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Third crime is the charm #7 : Nice, Tokyo and Los Angeles
- After the Dogs by Michèle Pedinielli (2019) Not available in English French title: Après les chiens
- All She Was Worth by Miyabe Miyuki (1992) French title: Une carte pour l’enfer. Translated by Chiharu Tanaka and Aude Fieschi
- L.A. Noire – Collected Stories (2010) Not available in French.
These three crime fiction books are nothing alike and my favorite one is the Après les chiens by Michèle Pedinielli.
Set in Nice on the French Riviera, where the author lives, Après les chiens is the second volume of the Boccanera series.
We’re in 2017 and Boccanera, a private detective, stumbles upon the body of an Erythrean young man. He was an illegal immigrant who arrived in Nice through the border with Italy in the Nice countryside. It’s in the Alps, near the Vallée de la Roya. So, picture high mountains and dangerous trails. We’re also in 1943 and peasants in the same mountains helped Jews cross the border from France to Italy to save their lives.
Après les chiens is a political crime fiction novel. The Alps near Nice are a hotspot for migrants and there has been conflicts between a part of the local population who rescues them and the police who wants to block them out. Intolerance against migrants is more and more vocal and especially in the South East of France, where Nice is located. Pedinielli’s opinion is clear through Boccanera: there’s a tradition of crossing borders in the area and a tradition of assisting people who are in danger in the mountains.
The plot is secondary to the political message. It could be heavy but it’s not because of all the side characters around Boccanera, Pedinielli’s wonderful descriptions of Nice, a good way of tying together the two threads of her plot, the one in present times and the one in 1943. I just wanted to hop on a train and go visit Nice.
Après les chiens was our Book Club choice for December 2023 and is published by the independant publisher Les Editions de l’Aube. They also publish Stéphane Hessel and Gao Xingjian. I read it a few weeks ago but I’ll mention it for Karen and Lizzy’s Read Indies event anyway.
Totally different atmosphere but similar intention: In 1992 Tokyo, Miyabe also wrote a political novel with his book All She Was Worth.
It’s more oblique than Pedinielli’s intentions but it’s still there. Inspector Honman is on sick leave while his leg recovers after he got shot. A relative comes to him because his fiancée Sekine Shoko has disappeared. Honman quickly discovers that she stole someone’s identity to escape from mafia debt collectors. Miyabe describes the scandal of deregulated access to credit cards and debt overload.
The plot felt a bit sluggish to me but I enjoyed Honman and his family. His wife died a few years ago and he’s a single dad, raising his ten-years old son Satoru. His housekeeper is a man who chose this job while his wife has an office job. I don’t know much about Japanese culture but I imagine it goes against the usual vision of a family and what a man’s job should be.
I read it from the TBR and it’s my contribution to January in Japan, hosted by Meredith.
Our next stop is to L.A. in the 1940s for L.A. Noire – Collected stories edited by Jonathan Santlofer. It’s part of my Tame the TBR project. All the stories are set during the Golden Age era and I noticed that the title is L.A. Noire, with an e at the end of Noir. As a French, I see it as agreeing the adjective noir with the feminine form. It implies that L.A. is a woman.
The eight stories included in this collection are:
- The Girl by Megan Abbott
- See the Woman by Lawrence Block
- Naked Angel by Joe R. Lansdale
- Black Dahlia and White Rose by Joyce Carol Oates
- School for Murder by Francine Prose
- What’s in a Name by Jonathan Santlofer
- Hell of an Affair by Duane Swierczynski
- Postwar Room by Andrew Vachss
I’m not very good at defining literary genres but I thought that Noir implied femmes fatales, gang, hidden criminals and normal Joes who make a bad decision at some point and whose life turns for the worst.
Here we have a lot of naïve and helpless female victims. Young would-be actresses who get drugged, fall into prostitution, and get murdered. Only in Hell of an Affair and Naked Angel do we have actual take-charge women who are more cunning than the men around them. See the Woman was well-drawn too, a twisted story of solving a recurring problem of domestic violence.
Otherwise, I thought that the stories were a little weak. Duane Swierczynski is a hell of a writer, though, if you like pulp and Noir. I’ll point out again his Charlie Hardie series, that was a lot of fun.
So, my recommendation would be to read the Pedinielli for readers who can read in French and go for the Charlie Hardie series for the ones who love pulp entertainment.
