novel has a lot of nods to Traditional Japanese culture. It had been split into three sections, each named after masks from the traditional Japanese Noh. The book opens as a two men meet at the station and the y are both in love with a widow they know. Yasuko had lost her husband in an accident. The two men, Ibuki and Mikame, also mention her mother-in-law, an overarching figure in the book. One of them takes the daughter and mother-in-law to see a collection of Masks and costumes. When an incident happens, and they see a particular mask, Yasuko faints. She is torn between two men one is married she likes more but is maybe drawn to the bachelor. She lives with her. mother-in-law and her husband’s twin sister. Then she has nightmares about her husband. The is a lot of reference to classic Japanese text and works, and the mask was a lot of googling. The book has two other parts as the relationship between the widow and her two male friends is also affected by the mother-in-law of her late husband.

They’re at the Camellia House on Fuya Street, said Ibuki. ‘This afternoon Mieko is going to call on Yorihito Yakushiji, the Nö master. He’s showing some of his old masks and costumes, and she’s invited me along.

‘Really? How long has she known him?’

‘It seems his daughter is one of her pupils. Their storehouse is open for its autumn airing, and I’ve heard that some of the costumes are three hundred years old or more. Don’t vou want to come?’

‘Well, old masks and costumes aren’t exactly what I had in mind for today, but then again I would like to see Mieko and Yasuko. I had thought when I came in here, I’d just stop for a minute and then maybe go and look up a friend of mine in the medical school, but I think I will join you, if you’re sure no one will mind.’

They get invited to look at tsome old masks and she is shocked by one of them

This is one of those post war Jpaanese books that maybe deals with the big change in the country I was remind of this woman living with the in laws after her husbands death. But with two men one married the other a bachelor. But then having her mother-in-law sort of playing these all off together was interesting, and I loved the part of the book.I struggled that my knowledge of classic Japanese text and culture isn’t maybe as good as it shou,d be I am aware of the Tales of Genji and knew a little about it but haven’t read it. I may need to read more of these classic works over time and return to this book. I like the recurring theme of masks, which are influential in Japanese culture. I remember watching the Onibaba, a Japanese horror classic where a man in a mask played an important role. This would have made a great film by Japanese master Ozu, who made so many great films of the life of Tokyo’s everyday people and relationships this would have worked. I found I struggled just because I would have loved to have known more about the masks each section was named and how they tied into the story itself. But it is worth reading a story of a widow and a mother-in-law trying to move the piece around her daughter-in-law’s life. Have you read this book or any books by Fumiko Enchi?

Winston’s score of B was interesting and made me want to learn more about the masks and things mentioned in the book.