Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I’m not even sure exactly how this one got on my list. But I guess that is what happens when you have something like 300 books on your list that have accumulated over the course of nearly ten years from a variety of sources.

Kitchen is the first novel by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto (pen name for Mahoko Yoshimoto), written in 1988. It is a fairly short novella, delightfully compact, and achingly bittersweet. Paired with this, in the English translation from 1993, is Yoshimoto’s debut short story, “Moonlight Shadow,” which is also lovely. 

Both the novel and the short story are about grief, loss, and love. In each case, the narrator, a young woman starting out in the world, loses a person close to her, and then must navigate both the trauma of the loss and complicated feelings of love. 

In Kitchen, Mikage Sakurai already lost both parents when she was very young. She was raised by her grandmother, who dies early in the story. She is essentially taken in by a friend and his mother. Except that this is no ordinary family. Yuichi Tanabe is a pretty normal young man, but his situation is unusual. His mother died of cancer a number of years back. After that, his father came to terms with his gender identity, and now lives as a woman. (Sorry about the pronouns, I couldn’t make it make sense otherwise.) So, as Yuichi says, “I’d never lived with anyone but Eriko, she was my mother, my father. Because she was always just Eriko.” 

Eriko is a kind person, with a sense of humor, and takes in Mikage as part of the family. Eventually, Mikage gets a job as a chef (hence the name), and moves out. It is devastating when she learns that Eriko has been murdered by someone who resents his attraction to a transgender woman. 

Both Mikage and Yuichi are devastated, but unsure how to grieve, how to process things. And, to top it off, they are in love with each other, but can’t even admit it to themselves. 

The high point of the novel is a midnight delivery of katsudon as a declaration of love. It’s a fantastic scene, deliciously written. 

The book is so self-contained, so delicately written, it’s a polished gem. It feels very Japanese to me, although I’m probably not much of an expert on that. The emotions are handled with care, with perception, and with grace. It really is a lovely read. 

I want to mention a couple more lines. After Eriko’s death, Mikage comes over to Yuichi’s house, and sends him out with a shopping list so she can cook for him. (That’s both her coping mechanism and part of her bond with Eriko.) 

I heard the door close, and when I was alone I realized I was dead tired. The room was so unearthly quiet, I lost all sense of time being divided into seconds. I felt that I was the only person alive and moving in a world brought to a stop. 

Houses always feel like that after someone has died. 

 And then this one, a reflection by Mikage about her co-workers and their lives. 

Those women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by “their happiness” is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That’s not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, learning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that’s great. I wouldn’t mind that kind of life. Me, when I’m utterly exhausted by it all, when my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody’s home, then I despise my own life -- my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. 

The catharsis of the ending feels so gratifying because of these earlier moments of raw grief and existential despair. 

“Moonlight Shadow” is a bit different, although it starts with a loss. Satsuki is reeling from the death of her long-time boyfriend. He died in a car crash along with his brother’s girlfriend. (Nothing scandalous about it - he was just giving her a ride.) Satsuki and the brother, Hiiragi, deal with their grief in different ways. Hiiragi wears his girlfriend’s school uniform everywhere. Satsuki takes up running (and probably anorexia as well.) Things change when Satsuki meets a mysterious woman, Urara, at the bridge where she and her boyfriend used to meet. Urara brings her to the bridge again at a certain time where they see a mystical phenomenon, and Urara, Hiiragi, and Satsuki are able to say goodbye to their beloveds. It isn’t as deep (or nearly as long) as Kitchen, but it shares the polished, bittersweet loveliness. It is possible, perhaps, to see “Moonlight Shadow” as a first draft of the themes which Kitchen would explore in more detail. 

I very much enjoyed this book, and can definitely recommend it as worth the time. Only a handful of Banana Yoshimoto’s books have been translated into English, but I may have to seek them out. 

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Confession: I actually wanted to read one of Murakami’s other books, Norwegian Wood, but our library system’s only copy had gone missing. So I went with my second choice. In any case, this is the first Murakami book I have read. Since I do not read Japanese, I read the Jay Rubin English translation. (More about this later.)