PS: I also read In the Name of Truth by Viveca Sten (2015) translated by Marlaine Delargy. (French title: Au nom de la verité.) It’s the eight volume of the Sandhamn Murders series and it’s very good. It felt like Sten was finding a new breath with the series, more thriller than whodunnit. She also shifted her attention to Nora, the female character of the series as she made her change of job and go into a more investigative position. Excellent.
The books in this billet contribute to several blogging events or to my personal reading goals.
20 Books of Summer 2023 and a joker- My list!
I was happy to see that Cathy from 746 Books hosts her 20 Books Of Summer event again this year. I know I could pick 10 or 15 books instead of 20 but I’m going to challenge myself a bit, even if reading isn’t a competition.
Picking the 20 books is already a lot of fun. This year I chose books from my TBR and according to three categories: books I’ll read as part of already set-up readalongs, books I want to read around my summer trip to Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota and other books from various countries, just for armchair travelling and making a dent in the TBR.
Books from my readalongs:
Ballad of Dogs’ Beach by José Cardoso Pires (1982) – Portugal. French title: Ballade de la plage aux chiens.
We’re in 1960 and a rebellious officer is found dead on a beach. He was killed after evading from prison with his girlfriend after an aborted coup. The novel is about his life and the investigation on his death.
L’Autre by Andrée Chedid (1969) – France. Not available in English
Andrée Chedid is a French poetess. When I browse through the book, I see it’s made of three short stories, that these stories include poems and texts with a weird layout. I’m curious about it.
The Moving Target by Ross McDonald (1949) – USA. French title: Cible mouvante.
I’ll finally read my first Lew Archer investigation! I’ve read only good reviews about this series and in France it is published by Gallmeister in a new translation by the talented Jacques Mailhos.
The Catcher in the Rye (1951) – USA. French title: L’attrape-coeurs.
I’ve read it in French when I was a teenager. This time I’ll read it in English. I wonder how I’ll respond to it now that I’m older.
Letters to wilderness by Wallace Stegner – USA. French title: Lettres pour le monde sauvage.
This is a collection of non-fiction essays by Wallace Stegner. I think these texts were put together by Gallmeister and translated by Anatole Pons-Reumaux. I’m not sure this exact collection exists in English. I’ve read Crossing to Safety and Remember Laughter and I love his prose. I’m looking forward to reading his essays.
Books for my trip to Montana and Wyoming
An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg (2004) – USA. French title: Une vie inachevée.
I got this as a gift and I’ve seen it has been made into a film with Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez. Here’s a excerpt of the blurb “After escaping the last of a long string of abusive boyfriends, Jean Gilkyson and her ten-year-old daughter Griff have nowhere left to go. Nowhere except Ishawooa, Wyoming, where Jean’s estranged father-in-law, Einar, still blames her for the death of his son.”
Justice by Larry Watson (1995) – USA. French title: Justice.
I’ve already read Montana 1948 and Justice is a prequel to it.
Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson (2013) – USA Not available in French.
A Christmas story with sheriff Longmire. Maybe it’ll be a little strange to read a Christmas story in the summer. I don’t know, I’ll let you know how that feels. 🙂
Fall Back Down When I Die by Joe Wilkins (2019) – USA French title: Ces montagnes à jamais.
A young ranch hand has just lost his mother, owes a lot of money for her medical bills and his son’s cousin comes in his care. It sounds like a great story of a man and a little boy who both need a lot of TLC.
Savage Run by C.J Box (2003) – USA French title: La mort au fond du canyon.
This is the second volume of the Joe Pickett series. It’s a perfect read for the 21 hours of travel from Lyon to Billings.
If Not For This by Pete Fromm (2014) – USA French title: Mon désir le plus ardent.
I’ve read his novel A Job You Mostly Won’t Know to Do and his essay, Indian Creek Chronicles and a collection of short stories, Chinook. All were outstanding. Needless to say I’m looking forward reading another book by him.
Montana. La reconquête de l’Ouest (2018) – Belgium Not available in English.
This is a collection of essays about Montana’s history. It’s only 85 pages long, a short read then.
Armchair travelling and TBR management
Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery (1955) – Egypt. French title: Mendiants et orgueilleux.
Albert Cossery (November 3, 1913 – June 22, 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syrian and Lebanese descent, born in Cairo. Proud Beggards is set in Cairo but written in French.
