Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami (“It’s only because I have you guys that I can do any of this.”)

The power of Sisters In Yellow stunned me.

I could not read it quickly, for the pages dwelt inside me with increasing heaviness. As Hana told her story, my compassion for her grew such that I could hardly contain it.

Where do you go when you have no one to turn to? Hana seemed to begin with a color. Yellow, to be specific.

Yellow was how all this started. I met Kumiko, who had yellow in her name, and she was the first one who’s taught me about yellow bringing fortune, and that was how I was able to leave Higashimurayama and find my own place and my own life.

Hana’s mother has no capacity for parenting. She works at a bar, connecting with the men she finds there for brief interludes, leaving Hana on her own. Hana must be the responsible one in the family. So, it is easy for her to leave with Kimiko, a friend of her mother’s, in search of a better home.

Kimiko and Hana set up a bar, which Hana names Lemon, and soon they have more money than Hana has ever known. The new adults in her life, Kimiko and her friends, show her ways to survive that make her feel she is thriving. Until the mounting dangers, and fear, show her that her life is really crumbling. 

The despair that Hana feels is heart wrenching. What does she have? No career, no family ID, no education.

How do people go on living? People I passed on the street, people reading newspapers in the cafes or drinking booze in the izakaya, eating ramen, going out with friends to make memories, people coming from somewhere, going elsewhere, laughing, raging, crying, people who live for today and would wake up and do the same tomorrow. How did they do it? I knew they had honest jobs, earned honest money. But embarrassed I didn’t understand was how they’d first obtained the qualifications to live within that honesty. How had they made it to that side? I wanted someone to tell me. My nights were sleepless, filled with worry, tossing and turning, and my thoughts grew distorted, so much so that I almost called my mother.

But, Hana’s mother can’t help her. And when Hana’s friends suggest that Kimiko and the other adults in their circle, have taken advantage of her, Hana cannot help but feel betrayed.

I’d always believed Kimiko had saved me. And the more I got to know her, the more I became convinced that she couldn’t live without me either, that there was no other way. That was why I’d been so desperate. But, I was wrong…

This is the crux of the novel, I believe. Did Kimiko take advantage of Hana? Or, as one of my principals said when I expressed disgust over a parent’s behavior, was she simply doing the best that she could? What ultimately matters is how Hana faces the reality of her life. She cannot answer for how she has been treated; she can only answer for how she will, in turn, treat others. 

As we all, one day, will do.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (“Sometimes, all you had to do was exist in order to be someone’s savior.”)

“The last time I met Ishigami, he presented me with a mathematical conundrum.,” he said. “It’s a famous one, the P=NP problem. Basically, it asks whether it’s more difficult to think of a solution to a problem yourself or to ascertain if someone else’s answer to the same problem is correct.” 

Is there anything like a good mystery? I mean, a really well-thought out puzzle resembling a mathematical problem which begs to be solved? Such is the mystery which Higashino gives us in this novel. 

But, maybe the most important part of the novel isn’t about who committed a crime. 

When Ishigami comes forth with the confession that he has killed Yasuko’s ex-husband, the whole point of the novel suddenly becomes clear. It was never about who committed the crime.

It was about the devotion of one of the suspects. 

In fact, perhaps this should be labeled more of a desperate love story than one of murder. Although there are an abundance of clues, and curiosity about who will discover the truth (the detective or the physicist), these aren’t the most important elements.

The most important element is Ishigami’s character. He is a lonely teacher at the High School, working there only for the money as his passion is solving mathematical problems. Bur, his passion extends to his neighbor, Yasuko, as well.

I am gobsmacked by Higashino’s cleverness. He masqueraded a tale of devotion as one of murder and had me sidetracked all along. The Devotion of Suspect X is as brilliant a thriller as I have ever read.

Sunday Salon: Life is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction

 

This week, one of my sons’s grandfathers turned 94. 

The other grandfather died.

You can’t make it up. Sometimes, I’m reading a Japanese novel, and I think, “This could never have happened. Never!” And then I look at my life and think, “But, it does.”

My husband took the photo of my mother and I with my father on January 15. (I am in the black shirt, she is in teal; people often confuse us since I am silver now.) He is strong, and no one is more amazed than I am. If you have been around my blog for a while, you may know of the prayers I’ve asked for him, this man with 34 stents in his heart. He even had several open heart surgeries before stents were placed. If there’s one thing I learned it is do not worry. I could have saved myself thirty years of anxiety if I had obeyed that philosophy.

