Review Post 9 - You don't have to be Irish

You may remember recently, dear reader, that I took you on a journey through space (well, the Kansai region of Japan anyway). Well, today's post is more of a journey through time instead, as I guide you (with the help of three books) through Ireland's recent history, from the mid-fifties up to a few years ago. It's OK, you can thank me later...

*****

We start in the 1950s with Heinrich Böll's Irisches Tagebuch (Irish Diary), a delightful collection of reflections and sketches covering his time travelling and living in Ireland. Böll has quickly become my favourite German writer, and his usual humorous, non-judgemental style works even better here in an informal setting than it does in his weightier (fiction) works. From a land far away, where people smoke anywhere and everywhere, pounds still have shillings, and footwear is a luxury, rather than a necessity (even in a country of incessant pouring rain), the German novelist brings forth the true character of the Emerald Isle.

The work successfully evokes an image of an Ireland of the past, and while the writer touches on the down side of Irish life, the overall effect is one of a gentle, admirable way of life. In many ways this book reminds me of the way Luciano de Crescenzo (in Thus Spake Bellavista) lifted the life of Naple's poor out of the gutter and gave it a sort of nobility in its (involuntary?) rejection of modern business norms. The anecdotes of the 'bona-fide travellers' who cycle from their village to another at least three miles away (passing each other in the process), in order to circumvent the Sunday drinking laws; the traffic policeman who, after a long meandering conversation, asks for a driver's licence and is not at all bothered that the driver hasn't got it; travelling from Dublin to the West of Ireland on the promise of paying at some later date: all these tales are told with a wry humour which emphasises the affection the writer has for the country, and people, he is describing.

The darker side is, as mentioned, touched upon, but this too is done in an almost poetic manner. Böll and his family, out for a weekend walk, stumble upon a ghost village, deserted and left to decay in the countryside. This collection of houses, roads and even a church, left behind by those who fled for pastures more fertile during the potato blight epidemic and the ensuing famine, leaves the family spellbound and dumbfounded. The locals hadn't even found the spectacle worth mentioning; after all, it was just one of thousands dotted all over Erin's fair land...

*****

Let's move on to the 70s and 80s now, as we take a look at life through the eyes of one of Roddy Doyle's most impressive inventions, Paula Spencer. In my post on The Van, I mentioned that the slightly misogynistic view marred my enjoyment of the book: well, perhaps Roddy realised this himself. In the wonderful The Woman who Walked into Doors, Doyle creates a Dublin housewife, a prisoner of the soul-crushing suburban poverty of a poor country - and a victim of brutal abuse.

Against a background of boom and bust, and the faded dreams of the Irish in a post-decimal, IRA-present, heavy-drinking (and smoking) era, Paula tells us how she met Charlo Spencer, how she fell in love (violently) and how she was knocked off her feet (metaphorically and then literally). Still in love with her husband, despite the frequent beatings, she drowns herself in drink, denying the abuse and making it through her days as best she can, trying (and failing) to bring up her four children properly. From the very start, we know that Charlo is dead, shot by the police at the scene of a violent crime - and we know that Paula is well rid of him.

The first three-quarters of the book are absorbing and thought provoking: Paula is brutally candid about what she is, what she was and what she is unlikely to become. And then... And then Doyle lets loose. Where in the first part of the book the abuse is mainly hinted at, reported, suggested, all at once the reader is confronted with a sickening train of events, a constant barrage of attacks which leave us feeling almost as shell-shocked as Paula herself. The assaults pass by, one after the other, no end in sight... It is brilliant writing. It is horrible writing.

At the end of it all, Paula is free, but shattered. Her life is in tatters, but she has the support of her family. Her children are scarred but (mostly) still functional. We are left wondering what has become of Paula and her family...

*****

For about six hours anyway! I've had a copy of Paula Spencer, the sequel to The Woman who Walked into Doors, for a fair while now, and this seemed like the perfect time to read it. We rejoin Paula about a decade later: the Celtic Tiger has roared, and panic-stricken emigration has now turned into mass European and African immigration; the Pound, whether decimal or not, has disappeared over the Irish Sea, replaced by the Euro; and cigarettes have finally become a social stigma with smoking banned in pubs and restaurants.

Paula has been sober for around a year when we meet her again, and she is slowly getting herself back into a 'normal' way of life. Her four children are now grown up: baby Jack is sixteen and working hard at school; Nicola, the eldest child, is a mother herself (and just as much to Paula as to her own kids); Jon Paul has returned from his drug-induced absence, a calm example of how to survive life after addiction. And Leanne? Well, it was too much to expect four well-adjusted children to emerge from the wreckage of Paula and Charlo's marriage...

Paula Spencer is actually less about Paula herself and more about the effect her marriage and her alcoholism have had on the people around her, especially her children. Emerging from decades of drunken numbness, she is trying to mend the ties strained by her neglect, mostly succeeding but, in Leanne's case especially, occasionally unable to make things right. In Jon Paul, she has a picture of what you need to do to avoid temptation, but it is hard: very hard.