Children of the Bitter River by Fang Fang (1987) – China. Frencht title: Une vue splendide.
Fang Fang is a Chinese writer from Huhan and I’ve never read her. Here’s the blurb of the book which “narrates a Chinese version of the Horatio Alger myth of a poor boy achieving fame and fortune. In addition to daunting poverty, the hero, Seventh Brother, must overcome the trauma of physical abuse. His story and that of his six brothers traces the history of China from the 1930s to the mid-1980s.
Ping-Pong by Park Min-kyu (2016) – Korea Not available in English
I’ve already read his Pavane for a Dead Princess but Ping-Pong seems a lot more playful. Two adolescents are bullied at school and they discover a field with a ping-pong table. It becomes their safe haven. They meet with Secrétin and strike a bet with him. The book mixes realism and science fiction.
Sputnik Sweethearts by Haruki Murakami (1999) – Japan. French title: Les amants du spoutnik.
I have it in English on the kindle, perfect for travelling. I hope I’ll like it as I’m not always fond of Murakami’s novels. We’ll see.
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (2015) – Nigeria. French title: Les pêcheurs.
I’m trying to read more African books and I picked this one a couple of years ago. Here’s the blurb: “In a small town in western Nigeria, four young brothers take advantage of their strict father’s absence from home to go fishing at a forbidden local river. They encounter a dangerous local madman who predicts that the oldest boy will be killed by one of his brothers. This prophecy unleashes a tragic chain of events of almost mythic proportions.”
High Rising by Angela Thirkell (1933) – UK. French title: Bienvenue à High Rising.
This is another light read for planes and airports.
Gratitude by Delphine de Vigan (2019) – France. Original French title: Les Gratitudes.
Another book that I have on the kindle. Delphine de Vigan never disappoints and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.
A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee (2016) – UK. French title: L’attaque du Calcutta-Darjeeling.
This is a book I bought at Quais du Polar. It’s the first instalment of the Sam Wyndham series set in colonial India.
The Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen (2015) – Mexico. French title: Gabacho
I remember where I bought this novel. It was in an indie bookstore in Barcelonnette, in the South of France. This town has a special relationship with Mexico as a lot of people emigrated to Mexico in the 19thcentury, became successful businessmen there and came back to their hometown and built sumptuous mansions. An incredible story.
So the local bookstore carries Mexican lit and I was drawn to The Gringo Champion, the story of a young Mexican boy who emigrate illegally in the US and tells his story as a clandestine.
That’s my list for the summer. Five books are on the Gallmeister catalogue and we’ll go to Portugal, France, America, especially Montana and Wyoming, Egypt, China, Korea, Japan, Nigeria, UK and Mexico. That’s quite a tour!
Have you read any of these books? Will you be doing the 10 / 15 / 20 Books of Summer too?
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata – highly recommended
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1948) French title: Pays de neige. Translated by Bunkichi Fujimori.
Sometimes people ask whether you’d buy a book for its cover. My answer is always yes and Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata is the perfect example of it. I was drawn to the cover, a part of a 1858 painting by Hiroshige entitled Yugasan in Bizan Province. (see below: isn’t it beautiful?)
Snow Country is the improbable love story between Shimamura, a dilletante from Tokyo and Komako, a young geisha from a small watering town in the mountains. (Kawabata doesn’t mention the town’s name in the novel but it’s Yuzawa, in the Niigata prefecture.)
Shimamura is married, has children and comes from old money. He writes articles about ballet and he became obsessed with Western dancing after he got tired of Japanese traditional dances. He’s a dilletante without an actual profession. Shimamura enjoys hiking retreats in the mountains to refuel. This is how he landed in this town, tired but happy and re-energized after a week-long hike.
He’s staying at an inn and asks for a geisha. This will be his first encounter with Komako, who’s not a geisha at the time. Something moves him in her beauty and her attitude.
The second time he comes back is actually the opening scene of the novel. He’s looking forward to seeing Komako again. He’s on the train on his way to the watering town and he observes a young woman taking care of her sick companion in their train carriage. He watches their reflection on the train’s window and it allows him to stare at them without being impolite. They hop off the train at the same station as him and he’ll see them later.
He reconnects with Komako, who is now a geisha. She attaches herself to him, and they will spend a lot of time together. Her attitude is not in accordance with the codes of her profession and they try to stay under the town’s radars.