In January 14, my son texted me that he’s just learned his paternal grandfather had died of a heart attack in Ohio. Quite suddenly, he had woken up with chest pain, driven himself and his wife to the hospital, and suffered the attack which took his life. 

My son had to go to one grandfather’s funeral, while missing the other grandfather’s birthday. 

Our days are not in our hands.

I sprained my foot, quite badly, and so I have been reading on the loveseat under the window in the dining room and gaining weight. It’s really a lovely time over here. But, I have finished three books for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, two other books which were not, and am now starting The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino which Lesley must have sent me ten years ago. She wasn’t a fan, but she knew of my passion for Japanese literature and sent it over. I am a great fan of Higashino, so I am going to devour it today. 

We will also watch the Bears in the playoffs against the Rams. Those poor Rams, coming to play in Chicago temperatures when they are used to Los Angeles. Imagine that the Bears have made it this far! It’s been a long time since I watched them win the Super Bowl when I lived in Germany. In 1986.

Find more Sunday Salon links here.

Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino

 

It always amazes me to see the books that are selected for Reese’s Book Club, or Oprah’s, or The Good Morning America Book Club. They are nothing if not trite. Or, poorly written. At least Marisa Kashino seems to use her experience as a reporter, and her Japanese-American ethnicity, to support her novel, Best Offer Wins.

When I put this book on hold at the library, I actually thought it would be suitable for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19. 

It is not.

Instead, it is a novel that resembles The Devil Wears Prada in that we have a young, professional woman, aspiring to achieve more than she has. In fact, Margot borders on having a psychosis so eager is she to have a house. And a baby. But first, the house.

When she hears of a home which will soon be listed, she stalks the owner, getting herself invited to the owner’s home for dinner, and consequently ruining any chance of buying it before it hits the market when her ruse is uncovered.

But, her plans to obtain this house continue to unfold, each more bizarre than the next, until we are left with an outrageously tragic scenario that further spoiled the whole plot with its unbelievable, overly dramatic, nature.

Maybe it’s because I already have a house. Maybe it’s because I’m not materialistic. Maybe it’s because I know that things do not a person make. But, I am shocked by the accolades that this book has received, from Alex Michaelides for one, because personally, I cannot wait to return to a piece of true literature.

And, I have some advice: do not get sucked into reading what celebrities endorse. It’s has never been worth the effort for me.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Part Two) “He stood gazing at his own coldness, so to speak.”

 

(Click on image for information.)

I learned about Chijimi linen in Part Two of Snow Country. Ojiya Chijimi is the art of turning plant fibers into fabric with the help of sun and snow. One of the last steps of making this special fabric is to lay it on the snow for ten to twenty days, where it is bleached by the elements. 

Why does Kawabata include this tradition in his novel? To be sure, he tells of one of the art forms in the country he is depicting. But, maybe, in the stretch of my imagination, it also points to the condition of Komako’s heart. For surely she loves Shimamura, just as surely, he cares very little that she does. Her heart seems to be bleached by the coldness of his heart just as the linen is bleached by the sun when it lies on the snow.

It makes me sad.

Kawabata won the Nobel Prize, for which Snow Country was one of the novels commended, in 1968. It is an incredibly spare, and often, to me, disjointed novel. As the characters speak, they don’t seem to be answering one another. It’s as if each is carrying on with his or her own thoughts, regardless of what the other has just said. I found myself reading, and rereading, certain passages for clarity. And maybe that is just the point: Shimamura and Komako are never truly communicating. Not in any meaningful, or lasting, way.

How can this be called a love story? To me, a love story involves two people who care about each other, and it is clear that Shimamura is able to care for little but himself. 

If a man had a tough, hairy hide like a bear, his world would be different indeed, Shimamura thought. It was through a thin, smooth skin that man loved. Looking out at the evening mountains, Shimamura felt a sentimental longing for the human skin. (p. 85)

This longing doesn’t mean it becomes actualized, however. Kawabata doesn’t give us a clear indication as to why Shimamura is so emotionally detached. Could it be, in part, because he comes to the snow country from Tokyo?

Tokyo people are complicated. They live in such noise and confusion that their feelings are broken to bits. Everything is broken to bits. (p. 90)

Maybe this accounts for some of his emotional aloofness. But, Komako attributes this distance to gender. 

It will be the same wherever I go. There’s nothing to be upset about…And I can’t complain. After all, only women are really able to love. (p. 98)

Even as they watch a fire destroy a cocoon-warehouse, and a woman’s body fall from the balcony, it is Komako who is screaming and Shimamura who is passive. 