Although it's a good read, the sequel does not have the kick of the original. There's no defining purpose to the novel, no scenes of physical abuse (or even the eventual disintegration of a family as described in Paddy Clarke... ). I kept thinking that there was a twist around the corner, that Jack could not be as well adjusted as he appeared, that Paula's various ailments were concealing something more serious. It never appeared.

Still, a third installment of Paula's life would not come amiss. Perhaps a post-GFC story chronicling Ireland's downturn and the wave of emigration back to Eastern Europe of the workers drawn by the Irish success story. Roddy Doyle has already written The Barrytown Trilogy and the Henry Smart trilogy, so you never know. I wonder what Ireland's future will bring... Sorry, my trip through time isn't going any further today; you'll just have to imagine it for yourselves.

Review Post 8 - We Are Family

As mentioned in an earlier post, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's most famous work, The Makioka Sisters, is set in the Kansai or Kinki region of Japan, the area I lived in for three years around a decade ago. Reading books set in places you know is always a particular pleasure, and this is especially true when the book is one you've wanted to read for a good while.

The story, as you would expect from the English title (the Japanese title translates as a light shower of snow...), relates a few years around the start of World War II in the lives of the Makioka sisters, four scions of a famous Osaka family. Although there are four sisters, the eldest, Tsuruko, is slightly distant from her sisters, and the book focuses on the trials and tribulations of the younger three sisters. Sachiko, married to the admirable Teinosuke, is the focal point. She spends her time attempting to arrange a marriage for the traditional (and shy) Yukiko and worrying about the headstrong, westernised baby of the family, Taeko.

The book is a work of many contrasts. The familiar East-West, Kanto-Kansai rivalries appear, with life in the new capital, Tokyo, contrasted with life in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe conurbation. Tsuruko's symbolic distance from her sisters is emphasised by her husband's move to the capital, deserting the stuffy old Osaka family seat. There is also a contrast between the epic struggle to find a husband for the incredibly shy Yukiko and the way Katharina Kyrilenko, a Russian emigre living in Japan, sets off for England by herself and is married within months.

The differences between the Japanese way of life and that of the foreigners the Makiokas come into contact with are outlined subtly by Tanizaki, and the relationships are much less black and white than is sometimes the case. Sachiko often compares her family to the German neighbours, the Stolz family, and Taeko's acquaintances, the white Russian Kyrilenkos. While their habits may occasionally seem strange, the comparisons are not always made to the good of the Osaka natives. When it comes to Japanese who have returned from extended trips abroad, however, there is a strong sense of scepticism and prejudice...

This year, I have been influenced in my reading approach by the studies I am doing for my master's degree, Intercultural Communication in this semester, and it is fascinating to read The Makioka Sisters in this light. The picture sketched in the book of elaborate nuptial rituals and the importance of family connections in any possible relationship ties in neatly with the reading I have been doing on Collectivist cultures. I also read each spoken exchange with literal and pragmatic meaning firmly in mind: there were many very interesting exchanges from a socio-linguistic point of view!

It's a very good book, the closest thing I've read so far in Japanese literature to the long Victorian pot-boilers I love, but that's not to say that I was totally convinced. One of the blurbs on the cover claimed that Tanizaki was the greatest Japanese author of the twentieth century, but I would not go that far on the basis of this book. I found the style a little too repetitive on occasion, a string of events recounted one after the other with little variation of pace and tone. Compared to some of the Mishima, for example, that I've read over the past year or so, it all seemed a little dry at times.

Of course, as always with foreign novels in translation, it may not be the author's fault. There were a plethora of typos in my version (always annoying), and I'm not convinced that the translation was all it could have been. I'm not sure when the translation dates from, but I doubt it is that recent; one clue for this was a translator's footnote to explain a Japanese delicacy - sushi...

Those slight quibbles aside though, The Makioka Sisters is well worth reading. Get your sukiyaki ready, pour out some sake and sit down and relax with a very enjoyable novel. As for Tanizaki's greatness, however, I'll reserve judgement until I've read some more of his novels. Now, where's that Akashi-Yaki got to?

Review Post 7 - Naughty and Nice

February began with the second of the Barchester Chronicles, the wonderful Barchester Towers. The story takes up life in Barchester a few years after the events of The Warden, where the old Bishop is on his deathbed, peacefully passing away just too soon for his son, the ever-formidable Archdeacon Grantly, to get political approval to replace him. A new bishop is appointed, but it soon becomes clear that despite the official decision, there are several people in Barchester who believe themselves to be top dog...

