'Rustic Baroque' by Jiří Hájíček (Review)

When it comes to Czech literature, my experience is limited to Kafka, Kundera... and that is about it.  Having seen a couple of reviews for a more contemporary Czech novel then, I was curious enough to ask the publishers, Real World Press, for a copy.  What is it about?  A story of life in the country - central-European style...

*****
Jiří Hájíček's Rustic Baroque (translated by Gale A. Kirking) is set a few years back in the Czech countryside, but it is also concerned with the events of the farm collectivisations of the 1950s.  The main character is Pavel Straňanský, a genealogist who reluctantly takes on the task of uncovering an old document - one which will compromise a local politician as it reveals his family's informer past.

In the company of Daniela, an attractive tourist from Prague who is researching her own family tree, Pavel visits the villages of the south Bohemian countryside, interviewing the locals and digging up information.  The more Pavel learns about the events that occurred fifty years earlier, the stronger his pangs of conscience become - should he reveal what he has found or leave the past buried in the sleepy countryside?

Rustic Baroque is a great insight into recent Czech history, the two contrasting stories of past and present making for an interesting novel.  The writer sets the scene nicely, with Pavel escaping his archives during a sweltering summer to search for the information he needs.  The reader is treated to a guided tour of restful, rustic villages.  Be warned though - there is a lot going on beneath the surface...

As much as it is about Czech history though, the novel is largely concerned with Pavel himself.  An intellectual fish-out-of-water, seemingly marooned in the provinces, he faces immense pressure from his brother and the locals in his home village, none of whom can understand his lifestyle (or his obsession with the past).   Although he enjoys his job, he does start to sense the futility of his work:

"The dim monitor displayed the names of people who no one knows anymore, who no one living today ever saw.  They have no faces, most of them even have no story.  Only dates of birth and death, cradles and graves, all over again, and I bring them out into the light from the moldy books of archives and people pay me for that..."
p.54 (Real World Press, 2013)

Is it all worth it, or is he just a loser, stuck in the sticks, after all?

In a slightly clichéd move, the divorced Pavel is provided with the gorgeous Daniela as both a genealogy side-kick and a potential lover (although she also plays the important role of asking Pavel the questions the reader wants to ask).  In many ways, her arrival is the catalyst for Pavel's doubts about what he is doing as her presence brings unrest:

"As always when I waited for Daniela, I felt an uneasiness, not just inside me but somehow all around me as well.  She always wreaked havoc on everything that had previously been in order - such as the files lined up in their shelves, their record numbers in successive order.  The entire archive in ruins." p.113

And what does Daniela want from Pavel anyway - a summer fling, or something more?

Rustic Baroque is a fascinating story of how the future is built upon the past - and a dilemma of whether past wrongs need to be righted.  Pavel uncovers stories that many people would rather he hadn't, and in the wrong hands, this information could ruin lives and careers.  Surely, at some point, it is time to forgive and forget...

*****
I enjoyed this novel, and the four bonus short stories from Hájíček's collection, The Wooden Knife, but it would be unfair (possibly unethical) of me to finish the review without revealing a major issue I had with the book - the translation.  I enjoyed Rustic Baroque despite the translation, not because of it.  I found it stiff, overly formal, unnatural - and (in some places) grammatically incorrect.

Translators have to walk a fine line between conveying the essence of the original text and creating a piece of writing that works in English - Kirking's translation certainly erred on the side of following the original to the letter, even to the extent of using unnatural sentence structure (presumably to stay closer to the Czech version).  This was particularly true for the dialogue, which rarely sounded like natural spoken English.  It is a shame because this is a story that many people would enjoy.

Still, language and linguistics are a large part of what I do every day, and I can sometimes be very sensitive about these matters.  It may well be that others are less bothered than I was about the translation (and I haven't really seen it mentioned in other reviews).  Hopefully, whether they like the translation or not, most readers will still be able to enjoy the essence of Hájíček's novel :)

'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy (Review)

After flying through a whole pile of short translated fiction recently, I was left with a lot of reviews to write - meaning that I needed a book which would give me time to catch up with my blogging duties.  Hmm, a big novel that I've been meaning to reread for some time...  I think I might just have the right book for the job ;)

*****
Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (translated by Rosemary Edmonds) is, by any definition, a big book.   It is a great novel about a great war, at the time one of the biggest and most destructive ever.  The novel starts in 1805, and the first book (125 pages) introduces the reader to our dramatis personae.  The second book then takes us through their experiences at and during the Battle of Austerlitz - and that's just the start.  We then follow our characters through the the years of an uneasy cold war until Napoleon attacks Russia in 1812, which is when the story really begins.  Finally, Tolstoy adds an epilogue of seven years to tell us how our friends fared after the defeat of the French - plus some philosophical musings to finish it all off.