If Shimamura felt even a flicker of uneasiness, it was lest the head drop, or the knee or a hip end to disturb that perfectly horizontal line…Komako screamed and brought her hands to her eyes. Shimamura gazed at the still form. (p. 128)

I have no ability to comprehend such a cold and heartless person; whether a person comes from a city or a small mountain town, whether a person is male or female, whether a person has a tough hairy hide or a thin skin, we are meant to love one another. It is a sad story that Kawabata gives us, and the fact that Snow Country contributed to a Nobel Prize means it must have a lot to say to a lot of people who ponder the heart of mankind. 

Or, the coldness therein. 

On The Calculation of Volume III by Solvej Balle (“I want to escape this day, but there is no escaping.”)

“His name is Henry Dale, and I don’t need to tell him that time has ground to a halt. He already knows.” p. 3

I was surprised, upon opening Volume III of On The Caluclation of Volume, that Tara has met someone else who is stuck in the eighteenth of November. More and more, I am reading this book less as a piece of science fiction, or fantasy, and more as a work which is actually applicable to real life.

“I could never have imagined that I’d meet someone already walking around in my loop.” 

How many times have I thought that? Have I searched for someone else who “walks around in my loop” and therefore understands the experiences which have made me who I am? I can’t tell you how often I feel completely alone.

Tara’s thoughts, her experiences, often mirror my own. “Why am I here?” I think, and, “While I am here, surely I can do some good?”

“I lived in one November day. On repeat. I had tried to make time pass. But it stood still. The eighteenth of November was a container, or at least that’s how I saw it. I had tried to figure out why I was here. And to do as little damage as possible.”  p. 18

She is happy to have met Henry, who is a companion and not a lover, stumbling around in the loop of living the eighteenth of November ad nauseam. But, it isn’t without sacrifice.

“There is the certainty of having gained a travel companion, but also the sense of having been assigned some of the responsibility for their baggage.” p. 33

Henry looks at reliving the eighteenth of November with a different perspective than Tara’s.

“In many ways, the repetition of the 18th of November came as a relief. A day that made no assertions of progress and propulsion and promotion. At least the eighteenth of November is honest, he said. It wipes the slate clean.” p. 35

I would like a clean slate. I would like, as my third graders used to say, a “do over.” Have a chance to get things right, or at least better, than I have in my first attempt. It seems I am not alone, for at the end of the novel, two more people join Henry and Tara. Olga has come to Tara, at Henry’s advice, to have someone help her find Ralf. The two of them, Olga and Ralf, have an idea of seizing the opportunity to make this world a better place.

“She (Olga) didn’t want to return to standard time, as she called it, without having seized the chance to change the world. She saw the repetition as an opportunity. To see things more clearly. To get your fucking eyeballs polished, she said.” p. 130

Well, that’s certainly one way to look at one’s purpose in life. But, I am more inclined to side with Tara, who says, “I do not feel unhappy. I feel I am among friends. But I don’t know what I’m doing here, and I wouldn’t know what to say if anyone asked.” p. 157

How fascinating it is to look at these questions through the eyes of Solvej Balle, in her imaginative world presented in these slim volumes.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami (“Do you know what Sputnik means in Russian? Traveling companion.”)

 

I remember very well the first time we met and we talked about Sputniks. She was talking about Beatnik writers, and I mistook the word and said ‘Sputnik.’ We laughed about it, and that broke the ice. Do you know what ‘Sputnik’ means in Russian? ‘Traveling companion.’ I looked it up in a dictionary not long ago. Kind of a strange coincidence if you think about it. I wonder why the Russians gave their satellite that strange name. It’s just a poor little lump of metal, spinning around the earth. (p. 98) 

This novel has been sitting, unread, on my shelf for years. I was under the impression that it was filled with some “outer space” kind of weirdness that I wasn’t ready to embark upon. Actually, it probably wouldn’t be a novel by Murakami if there wasn’t some other world weirdness. But, Sputnik Sweetheart doesn’t start out that way.

Instead, the term Sputnik Sweetheart is an endearment, from one girl to another; from one who was referring to Jack Kerouac as a “Beatnik”, while her new friend heard “Sputnik”. In the beginning, there’s nothing to do with space. But, there’s a lot to do with love and misunderstanding.