Don't be fooled into thinking that Trollope's stories are too clerical to be entertaining; the Barchester Chronicles are less about religion and the church than they are about petty fighting, internecine warfare and a love of tribal conflict. The invasion of Barchester by the Londoners who now hold the palace represents the incursion of industrialisation and progress into England's peaceful, bucolic heartlands. Mr. Harding's tribulations with The Jupiter in The Warden were merely the first warning shots of the coming struggle: this is the real thing.

Dr. Proudie is the Bishop of Barchester by appointment; Obadiah Slope, his personal chaplain, has the run of the diocese and enough intelligence to make himself pre-eminent in Barchester; Archdeacon Grantly virtually did the job himself during the final years of his father's life and sees no reason why he should not continue to do so; and Mrs. Proudie... well, you'll need to read the book to see how and why this Amazon hopes to take the power for herself!

These petty wars with their mini-Napoleons are beautifully characterised by a writer who had an unerring eye for the beautiful and absurd in the everyday. One of the best scenes in the book is the confrontation at the palace where, for the first time, the contenders for the real power of the Bishopric stand arrayed, each intending to be unrivalled in Barchester, scrutinising the other claimants with an experienced eye and preparing to dive headlong into battle. Of course, also present, standing quietly to one side, is Mr. Harding, whose readmittance to the post of warden is the field upon which the battle is to be fought. Four proud, worldly gladiators - and a modest, sincere, religious man (who, ironically, fades into insignificance whenever his matters are discussed).

Throw in a family of clerical absentees, whose return to Barchester from Italy stirs up affairs in the cathedral town, a wealthy young widow, wooed by three suitors from all the different camps and a couple of deaths and marriages, and you have a wonderful 500 pages of Victorian literary magic, perfect for a rainy day curled up on your favourite armchair. How does it end? Well, I'm sure you'll know after about 100 pages, but that really isn't the point: the writer himself hints at certain points what will and will not happen - and, in some cases, reassures the reader that certain feared events will not come to pass. It's not the destination, but the journey which is the attraction, and I, for one, am happy to go along for the ride. Next stop: Doctor Thorne at the start of March ;)

*****

I mentioned above Trollope's intrusion into his novels as a narrator, albeit an occasional, benevolent and good-humoured one, and Milan Kundera also likes to put himself into his works. However the emigre Czech writer's style is very, very different. Laughable Loves, a collection of (longish) short stories about love, lust and the games consenting adults play, is one of his earlier works; however, in some ways, it is more reminiscent of later works (Immortality, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) than his debut novel, The Joke.

The seven stories relate the interactions in relationships between men and women in post-invasion Czechoslovakia, a place of great cynicism and little hope if one goes by the atmosphere of the book. Infidelity is rife, despite the nosiness of the neighbours, and there seems to be a curious disregard for the notion of staying faithful. It's a very male-centred universe, with an expectation that it is simply part of a man's daily life to pursue, and conquer (if desired), any attractive woman one comes across. This is not to say that the women are the victims; they are quite prepared to use their charms as currency to find an easier life for themselves.

It all sounds a little pessimistic and unappealing (and no wonder given the external context), but the stories are intriguing, a fascinating insight into the battle of the sexes - which is just as much mental as it is physical. The reason for this is Kundera's detached, quasi-scientific style of writing, which treats his characters almost like specimens in a laboratory. The great skill in his stories lies in his ability to take his subjects, drop them into a setting, add a catalyst (in the form of an attractive woman, a weekend out of the city or a political investigation) and watch them continue in their lives as best they can.

This scientific approach comes across especially well in the style he adopts in discussing relationships. In some of the stories, short, alternating chapters tell the reader the thoughts of the two protagonists: we sit in the stark living room or the hotel restaurant, flitting from the mind of the man to that of the woman (and back again). Kundera has been criticised for the lack of development of his characters, with some saying that they are not characters at all, merely vehicles for Kundera to get his ideas across. This may be true; it does not, however, detract from the writing.

Two very, very different books. Trollope makes you laugh and allows you to while away many a pleasant hour - in your study pretending to work with a glass of port in hand. Kundera makes you think; you pause to reflect and stare out of the window as the long train journey you're on takes you through endless bleak, frosty plains. Very, very different ways to spend your time: but both enjoyable...

There's nothing wrong with being KinKi

Let me take you, dear reader, on a journey through my Japan. We'll begin seated on a Shinkaisoku (Limited Express) train standing ready at the main Japan Rail (JR) station of Himeji, a large city in Western Japan. If you stretch your head out of the window, you may just be able to catch a glimpse of the majestic Himeji castle towering above the city...

Alas, it's time to head off now. The train moves quickly through outskirts and small towns, making a brief stop at the city of Kakogawa, with its new raised station, before continuing on its way eastwards. We hurtle through some more suburbs (Tsuchiyama, Uozumi, Nishi-Akashi), and we come to a smooth halt at Akashi station (my Japanese hometown and birthplace of the famous Akashi-Yaki style of Tako-Yaki).

