I admit, I bought this for the cover, which could easily be me with shorter hair and a mustache. I know nothing about Tsuge or his reputation aside frI admit, I bought this for the cover, which could easily be me with shorter hair and a mustache. I know nothing about Tsuge or his reputation aside from what I gleaned from the essay at the end. Without that, it would be easy to write this off as yet another autobiographical comic about a mostly-worthless dude obsessing over his own worthlessness, crushed dreams, and sexual obsessions, but there is a little more here. For one thing, we're seeing a portrait of poverty in Japan, and not like salt-of-the-earth rural poverty, but urban poverty, people who have crashed out of the middle class, seem disconnected from any kind of family support, and seem to survive on a small trickle of luck. It's not a Japan that I've seen in much manga, though my exposure to manga is certainly lacking breadth.
For another, Sukegawa (Tsuge's stand-in protagonist) lives with his wife and child, and while they are not favorably depicted, they are also not elided, nor are they footnotes. They aggravate him, but they're also a part of how Sukegawa sees himself, ever-present, tightly bound to his guilt. Women characters are not quite equitably portrayed here, but their justifiable anger is present, at least.
Also, aside from the first chapter, most of the book explores other characters in the village, from the other rock peddlers (who seem, if anything, even more eccentric than Sukegawa), to flea market junk dealers, to bird trappers both mercantile and mythological. While clearly motivated by the kind of egomania that drives anyone to autobiography, it's far from his only drive (thankfully), and these portraits are fun, sometimes pointed, and, especially in the case of his wife, complicated.
It's also hard not to think of Jenny O'Dell's How To Do Nothing and the iceberg of thought that sits atop. While Sukegawa isn't specifically escaping capitalism, he does seem to deliberately opt out of extrinsic notions of value. Even though he's constantly hustling for the most obvious form of extrinsic value (money) his absurd failures to earn any derive from his complete, perhaps willful ignorance of what other people want to buy. He seems exasperated that people don't share his internal obsessions (rocks, old cameras, poets who care for nothing but hard drinking and hot springs), at least not to the point of shelling out a few yen.
The art was a shock after reading that Toppi collection. Tsuge's style is loose, sometimes bordering on sloppy, but totally different than most other manga artists. Many of his landscapes show the kind of detailed draftsmanship that so often sets Japanese comics apart from American ones, but they're few and far between. I want to say his style reminds me more of American indies, but I'm struggling to think of which ones specifically. My partner just suggested Tomine, but Tsuge's WAY less spare than that. Something to think about.
I would gladly read more. Despite the lack of published translations, it looks like the Internet has significantly more, including this collection by someone named Sonny Liew....more
Picked this up on a whim at Isotope and was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I don't know too much about Japanese cooking so the basic ovPicked this up on a whim at Isotope and was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I don't know too much about Japanese cooking so the basic overviews were very helpful. The Yamaoka / Kaibara conflict was amusingly absurd, and the values articulated and implied were interesting, e.g. a cosmopolitain appreciation for the qualities in cuisines from all places, but also a very specific and rigid definition of what is right and wrong in Japanese cuisine. Female characters were almost exclusively accessories, with the exception of Kurita's contributions in the last chapter, so take that for what you will. It's also interesting that while they harped on the excellence of the simple basic elements, they never seemed address how the characters eat on a day to day basis. Where do they go out for lunch? What's a weeknight dinner look like? They do go out to lunch at a cafeteria-style place in once scene, but it's not clear if this is typical, and most of the scene is devoted to Yamaoka berating a co-worker for eating nori incorrectly and not on the quality of the dishes or who prepared them. Is the food good? How do dishes and standards vary from day-to-day meals like this to the celebratory feasts or quintessential experiences that constitute most of the meals in the book?
Much to criticize, but much to enjoy too. I'm glad to have a new-to-me manga series I can look for at comic shops now! ...more
Good fun on the plane, but I'm pretty sure I will have forgotten all the characters by the time I feel like reading the next one.Good fun on the plane, but I'm pretty sure I will have forgotten all the characters by the time I feel like reading the next one....more
Featuring considerably less historical detail and analysis than I was expecting, this is a straight-up travelogue by a Brit who worries about blistersFeaturing considerably less historical detail and analysis than I was expecting, this is a straight-up travelogue by a Brit who worries about blisters after two hours, but it's none the worse for it. Carey is a fun, goofy kind of guy to follow around, and he does drop the occasional historical nugget (e.g. there is a mountain in Japan called Fudesute, which means "thrown brushes", alluding to an incident in which the artist Kano Motonobu threw aside his brushes when he could not capture the beauty of the mountain).