As I said, it is a big book ;)

War and Peace is an epic, and its scope allows us to follow Tolstoy's creations across a decade as they grow up, grow old and (in some cases) change.  We see Natasha Rostov as a sprightly girl, then as a beautiful young debutante.  Later she matures, learning from mistakes and hardened by the necessities of the war, finally achieving motherhood in the epilogue.  Another of the major characters, Pierre Bezuhov, appears on the stage as a plump, naive buffoon, but the war gives him the opportunity for him to show his true colours; by the end of the novel, he is a familiar, middle-aged friend.

Although the characters change in many ways, just as in real life, they only change within the constraints of their personalities.  Those who turn out to be disappointing people have the germ of this disappointment in them from the very start.  The writer merely allows time to bring out what is initially partially hidden.  Boris' snobbery, Sonya's sanctimoniousness, Petya's impetuosity - they are all there at the start of the novel for any reader to see.

But what is War and Peace actually about?  The answer is that it is a book about everything (which is, perhaps, why it is so long...).  Tolstoy, through his characters, ponders the big question of the meaning of life, and he uses his 1400+ pages to explore various answers.  Pierre and Prince Andrei wonder if it is about work or personal development; Maria tries education and the care of others; Boris works for his own gain, while Dolohov merely has fun wherever he can find it; Petya longs for glory, but his sister, Natasha, is aching for love.  Somehow though, nobody seems to be able to find the right answer.

Pierre is especially troubled by existential matters (when not overcome by marriage problems) and spends years looking for a reason to live.  At one point, he muses:

"Sometimes he remembered having heard how soldiers under fire in the trenches, and having nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger.  And it seemed to Pierre that all men were like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in playthings, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in government service. 'Nothing is without consequence, and nothing is important: it's all the same in the end.  The thing to do is to save myself from it all as best I can,' thought Pierre.  'Not to see it, that terrible it.'
p.636 (Penguin Classics, 1982)

You will have to read the book to find out how (or whether) Pierre is ever able to find what he is looking for...

Much of what I have said so far applies more to the 'peace' side of the book, but large parts of the novel are (of course) devoted to the war.  Tolstoy paints a masterful picture of the conflict, ranging from the delusions of the commanders looking down from the heights of their posts to the experiences of the peasant soldiers on the ground.  While there is no doubt that we are on the Russian side (constant mentions of 'our line' and 'our troops' ensure we never forget who we want to win), there is no hint of jingoism or revisionist reporting - the writer is as critical of his own side as he is of the enemy.  He describes how the majority of senior officers are only interested in their own affairs, seeking to discredit rivals and ensure their own advancement.

Despite the multitude of Generals, Tolstoy believes that things happen the way they do for a reason - and that military commanders have very little to do with how wars unfold.  Despite the appeal of the 'Great Man' theory, the impossibility of free will and control means that the soldiers fighting hand-to-hand (or running away...) have more influence on the course of a battle than any command Napoleon might give.  In the chaos of war, letting things run their course is the only way to go...

...and this is exactly the way another of Tolstoy's major characters (a real-life one) handles affairs.  General (later Prince) Kutuzov, the man who saved the Russian army from annihilation after Austerlitz, is recalled in his country's hour of need - but he is not exactly the epitome of a knight in shining armour.  He is an old man, in need of sleep and a good meal, and he is unwilling to rush things in the way his advisers would like him to.

However, it is this reliance on 'patience and time' that eventually brings success.  The General allows events to happen as they should and prevents people from doing stupid things for no reason - which is perhaps the best thing a commander can do.  In part then, War and Peace is just as much a demand for the reappraisal of the actions of the much-maligned Kutuzov as it is a novel.