As we bid a fond farewell to Akashi, the express calmly rolls out of the station. To your right, you can see the impressive bridge linking Akashi to Awaji Island (where, if legend is to be believed, Momo-Taro defeated the ogre), a shimmering mirage of concrete and steel in the summer sky. But on we must go, and on we do go, through Hyogo, the small (and slightly dull) prefectural capital, stopping briefly at Kobe station, near the harbour, the Port Tower and the Oriental Hotel (and, formerly, the Sizzler restaurant with the best view ever), before stopping at Sannomiya station, Kobe's main transport hub. If you look to your left, you can see Mount Rokko rising beyond the city's high rises (Arima hot springs may be a little too far away to see from here...).

On we go. The train now hurtles on past Kobe's inner suburbs, streaking past Ashiya (home of the rich and the birthplace of a certain writer I may have mentioned once or twice...) bringing us gradually out of Hyogo Prefecture and into Osaka (we have crossed the river!). Having arrived at Umeda station in Osaka, it's time to leave the train, but our journey has not ended, oh no: there's many a mile to go before we sleep. Follow me now as I guide you through the labyrinthine shopping area concealed beneath the station (keep close; you wouldn't want to get lost down here...), for we must change train lines for our next destination.

And now we board another train, just in time; the Tokkyu express train is about to leave. Feel free to gaze in wonder at the view from your windows: in Osaka, Blade Runner was just a documentary. Eventually, the sea of high rises and randomly scattered wooden remnants recedes into the distance, and we are able to enjoy a little greenery before the train drags us back into the urban sprawl of Kyoto. Of course, I hear you cry. Kiyomizu-Dera, Kinkaku-Ji, Sanjusangen-Do, Heian-Jingu...

Sadly, we have no time for sightseeing - onward and upward. The train now rattles merrily along through small towns and countless rice fields. From the window, you may be able to spot several mounds in the distance (ancient royal burial mounds, no less). And here we are at our destination: Nara - the first (semi-)permanent capital of Japan. Feel free to wander through the temple grounds, feed the tame deer that roam the streets and marvel at Todai-Ji's Daibutsu. Our journey is done.

The point? This is my Japan, the region where I spent three years of my life a decade ago. It is also the setting for Jun'ichiro Tanizaki's The Makioka Sisters.

Consider this an introduction...

Review Post 6 - It's All David Mitchell's Fault...

It's all David Mitchell's fault. Well, him and Murakami. You see, as well as being a part-time blogger, full-time worker, occasional student and stressed out father, I harbour ambitions of one day actually getting a little book out there myself (first, wobbly baby steps towards that goal can be seen here). But then, whenever I start thinking that I might be able to knock off something half-decent, something other people may like to spend their time casting an eye over, I read one of David Mitchell's books and scream out, "Crap, that's exactly the kind of book I want to write!!!". Which probably explains why nobody wants to sit next to me on the train in the morning.

But I digress. What I actually want to do today is have a little chat about Mitchell's debut novel Ghostwritten, a frankly brilliant piece of work (his debut novel too! I hate him). There are definite tinges of Murakami in this book, quite apart from the parts set in Japan. The foregrounding of the issue of the pace of progress, the highlighting of the extraordinary in the ordinary, the jazz... All these things leave the reader thinking that Mr. Mitchell has a fair few of Haruki's novels tucked away somewhere. However, Ghostwritten takes some of these aspects and runs off into the distance with them, often in several directions at once.

The book is divided into nine parts which would, in most books, be wholly unrelated. Starting in Okinawa and gradually winding its way westward around the world, the book explores how technology and consumerism have changed our world both for better and for worse. While we are now able to travel and expand our cultural horizons, some are also free to use this privilege to attack those they disapprove of or take advantage of the riches available.

One of the most prominent ideas set out is that of inter-connectedness and the way we are all linked to what happens on Earth. Just as a butterfly's wings may cause a typhoon on the other side of the world, tiny, seemingly unimportant actions can have enormous implications on humanity. Can saving a woman from being run over by a taxi lead to the end of the world? Quite possibly... The writer lays out the disparate events unfolding with a unifying plot in mind, forcing both the characters and reader to consider carefully what they believe in: are we buffeted by the winds of chance or manipulated by the hand of destiny?

One of the things I admire about Mitchell is an ability to tightly plot his books, despite an apparent lack of connections. Throughout Ghostwritten, there are a wealth of both anaphoric and cataphoric references as people, places, events, books and songs pop up repeatedly, both after and before our first sight of them. Young Satoru from the Tokyo section is later mentioned on the radio show in the Night Train section as a successful jazz musician; Mo Muntevary appears at least three times in different sections (twice before we know who she is!). For the die-hard Mitchell fans, there are also some exophoric references as we are told of information which will occur in some of his other books. Ingenious (still hate him).