The third time he comes will be the last. Komako is now too attached to him for her own good and their relationship can go nowhere. Shimamura likes her but he’s not in love with her and anyway, he’s married. It’s time to end it.
The story is a traditional love story doomed from the start and details from Komako’s life are revealed in the course of the story. The baseline is not new but the novel is a masterpiece nonetheless, all due to the writing.
The first chapter when Shimamura looks at the young people in the train’s window is truly beautiful. It’s cinematographic and very Proust-like. I can’t help thinking about the scenes on the train in Normandy during the Narrator’s stays in Balbec. Shimamura is entranced by the young girl’s beauty.
The descriptions of the landscapes are poetic and the interaction between the surrounding nature and Shimamura’s moods reminded me of Nature Writing. He comes to this mountain town once in May and spring is in full swing, once in December and it snows and once in the Fall. These three different moments of the year bring a different atmosphere to the town and play on Shimamura’s state of mind.
So, the beauty of the painting on the book cover reflects the beauty of Kawabata’s descriptions. Snow Country also captures a side of a disappearing Japan, as the country turns to Western modernity.
Shimamura lives in Tokyo and is interested in Western culture. After all, he writes about ballet and translates Alain and Paul Valéry. His trips to the mountains are a way to reconnect with himself and with traditional Japan. The old world, before the country opened to the West, still lingers in this remote village. It’s disappearing fast and Komako herself has spent time in Tokyo for her apprenticeship. She’s not a country pumpkin who has never left her hometown. Shimamura and Komako have a connection because he’s eager to go back to traditional Japan and she knows his world too. They meet halfway.
I really don’t know much about Japanese customs and sometimes I think I should read a book like Japanese customs for dummies before diving deeper into Japanese literature. So, curious as I am, I truly enjoyed reading about the geisha world and its organization, the villagers’ life and other customs like traditional dances, the making of Ojiya-chijimi fabric, the way women dress, bath and do their hair. It’s part of Shimamura’s attraction to the place and it’s part of my attraction to Kawabata’s book.
Snow Country is my second Kawabata after Kyôto and I’m afraid I’ve no recollection of Kyôto except that I liked it alright. I should reread it now that I’m older. Snow Country is a classic of Japanese literature and it is understandable as the story is universal and the style stunning.
This is my participation to Doce Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge.
Three beach-and-public-transport crime fiction books: let’s go to Sweden, Japan and Australia.
The summer holiday are coming soon, with lazy reading hours, waiting time in airports or train stations, train or plane travels and all kinds of noisy reading environments. That’s what my Beach and Public Transports category is for: help you locate page turners that help pass the time and don’t need a lot of concentration. So, let’s make a three-stops journey, starting in Stockholm with…
The Last Lullaby by Carin Gerardhsen. (2010) French title: La comptine des coupables. Translated from the Swedish by Charlotte Drake and Patrick Vandar.
It’s a classic crime fiction book that opens with a murder. Catherine Larsson and her two children are murdered in their apartment. She was from the Philippines, got married to Christer Larsson and they were divorced. He was deeply depressed and had no contact with his children.
Catherine lived in a nice apartment in a posh neighborhood in Stockholm. How could this cleaning lady afford such a lavish home?
The commissaire Conny Sjöberg and his team are on the case. The troubling fact is that their colleague Einar Ericksson has not shown up for work and hasn’t call in sick. Sjöberg looks for him and soon discover that Catherine Larsson and Einar Ericksson were close, that he used to come and meet her and play with the children. His sweater was in her flat.
Now the police are in a difficult position: their colleague is a suspect but Sjöberg thinks he’s a victim too. It complicates the investigation.
I enjoyed The Last Lullaby as the story progressed nicely, all clues clicking into place one after the other. I thought that the police team’s personal lives were a bit heavy. What are the odds to have on the same team someone with a traumatic past, someone who was raped and filmed, someone recovering of a heart attack and multiples divorces and affairs. It seemed a bit too much for me.
That minor detail aside, it’s a nice Beach and Public Transport book. Now, let’s travel to Japan for a very unusual story.
The House Where I Once Died by Keigo Higashino (1994) French title: La maison où je suis mort autrefois. Translated from the Japanese by Yukatan Makino. Not available in English.