One more thing that War and Peace is known for though is the second half of the epilogue, forty-odd pages of metaphysical ramblings that sum up the ideas Tolstoy has just spent 1400 pages setting out.  In that sense, it is akin to putting up a ten-foot barbed-wire fence on the home straight of a marathon race, expecting the reader to increase their mental efforts just when they were hoping for a nice, easy jog to the finishing line.

It is important though because this is where Tolstoy tells you what it is all about ('it' being everything, of course).  I won't claim to have understood it all, but the main focus is on the idea of free will versus necessity, and you begin to get a sneaking suspicion that Tolstoy's answer to all of his questions happens to be God.  Which is great if you are a Christian.  If you are not, it is a bit like reading a murder novel and then finding out that the killer is never revealed...

I will let Tolstoy finish this off for himself though, as after all that writing, he probably does it better than I could.  The very last sentence of the novel reads:

"In the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that does not exist and to recognise a dependence of which we are not personally conscious." p.1444

My last sentence?  War and Peace is actually a very readable and enjoyable novel - don't let my review put you off ;)

'The Investigation' by Philippe Claudel (Review)

One unfortunate side effect of my January in Japan responsibilities was that I was unable to do anything for another important event last month - the celebration of MacLehose Press' fifth birthday.  I was lucky enough to receive a few review copies from them last year, and I've already been sent a couple of books this year that sound like my kind of reading.  Consider this post then a belated birthday greeting ;)

*****
Philippe Claudel's The Investigation (translated by Daniel Hahn) is a beautiful, silvery book, and a work very much in the vein of a Kafka novel.  We begin outside the train station of an unknown town, where the Investigator, sent by his company to investigate a series of suicides, searches in vain for a taxi.  As the snow begins to fall, he sets off on foot and enters a bar - and has the first of many unusual encounters with the people of the town.

The company he has been sent to investigate is known simply as The Firm, an enormous conglomerate which is the focal point of the town, a huge complex which is unmissable, yet somehow difficult to reach.  The more the poor Investigator attempts to begin his task, the more bizarre events become.  The Policeman (who has his office in a broom cupboard and also cleans toilets), the Manager (an employee of the Firm who does manic exercises in an attempt to prove that he is still on top of things) and the Giantess (a hotel receptionist right out of a fairy tale) - these are just some of the people the poor Investigator has to deal with in the course of his duties...

Of course, The Investigation is not your average story.  Claudel is creating a strange, Kafkaesque world, where nothing is quite as it seems. The protagonist is deliberately knocked off his equilibrium right at the start, and he is never able to get anywhere close to regaining his balance.  At times, the story almost descends into farce (a Mr. Bean-type trip to the toilet and a disastrous attempt to have a bath come to mind here), but the more the novel progresses, the less matters have to do with real life, moving off into a world of allegories.

At this point, the reader is forced to confront the fact that there is a meaning, a greater significance, hidden behind the farce and black humour, and it partly has to do with modern society.  The Firm is a representation of the dangers of globalisation, of the advanced stage of the industrial society and of giving up all semblance of individuality.  The Investigator feels that his personality is being erased by his dealings with the Firm, and he doesn't know if his thoughts are still his own:

"And yet, all these thoughts he could not get rid of, this vocabulary that was invading him in a succession of tides and waves were not his.  And if someone - something? - was starting insidiously to enter and inhabit him, interfering in his brain, his body, his movements and his words, how in such a situation was he to go back to being himself as he had believed himself to be a few minutes earlier?'
p.172 (MacLehose Press, 2013)

The Investigator feels himself to be a logical man, trapped in an illogical world.  I often know how he feels...

Like some of Kafka's protagonists, the Investigator (whose name we never learn) starts off full of bravado, convinced he can do his job and make a difference.  However, he soon comes up against unexpected obstacles and (again, like a figure from Kafka) he is moulded by circumstances into a new form.  He too begins to follow the rules of his new environment unthinkingly - one particular (literal) example of toeing the line ending up with a severe concussion.  He also gives up his individuality, in his weakness allowing figures like the Policeman, the Giantess and the Psychologist to make decisions for him.