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a somewhat peculiar book. It definitely has the classical elements of Magical Realism - Murakami is considered a major figure in the Japanese version of the tradition. The story is in a modern setting, and deals mostly with real life and historical events. However, parallel to the “real” world is a supernatural, or perhaps metaphysical world which the characters inhabit. The fantastical elements run alongside the realistic ones, yet the characters seem to take the bizarre things which happen to them without much of a shock. As in most Magical Realist works, the supernatural element is never really explained. Much mystery remains.

The protagonist is Toru Okada, a rather unambitious youngish man, who is supported by his wife Kumiko. He has just quit his dead-end job, and isn’t sure what he will do next, other than search for their cat, who has disappeared. Soon, however, things start to go both wrong and crazy. Kumiko disappears, and her wealthy, powerful, and creepy older brother, Noburu, says she has had an affair and wants a divorce. But he won’t let Toru see or speak to her directly.

A psychic Kumiko hired to find the cat contacts Toru, and the psychic’s daughter alleges that Kumico’s brother violated her. Toru gets weird phone calls asking for him to have phone sex with the caller. He meets a teenage neighbor, and ends up having disconcerting discussions about death and trauma - and she helps him discover a dry well in an abandoned (and seemingly cursed) house nearby. Toru spends a couple days at the bottom of the well, and has some sort of a supernatural experience which leaves him puzzled, and also with a bizarre new birthmark on his cheek.

The old man who Kumiko’s family introduced him to - a veteran of the portion of World War Two which took place between Japan and Russia - dies and leaves Toru an empty box - delivered by a fellow veteran who tells Koru a series of harrowing stories about his role in the war.

Later, a mysterious woman sees him randomly, and recognizes his birthmark as identical to that of her father. She and her mute son recruit Toru into their psychic healing business.

Somehow, all of these are connected. The war in Manchuria, Noburu’s successful political career, Kumiko’s childhood trauma, Malta and Creta Kano (the psychic and her sister) and their stories, “Nutmeg” Akasaka and her mute son, the cat, and the cursed house. Everything fits together somehow, and Toru, who is one of the most passive heroes in literature, finds himself having to endure all of the fallout from these interconnected threads, and absorb all of the traumatic stories, before he can find his way out of the labyrinth.

Murakami uses a number of ideas, themes, and objects to tie the threads together. The title is one: a mysterious bird which sounds like the winding up of some toy or clock. Nobody ever sees it, but certain people can hear it before a momentous change in their lives - some catastrophe. It is never stated outright, but it is implied that the sound is Fate winding the gears of the universe, and that the characters are about to be carried along by events and destiny out of their control.

While the Wind-Up Bird may not be an actual bird, real birds are prevalent throughout the story, culminating in a family of ducks in the last section.

The book was originally a three volume set - and the divisions have been retained in the English version, although it is in one volume. These are, in order “The Thieving Magpie,” “The Book of the Prophesying Bird,” and “The Book of the Bird-Catcher Man.” Classical Music fans will recognize at least two of the references. The first is obviously Rossini’s opera, the overture of which figures prominently in the narrative. (Toru is a fan of classical, as is the mute man, and music runs throughout the book.) The last is a reference to Mozart’s opera, Die Zauberflöt, specifically to Papageno, the bird-catcher. The middle one is much more obscure, and I had to look it up. It references a set of piano pieces by Schumann, Waldszenen, “Forest Scenes,” which has a movement entitled “Bird as Prophet.” There are many more references that tie in with the mood or theme or character at a particular time. Apparently Murakami does this in his other books as well. For a Classical buff, the book is a bit of an easter egg hunt.

There are themes that run through the book too. Alienation is definitely the core idea. Toru becomes increasingly isolated as time passes. After his marriage, his life revolves around her. With the loss of his job and her departure, he sees very few people - and nobody really “normal,” in the usual sense. In the central turning points in the story, he intentionally isolates himself in the dry well, depriving himself of sensory stimulation in an attempt to access the metaphysical realm and push through the labyrinth that holds him.

Desire and power are also central to the book. Neither is viewed as particularly good, as both result in sickening results. Ultimately, however, Toru has to go beyond his default passivity and find the power in himself to seek his desire: to have Kumiko back.