The unnamed Narrator of the book and Sayaka met in high school and were a couple for a few years. Sayaka broke up with him when she met her future husband. He wasn’t too heartbroken, they never meant to spend their life together anyway. Seven years later, they reconnect at a high school reunion.
Sayaka contacts the Narrator a few weeks later and asks him to accompany her on a strange trip. When her father died, he left her with a key to a house. She knows that her father used to go there once a month but never talked about it. Since her husband is on a business trip, she doesn’t want to go alone. The Narrator accepts and they drive to a strange house in the woods by Matsubara Lake.
Sayaka doesn’t have any family left and has no memories of her early childhood. She wants her memory back and hopes that this house will trigger something in her.
The Narrator and Sayaka enter the house and start playing detective to find out whose house it is, why it is empty, where its inhabitants are and how they are linked to Sayaka’s father.
The House Where I Once Died is a fascinating tale and as a reader, I was captivated from the start. It’s like a children’s mystery tale, a strange house, clues in the rooms, a memory loss and weird details everywhere.
Step by step, along with the Narrator and Sayaka, we discover the truth about the house and its family. The ending was unexpected and the whole experience was a great reading time.
That’s another excellent Beach and Public Transport book at least for readers who can read in French, since it hasn’t been translated into English.
Now let’s move to Tasmania with…
The Survivors by Jane Harper (2020) French title: Les survivants.
This is not my first Jane Harper, I’ve already read The Dry and Force of Nature. This time, Jane Harper takes us to the fictional Tasmanian small town on Evelyn Bay. It’s on the ocean and along the coasts are caves that can be explored when the tide is low and that get flooded when the tide is high.
Kieran and his girlfriend Mia live in Sydney with their three-month old baby but they both grew up in Evelyn Bay. They are visiting Kieran’s parents Brian and Verity in their hometown. Brian has dementia and the young couple is here to help Verity pack their house to move Verity into an apartment and Brian goes to a medical facility.
This family is still haunted by the drama that occurred twelve years ago. Kieran was in the caves when a bad storm hit the town. Finn, his older brother who had a diving business with his friend Toby, went out to sea to rescue him. The storm turned their boat and they both drowned. Kieran has always felt responsible for the death of his older brother.
The storm devastated the town. The material damage was repaired. The psychological one, not really. That same day of the historical storm, Gabby Birch disappeared and never came back. She was fourteen and she probably drowned too. Her body was never found.
That summer, Kieran and his friends Ash and Sean were a tight unit who partied a lot. They were just out of high school and Kieran had secret hook-ups with Olivia in the caves. Gabby was Olivia’s younger sister and Mia’s best friend.
So, the group of friends who meet again in Evelyn Bay has this traumatic past in common. Olivia and Ash are now in a relationship. Olivia works at the local pub, with a student who is there for the summer. Bronte is an art student at university in Canberra. She waitresses at the pub too and shares a house on the beach with Olivia.
One morning shortly after Kieran and Mia’s arrival, Bronte is found dead on the beach. Who could have wanted to kill her? Old wounds reopen and everyone thinks about the storm and Gabby Birch’s unexplained death. The digital rumour mill runs freely on the town’s forum.
Are the two deaths related? How will Kieran deal with being in this town again in the middle of another dramatic event? What happens in those caves?
The Survivors isn’t an outstanding crime fiction book but it does the job. It’s entertaining and exactly what you need to read on a beach. Well, except for the fear you may get about rising tides and being stuck in caves…
The Survivors is my first of my #20BooksOfSummer challenge. Do you look for easy and entertaining reads for the summer or do you take advantage of the slower pace (no school and related activities, holidays…) to read more challenging books?
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
Novelist as a Vocation by Murakami Haruki (2015) French title: Profession romancier. Translated by Hélène Morita.
In Novelist as a Vocation, published in 2015, Haruki Murakami writes about his experience as a novelist. The book is composed of eleven chapters, the first six had been previously published in Monkey Business and the five others are new. In French, it is translated as Profession romancier, but I don’t think there’s an English translation of this collection of essays.
I used the title Novelist as a Vocation because it is included in my French copy of the book, under the original title in Japanese, shokugyõ toshite no shōsetsuka.
But Novelist as a Vocation isn’t the same as Profession romancier, which means Novelist as a profession. Between vocation and profession, in my opinion, stands the line between artist and craftsman. The Japanese title means Occupation: Novelist (Thanks Marina Sofia!), closer to the French title. Back to the book.
