The July theme for the Japanese Literature Challenge 7 is short stories, so it was off to the shelves to see if I had anything to fit this criterion. As I rummaged through my ever-expanding J-Lit section, I did manage to find a couple of unread anthologies, but they were a little long (and after recently finishing a 1000-page German-language classic, I was in the mood for something a touch lighter...). Finally, I stumbled across the perfect choice, the book you see displayed on the left of the page. What makes my selection all the more apt is that I received it as a gift from Bellezza herself for my efforts during January in Japan:)
*****
Kuniko Mukoda was a television screen-writer, essayist and short-story writer, and The Name of the Flower (translated by Tomone Matsumoto, published by Stone Bridge Press) is a collection containing thirteen assorted tales from various original works. It's a short book, running to just 150 pages, and it makes for fairly easy reading. However, it's also well written, with keen observations on Japanese society in every piece.
The stories all focus on married life, from the viewpoint of both husband and wife. Infidelity (traditionally tolerated in Japan, especially for husbands) is the major theme here, and most of the stories begin with a snap-shot of a domestic scene which slowly expands to include the shadow of betrayal lurking in the corner. In a society where marriages were largely arranged (certainly at the time the stories were written), marital bliss seems hard to come by; in fact, marital indifference seems to be regarded as a relative success round these parts...
Many of Mukoda's female protagonists are betrayed by their husbands. In the title story, 'The Name of the Flower', a wife realises that her husband has been using her, allowing her to help him become more cultivated so that he can attract other women. In another story, 'I Doubt It', a man plays the dutiful mourner at his father's funeral:
"Now he was chief mourner. Perhaps it was wrong to bask in this self-satisfied respectability, having just lost a father, but that was how he felt. The general-affairs section of his company came out in force and arranged the whole program - the ceremony at the funeral altar, the wake, and the ritual farewell to the deceased. It all reflected Shiozawa's position. Those relatives he was not ashamed of came, and his friends paid their condolence visits. He felt a twinge of guilt as he displayed the appropriate grief like an actor, but he told himself not to be concerned because every important occasion in life called for this kind of performance."
p.33, 'I Doubt It' (Stone Bridge Press, 2002)
However, his honest facade hides a multitude of secrets, involving extra-marital affairs and blackmail...
Before anyone gets too angry at Japanese men though, it must be said that the women are even worse. The central character of 'The Otter' is an old man recovering from a stroke, and while his wife seems cheerful and supportive, she is actually scheming to sell the house from under him. In 'The Window', a man remembers his mother's affairs, humiliated by the way his father was constantly cuckolded. Now he believes that her genes have resurfaced in his own daughter, and he's afraid of the consequences.
Quite apart from the constant affairs, there are other consequences of these unhappy marriages, stories of two strangers living together. In 'The Fake Egg', a woman who can't get pregnant wonders why she's even with her husband, while the protagonist in 'Ears', a man left alone at home on a rare sick day, attempts to resist the temptation to search the house for dirty laundry of a rather personal nature. Trust is in short supply in The Name of the Flower, and most of the relationships appear to be those strictly of convenience.
The book says a lot about personal relationships, but Mukoda also opens a wider window into Japanese society, where conventions are markedly different to those of the west. There is a strict adherence to roles within the work hierarchy, something the reader sees repeatedly in the pieces here. Examples include the traditional visits by work colleagues to the funeral in 'I Doubt It' and the rather unorthodox (to western eyes) use of a work subordinate as a chauffeur (and lackey!) in 'Triangular Chop'.
I lived in Japan for three years (many, many moons ago...), and I loved the little touches which reminded me of my time there. Characters eat noodles, fish and rice for breakfast, newspaper agents and money collectors stroll into houses and shout out as if they're part of the family; salarymen work (and drink) so much that they never see their house in daylight (as is the case in 'The Window') - oh, and, of course, there's the casual sexism:
"At last Makiko had heard what she was waiting for. The real reason Makiko had decided to marry Tatsuo was her age - she was twenty-four." (p.102, 'Triangular Chop')
Yep, women, like Christmas cakes (as the story goes), are no good after the twenty-fifth... At this point, my female readers may like to take a deep breath and recall that these stories were written in the early 80s. I'm sure things have changed slightly since then...