Mitchell also writes about the inexorable rise, or rather spread, of consumerism and progress, and our attempts to either run away from it or create our own way of dealing with it. Satoru hides from the bustling Tokyo outside by listening to the jazz records in his shop; Caspar and Sherri are wandering nomads, seekers of civilisations lost (with huge backpacks and water purification tablets); Quasar finds his sanctuary in simply abdicating individual responsibility for his actions and turning his mind, and possessions, over to a cult. This advancement has, you see, come at a cost - a loss of connection with family and cultural roots. It is no coincidence that the majority of the characters (like an increasing number of people today) have uncertain, heterogeneous backgrounds. This contributes to the feeling of unease which they live with and which forces them to seek new connections.

There are differences in the extent to which the world has changed within the nine scenes. In the Asian sections, the world has become so crowded that it is only inside your own head that you can map out a little piece of the universe for you alone. On Clear Island, off Ireland's Atlantic Coast, life is still relatively simple and unchanged, yet even here (in the shape of Mo's pursuers) progress is slowly catching up.

Of course, by the end of the book, with the emergence of the Zookeeper, Mitchell shows us where his world of infinite interconnections is heading. Artificial Intelligence, designed to protect us (or, at least, those of us with the right skin colour) turns out to be more intelligent than those who created it. As mankind spreads over the planet, destroying and devouring (reminiscent of Agent Smith's description of humanity as a 'virus' in The Matrix), it becomes more and more difficult to save us from ourselves. We are left with a warning of the consequences of mankind's technological achievements outstripping its capacity to ethically consider whether they really are achievements.

Ghostwritten is brilliant. David Mitchell has created a stunning, thought-provoking piece of work. And for that, as you already know, I hate his guts.

Stuck for Reading Ideas?

Well, you're in luck! Part 3 of my little story-type thing Far From Home is now available (at this rate, I should be finished just in time for my retirement...). Just click on the picture, and you'll be magically transported, by the magic of hyperlinks, to a wonderful place (Smashwords) where you will be showered with opportunities to download the PDF. For free. Aren't I lovely? Well, it's probably better to read the story before answering that.

By the way, do read the first two parts first - you know it makes sense...

Review Post 5 - Short and Sweet

I'm sorry, but I really don't get short stories. I'm the sort of person who wants to engage in a story and with the characters, and I find that ten pages really doesn't do it for me. Even with my favourite authors, it feels all wrong. Spread over 400 pages, Haruki Murakami's juxtaposition of the bizarre and the utterly ordinary works wonders. In a short story, however, it just seems weird. Full stop.

So what am I to do with someone who is regarded as the forerunner of modern short-story tellers, the writer from just across the Tasman sea, Katherine Mansfield? Mansfield only wrote short stories (nary a novel, or even novella, in sight) and yet is still known and loved today. Well, I'll give it a go...

As you can see to the left, I have acquired a big brick containing all Mansfield's stories (and unfinished fragments), which I am planning to read a bit at a time in chronological order of writing. So I started on page 586 (I felt very strange for a while there).

In a German Pension was Mansfield's first publication, one she later wished she could disown owing to its alleged immaturity. The sketches of life in a typically German spa town are cutting and accurate: the linguistic structures she uses to indicate German thought patterns and cultural behaviour work very well, and the strange, almost scientific curiosity with which the locals regard the foreign intruder is wittily sketched out. Mansfield refused to allow a republication just before the first World War as she was ashamed by both the immaturity and stereotyping of the stories.

Something Childish and Other Stories is a posthumous collection of stories written between Mansfield's first and second published collections. In this (longer) collection, the writer continues with her wry observations of foreign manners and sympathetic portrayals of lonely women in dreary boarding rooms. There are also, however, some shorter (and stranger) morsels to be found.

I liked most of the stories, but my preference was for the first-person tales, where Mansfield's cool, wry Down Under persona is contrasted with self-confident European behaviour. These tales are witty and cutting, and I could well empathise with the writer's desire to be left alone by the tour guides and tourists of European travel spots.

Verdict? The jury's still out on this one. As promised, short and sweet; more on this in the coming months...

Review Post 4 - Just Golden

Around a decade ago now, back when I was living in Japan, my girlfriend (now my wife) and I took the Shinkaisoku express train from Akashi to Kyoto to spend a few days in the ancient capital. It was our second visit, and one of our goals, in addition to visiting Kiyomizudera, was to see the world-famous Kinkakuji, or the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a Buddhist temple containing a gold-coloured three-storey structure in the middle of a pond. Which brings us to today's review...