At which point, you might be wondering what I actually made of all this - and to be honest, I'm still wondering myself.  The Investigation is undoubtedly a clever, fascinating novel, a book for people who enjoy intelligent fiction, but...

...you may have noticed that I've used the name Kafka (or variants thereof) several times so far, and that is no coincidence.  The Czech master's elegant fingerprints are all over The Investigation - and I'm not convinced that this is always a good thing.  Anyone who has read The Castle will find it hard to avoid finding parallels between the two works (The Investigator/ The Land Surveyor, The Firm/ The Castle, The Inn/ The Hotel, the frequent types rather than names, the snow...).  In many ways, the first half of the book reads more like a modern rewriting of Kafka's story than a novel in its own right...

Still, once you get into The Investigation, there is more there than rehashed Czech ideas.  The second half of the novel goes off in its own direction, and is a much better book for it.  There is one more thing it has in common with Kafka's work though; despite the fact that it is obviously talking about something, it is doubtful that anyone will be able to agree on exactly what it wants to say.  Rest assured then that the writer doesn't expect us to pick up on everything.  He knows that man is unable to unravel all the mysteries of the universe:

"So why, then, does he consistently deceive himself into believing that his mind can understand everything and grasp everything?" p.219

At which point it is probably best to just admit defeat and go with the flow - or was that just what we are not supposed to do...

...I think I need to lie down for a while...

'Shi Cheng - Short Stories from Urban China' (Review)

Comma Press is a small publisher that concentrates on short-story collections, and as some of those are translated into English from other languages, I've reviewed a few over the past year.  However, today's collection is a little different.  Whereas the ones I've read so far have been single-author works, this post will look at a book which takes us on a more varied literary journey...

*****
Shi Cheng - Short Stories from Urban China (review copy from the publisher) is a recent anthology from Comma Press, which... well, it does pretty much what it says on the cover.  It contains ten different stories, each by a different writer and each concentrating on one Chinese city (Shi Cheng is Mandarin for 'ten cities').  The stories are arranged a little unusually in that they literally take us on a journey through urban China - we start off in Hong Kong, move onto cities like Xi'an and Nanjing, move up the coast through Shanghai and Beijing, before finishing off in the cold northern city of Harbin (and no train ticket required!).

The habitual reader of translated fiction probably has certain expectations about works translated from Chinese, thinking that they are likely to be controversial works on banned topics (e.g. Ma Jian's Beijing Coma) or stories about the hardship poor peasants face (e.g. Yan Lianke's Dream of Ding Village).  Shi Cheng, however, is a very different book.  It avoids any real explicit political message (although there are plenty of implicit stabs at Chinese politics) and concentrates on the way the average Chinese citizen lives their life in the big cities.  Strangely enough, it makes for a refreshing change.

One common topic is the importance of education in China, something we all hear about but can't quite grasp.  In Cao Kou's But What About the Red Indians? (translated by Rachel Henson), the main character in the narrator's story is a young man whose failure to succeed in the highly-competitive university exams is partly responsible for a shocking event later in life.  The protagonist in Ho Sin Tung's Square Moon (translated by Petula Parris-Huang) takes an art history major at university, instead of following the path of an artist, simply because there are better job prospects at the end of the course.

The stories also have a common focus on the urban divide, and many subtly criticise modern China's superficial consumer society.  Wheels are Round by Xu Zechen (translated by Eric Abrahamsen) looks at a group of illegal workers in Beijing, migrants from the countryside who try to scrape together a few Yuan on the black market.  The criticism is more scathing though in Han Dong's This Moron is Dead (translated by Nicky Harman), where a vagrant's corpse on the streets of Nanjing is greeted with both indifference and scorn...