Even objects end up connecting the threads. The cat is to a degree a metaphor for the life which Toru and Kumiko have built together, but it also connects the characters, and finds a parallel in the big cats at the zoo who are killed by the soldiers on the eve of invasion. A baseball bat connects a rebellion by Chinese troops, a murder in a Soviet gulag, an fight between Toru and a mysterious musician and magician, and a metaphysical confrontation between Toru and Noburu. Clothes take on significance. Baseball uniforms, military uniforms, a garish red hat, anachronistic fashions, Toru’s slovenly outfits, Nutmeg’s impeccable outfits, a dress at the dry cleaners, Kumiko’s abandoned clothes - all of these take on a significance in the plot.

The well too becomes a theme. The old man mentions a well to Toru, Lt. Mamiya nearly dies in one in Mongolia, and Toru must find his epiphanies there as well. The past and the present become less distinct as the book goes on.

It is difficult in any translated work to know exactly how much of the writing is that of the author, and how much the translator. Certainly, translation is an art of itself - and translation is by definition interpretation. Disentangling the work from its translation is perhaps an impossible task for those of us who are unable to read the work in the original. However, I think it is fair to say that the writing is excellent, which probably means that both Murakami and Rubin write well. I found the language enjoyable, the metaphors surprising yet fitting, and the mystery baffling. Despite its 600 page length, it seemed to go quickly.

I do have one quibble with the translation, however. Apparently, under orders from the publisher, Rubin cut about 60 pages from the book. You can find a summary of the missing material on Wikipedia - and you should definitely read that after you read the book. I really wish that the cuts had not been made. While you can guess at what is missing, it would have been nice to have had some of those gaps filled in. Just as one example, the story mentions that the cursed house was torn down - but the scene in which May and Toru watch it come down is omitted. In any event, I am irritated that financial constraints led to an unfortunate alteration of the author’s intended art.

Despite this, the book was enjoyable. Let me quote the opening, which is excellent.

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

There were a couple of other lines that I can’t resist quoting. One was from Lt. Mayima’s narrative of the war, specifically the run-up to hostilities.

Taking Outer Mongolia would amount to sticking a knife in the guts of the Soviets’ development of Siberia. Imperial Headquarters back in Tokyo might be trying to put the brakes on, but this was not an opportunity that the ambitious Kwantung Army General Staff was about to let slip from their fingers. The result would be no mere border dispute but a full-scale war between the Soviet Union and Japan. If such a war broke out on the Manchurian-Soviet border, Hitler might respond by invading Poland or Czechoslovakia.

Wait, what?! It is always fascinating to see a completely different perspective on an event that you think you understand. I mean, Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia and invaded Poland and that started the war, right? Well, not from the Japanese perspective. With the American-centric, or perhaps Euro-centric point of view we learn our history from, the entry of Japan into World War Two is often an afterthought at best. But the world was indeed a powder keg in the aftermath of the first world war, between the humiliation of Germany and the crumbling remains of the Colonialist European empires, Japan saw a chance to become a world power - and go after longstanding enemies in China and Russia.

A note here may be appropriate: while this book isn’t non-stop horror (like, say The Garlic Ballads), there are some gruesome scenes of violence in this book, mostly centering on the war. Nobody is innocent either. The Japanese, Mongolians, Chinese, and Soviets are all brutal and horrifically cruel, given the upper hand. Fortunately, these scenes are brief. Still, they may stick with you more than you wish. Murakami makes a pretty solid argument for the stupidity of war. One might even say that residual collective guilt and trauma from the war reach into the present in this story in so many ways, the book might be said to be about that as much as the other themes.

Another fascinating line came in a series of letters which May (the teenager) writes to Toru, who never receives them. In one, she muses on the question of causality - she is basically David Hume, seeing no reason why the world should be logical or make sense. This is in contrast to her parents.

Those people believe that the world is as consistent and explainable as the floor plan of a new house in a high-prosed development, so if you do everything in a logical, consistent way, everything will turn out right in the end. That’s why they get upset and sad and angry when I’m not like that.

This one hits a bit close to home - I mean, the whole point of cults like the one my parents joined is go guarantee results. Follow the formula, and you are guaranteed things will turn out like promised. But the world isn’t like that - reality isn’t like that. And, despite being a definite Order Muppet (if you don’t get the reference, here is Dahlia Lithwick’s classic work on the topic), the order of MY life - and of my family - doesn’t fit. And that has, alas, caused a certain amount of upset and sad and angry.