As you may know, the building I saw towering above the pond was not the one originally constructed, for the very good reason that the original was burned down in 1950 by a mad monk. I kid you not. It was this very event which inspired Yukio Mishima to create a semi-fictional account of what happened, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

In Mishima's version, Mizoguchi, a stuttering youth who has trouble fitting in, is taken by his father (a Buddhist priest) to see the Superior of Kinkakuji in Kyoto. At the father's request, the Superior agrees to take on the young man as an acolyte at the famous temple, possibly with the intention of making him his successor. However, the unfortunate Mizoguchi, having long been dazzled by stories of the famous golden pavilion, gradually slips into an obsession with the building, a state of madness which prevents him from interacting with and succeeding in the real world. One day, standing on a beach on the Sea of Japan after fleeing the temple, he comes to a decision: the Golden Pavilion must burn...

I make no apologies for letting that much of the cat out of the bag. This is an historical event, and any Japanese reader would have the real events firmly in mind when reading Mishima's version. This is not a book about what happened but rather how and why. Over 250 pages, the writer slowly lays bare a character afflicted by the effects of his stutter and several traumatic incidences in his life. Rejection by a girl in his younger days, seeing his mother sleeping with another man in the presence of his father, the death of a close friend: all these things have the effect of turning him away from real life and into an internal fantasy world centred on the golden pavilion.

The famous building somehow becomes inextricably linked in Mizoguchi's mind with beauty, life, death and Mizoguchi himself. At times, he is content with his link to the pavilion, but at others he sees it as the barrier to connecting with the outside world. The young monk's first attempts at sexual encounters fail as he freezes in the presence of female nudity, seeing only the image of the Golden Pavilion; the eternity in an instant obliterates the moment of eternity (no, I don't understand it either).

Throughout the novel, Mishima juxtaposes images of great beauty and those of ugliness. Mizoguchi's friend, Kashiwagi (born with club-feet), pursues beautiful women, aiming to defile their beauty by making them fall in love with his deformity. The superior of Kinkakuji becomes a fat, amorphous representation of ugliness and sin in Mizoguchi's eyes, and his visits to Kyoto's red-light district represent the gulf between the professed Zen lifestyle and the sensuous reality. Decaying flowers, ugly old women and a mangy, battered dog in the street are described in great detail between descriptions of natural beauty. Of course, the biggest juxtaposition of all is that between the shining, ancient beauty of the Golden Pavilion and Mizoguchi's black, ugly soul.

And so it comes to pass that the crazed Mizoguchi does the only thing he can think of to find his way back into the world of the living; he destroys the Golden Pavilion. As he stands on a nearby mountain, watching the flames consume the temple (from the same standpoint where he once saw the city lights of Kyoto), Mizoguchi's decision is justified: he now wants to live again...

*****

Before I go, I'd just like to say a big thanks to Belezza for hosting the challenge. It's been great fun, and it has motivated me to reread some favourites and branch out into a few new areas. Please click on the Japan link for all my posts over the past six months, and I hope to see you all again when the Japanese Literature Challenge 4 begins. Ja mata, ne!

Review Post 3 - Of Novels and Telenovelas

OK, no more poetry - I promise...

On finishing The Iliad, I decided (naturally enough) that it was time to read something a little lighter, so my eyes landed on one of the Roddy Doyle books sprawled across one of my long-suffering bookshelves (note to self - operation Bookshelf Overhaul is long overdue!). Most people will have heard of or read (or, more likely, seen) Doyle's The Commitments, the first of the Barrytown trilogy (also the setting for Paddy Clarke, Ha, Ha, Ha), and The Van is the third of these novels. Set in Dublin in the wondrous year of 1990, amidst the backdrop of the Republic of Ireland's first trip to the World Cup (something more important than non-football followers could ever imagine), The Van takes Jimmy Rabbitte snr. as its main protagonist, following his experiences from unemployment to setting up a mobile fish and chip shop, the van of the title, with his best friend, Bimbo.

It's written in Doyle's usual funny, yet profound, style, giving us an insight into the day of a man who, undereducated and unemployed, has been left to make his own way through the week, drifting from the local golf course to the park, with the occasional pint or two in the evening when he can afford it. The reader can really empathise with Jimmy and his struggle to adapt to time spent alone after an adult life of work (although I, for one, would be quite happy with a bit more spare time), and his attempts to make himself useful to his family are faintly noble.

Doyle also uses the book to muse on adult male relationships, taking the long-term friendship of Jimmy and Bimbo and subjecting it to the pressure-cooker environment (or should that be deep-frier environment?) of their fledgling business. As the money comes in, emotions start to fray: the role reversal whereby the usually dominant Jimmy becomes Bimbo's side-kick, and then employee, places a great strain on their friendship until the tension becomes too much for other people to bear. Now, how do you resolve something like that...

While the gradual breakdown of a lifelong friendship and the nostalgic joy of reliving the halcyon days of Italia '90 made this a pleasure to read, the enjoyment of this novel was tainted at times by the handling of the role of women. Jimmy and his friends have a voyeuristic tendency, and women (and some girls on the cusp of attaining womanhood) are used mainly as objects to be ogled - and later pursued. I'm not doubting the reality of what Doyle has written; it's easy to believe that someone of a certain age, in a time and setting far from today's, would act as Jimmy would and not really think anything of it. It just made me feel a little uncomfortable (and I have seen a couple of reviewers who have agreed with me). That may well have been the point, but this book could well have done with a little more female perspective. Where I felt sorry for Jimmy towards the start of the book, by the end I was a little ambivalent towards him and his greasy endeavours. Which is a shame.