There's nothing too deep here, but The Name of the Flower is full of great sketches exploring Japanese marriage and offering a fascinating insight into Japanese society. Tomone Matsumoto provides an excellent, smooth translation too, something that is not as common as I'd like in J-Lit. Anyone wanting to explore the domestic side of Japanese life will enjoy this collection a lot - arigato Bellezza :)
Bellezza's theme for June in the Japanese Literature Challenge 7 was children's literature - and it's one which is not exactly my preferred genre (to say the least). However, as luck would have it, I did happen to have a Japanese children's classic hanging around on my J-Lit shelves, one which will be very familiar to any Japanese readers out there - and it all takes place up in the Milky Way...
*****
Kenji Miyazawa's Milky Way Railroad (translated by Joseph Sigrist and D.M. Stroud, published by Stone Bridge Press) was originally written around 1927, and it's a fantasy tale about a boy and a rather unusual train. One night, on the Japanese celebration of Tanabata, Giovanni walks down to the village in search of the milk which was not delivered that day. Forced to wait, he wanders up to the top of the hill, when suddenly:
"Giovanni heard a strange voice calling, "Milky Way Station! Milky Way Station!" All at once everything before his eyes was illuminated, as if a billion fireflies had been fixed in one perpetual flash and inlaid in the sky."
pp.47/8 (2009, Stone Bridge Press)
The next thing Giovanni knows, he is seated in a train, speeding through the night with his best friend, Campanella. This is no ordinary train though - instead of riding the rails, the two boys are actually traversing the Milky Way... How is this possible? And why has Campanella suddenly appeared to join in Giovanni's journey? All will be revealed in good time...
First things first. Milky Way Railroad is a children's book, and if you don't approach it as such, you will be sorely disappointed. Although my copy is 143-pages long, I read the whole thing in about half an hour, and I suspect most readers would be able to do the same. The language is fairly simple, and the story is a straight-forward narrative in which the two friends ride the train until it is time for one of them to get off. Anyone expecting the brilliance of Kawabata or Oe is both misguided and likely to be disappointed ;)
Which is not to say that there isn't more to the story than first meets the eye. Miyazawa was a schoolteacher (hence the children's fiction), but he was also deeply interested in religion, particularly Buddhism and Christianity, and Milky Way Railroad is, in part, an attempt to reconcile different belief structures. The travellers actually visit Heaven (well, Northern Cross Station which apparently services it!), and the Italian names given to the two main characters contrast nicely with the Japanese names borne by the obviously western children who get on the train at a later stop.
If you're suspicious of how much I seem to have got from flicking through a kids' book about magic trains, you're right to be. Most of my insights come from the excellent introduction which D.M. Stroud, who updated Joseph Sigrist's original translation, wrote for this edition. The translator does a great job of explaining the background of the Tanabata festival and the author's religious and scientific beliefs - in fact, were it not for major plot twists being discussed, this would be very helpful to read before starting the book itself :)
If Milky Way Railroad sounds like something you (or your kid!) would enjoy, then I'd recommend it - just remember that it is a book for children. Even so, there is a lot to like about it - and plenty of wise words to remember:
"And everyone is Campanella. Everyone you meet Giovanni - every time you ride on a train - everyone you ride with and eat apples with. So it's just as you were thinking before. Take every opportunity to look for the greatest happiness of all people, and quickly join them on their way." (p.129)
Life is a journey, and you'll meet plenty of people along the way. Most of them will get on and off at different stations to you; the important thing is to laugh and have fun while you're riding the rails together...
My recent IFFP distractions have led me to neglect a book I'd been meaning to read for a while, a slice of J-Lit I was looking forward to. It was a review copy from Stone Bridge Press which somehow fell through the gaps (both in my schedule and on my shelf). Somehow though that seems rather appropriate, as the people in these stories have also fallen through society's cracks...
*****
Kenji Nakagami is a writer from the Japanese outcast part of society, the burakumin, and he is well known for his novels and stories set in his hometown in the west of Japan. This collection, The Cape and Other Stories from the Japanese Ghetto (translated by Eve Zimmerman) contains three stories: 'The Cape', a novella which won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize; 'House on Fire', a shorter continuation of 'The Cape'; and 'Red Hair', a short sex romp only connected to the other two stories by location.