The final line I want to mention is another one from Lt. Mayima’s story (which is told in pieces throughout the book.) He ends up involved with a ruthless Soviet prisoner with ties to the Secret Police, who advises him that if he wants to get out of the Gulag alive, he should avoid imagination. However, evil and cruel and loathsome this man is, he has a pretty good grasp on the realities of Stalinism. Marx had ideas, Lenin took a few of them and used them for power, while Stalin, who had little understanding of either, used what he grasped to multiply his own power. But here is the killer line:

The narrower a man’s intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab in this country.

Damn. How true is that in our own country (and throughout much of the West) these days? That someone as ignorant and intellectually challenged as Trump could leverage a combination of general stupidity and incompetence with brilliant demagoguery into power is sad, but perhaps shouldn’t be surprising.

This line comes very near the end of the book, and it serves, to a degree, as inspiration to Toru. For much of the book, he has been puzzled by the psychic’s description of him and Noboru as polar opposites, as inhabiting different metaphysical worlds. It is Noboru’s obsession with power and glory which makes him an empty vessel, not really human, but reflecting what the demos wants to see. Although this book was written in the mid 1990s, Noboru seems to be a familiar popularist/nationalist sort. In contrast, Toru’s passivity and lack of ambition is his strength. He in his own way has to become an empty vessel himself to allow his true self to repossess himself, if that makes any sense.

One final thing I thought I might mention regards the criticism of Murakami from within the Japanese literary world. He has been accused of being “too Western” - or “not Japanese enough,” whatever that means. I am hardly equipped to resolve that question - although Murakami sure has sold a lot of books in Japan, not just abroad. What I can say is that to me at least, his writing has more in common with other Japanese or Japanese-born authors I have read than with, say, British or American authors. Sure, there is a difference between his writing and that of Junichiro Tanizaki (who Murakami cites as an influence) - but no more so than between a contemporary Brit and, say, E. M. Forster. I saw striking similarities in themes and styles between Murakami and Ishiguro as well. Whatever the case, I find such distinctions as silly as the dispute between the fans of Borodin and Tchaikovsky over who was more authentically “Russian.” Good music is good music, and good writing is good writing. Murakami writes well, and this book was good. I definitely want to read more.

***

Music, because of course.

 Rossini is fun to play - this one is a staple of youth orchestras for that reason.

Schumann is underrated in my opinion. Even if the Scherzo in his 2nd Symphony is proof he hated the 1st violins.




And, of course, Papageno's aria:



True story here: for years, the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra did an annual opera concert, where we had soloists associated with USC come up and do a concert version. (Recitatives replaced by narration, no sets, but usually costumes.) We haven't done this in a few years - I wish we could do them again, because they were a ton of fun, and my kids liked them. (Particularly Don Giovanni - go figure...)

Anyway, something like 15 years ago, we did The Magic Flute. The part of Tamino was sung by Kevin Courtemanche (he was a regular in our productions for a number of years.) He is a fine singer - I particularly remember "La Donna e Mobile" as a fine performance of his. But, I confess that as Tamino, during the scene when the maidens find him sleeping and extol his extreme beauty and manliness, it was really hard to keep from laughing. It wasn't his fault, of course - it is the injustice of the universe that short guys with bald heads get no romantic respect. (And, let's be honest, The Magic Flute is almost as silly as Cosi Fan Tutte...except it is trying so hard to be serious. Unintentional comedy factor: very high.) Anyway, this brought back memories of those good times. Kevin Courtemanche, if you somehow run across this post, here's a hello from Bakersfield, California. It was a pleasure making music with you back in the day. All the best.

Manzanar National Historic Site

This post is part of my series on the National Park System. One of my goals while the kids are still at home is to visit as many of the National Parks and Monuments in the Western United States as we can.

Although I am proud to be an American, I am ashamed of a number of events in our past, where we acted, not from our best selves, but from fear and prejudice. Manzanar National Historic Site commemorates one of those shameful decisions.