The book suffers from what seems like a miserly publisher's foible: the Hiroshige prints and few accompanying modern photos are all on sequential pages, which quickly get out of sync with the text, forcing the reader to either flip back and forth or just ignore the contextual imagery. The prints are exquisite, and since Carey is trying to revisit the site of each one, he is constantly referring to them. No fault of the author, I'm sure, but frustrating all the same.
It's amazing how friendly the Japanese seem to be. As a Westerner who can speak Japanese I guess Carey is kind of a novelty, but it seemed amazing that people were constantly inviting him into their homes and offering him gifts. I doubt a Japanese professor wandering the American countryside would receive the same reception....more
This was a text in a class on modern Japanese history (from the Meiji Restoration to the present). It's one of the few texts that I still keep with meThis was a text in a class on modern Japanese history (from the Meiji Restoration to the present). It's one of the few texts that I still keep with me, mostly because it's small, but also because it's a well-written summation of an area I know almost nothing about. I just picked it up the other day to check some facts from The Thousand Autumns of Nathan de Zoet. Turns out there really were Christian rebellions in 17th century Japan (the book also has some summary of pre-Meiji material)!...more
**spoiler alert** I've spent a week reading this very fine novel and a weekend attempting to unpack it, and I have little doubt I'll spend a good few **spoiler alert** I've spent a week reading this very fine novel and a weekend attempting to unpack it, and I have little doubt I'll spend a good few years thinking about it from time to time. If one measure of a novel is its ability to simultaneously inspire and confound engagement, then Mitchell has once again turned it up to 11.
Most of the reviews I've been reading have remarked that this is Mitchell's most formally conventional novel (linear, third-person narrative), and that his often scintillating prose has been burnished to a more muted lustre, and for the most part these are accurate. There's less showmanship here, without any reduction in finesse. But in all Mitchell's novels, messages hide within the virtuosity, and this book's lack of embellishment brings them a little closer to the surface. We are tantalized with recurrent themes, unexplained symbols, ties between distant story lines (indeed, between entire novels!), and I've been having a hell of a time trying to reconstruct it all into some kind of meaning.
The reviews that have helped bring some coherence to my thoughts, though, are those by the Irish Times and the Times of London, both of which point out the importance of bridging divides between people, cultures, worlds. Dejima is a bridge between Europe and Japan. Its denizens are interpreters, tradesmen, and scientists, all disciplines that form bridges between people (language, goods, knowledge). Characters constantly bridge the gap between each other and between them and the reader by recounting their backstories in Scooby-Doo-esque wavy-screened flashbacks. Jacob and Uzaemon are united by books, and later by Orito. Jacob and Orito by love, letters, and language. Marinus and his Japanese colleagues by medicine and botany.
Dejima, like other frontiers, is also a crucible for morality, and we are constantly reminded of what can befall those who fail to bridge divides and continue to see other people and cultures as entirely alien. Corruption is rampant, as well as infidelity. The Dutch and the Japanese habitually try to cheat each other, just as they play and betray their own countrymen. Slavery and subjugation are implicitly and explicitly addressed again and again (like in Cloud Atlas).
It was interesting to me that there were very clear-cut Good Guys and Bad Guys. The Good Guys (de Zoet, Orito, Marinus, Uzaemon) are all truth-seekers of sorts. Jacob crunches numbers and uncovers corruption. Orito and Marinus are scientists. Uzaemon studies the true meaning of words. They all also have internal, non-relativistic moral codes that burn just as brightly on foreign soil as at home, and allow them to recognize kindred fires abroad. Jacob standing on the watch tower, or Marinus decrying the beating of a slave. Orito choosing to save others despite her imprisonment, and Uzaemon abandoning his steady, obedient life to destroy the temple.