A third important area is relationships, and if Shi Cheng is anything to go by, true love is a rare quality in China.  Infidelity abounds, and several of the stories use cheating as the focus of the plot.  Zhang Zhihao's Dear Wisdom Tooth (translated by Josh Stenberg) consists of a conversation between a married couple who are about to split up, where the man's embedded wisdom tooth serves as a metaphor for their marriage, but Ding Liying's Family Secrets (translated by Nicky Harman) is a much more chilling tale of the effects of infidelity.  As for Jie Chen's Kangkang's Gonna Kill that Fucker Zhao Yilu (translated by Josh Stenberg), well, I think I'll just leave that one to your imagination ;)

One of my favourite stories though does have a more political edge to it.  Diao Dou's Squatting (translated by Brendan O'Kane) is a clever allegory of how well-meaning reformers can be co-opted into supporting the status quo.  Starting with some concerned, well-meaning citizens and descending into farce through some Kafkaesque regulations, it is a bizarre tale with a cunning twist at the end.  It is definitely the story that has stayed with me the longest :)

Shi Cheng is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the average urban-dwelling Chinese, and the book is visually delightful as well, with a handy map to follow our route and a transport map of each city introducing its story.  And if, like me, you enjoy this one, Comma Press has a few more books you might be interested in.  You see, as well as this trip around China, you might want to wander around the Middle East (Madinah), or take a leisurely journey through Europe (Decapolis).  Forget your local travel agency - this is the way to see the world in comfort ;)

'The Mussel Feast' by Birgit Vanderbeke (Review)

January in Japan, having taken up a whole month of my reading time, is finally over, so it's time to return to a more varied literary diet for a while.  And talking of food, the first Peirene of the year is particularly mouthwatering - and also a very good book...

*****
Birgit Vanderbeke's Das Muschelessen (English version translated by Jamie Bulloch) is a short modern classic very much in the vein of Peirene's offerings so far.  A family sits at home waiting for the father to return from a business trip.  A pot of mussels (his favourite food) is there ready on the table to celebrate the promotion he has been expecting.  However, he appears to be late, unexpectedly so - this is not a family where surprises are common...

The other three members of the family (mother, daughter and son) grow impatient and start to talk - and it becomes clear that this is not a happy family.  Stories unfold,  grievances are aired, hearts are poured out, and soon we realise that they'd be happy if the man of the house never came home at all...

Das Muschelessen is another excellent choice, a work which is surprisingly powerful and layered for its size.  One one level it is a character study of a dysfunctional, cowering family, victims of traditional, patriarchal, German society (where a woman's place is firmly proscribed and the man of the family is to obeyed at all times).  At first, it is tempting to think that they're exaggerating and a little unfair; certainly, without prior knowledge of the family's history, the initial reactions seem a little overdone.  Eventually, though, as the father's personality (and cruelty) is revealed, the reader is certain to take the side of the oppressed.

Vanderbeke sketches out an environment of gender stereotypes and a home ruled by fear.  The mother is described as changing roles and faces as required, subordinating her own will to pander to the father's twisted idea of a 'richtige Familie' (real family):

"In richtigen Familien hat man Verbote nicht nötig, hat mein Vater gesagt, und sie sind wirklich überflüssig gewesen, weil wir uns immer verstanden haben, und wenn ich manchmal trotzig gewesen bin und gesagt habe, keineswegs, hat es von vorn angefangen, und es ist immer so lange gegangen, bis ich auf seine Frage, haben wir uns verstanden, mich beeilt habe zu sagen, das haben wir..."
p.120 (Piper Verlag, 2012)

"In real families rules are not necessary, my father always said, and in truth they weren't needed because we always understood each other, and if I was occasionally a little defiant and said, no way, it started all over again, and it went on until, in answer to his question, do you understand, I hastened to say, yes, I do..."*** 

Just as in any dictatorship, dissent is frowned upon and is stamped out as quickly as possible in particularly nasty ways...

On another level though, Vanderbeke is using a family setting to criticise something much wider.  Das Muschelessen was written in 1990, but set just before the events known in German as 'die Wende' (which Peirene followers may be interested to know translates as 'turning point'...), and even though the nameless protagonists have settled in the west, the book is an indictment of East German society.  The father is a head of state, demanding complete loyalty from his subjects; that he is able to achieve it is due to the same methods used in the DDR.

If there was solidarity between the other members of the family, then the father's castle in the air would soon come tumbling to earth.  However, just as in 'real life', the rest of the family are unable to resist the temptation to seek favour:

"...meine Mutter hat pssst gemacht weil sie Angst hatte, er könnte uns hören, dabei war er doch gar nicht da, aber so ist das bei uns gewesen, jeder hat gedacht, er weiß alles und hört alles und sieht alles, obwohl wir gewußt haben, daß das ja gar nicht geht, und wirklich hat er ziemlich viel herausgekriegt, weil jeder jeden verpetzt hat..." p.36

"...my mother went shhh because she was afraid he might hear us, even though he wasn't even there, but that's how it was in our house, everyone thought he knows everything and hears everything and sees everything, although we knew that this was impossible, and he actually did find out a lot, because we all told on each other..."***

Tonight is very different though - the longer the father's arrival is delayed, the more unwilling the rest of the family is to put up with living in fear.