For those unfamiliar with the history, during World War II, the United States Government rounded up about 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent - including many who had been here for generations - and placed them in concentration camps. They lost their property, businesses, connections, and much more. While these camps were not German-style extermination devices, they were nothing less than prisons where men, women, and children were incarcerated for who they were. Without due process. Without a trial. Without even an accusation that they had done anything wrong. Just because they or their ancestors came from Japan at some time in the past. Fully two thirds of those interned were born in the United States and were either second, third, or later generations of Americans.

There were ten camps throughout the United States, two of which were located here in California.

In summer of 2015, the kids and I visited Manzanar National Historic Site, one of the camps in California. It is located in the Owens Valley, in the desert on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The location is striking, with Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states just to the southwest. The mountains rise 10,000 feet above the valley and provide a dramatic backdrop. But it is hot and windy in the summer, cold and windy in the winter, and let’s not sugarcoat this: this was a prison where children were incarcerated.

Manzanar is a shell of what it once was, of course. At its peak, it held over 10,000 people in wood-and-tar-paper barracks organized in identical square blocks with mess hall, bathrooms, and laundry facilities. Most of the barracks were dismantled and the materials sold off after the war. Only a few are left - mostly reconstructed rather than original. One mess hall remains, and some of the administration building, which houses the museum. You can drive around the site, though, and explore what is left of the gardens that the inmates constructed, and see some of the foundations. There is also a memorial at the site of the graveyard, of which little remains. The families of the dead generally relocated the remains of their loved ones after the war. Who would want to be buried at the prison where one died? A guard tower and the entrance guard stations also remain, built of stone rather than wood. You can see the site pretty well from Highway 395, and we had driven by on the way to various destinations on the east side of the Sierra.

The museum is excellent. I was also thoroughly impressed by the Junior Ranger program here. It is not at all easy, and requires a lot of legwork to find answers within the museum and on the grounds. The amount of information that the kids discovered and learned was better than many history courses.

My eldest daughter (age 12 at the time) was deeply moved by what she learned - and by the video interviews of the survivors. My second daughter was inspired to read Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, a memoir of time spent imprisoned in this camp. There is such horror and sadness in being told to leave everything you know with only those few possessions you can carry with little notice, and travel to goodness knows where, to be imprisoned. And it affected my kids. (And me, of course, even though I was more familiar with the story before we visited.)

At the time we made our visit, we could not have know that the nominee of one of the two major parties for the office of the President of the United States would speak favorably of the internment camps and use them as justification for harassment and exclusion - violation of the constitutional rights of - another minority group. Worse yet, polls of those supporting this man indicate a majority believe the internment camps were appropriate. That is the most scary part about this: that one of the shameful episodes in our history is just shrugged at by so many.

Hindsight, of course, has shown several things. First, it turns out that there was really no evidence that Japanese Americans were a threat. It was - like it always is - hysteria, prejudice, and a desire to harm “the enemy” however one can. Japanese Americans - like Muslim Americans today - were part of their communities. They ran businesses, held jobs, sent their children to school, laughed, loved, lived in peace with their neighbors. Today, there are around 3.3 million Muslims living in America. And like the Japanese Americans 75 years ago, the vast majority are no threat whatsoever. Believe it or not, Muslims are the second most educated religious group in the United States - and that includes women. (Jews are the most educated.) Despite the stereotypes, 90% of Muslims believe women should be allowed to work out outside the home. (That’s a heck of a lot higher percentage than Christians - particularly the fundamentalists I grew up around.) Like the Japanese Americans of 75 years ago, they are part of our community, deserve better than the hostility and harassment they often receive.

The story of Manzanar and Japanese American internment is a cautionary tale for us. When we give in to fear and hate of the “other,” those not like us, we find that we are capable of great evil. Evil we claim (falsely) that we are not capable of. But we are. We very much are. Even those of us with more progressive views on race. After all, it was Earl Warren and Franklin Roosevelt who supported internment - not their finest moments, to say the least. But this election has brought out the (mostly) dormant forces of xenophobia and racial hatred as a certain major candidate has run on a platform of hate and exclusion, blaming our problems on those other, darker skinned people with different religious views. And yes, that includes suspicion of Catholics. The “Know Nothings” appear to be alive and well again. It’s raw tribalism - and it is driven by fear now just like it was back then.

And like it was in the 1940s, fear leads to bad decisions, and these decisions cause great suffering to innocent people. Men, women, and children.