As I read, I find myself feeling as I did when I first read a book by Haruki Murakami: he gets me. I don’t know how an American woman can find herself so “understood” by a Japanese man, unless the very vulnerability with which he writes is accessible to many. Or, maybe it’s the way that he writes of feeling isolated. Alone. Perhaps, even living in an alternate reality. 

I’m not going to give a complete review of this novel, which has struck me more deeply than any of his previous works. Why would I dare to interpret for you what Maruakmi has shown me? You may have an entirely different experience reading this book yourself. I will tell you, however, it is about love. Loneliness. Wondering just where, exactly, we exist in this world (or another).

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

“Remove everything pointless from an imperfect life, and it’d lose even its imperfection.” (p. 4)

“A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world in the other side.” (p. 16)

“Imagine ‘The Greatest Hits of Bobby Darin’ minus ‘Mack the Knife.’ That’s what my life would be like without you.” (p. 65)

“I was still on this side, here. But another me, maybe half of me, had gone over to the other side…And the half that was left is the person you see here. I’ve felt this way for the longest time - that in a Ferris wheel in a small Swiss town, for a reason I can’t explain, I was split in two forever…It’s not like something was stolen away from me, because it all still exists, on the other side…But I can never cross the boundary of that single pane of glass. Never.” (p. 157)

“Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” p. 179

“So that’s how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that’s stolen from us - that’s snatched right out of our hands - even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives this way in silence, we draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Repeating, often adroitly, the endless deeds of the everyday. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.” (p. 206-7)

My God, I loved this book.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Part One)

There were patches of snow on the roof, the rafters of which sagged to draw a wavy line at the eaves. (p.45) 

Winter is my favorite season. The pure air, the white snow, the very “newness” that I feel when it has just fallen eclipses every other season for me. And so I find myself highlighting descriptive passages such as the quote at the start of the post. Or, this one:

The sky was clouding over. Mountains still in the sunlight stood out against shadowed mountains. The play of light and shade changed from moment to moment, sketching a chilly landscape. Presently the ski grounds too were in shadow. Below the window Shimamura could see little needles of frost like ising-glass among the withered chrysanthemums, though water was still dripping from the snow on the roof. (p. 61) 

Of course Snow Country is about more than snow. In this chilly landscape we read of Shimamura, whose heart seems to be just as cold as his surroundings. He is taking the train to a hot spring in the snow country, observing those around him as we observe him. He sees a young girl taking care of an obviously sick man, and I am struck by this line: 

The man was clearly ill, however, and illness shortens the distance between a man and a woman. (p. 13)  

Illness shortens the distance between a man and a woman. This could happen in two different ways: are they clinging to each other out of fear of losing one another? Or, are they frustrated by the care one requires of the other? I’m pondering this distance that comes with illness, as I am living it in my own life these past few years. 

 

Another point of interest that strikes me is how the geisha, Komako, and Shimamura discuss the keeping of a diary, for that has long been a great passion of mine. 

“When did you begin?” (he asks her, and she replies,) “Just before I went to Tokyo as a geisha. I didn’t have any money and I bought a plain notebook for two or three sen and drew in lines. I must have had a very sharp pencil. The lines are all neat and close together, and every page is crammed from top to bottom..I write in my diary when I’m home from a party and ready for bed, and when I read it over I can see places where I’ve gone to sleep writing…But I don’t write every day. Some days I miss. Way off here in the mountains every party’s the same. This year I couldn’t find anything except a diary with a new day on each page. It was a mistake. When I start writing, I want to write on and on.” (p. 36)

I want to write on and on when I write, as well. It’s not so much that I have fascinating information to relate, as much as that I have a desire to put my thoughts down, to clear my head. 

I’m wondering what Komako has written about Shimamura. It seems, at the end of Part One, that she has fallen in love with him. Yet he returns to his home apparently indifferent to her affections. 

We leave Yukio, suffering due to intestinal tuberculosis,  in the care of Yoko, a young girl with “an extraordinarily pure and simple face.” We leave Komako in the train station, who has accompanied Shimamura as far as the platform, standing inside the closed window of the waiting-room. They are separated by this window, but perhaps there is much more than glass which sets them apart. We will find out in Part Two.

Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan (What would we call a tower for people who make good choices and live responsibly?)

Architect Sara Machina has designed a tower to be built in the center of Tokyo for criminals. I'm sorry, I mean victims. For in the current line of thought, morally corrupt individuals like Masaki Seto have reimagined what it means to commit crimes.