While the book fits nicely into Peirene's collection with its content and length, its style is also reminiscent of its stable-mates.  The book consists of one unbroken paragraph, with a few long sentences, broken up into waves of short clauses.  The effect of this style (reminiscent of Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman) is to produce a sense of urgency and intensity.  At times, the first-person narrative can slip almost into stream-of-consciousness mode, but this just makes the description of the father's violence even more abrupt and stunning when it comes.

In terms of content though, Das Muschelessen is more similar to Next World Novella.  Both works deal with the unravelling of a lie, the unmasking of a tyrant, in a way over which he has no control.  I would talk about character assassination, but that suggests that the accusations are unfair and ungrounded.  Although we are reliant on our narrator, there is little doubt that it is high time for the domestic regime to be overthrown.

This year's Peirene collection has been entitled 'The Turning Point: Revolutionary Moments', and it is easy to see how Das Muschelessen fits in with this motto.  It is a work which shows that the smallest turning point can prove to be the catalyst for changes which were previously unthinkable.  It all makes for a book which can quite rightly claim to be labelled a modern classic - it is taught in German schools, and rightly so.

All in all, it looks like 2013 is shaping up to be another good year for the nymph ;)

*****
***All translations are my sorry efforts, and not those of the Peirene version ;)

The End of January in Japan

That's it - all done for 2013 :(  But before we all pack away our J-Lit, pop over to the January in Japan blog for the final Nichi-Yōbi News, including the result of my giveaway.  Click here to see if you're the winner ;)

January 2013 Wrap-Up

January has been a fun month, both on the reading and blogging side.  Of course, it has been dominated by January in Japan, but I've been reading some good non-Japanese books too - more of that next month...

Off we go then with another year of names and numbers :)

*****
Total Books Read: 7
Year-to-Date: 7

New: 6

Rereads: 1

From the Shelves: 4
Review Copies: 2

From the Library: 0

On the Kindle: 1

Novels: 5
Novellas: 1

Short Stories: 1

Non-English Language: 7 (2 Japanese, 2 German, French, Chinese, Russian)

In Original Language: 2 (2 German)

Aussie Author Challenge: 0 (0/3)

Japanese Literature Challenge 6: 2 (16/1) 

*****
Books reviewed in January were:

1) Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto
2) Ukigumo by Shimei Futabatei
3) Japan's First Modern Novel - Ukigumo by Marleigh Ryan
4) Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
5) Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words by Jay Rubin
6) The Sheep Man's Christmas by Haruki Murakami
7) Volcano by Shusaku Endo
8) The 210th Day by Natsume Soseki
9) Rivalry - A Geisha's Tale by Kafu Nagai
10) The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
11) Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
12) The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami

Tony's Turkey for January is: Nothing

While not everything was all kinds of wonderful, I enjoyed all the books I read for my event - success :)

Tony's Recommendation for January is:
Yasunari Kawabata's The Old Capital

Honourable mentions should go to Hiromi Kawakami and Shusaku Endo here, and Marleigh Ryan's non-fiction work was also fascinating.  However, The Old Capital is the kind of book that gives J-Lit its reputation, so it's only fitting that it should be my pick of the month.

*****
February may be a short month, but I'll have a fair number of reviews to cram into it, including one of a very big book.  And when I say a big book...

Well, you'll see ;)

'The Briefcase' by Hiromi Kawakami (Review)

Well, we've just about made it to the end of our month of Japanese delights, but there is one more stop before we say farewell to the land of the rising sun.  The last day of January brings the reviews of our chosen group readalong, and happily it is a good one.  Don't believe me?  Well, the judges for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize (who chose it for their short-list) beg to differ ;)

*****
Hiromi Kawakami's The Briefcase (translated by Allison Markin Powell) is a brief but powerful novel about the development of a rather unusual relationship.  Set in present-day Tokyo (largely in a Japanese bar, or 'izakaya'), it tells of a chance meeting between Tsukiko, a single woman closing in on forty, and her old Japanese teacher Harutsuna Matsumoto - the man she simply calls 'Sensei'.