One more fact both saddens me and gives me hope. The United States took a really, really long time to acknowledge that internment was wrong. One would have thought there might have been an apology within a few years. Not so. In fact, it took more than forty years - when many survivors were already dead. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a law that paid survivors the grand total of $20,000 for each survivor. That’s not much for four years of one’s live, loss of property and businesses, and all that, is it? In 1990, President George Bush would send formal apology letters. (see pictures below)

But, as many survivors have said, the lesson to take from this horrible mistake is that we should purpose that it never happen again. At one time, I might have thought we had learned that lesson. Now, I realize that for a significant portion of the United States population, this lesson has not been learned, and they would be all too eager to repeat it, regardless of the cost to the victims.

As a homeschooling father and as a decent person, I am doing my best to educate my own children about our history, both good and bad. I am also trying to instill in them a sense of empathy, of understanding the experiences of others, and of always placing themselves in the shoes of others before taking action out of fear. In our world today, this is needed as much as ever.

Therefore, I urge my readers: take your kids to Manzanar or another camp and learn about the real life consequences of fear and hate. The future will thank you.

***

George Takei, who played Sulu on the original Star Trek series, was interned in one of the camps as a child. Here is a portion of an interview he gave about his experience there.

If you can’t make it to Manzanar, the website is a good place to start learning. If you are in the Los Angeles area, the Japanese American Museum also has a permanent exhibit on internment.

***

Pictures:

Graveyard Memorial

 This exhibit profoundly moved me. Some family, limited to those possessions they could carry, chose to bring a Koto. As a musician, my violin would have come with me too. No question. 

For more about the Koto, see my review of Seven Japanese Tales. 

Racism was an issue long before WWII. The internment camps were a symptom of a deeper problem. 

Inside and out of the barracks. No privacy, to say the least. 

My eldest daughter in the kitchen of the Mess Hall. Food was pretty gross and not at all culturally appropriate most of the time, but at least the inmates didn't starve. Which is faint praise indeed. 

The remains of one of the gardens. 

Guard Tower

 

Euphemisms. This is from the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles

 

Back in the day when the GOP could acknowledge wrongs without blowback.

Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Tanizaki is considered one of the foremost Japanese writers. I had originally intended to read The Makioka Sisters, which is considered his best - or at least most popular work. However, I ended up with this collection of short stories and novellas. Probably because I felt I was due for a short story collection, and it looked interesting. In any case, the seven tales are unique enough, I will adopt my past approach of discussing each separately.

The stories range from 1910 (“The Tattooer”) to 1959 (The Bridge of Dreams), so they represent the full sweep of Tanizaki’s career. They also cover both of his most “signature” of themes: destructive sexual obsession and the difficulty of adapting to social change.

Tanizaki lived from 1886 to 1965, a time of significant change in Japan - and indeed around the world. A generation before his birth, Japan had gone from an insular, isolationist, and feudal state to one reluctantly engaged with the outside world. Concurrently with this change, the patchwork feudal rule of the shoguns gave way to a more modern, centralized government, one which would eventually adopt the colonialist mindset of the European states of the Victorian Era.

While my knowledge of Japanese culture is pretty limited, one thing that has struck me from what I have read is the tendency to sublimate anxiety and distress into both rigid social formality and a form of sexual disfunction. (Google “imaginary girlfriends in Japan” if you want to go down just one rabbit hole. Or, if you are really brave, read Seth Stevenson’s bit on the Japanese Id.)  Even the cartoons aimed at children have some interesting psychological implications. I’ll just mention Castle in the Sky, which is ample proof that Japan is very much not over being the only victim of nuclear weapons. (To be fair, the US has its own issue which it is definitely not over, and about which we Americans - particularly white Evangelicals - are in deep denial, namely slavery and the Civil War.)

That said, these stories are (even in translation) an intriguing window into a culture which is both recognizably human, and significantly different from our own.

A Portrait of Shunkin

I’m not sure whether to call this a short story or a novella. It is a bit long to be a short story, and it has a longer narrative arc than one would expect from that genre. But it is still pretty short, so it feels almost too brief to really be a novella.