*****

One author who never finds me ambivalent is Thomas Hardy, whose works I started reading again last year (and will continue to enjoy in 2010). After the rolling farmlands of Far from the Madding Crowd and the ominous heaths of The Return of the Native, this time it is the woody glades of Wessex which take centre stage in his novel The Woodlanders.

Grace Melbury, educated beyond her station by her ambitious father, returns to the sylvan Wessex village of Little Hintock unable to fulfil the family promise of a marriage to Giles Winterbourne. Instead, she succumbs to the advances of a local doctor, an outsider from a higher social background, but with lower morals. I think we can all see that there won't be many happily ever afters here...

It's a lovely little read, if not a patch on his major works, and, as always, you can almost imagine yourself transported to the leafy glades by Hardy's measured prose (even if he never uses a couple of short words where a complicated - and occasionally invented - Greek-based word will do). The book abounds with love triangles and unrequited passions, and the moral seems to be to choose wisely before rushing into wedlock, especially if you're marrying above/below your station. Hardy also reflects on the unfairness of the law, particularly as regards the differing ease with which men and women were able to obtain divorces in olden days (I wonder if he'd be happier now...). Something to reflect on when remembering your wedding vows.

*****

Where Hardy is restraint and pastoral calm, my most recent book is passion and despair, usually in equal and mixed up proportions. Just as you may have heard that some bloke called Shakespeare is a fairly famous writer of English, you've probably come across the name Goethe in the context of German literature. As an avid reader, and a modern languages graduate, I am a little ashamed to say that I had never read anything by the great man - until now, that is.

Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther) is an epistolary (or letter form) novel, in which the Werther of the title, a young, romantic German, pours out the contents of his overflowing heart to his friend Wilhelm. Escaping city life for nature, Werther settles in a small town where he meets the angelic Lotte - and promptly falls head-over-heels in love. Sadly, despite their mutual understanding and attraction, their relationship can only be platonic as Lotte is promised to another man. So begins Werther's slow spiral into depression, madness and suicide...

This novel is one of the most famous Sturm und Drang works, and it is certainly stormy. On reading the first part of the novel, I was blown away by the intensity of the writing and the openness of emotion which Goethe breathed into his literary alter-ego. Werther is actually a mixture of the young Goethe's own obsession with a young woman called Lotte and the fate of a friend who ended his life at an early age. Although embarrassed by this early work later in life (he was only 25 when he wrote this - bloody geniuses...), it was an instant Europe-wide hit and found many admirers and Werther copycats. Of course, the church was not so happy with Goethe as some of those copycats went a little too far; in fact, the work was seen as an apology for those committing suicide.

A word of warning for anyone wanting to read this book in German; written in 1774, you may be a little surprised by what you see on the page. The original text varies ever so slightly from modern German, with several common and consistent spelling conventions different from today's, slight grammatical variations and a few vocabulary peculiarities. In fairness though, once you have waded through a few pages (removing redundant 'h's and swapping a few vowels around), it is surprisingly easy to read, provided you have a fairly high standard of German (and a high tolerance for chest beating, hair pulling and teeth gnashing).
Is it any good? Definitely. The prose is breath-takingly vivid at times, and Goethe drags the reader along as Werther swings between the highs of his halcyon days in Lotte's company to the lows of his attempts to come to terms with the impossibility of his desires. While the cynic in me did at times long to give him a slap and say "get over it, you cretin", it was a small voice at the back of my head and was usually drowned out by the passion Werther poured into his outbursts of grief and declarations of love.

Ready for Faust? I might give it a few months...

*****

From the sublime to the ridiculous we go as I explain what that i-Pod is doing amongst the books in my post photo. Well, having eventually succumbed to the temptation of upgrading my trusty, battered old i-Pod Mini to a sleek new Classic before Christmas, and having finally got around to upgrading my internet connection to Broadband, I am now able to download video podcasts (and able to time that process with a watch rather than a calendar). Which brings me to Alisa - Folge deinem Herzen (Alisa - Follow your Heart), a telenovela which has been running on the German channel ZDF since March last year.

Now, you may not think of me as the type of person to be obsessed with kitschy telly programmes (and you'd be right - I'm far too intellectual for all that. No, really...), but watching rubbish is a great way to practice languages. I think I got more from watching a couple of years of the soap opera Unter Uns than from three years of German at university. As a language teacher myself, I encourage students to watch programmes like Neighbours and Home and Away as they model the kind of language people use every day - and there's a limit to how much news the average language student really wants to watch.