Murakami evokes several aspects of his life as a writer. How anybody can decide to write a book. How he had an epiphany at a baseball game –hence the cover of the book, I imagine—and how he decided to write a novel. His first success when he was thirty. He talks about literary prizes and says he doesn’t care he never won the Akutagawa prize. He’s still a hugely successful writer.
After these generalities, he dissects his writing life and his vision of talent. For him, being “original”, “new” will only be validated with time. Will a book become a classic? Is it really a revolution in literature the way the Beatles were a revolution in music? Time will tell if the public includes a novel in their modern classic pantheon or forgets it.
He gives recommendation to aspiring writers and describes his disciplined life. Write 400 signs per day. First draft. Re-read and correct. Second draft. Start again the process. His wife is his first reader and critic. He says he gives his best to each book and thus has no regret. He couldn’t have written them better at the time he wrote them. Sounds like a smart way to look at things.
His days are made of early rising, writing five to six hours and running for an hour. He insists on the importance of being fit to be a long-lasting writer. Your body must be an ally and not get in the way of your writing.
He gives us a glimpse at his school years and how he was bored in school. Books were his anchor and his solace.
The pages about his writing and the evolution of his style made me think that a reader should read his books in their order of publication. Each one was a step towards the writer he is now. He explains how, at the beginning of his writing career, he was unable to give names to his characters. He comes back to the first time he thought he could pull off a third person narrative.
He talks about his readers and the imaginary bond he feels between his words and the people who read them and receive them. However, he recommends to write for oneself and not for readers. A sign of success? For him, he’s happy when his books are read by people of different generations.
He also comes back to his moving to the USA, the reasons why he left Japan and his early successes in America. He had a plan to conquer the American market, one that included a good agent, a good translator and a willing publisher.
He’s very humble all the time, as if he weren’t that talented or as if the idea of writing came late and out of the blue.*
But between the lines you can sketch out a personality who stands out and doesn’t conform. He was born in 1949, it must have been hard not to conform in Japan, when he was young. He acknowledges that he didn’t follow standards, go to university, start a job in an office and get married. He got married first, opened a jazz bar with his wife and then got his degree. Then he started to write.
We guess that he’s someone who is an individual, who needs to do what he wants and live according to his own tune. Not a rebel or someone dangerous, more someone closer to the Western vision of individuality than to the Japanese culture of being one in a crowd. He is different and original compared to other Japanese men of his time.
He has a unique personality, backed up by a strong work ethic and a will to be successful, despite his apparent protests. This influences his books and that’s probably why they sound original. He doesn’t feel special but he is and so are his books.
I am not a die-hard Murakami fan. I loved South of the Border, West of the Sun and Kafka on the Shore (pre-blog). I wasn’t too fond of Norwegian Wood and couldn’t finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Incidentally, my billet titles are all related to music: Teen without spirit for Norwegian Wood, She moves him in mysterious ways for South of the Border, West of the Sun and lastly The wind-up bird never sang to me for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. (obviously)
After reading Profession romancier, I feel like trying another of his books and thanks to Marina’s post about Sputnik Sweetheart, I picked this one as my next Murakami.
This contributes to two blogging events, Japanese Lit Challenge 15 hosted by Meredith and Nonfiction Reader Challenge hosted by Shellyrae.
Four novellas, four countries, four decades
The blogging event Novellas in November hosted by Cathy and Rebecca has a perfect timing, I was in the mood to read several novellas in a row. One has been on the shelf for almost a decade (Yikes!), two arrived recently with my Kube subscription and one was an impulse purchase during my last trip to a bookstore. So, here I am with four novellas set in four different countries and in different decades.
The Origin of the World by Pierre Michon (1996) Original French title: La Grande Beune
We’re in 1961, in the French countryside of Dordogne, the region of the Lascaux caves. The narrator is 20 and he has just been appointed as primary school teacher in the village of Castelnau. It’s his first time as a teacher. He takes lodgings at Hélène’s and discovers the life of the village. Soon, he becomes infatuated with the beautiful Yvonne, the village’s tobacconist and the mother of one of his pupils, Bernard.
Michon describes the narrator’s sex drive as he walks in the country, as he visits caves with paintings, as he obsesses over Yvonne but still has sex with his girlfriend Mado.