The Bad Guys (Enomoto, Vorstenbosch, Capt. Lacy, Fischer) are universally self-interested, and view others as stepping stones, chattel, or even food. Enomoto is a bit of a mystery to me, though. He's a mustache-twirling, finger-tenting immortal super villain who has magic powers and eats babies. In a thoroughly researched, realistic historical novel, he kind of stands out. I suspect that aside from entertainment, his presence and exit are actually meant to demonstrate what evil is *not*. He's the only bad guy who gets his comeuppance, as if the only evils that can be truly vanquished are the imaginary ones. As Grote says, "'Tain't good intentions what paves the road to hell: it's self-justifyin's" (p. 104), and as Enomoto himself says, "Evil, evil evil. You always wield that word as if it were a sword and not a vapid conceit" (p. 309). Evil is not discrete or separate, nor can it be nicely excised. All the more human transgressors survive, even prosper.
Anyway, those are the things that seem to make sense to me about this novel.
Here are a few things that don't:
What the hell was up with the constant interruption of quotes?! For example:
'Chief van Cleef,' Fischer calls after him, 'and I shall discuss your insolence!' 'It's a long way,' Ivo Oost smokes in a doorway, 'down to the bottom...' 'It is my signature,' Fischer shouts after him, 'that authorizes your wages!' (p. 166)
The majority of quotes are written this way. In an unknown author, I might attribute this to a weird lexical tick, but Mitchell is a careful, meticulous writer capable of adopting many different voices and styles, so I think this has to be intentional. But what does it mean? I'm guessing the form has some relation to Japanese literature or poetry, but I don't know enough to make a connection.
Mitchell also repeatedly employs this weird interleaving of interior and exterior monologue. An example from the Phoebus, as Cpt. Penhaligon listens to a sermon:
'"And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared..."' The common run of chaplains is either too meek for so unruly a flock... '"...and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved..."' ...or else, so zealous that the sailors ignore, scorn or vilify them. '"...was then taken away. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth...'" Chaplain Wily, an oysterman's son from Whistable, is a welcome exception. (p. 328)
These passages are almost unreadable. Perhaps they are there both to contrast truth as thought and truth as communicated (the bridge), and to demonstrate how utterly discordant the two can be.
Animals: a moth witnesses birth at the start, and a butterfly witnesses death at the finish. Orito speaks to cats and rats in moments of drug-induced madness, and William Pitt the monkey bears witness to the tribulations on Dejima. Nature does not play an overt role in this book (or in any Mitchell novel?), but natural elements seem be deliberately included. Simply mneomnic rigging, or is there more explicit allegory at play?
And finally, my notes.
puerperal (adj): adj form of puerpera, a woman who has just given birth. (p. 8)
yakumoso (n): a bit of searching of suggests this is some member of the genus Leonurus, maybe Leonurus japonicus. Apparently it's commonly used in Asian folk medicine, just as the related motherwort is used in European folk medicine. As with so many folk remedies, it seems to treat just about everything, though there apparently are some papers about antimicrobial properties.
farrago (n): hodgepodge, mixture. (p. 11)
carrack (n): a kind of merchant ship. (p. 15)
"The pain is prismatic." (p. 45) I kind of hate it when authors employ literally floral language when describing pain (delicate pain, pain blossoming, etc). I like "prismatic."
provedore (n): a purveyor or provider? How do they relate to stevedores? Prove gives the hard tack to Steve and Steve loads it onto the boat? Why isn't anyone named "Prove"? Why?! (p. 56)
"Deflate your testicles comme à la mode: via the village pimp or Sin of Onan." (p. 58). Sadly, it doesn't take much to make me laugh. As usual, though, the Bible is funnier: "And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also" (Genesis 38:10). Old Testament God held no truck with half-assed punishment like mere blindness!