What begins as occasional drunken conversations in the bar turns into a much closer friendship.  The odd couple go for long walks, embark on shopping trips, have dinner together, and later even go mushroom hunting.  The two enjoy their friendship, but with an age gap like theirs, surely there can't be romance here - can there?

The Briefcase is a bitter-sweet love story, a development of the rather unorthodox relationship between two people who stand out a little from the crowd.  Sensei is retired and divorced, an old man, but one who is always dapper in his suit (and with his briefcase ever in hand).  Beginning as a figure of fun, his character is sketched out a little more with each appearance, allowing the reader to get to know him just as Tsukiko does.

Tsukiko though is very different from the good-natured former teacher.  She is reclusive, spiky, and adept at avoiding affection.  Her life is empty, virtually devoid of meaningful relationships, as she realises when she tries to analyse her connection to Sensei:

"When I tried to think whom I spent time with before I became friendly with Sensei, no-one came to mind.  I had been alone.  I rode the bus alone, I walked around the city alone, I did my shopping alone, and I drank alone."
p.25 (Counterpoint Press, 2012)

In fact, while the reader initially struggles to accept the May-to-December nature of the relationship, later on it is Tsukiko's (in)ability to surrender her independence which is of more interest.  Can she even allow herself to enter into a real, mature relationship?

The Briefcase is an enjoyable novel to read due to the episodic nature of the text.  The story is divided into seventeen chapters of fairly equal length, taking us unhurriedly through the build-up of the relationship (in fact, it is very similar to The Old Capital in this regard...).  There are three two-chapter sections (Mushroom Hunting, The Cherry Blossom Party, The Island) spaced out over the novel, each one a turning point in the relationship.  It all makes for a very smooth read.

Of course, the success of the novel hangs entirely on how believable Sensei and Tsukiko's relationship is, and Kawakami handles this very well.  Before starting, I thought it might be a little like Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor (a book I liked but didn't find particularly special), but that wasn't the case.  The relationship progresses naturally, convincing us not only that it is possible, but also that it is natural, and the addition of a catalyst in the shape of Kojima, Tsukiko's old classmate, helps to push the story along when it is in danger of drifting.

The way the story is written means that the reader experiences events through the eyes of Tsukiko (Sensei, even as we learn more about his past, remains fairly enigmatic to the end).  It is tempting to look at Tsukiko and wonder why she is so attracted to spending time with Sensei - and why she is so alone in the first place.  She drifts by without analysing the relationship much, at least until the stay on the island:

"Since when had Sensei and I become close like this?  At first, Sensei had been a distant stranger.  An old, unfamiliar man who in the far-away beyond had been a high school teacher of mine.  Even once we began chatting now and then, I still barely ever looked at his face.  He was just an abstract presence, quietly drinking his saké in the seat next to mine at the counter." p.126

In many ways, she is rather childish and immature, often blurting out the first thing that comes into her head.  Of course, there is another, more disturbing way to account for her behaviour.  Perhaps she is merely unable to sacrifice her personality for a partner in the way the patriarchal Japanese society demands...

All in all, The Briefcase is an excellent book, well drawn out and thoroughly believable.  There are a few moments of kitch, and a little melodrama towards the close of the novel, but Kawakami rescues it nicely with the ending.  I'll certainly be getting myself a copy of Manazuru at some point, and I'm already looking forward to the new one in English (Strange Weather from Tokyo), out from Portobello Books later this year - as you may have gathered, this was just a retitled UK version of The Briefcase :(.  All that remains to say is that if you haven't read this, you could do worse than give it a try...