The story is told by an unnamed narrator researching the life of Shunkin, a blind musician and teacher, whose unorthodox relationship with her servant and lover illustrates the old ideas of one’s place in society.

As a little girl, Shunkin becomes blind. Because she belongs to a wealthy family, she is coddled and given every advantage. Sasuke is a little older, but he is from a lower class, a son of a merchant. The two apparently fall in love - although the way she treats him seems too cruel for love. (The cruel and beautiful woman is a common character in Tanizaki.) However, because of the class difference, they refuse to marry. They have several children together - which are sent for adoption and never acknowledged. Yet they live in a weird relationship limbo. Clearly, they are lovers, in a way. And yet, outside the privacy of the bedroom, they maintain the appearance of master and servant. He remains as deferent and humiliated as ever, while she appears appropriately dominant and imperial.

I won’t give away the twist at the end, but the degree of devotion that Sasuke has is truly astounding.

This story is intriguing both for the cultural aspect and for the tension between social hierarchy and sexual frisson. By the time Tanizaki wrote this, the old social roles were already breaking down, and a marriage between the two would have been more possible - and far less “humiliating.” Even in the time where the story is set, a marriage would have been possible - Shunkin’s parents attempt to convince the two to marry. But they themselves find it unthinkable.

Tanizaki makes the whole question even more ambiguous by his narrative choice. The scholar is attempting to piece together the truth, acknowledging that his main source is, of necessity, the biography that Sasuke wrote of Shunkin. This work is so clearly biased, it is really a hagiography of Shunkin, and doesn’t ever give Sasuke himself the slightest credit. The narrator has to rely on other sources as to the truth of Sasuke’s own musical genius. There are multiple perspectives, therefore, and one must - like the narrator - attempt to piece together the truth - or at least something like the truth - from the information available.

I am inclined to think that this is the best of the stories for that reason, but that is no knock on the others.

“Terror”

This one is clearly a short story, as it is a mere ten pages. It is a look inside the head of a man who has an irrational terror of trains and other engine-driven forms of transportation. It is therefore the most “modern” setting of these stories, although it is also one of the earliest. (1913) In some ways, it is almost like the nightmare version of Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” The narrator of this story isn’t escaping the dull reality of his life into exciting fantasy. Instead, he keeps slipping into the horror of an inescapable nightmare, the only result of which will be death. Even drunkenness cannot dull the terror enough for him to function. It’s a lot contained in a short space, but it is quite effective.

The Bridge of Dreams

This is another novella-length story. It is also a truly bizarre and disturbing tale with a strong resemblance to Oedipus. The narrator’s father loses his wife and then marries a woman who seems to be an almost exact replacement for his first wife - and expects his son to treat her as such. And then, it is strongly implied, take his father’s place after his death.

Along the way, there are extended descriptions of older Japanese traditions, from the “water mortar” to the tea ceremony, to the idyllic life on a garden estate. 

It is the juxtaposition of the idyll and the memories of childhood with the creepy (and mostly implied, rather than stated) quasi-sexual incestuous relationship that makes the story so disturbing.

“The Tattooer”

This is another short story, one of the earliest of Tanizaki’s works. The titular character is a true craftsman in the art of Japanese tattoos.  (I flipped through a book on this during a visit earlier this year to the Japanese American National Museum. It’s an interesting art form.)

In this story, the artist is obsessed with finding the perfect female body on which to display his finest art. When he finds her, he drugs her and tattoos her while she is unconscious. When she awakes, she tells him, “Giving me your soul must have made me very beautiful.”

Another story that is pretty disturbing on a certain level. It isn’t just the rape metaphor, but the way that she indeed embraces the sucking of his soul as she becomes the femme fatale he imagines - or perceives - her to be. In a bare minimum of words, Tanizaki draws you in, and then messes with your head. Outstanding writing, discomfiting result.

“The Thief”

This is another story which messes with one’s head. But perhaps in a less lurid manner. The narrator is a boy at a boarding school. He is the one from the poor family who feels he doesn’t fit in, but desperately wants to. Someone at the school has been stealing things, and the narrator’s nemesis seems to imply it is the narrator. The narrator claims innocence, but seems to feel guilt at merely being suspected. Eventually, internalizes this guilt to the point that he becomes a thief. Or was he the thief all along? It is unclear. This is another glimpse into the honor culture of Japan (and most other feudal societies), where shame is the great motivator, and it better to die by one’s own hand than to feel the weight of disgrace.