The main event is the title story, in which Akiyuki, a hulking (yet sensitive) young construction worker, lives with his mother, step-father and step-brother in a house in his hometown. As you might be able to tell from his living arrangements, his family tree is a mess, with half- and step-siblings all over the place. Preparations are under way for the memorial ceremony for Akiyuki's mother's first husband, when what is to be a time of celebration is disrupted by bloodshed - typical for the small town...
Although two fathers have been mentioned so far, neither are actually Akiyuki's biological father. That honour belongs to 'that man' (Yasu, in 'House on Fire'), a malicious wanderer with a penchant for violence and arson, a man who managed to get three women pregnant at the same time. Akiyuki and his mother want nothing to do with Yasu, and at times Akiyuki wonders how on earth his family has managed to evolve as it has:
"The mother, Yoshiko, and the brother-in-law were arranged around the futon where Mie was sitting up. Akiyuki was there. So was the boss. Yoshiko's three kids and Mie's son were upstairs. Akiyuki studied the brother-in-law, who sat there with a vacant look. It must be hard for him to even grasp how they were all connected to each other by blood. It was a strange bloodline, he thought. His sister wasn't the only odd one; the bloodline itself was off. Polluted. Just the sight of his sister clowning around he found ominous."
p.71 (Stone Bridge Press, 2008)
Afraid that his blood truly is tainted, Akiyuki tries to keep himself pure, drinking little alcohol, and avoiding sexual entanglements. However, the threat of his father's genes hangs over him like a sword of Damocles - and when he learns about a half-sister, Kumi, who works at a local brothel, things start to get even more complicated...
Nakagami's stories offer a stunning view of life in the Japan they don't want you to see. Full of sex, violence and squalor (and devoid of hope), its inhabitants have limited options, often restricted to construction work or prostitution. When life is lived in a place like this, nerves are often on edge, and minor insults lead to grudges - which can then lead to bloodshed.
A pleasant day out at the cape brings sunshine into a dreary life; however, the cape they live on is also a type of prison. Akiyuki sees it as penning the people in physically, just as the Japanese attitudes to the Burakumin closes them in metaphorically:
"The sun shone down, and it all seemed so strange to him. Everything, bathed in the same light. Everything, breathing in the same rhythm. Here, in such close quarters, they laughed, celebrated, groaned, violating and heaping abuse on one another. Even the ones most hated had a place here. The man was a good example. How many women had he reduced to tears, how many men wished him dead? The man - everybody talked about him - and Fumiaki's birth mother too - both lived in this cramped little place. It amazed him. He felt stifled. Oppressed. The land was hemmed in by mountains and rivers and the sea, and the people lived on it like insects or dogs." (p.16)
If it is a prison, it turns out to be one few people ever escape from...
'House on Fire' goes on with the story, providing details of the backstory of both Akiyuki's father and his dead half-brother, Ikuo. The story also jumps forward in time, showing how family man Akiyuki reacts when he hears about his father's impending death. In lashing out at his wife and mindlessly smashing up household furniture, he becomes what he has always dreaded - a pale imitation of his biological father, doomed by his blood.
Many reviews of 'The Cape' make a lot of the burakumin element, but I think that it would be a mistake to focus solely on this element of the story. The reality is that this sense of hopelessness (and tangled fates) is the lot of the lower-working classes in many advanced societies. While Akiyuki is stuck digging holes in the Japanese provinces, he could easily be stuck in a menial job for life in Melbourne's western suburbs or living in the backstreets of Leeds. The poverty trap is not restricted to countries where segregation and discrimination is out in the open.
In short, this is another excellent book for lovers of J-Lit. In addition to the main stories and the bonus of 'Red Hair', Eve Zimmerman provides an excellent preface and afterword, explaining Nakagami's place in modern Japanese literature and outlining how the stories fit in with the rest of his work. If you're only interested in Fuji-san and cherry blossoms, it may not be one for you. However, if you want to know more about what really goes (or went) on in Japan, you should definitely give this one a try :)