...oh, and good luck to Kawakami for the Man Asian Literary Prize :)

*****
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One More J-Lit Giant...

January in Japan is almost over for 2013, but we do have one final J-Lit Giant to introduce to you - and today's choice is a writer keen followers of my blog might just be familiar with...  Off you go, then ;)

'Coin Locker Babies' by Ryu Murakami (Review)

Pushkin Press, one of my favourite publishers, is well known for its European fiction, but (alas) it hasn't had any J-Lit on its books - that is, until now.  You see, in 2013 Pushkin is going Japanese by bringing out four books from J-Lit bad boy Ryu Murakami.  As you can tell from my picture, they won't be out for a while yet, but if this first taste is anything to go by, they'll be worth the wait :)

*****
Coin Locker Babies (translated by Stephen Snyder) gets off to an explosive start.  A woman leaves an unwanted baby in a train station coin locker in Tokyo, but the boy is luckily found before he comes to too much harm.  The officials name him Kikuyuki, and he is sent off to an orphanage where he eventually becomes friends with Hashio, the only other of that summer's coin locker babies to survive.

Kiku and Hashi become inseparable, but after Hashi displays some unusual behaviour, the two boys are packed off to see a psychiatrist.  His unorthodox techniques have short-term benefits, but the two boys are destined to have trouble later in life.  Kiku takes up athletics in an attempt to control his latent anger while Hashi's way of coping with reality, one he adopts after running away to Tokyo, is slightly more glamorous...

Coin Locker Babies is a bleak look at what happens when you have a bad start in life.  Kiku and Hashi, rejected by an uncaring society, grow up to plan revenge for its negligence.  While Hashi is at times suicidal and full of self-loathing, the enigmatic Kiku is slightly more homicidal, hatching a secret plan to take revenge on the city that spawned him.  Ever heard of DATURA?  No?  Well, that's probably for the best ;)

A very unfamiliar city it is too.  While the usual bright lights of the metropolis are there, Murakami invents a new area of Tokyo.  Toxitown is an abandoned quarter, a chemical waste dump surrounded by barbed-wire fencing and government security officers with automatic weapons.  However, it's far from impossible to get in, and once you do, you find yourself in a parallel society where anything is possible.  Sex, drugs, rock and roll and casual violence - for a pair of messed up kids with a death wish, it's just like coming home.

It's hard to avoid comparisons with a certain other Japanese writer, and not just because of the name.  The two Murakamis were born just a few years apart and burst onto the literary scene around the same time.  Both write books about people who feel alienated from Japanese society - but the similarities stop there.  While Haruki writes fairytale fantasies, Ryu's tales (on the strength of this one) are decidedly more Grimm.  Haruki's characters exist on the margins of respectable life; Ryu's live deep in the alternative underground world.  Haruki's creations are trying to cope with society, but Ryu's are attempting to destroy it...

Coin Locker Babies is a great story, a 500-page novel which avoids the usual quaint J-Lit clichés and takes a good hard look at the underbelly of Japanese society.  There are no tea ceremonies or beautiful gardens here - it's urban sprawl for most of the way.  As Hashi muses:

"From outer space, Tokyo must look like a big, bright blob with no place to hide from the light.  It seemed to penetrate every barrier, the smokiest glass, the thickest membrane, to find its way into every corner of every room, every nook and cranny, every bird's nest and beehive.  There was nowhere to run, nowhere they couldn't find you by your shadow."
p.70 (Pushkin Press, 2013)

Kiku eventually ends up down in Okinawa, swapping the urban jungle for the real thing, but no matter how hard the two boys try, they can't escape their fate.  Despite all apparent progress, they are still trapped in a prison of sorts:

"Nothing had changed, not one thing - not since he'd let out that first scream in the coin locker.  The locker was bigger, maybe; the new one had a pool and gardens, with a band, people wandering about half-naked, and you could keep pets - yes, this one had all kinds of shit: museums, movie theatres, and mental hospitals - but it was still a huge coin locker, and no matter how many layers of camouflage you had to dig through if you felt like digging, in the end you still ran up against a wall." p.400

Don't expect a happy ending...

*****
To finish off, I thought I'd just let you know of Pushkin's plans for Ryu Murakami in 2013.  They will be releasing four of his novels in May (currently scheduled for 9/5/2013).  This one, 69 and Popular Hits of the Showa Era are all rereleases of previous translations, but From the Fatherland with Love is being published in an English translation for the very first time.  Whether you're a fan or not, this is great news for J-Lit lovers (and a welcome new direction for Pushkin Press)...

...you'll have to wait a few months to get your copies though ;)