Anyway, Alisa runs for about 40 minutes every day, Monday to Friday, and follows the trials and tribulations of Alisa Lenz, who has come back to live with her adopted parents in the small town of Schönroda after a failed business (and relationship) in Berlin. The angelic-looking Alisa, played by Teresa Scholze (who, were she British, would be a certainty to be playing Cinderella in pantomime next Christmas), stumbles across Christian, a sensitive, good-looking man (I don't know the actor's name, but I bet he's played Prince Charming a few times in his career) who happens to be the son and heir of the powerful local Castellhof family. Can you see where this is going yet?

In her first week in Schönroda, Alisa manages to seriously annoy Christian's uncle (who is then revealed to be the one interviewing her for her new job), save Christian's sister from drowning and get on the wrong side of Christian's fiancee, Ellen (who, conveniently, is as dark and brooding as Alisa is blonde and bubbly; good witch - evil witch, anyone?). Throw in a stereotypically over-exuberant Italian woman who, despite speaking perfect German, has a huge accent and starts every sentence with an Italian word, a mean supervisor who has been instructed to get rid of Alisa at all costs and a family doctor who appears to be keeping a dark secret about one of the Castellhofs, and you have the set-up for the rest of the show. Oh, did I mention that Alisa accidentally saw Ellen in flagrante with Christian's Uncle Oskar in his office on her first day of work? Now if this series does not end in a wedding, I'll eat my i-Pod.


While it's depressing how low your standards sink when you're looking for free programmes in a foreign language, I must confess that it's all good entertainment. Yes, the dialogue is stilted, the characters are caricatures, and everyone has more secrets than I could hope to accumulate in a lifetime. Still, it's a pleasant way to while away an idle hour, and we can't be reading Goethe all the time now, can we?

Oh, alright, I admit it: I'm addicted...

Review Post 2 - The Iliad for Dummies

The famous name of Homer is, to many people now,
Best known from television shows, so I will tell you how
Just thrice one thousand years ago a poem he did write
In which were rang'd both men and gods laid bare in all their might
Nine years of brutal, bloody war had stain'd Troy's sandy beach
Where fell full legions to the ground, of pain and sadness each
Of these proud nations had their fill, the Trojans and the Greeks,
As Paris guards the golden prize whom Menelaus seeks
Apollo frowns now on the Greeks and will not heed their pleas
'Til Agamemnon fair Chrysa (as prize whom he did seize)
Returns to noble Ilion, to which he doth assent
But only if his loss is made good from another's tent
And thus takes he Briseis from Achilles' fair-won spoil
(for which upon the bloody fields of Troy did he long toil)
On hearing this the demigod retired with all his men
Forebearing help until his prize be given him again
This argument between the kings thus sets the bloody scene
Achilles' lack upsets the scale of parity between
The wrong'd Greek defenders and the house of Ilion
And causes the invaders grief the more the war draws on

Of course this famous story was described in the film Troy
(A fairly silly movie which was written just for joy)
And in the film the main place where it is so well at odds
With the poem is how it lacks all mention of the Gods
And yet The Iliad is more a story telling when
Olympus saw internal feuds than one of warlike men
The warriors are playthings for the deities above
Who plot and help their favourites (when not held back by Jove)
Thus thwarting the dear plans of the scheming heav'nly throng
While sending noble warriors to deaths retold in song
Minerva, Juno and Neptune all back the Grecian quest
While Phoebus, Mars and Venus help the Trojans foil their best
Efforts to breach the Illian walls, to regain what they lack
And end the near decade-long fight by winning Helen back
The Iliad tells but one short part of the long Trojan war
With focus on the consequence of wrath Achilles bore
Toward King Agamemnon for his regal pride and greed
Which settled death and sorrowing on many men indeed
A tale of bitter, bloody war it is, but still it sings
Of noble deeds and sacrifice for country and for kings

Although in many varied forms in English has been told
This story, I eschewed the prose and chose to be so bold
And read George Chapman's famous verse translation (as you see,
Writing fourteen full syllables per line rubbed off on me!)
His whole life's work this noble task he did decide to make
Translating Homer's famous work for posterity's sake
Believe you me, it's not as simple as you would expect
To fit ideas you wish to say (and not be indirect)
Into the chosen length of line, but Chapman used the gimick
Of squeezing awkward names in place by use of patronymic
Hence Agamemnon, King of Kings, the most important Greek
Is known as strong Atrides did poor Chapman more space seek
This can be quite confusing for a modern reader who
Unused to Grecian customs is (at times I knew not who
Was killing whom upon Troy's fields). The writer also tries
To use both Greek and Roman names his issues to disguise
With deities and syllables and keeping perfect time -
I sympathise with poor Chapman and his efforts at rhyme.
As we reflect upon the fate of these unfortunate sods
The moral of the story is DO NOT FUCK WITH THE GODS...