glister (n):alternate spelling of "clyster," which is an archaic term for an enema (had to rely on Wikipedia for the alternate orthography, but "clyster" is in my abbreviated OED). This scene is both horrid and hilarious. I love Dr. Marinus. (p. 66)
dithyrambic (adj): a dithyramb was a form a Greek song and dance involving a large group of men and boys dancing in a circle. Apparently it had a unique meter, but not sure what it was. (p. 69)
chandler (n): candle-maker. (p. 100)
splenetic (adj): pertaining to the spleen, irritable. (p. 109)
langer (n): apparently an all-purpose disparagement in County Cork, Ireland. Wikipedia and this page have interesting perspectives on the history of the word (as does this performance of The Langer Song!). If the east Indian simian etymology is correct, though, Con Twomey would have been a bit ahead of his time in speaking it, despite being a Corkman. (p. 111)
bourse (n): an exchange or market. (p. 114)
monorchid (n): a man with only one testicle. Let me take a moment to assure you that that the somewhat juvenile selection of words here reflects the rather puerile condition of my own predilections and not the overall tenor of the novel. The word "orchid" apparently derives from the Greek word órkhis, meaning "testicle." I always chuckled when I read about the "scrotum-like" flowers of the Pink lady's slipper (Cypripedium acaule). Now I realize I should have been chuckling a lot more! (p. 118)
"Act, implores the Ghost of Future Regret. I shan't give you another chance." (p. 123)
manumission (n): manumit means "to free from slavery" (the etymology seems to be something like "emit from one's hand"). This passage sets off a debate about slavery. (p. 129)
"'So it is the sulphur of Jean Calvin,' says the Irishman, in English, 'making war on my nostrils.'" Jean Calvin as in the eponymous progenitor of Calvinist Christian doctrine, to which the Dutch de Zoet would probably subscribe. That went right over my head. (p. 151)
moxibustion (n): a form of East-Asian medicine involving mugwort, which is apparently dried and burned, or actually burned into the skin. (p. 174)
Maria and Iesu-sama: I had no idea there were all these Christians in Japan! Spanish and Portuguese Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan in the 16th century and apparently it was so popular the Shogunate saw it as the preliminary incursion of European imperialism, and made moves to snuff it (including killing lots of people and instituting the ritual of fumi-e), resulting in Japan's legendary seclusionist policy that lasted until the Perry Expedition in the 19th century. I know so, so little about history. Sigh. (p. 178)
febrifuge (n): drug to reduce fever, also known as an antipyretic. (p. 193)
Van Diemen's Land (pn): another name for Tasmania. The indigenous Palawa went extinct after encountering Europeans. (p. 199)
"Men of commerce, sir [...:] for the most part, had their consciences cut out at birth. Better an honest drowning than slow death by hypocrisy, law or debt." Ah, a man after my own heart (p. 332)
"Ibani qui poterant [...:] qui non potuere cadebant." I think there's a typo and it should be Ibant qui poterant, qui non potuere cadebant, which means "Those who could have gone, those who could not have fallen," which seems appropriate. I guess Marinus is referring to this pastel by Dutch painter Cornelis Troost, but the painting seems to depict drunken party-goers trying to head home. A joke, I guess. Where in Hell does Mitchell get this stuff. (p. 366)
podagra (n): synonym for gout (p. 375)
bagnio (n): literally a bath house, though in this sense probably whore house. (p. 381)
ingravescent (adj): gradually worsening. I like how even the Cpt. objects to the arcane language. Not that I'm objecting. I'm doing the opposite. (p. 407)
"Reverse our reverses" Penhaligon, Shiroyama, and Marinus all employ this phrase. To what end, Mitchell?! (p. 429)
Regarding the V-sign and the Battle of Agincourt: as I dimly recalled while reading this passage, the French supposedly threatened to cut off the first two fingers of English longbowmen, and the English thus used those same fingers to taunt the vanquished French. However, Wikipedia claims the story is apocryphal, and that the gesture's first recorded use dates to the early 20th century. (p. 430)
Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, Auri sacra fames. Apparently from The Aeneid, this translation has it as, "Cursed lust of gold, to what dost thou not force the heart of man?" (p. 431)...more
Charming, economical, slightly confounding: so Japanese! This is a beautiful little book that you could read in afternoon, and it would be an afternooCharming, economical, slightly confounding: so Japanese! This is a beautiful little book that you could read in afternoon, and it would be an afternoon well spent. Am now curious about her other novellas, which are supposedly "disturbing."
I made the following lists in attempt to analyze what the reader might derive from the professor's perspective, but they didn't help:
ephemeral - present - housekeepers - math challenges - people
eternal - past - numbers - sentiment - carrots...more
Incarnadine. I only recently discovered this word in another novel, but it sprang up in this one too, and it seems a satisfyingly synesthetic way to dIncarnadine. I only recently discovered this word in another novel, but it sprang up in this one too, and it seems a satisfyingly synesthetic way to describe this deeply emotional, moving chronicle of two families and the many things they lose and create. The book begins in the hours before the Americans detonated a nuclear bomb over Nagasaki and closes in the weeks following 9/11, which should suggest the traumatic and temporal scope Shamsie attempts to address. And while these tragedies push the story toward maudlin sentimentality at times, it manages to skirt them, its touch remaining light, skipping ahead between characters and times, between delightful humor and cutting personal loss.