The English translation is entitled The Origin of the World, probably as a reference to the caves, their rock painting and the beginning of humanity and to femineity, like Courbet’s painting. The French title, La Grande Beune, is the name of the river near the village.
Pierre Michon is considered as a great writer by critics. He’s not my kind of writer, I don’t connect well with his prose. I can’t explain why, there’s something in the rhythm that doesn’t agree with me. It’s the first time I read a book by him, I only saw a play version of his book, Vie de Joseph Roulin. Roulin was the postman in Arles, the one who was friend with Van Gogh. I expected a lively biopic, it was one of the most boring plays I’ve ever seen.
After my stay in Dordogne, I traveled to Sicily, in a poor neighborhood of Palermo.
Borgo Vecchio by Giosuè Calaciura (2017) Translated from the Italian by Lise Chapuis.
Calaciura takes us among the little world of the Borgo Vecchio neighborhood. Mimmo and Cristofaro are best friends and Mimmo has a crush on Celeste.
The three children don’t have an easy life. Mimmo’s home life is OK but he’s worried about Cristofaro whose father is a mean drunkard and beats him badly every evening. Celeste spends a lot of time on the balcony of her apartment: her mother Carmela is the local hooker and she works from home. Her daughter stays on the balcony, to avoid her mother’s clients and witness her dealing with men. Cristofaro and Mimmo find solace in nurturing Nanà, a horse that Mimmo’s father acquired to run races and make money on bets.
The neighborhood’s other legend is Totò, the master of the thief squad, a quick worker who gets away with everything because he’s fast, agile and knows the neighborhood’s every nook and crannies. The police can’t compete with that and the fact that the inhabitants of Borgo Vecchio protect their own.
Calaciura’s prose is poetic, almost like a fairy tale. It tempers the horror of the characters’ lives but doesn’t sugarcoat it. It breathes life into Borgo Vecchio and we imagine the alleys, the noise coming from the harbor, the life of the community, the importance of the Catholic church.
Everyone knows everyone’s business. It’s a mix of acceptance, —Carmela belongs to the community and is not really ostracized—and cowardice –nobody intervenes to save Cristoforo and his mother from their abusive father and husband.
We get to know the neighborhood and the tension builds up, leading to an inevitable drama. The reader feels a lot of empathy for these children. What chance do they have to do better than their parents?
After Borgo Vecchio, I traveled to Japan and read…
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (2016) French title: La fille de la supérette. Translated from the Japanese by Mathilde Tamae-Bouhon
With Sayaka Murata’s book, I discovered the word kombini, a work that comes from the English convenient store (supérette in French)
The main character, Keiko Furukura, is a peculiar lady. She’s 36 and had been working at a SmileMart convenience store for 18 years. She’s single, never had a boyfriend and, according to her voice, she seems to be on the spectrum.
Her life is made of working hard, following her routine and learning social cues from her coworkers. Anything to sounds and behave like a normal woman, whatever that means. All is well until a new employee, Shihara, joins the team. He has his own issues with Japan’s expectation of him.
Convenience Store Woman is a lovely novella about a woman who struggles to fit in a society that likes nothing more than conformity. She stands out because she’s single and is not looking for a husband and because she’s happy with what is considered as a temporary job for students. Shihara disrupts her life and makes her question herself.
This theme about fitting in reminded me of Addition by Toni Jordan, with less romance and more sass. I liked Keiko and I’m glad got to spend time with her. The author has a good angle on the pressure for conformity of the Japanese society.
Then I virtually flew to Iowa at the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to…
Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner (1937) French title: Une journée d’automne. Translated from the American by Françoise Torchiana.
Alec Stuart and his wife Margaret are wealthy farmers. Their life changes when Elspeth, Margaret’s younger sister, comes to live with them, freshly emigrated from Scotland.
Elspeth is 18, full of life. She marvels about the farm, looks at everything with enthusiasm and with a fresh eye. She instills energy and joy in Alec and Margaret’s settled life. She’s also awakening to desire. She and Alec become close, until an unhealthy love triangle arises from their staying in close quarters.
Love, betrayal and tragedy are round the corner of the barn.
Wallace Stegner is a marvelous writer. His characters are well-drawn, revealing their complexity, their innocence or their flows. The countryside of Iowa leaps from the pages, with its sounds, its smells and its landscapes. According to the afterword written by Stegner’s wife, this novella is based on the true story of her aunts, which makes the story even more poignant.