“Seto proposes the neologism “Homo Miserabilis”  - meaning “those deserving of sympathy” - to replace the conventional label of “criminal.” By contrast, Seto identifies those previously considered “non-criminals” as “Homo Felix,” in other words those who are “happy” or “fortunate” in life…These new perspectives underpin a fundamental reassessment not only of criminal actions but of societal structures at large, and are crucial in realizing a framework for greater social inclusivity and well-being.” p. 23

I am resentful of the way that personal responsibility for one’s life is so often excused today. There is always a reason, it seems, that people don’t have to be accountable for the decisions they make and the consequences which follow. But, it doesn’t seem that the Architect, Sara Machina, adheres to the “blaming others for my problems” philosophy. She is a determined person, and one who values the power of language. 

“If I used weaker materials - words like “maybe” or “could,” as fragile as sand before it met cement - how could I expect to keep myself in one piece for the several decades I had left to live? It didn’t matter that they were just words, words with no physical form of their own: If I didn’t strip them from my interior, they would render my foundations unstable.” (p. 43)

Masaki Seto persists, however, in justifying the placement of cruminals victims in the newly built luxurious tower:

“Preparations for its (the tower) construction are well underway with completion planned for 2030. I eagerly await the day when those we know now as Homo Miserabilis move out of the wretched prisons in which they have so far been housed and into the beautiful and pristine setting of this central Tokyo-tower.” (p. 50)

Who of us doesn't live in a “wretched prison” of some sort? This world is full of pain, of disappointment, of evil which must be battled every day. By every one of us. We are not victims unless we choose to be.

In other words, in the vast majority of cases, before they were “criminals” or “offenders,” these people were victims. Victims who, because they couldn’t explain their circumstances to others, have never received the care or support they needed. (p. 55) 

I think that at one time or another, in all of our lives, we need “care and support”which seems elusive. We don our courage, hopefully, and carry on.

 “…a clash of opinion can take the shine off something beautiful.” p. 80

It was relieving to me, that the more I read, the more I realized that the author, Rie Qudan, is not condoning the viewpoints of which I have taken such offense. Instead, through dialogue and the narrative of other characters, such as Takt (who works in a designer clothing shop), or Max Klein (a journalist), Qudan shows us how unproductive it would be to house a segment of society, at no cost to them. Max writes:

“…I found myself wondering if there was any difference at all between the life of a Miserabilis and that of some celebrity lounging away their afternoons in a luxury Shinjuku high rise. I guess one big difference is that, unlike celebrities, the Miserabilis aren’t allowed to leave the premises…Another difference is that celebrities have to pay astronomical rent themselves, whereas the Miserabilis have their existence funded by the taxes levied on the hard work of all the people living outside the tower…FU-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-CK!!! I shouted. “I want to live in the damn Dojo-to!” (p. 135)

There’s such a poignant irony depicted in this scene. Who doesn’t need care and compassion? Who doesn’t want to live in a beautiful, pristine, sophisticated tower in central Tokyo rent free?  It is easy to forget what Robert Heinlein write years ago in his book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress:“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” 

I am mesmerized by Sympathy Tower Tokyo, which is so deserving of the Akutagawa prize for Qudan’s imaginative, and deeply thought-provoking writing. She has woven today’s philosophies, with today’s societal problems, technologies, and language, into a most insightful novel.  One which so aptly depicts a world into which we may be headed, if we aren’t living in it already.

Snow Country Read-along, Anyone?

This masterpiece from the Nobel Prize-winning author and acclaimed writer of Thousand Cranes is a powerful tale of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan. • “Kawabata’s novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time.” —The New York Times Book Review

When I saw that Karen, of Literary Excursions, posted Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata as one of her potential choices for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, I got all happy inside. It seems the perfect choice for Japanese literature and Winter. When she suggested a buddy-read, I was even happier.

So now, we open up this reading experience to any of you who wish to join us. Here’s the plan: Snow Country is a 192 pages written in two parts. We will read, and post about Part One, on January 9. We will post about Part Two on January 16. 

Feel free to read and post about it with us, we’d love to have you.

Review Site for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19

This is the place where you can leave a link to the books you have read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19, as well as visiting other readers who are participating. I’m looking forward to seeing what it is that you will choose, from short stories to classics to contemporary fiction. Your participation is always a great enrichment to my own reading life as I learn of a new title, or a new insight regarding a book I have previously read.

I will make the button in my sidebar connected to this post so it will be easily accessible.

Perhaps you would like to start with an introductory post sharing your reading plans in Japanese literature January and February? 

ありがとう

Arigatō, or thank you,

Bellezza