My clearest point of comparison for this novel is MM Kaye's Far Pavilions, which also addresses the clash of cultures, the power of language, and relationships between people with many affiliations. Despite its greater length, though, Far Pavilions doesn't even come close to describing human beings (or countries) as tangibly as Burnt Shadows. Ash was also more than a bit of a prick. Hiroko isn't a saint, but she sounds like better company.
Quotes & Notes
"He wanted to read out and touch the black, raised spot on her cheekbone, to see if it was part of her or if it was a tiny beetle that had landed on her skin, tucked its wings under its body and decided never to leave. She struck him as a woman who would allow certain liberties – to beetles and to curious men – if the intentions weren't discourteous." (p. 44)
hibakusha (n): derogatory terms applied to the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagaski nuclear bomb attacks. (p. 49)
"Elizabeth Burton, who had been woken at dawn by self-loathing..." I laughed and laughed at this, even though I'm not sure it was meant to be funny. It seemed way out of place though, right after Hiroko and Sajjad admit their feelings. (p. 92) Sajjad announcing his intentions and then running off on p. 107 was also sort of comedy after intense drama.
pyjama (n): leg garment, from which "pajama" was derived.
"[...:] he realized he had been waiting a long time for confirmation that he was... not an outsider, no, not quite that. Not when he'd lived in this moholla his whole life, had scraped and scabbed his knees on every street within a one-mile radius. Not an outsider, just a tangent. In contact with the world of his moholla, but not intersecting it." I think of the word tangent in this sense frequently, so it was intriguing to see it in a book. (p. 189)
p. 257 features a passage that would be a spoiler to cite, but raises a recurring issue I had with the book: characters just seemed way too emotionally perceptive. They seem to intuit more detail about the interior states of their fellows than seems likely, regularly exhibiting the kind of insight I could only achieve in moments of superlative lucidity. I'm particularly thick-headed though (thick-hearted?)....more
While Gaiman's story is beautiful, Russel's line work was a disappointment, much like his story in The Sandman: Endless Nights. I find this baffling, While Gaiman's story is beautiful, Russel's line work was a disappointment, much like his story in The Sandman: Endless Nights. I find this baffling, because "Ramadan, " the story he illustrated in The Sandman Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections, might be one of my favorite single comics ever, in large part due to the art. One contributing factor is that I don't like the way Russell draws big things. He's a genius at tiny details, the leaves of a tree, the patterns in a kimono, the innumerable spires of Bagdad or the countless djinn in a bottle, but facial close-ups and figures never seem to come off well. Overall the style of the artwork suggested a westerner trying to ape several styles of Japanese art without success.
If you're considering this, I'd say skip it and check out the original illustrated prose by Gaiman and the unspeakably cool Japanese illustrator Yoshitaka Amano: The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. Like the best Sandman episodes (including Ramadan), Amano's art will bend your mind....more
I enjoyed this book, despite not grasping it, but I didn't come away understanding why so many people I know rave about it. Perhaps all the recurring I enjoyed this book, despite not grasping it, but I didn't come away understanding why so many people I know rave about it. Perhaps all the recurring signs and portents all actually signify and portend if you read it a few times (the mark, the bat, the bird, etc.), but I finished feeling like they were arbitrary bits of color daubed on to give the semblance of a hidden continuity when there was none. Not that that really detracted from the overall, dreamy enjoyment. I enjoyed many of the little vignettes and perspectives in the book, especially May Kasahara and the stories from Manchuria.
I found myself constantly thinking of David Mitchell's epics, like Cloud Atlas and number9dream. He, too, uses a lot of recurring symbols, maintains multiple parallel or related storylines, and sets many of his stories in Japan. Somehow, though, Mitchell's use of symbols always seemed a little more light-handed and less troublesome, as if by being less explicitly meaningful their actual irrelevance to the story was less noticeable, and they were more successful as subconscious rigging holding the narratives together. Strangely, Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which seems like the most thematically similar to Wind-up Bird, is way more explicit about humanity's endless and inescapable propensity for violence than Murakami seems to be about anything, despite Murakami's clear desire to address and possibly condemn violence.
I'd really love to hear why everyone loves this book. Once I post this I think I'll sift through some reviews......more
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