“Aguri”

Another short story about a neurotic individual. Okada is a reasonably well-off man who has taken on a courtesan as his girlfriend. His obsession with her has led to him neglecting his own health (including what is probably diabetes). As he fades, he tries ever more to make her fulfil his fantasies of her. She is presumably a typically shallow girl, happy to be spoiled by her sugar daddy. In any case, she says little to nothing, and is as much window dressing in this story. His imagination of her as some transcendent being mixes with his fear of his own death - and excuses his own contribution to his decline.

One interesting cultural bit is the way that Okada wishes to see Aguri dressed in “Western” clothing, which - to him at least - reveals the sensuousness of her body in a way that traditional Japanese dress does not. Considering that this was written in 1922, and set in the pre-war decades, it is hard not to feel amused. Particularly when one considers that the Japanese fashions of the same time period were considered sensual to Western sensibilities. I guess the lure of the “exotic” is erotic, regardless of the specifics.

A Blind Man’s Tale

This one is a true novella, telling of an entire sequence of events, and the history of a particular feudal dynasty. In fact, this tale is historical fiction, a retelling of the history of Japan in the 1500s, when Oda Nobunaga initiated the unification of Japan during the Sengoku period. 

The titular “blind man” is the blind servant who tells the tale, late in his life, after just about everyone else involved has been murdered, committed suicide, or died in battle.

I strongly suspect that this story would have been more thrilling had I known the history - or better yet, known the history as that of my own country and thus personally identified with it. Since I was unfamiliar with the events, and had a hard time really caring who all the characters were, I found it a bit tedious at times. On the other hand, this story is an intriguing look into the realities of the feudalism of the times, and the tenuous hold that power had on its domains - and even life itself.

It was jarring to read of the need for each of the defeated parties to commit ritual suicide when defeat was imminent. And even worse to see the brutality which followed. An example early in the story is when the victor tricks the wife of the defeated into revealing the location of her infant son. The heir is summarily whacked, and his head varnished and displayed on a stake. Ah, the good old days…

The other notable reality of life in those times (and feudal times in general) is that peace was an anomaly. At best, it lasted for a few years, but alliances crumbled, nobody trusted anyone, and preemptive murder was pretty much the winning strategy all around. Honor culture, battle glory, and senseless brutality all around. But “men were men” in those days, right?

I am definitely interested in reading The Makioka Sisters now. Tanizaki’s writing is compelling and delightfully descriptive, if a bit disturbing at times. These stories opened a unique world, where the familiar and the exotic come together much like the past and present in Tanizaki’s own world.

Musical note:

Two traditional Japanese instruments regularly appear in these stories. The first is the koto, which is considered (according to Tanizaki) to be the more mainstream, easier instrument. It is what all the upper class women are expected to be able to play. In contrast, the samisen is considered finicky, difficult, and something that only the true musician can master. As such, this instrument is played by both men and women, wealthy and poor, in the stories. It is used to communicate secret codes, express the inexpressible, and distinguish between the merely charming and those who hold deep wells of expression.

One might draw the Western equivalent of the piano and the violin. (I’m totally prejudiced here, of course!) The Victorian young woman of class was expected to know her way around the piano enough to sing and entertain others. But few would take the time and effort to become a true string virtuoso. But, like in the case of the koto and samisen, the true master of either the piano or the strings transcends the stereotype of the instrument - a fact of which Tanizaki was well aware, as evidenced by the prominent role music plays in his stories.

A couple of things about the koto: first, it is related to a number of similar instruments common throughout Asia. My first exposure to one of these was at a phenomenal Thai restaurant in the Thai Town section of Los Angeles. http://thaipatio.menutoeat.com/ (Best Tom Yum Gai anywhere…) One evening there, a young lady played this instrument, demonstrating its ability to play tunes of every genre, Eastern and Western.

The other bit I wanted to mention was our visit this year to Manzanar, one of the internment camps we shipped Japanese Americans to during World War II. (I hope to blog about this at some point.) They have a beautiful koto there, as an example of what a few prisoners took to the camp.

Anyway, here are some examples of each instrument.