This was my second Stegner, after Crossing to Safety, which I recommend as highly as Remembering Laughter. Imagine that Stegner taught literature and had among his students Thomas McGuane, Raymond Carver, Edward Abbey and Larry McMurtry. What a record!
As mentioned at the beginning, this is another contribution to the excellent even Novellas in November. Thanks ladies for organizing it! Reading novellas is fun.
The antidote to bleakness – comfort books.
As mentioned in my previous billet B Is For Bleak: the bleak fest continues in Oktober, I tried to mitigate the effect of bleak reads and plays with comfort books.
The first one was The Stationery Shop by Ogawa Ito. (2016. translated by Myriam Dartois-Ako).
I had already read another of her novels, The Restaurant of Love Regained and I knew I’d be reading something soft and uplifting.
In The Stationery Shop, Hatoko is 25, she’s back in her native town of Kamakura to take over the family business after her grandmother passed away. Hatoko inherited a stationary shop and has to replace her grandmother as a public letter-writer.
We follow her as she settles into her new life, meets people in the neighborhood, connects with clients and learns about her past. I knew nothing bad would happen and that Hatoko’s life would improve as she made peace with her past and built her future. It didn’t disappoint on that part.
However, The Stationery Shop has the same backbone as The Restaurant of Love Regained and the parallels are striking. A young woman comes back to her hometown or village. She’s lonely. She has unsolved issues with the woman who raised her, mother or grandmother. She starts or runs a business based on Japanese traditions. She knows a craft deeply embedded in Japanese customs, cuisine for one, calligraphy for the other. She connects to her Japanese roots through this craft, one that is turned towards others and aims at making her customers happy with a meal or with the right letter for an event or to a dear one. While she applies her craft as a balm to her customers’ souls, she finds her inner peace. It bothered me to find out that the two books had the same structure.
Ogawa Ito gives a lot of details about Japanese calligraphy. To be honest, I don’t know enough about Japan and its tradition to catch on all the calligraphy explanations and details about the writing, the quill, the choice of paper, of stamps…I missed a layer of knowledge and all these details bored me, which is even worse than getting emotional over a bleak play. So, the comfort book wasn’t that comforting, I thought it was a bit slow and dull. A bit goodie-two-shoes too, you know, a novel aimed at spreading love and good feelings.
The next time I turned to a different kind of comfort read, crime fiction set in Montana, with The Grey Ghosts Murders by Keith McCafferty. (2013. Translated by Janique Jouin-de Laurens)
I’d already read the first volume of the series, The Royal Wulff Murders and had enjoyed it. I expected entertainment and a reprieve from emotional books.
It’s crime fiction, so, of course, there are terrible deaths and corrupt politicians like everywhere else, and it doesn’t qualify as a fluffy feel-good novel but the context is positively endearing.
No stiff in dirty back alleys like in a Connelly novel. No, you’re in the wild part of Montana. The police and the medical examiner have to hike to go to the body, only to discover that bears messed up with the evidences and that their pepper spray is damned handy when they get too close to a mamma bear and her cubs while on the job.
The main character, Sean Callahan shares his time between working as a fishing guide, painting Montana landscapes for tourists and playing amateur sleuth. Beside the murders, a group of fishermen who purchased a cabin together for their fishing holidays, ask him to investigate a theft: two of their antique fishing flies were stolen from their display cases. They were mounted by famous fishermen who invented these flies, a breakthrough in fly-fishing techniques. It’s as serious as stealing Dumbledore’s wand and yet, it’s funny to think that somewhere, there’s a parallel world where fishermen collect antique flies.
Sean helps with the murders investigation and researches thoroughly the person who had the idea to steal antique fishing flies.
Sean is quirky character, with a tender heart and he falls in love too easily, with the wrong women. He has a touchy relationship with Martha, the sheriff. He has decided to settle in Montana for good and we understand why, with all the attaching second characters in the book.
This comfort read totally worked because, to me, it’s exotic and took me far away from the previous book. It did the job and I’ll get the third volume on the shelf for future comfort read. It’s like having a Louise Penny on the ready.
That was before I read Sandrine Collette. After that one, I needed a solid pick-me-up and decided to take the safest option with guaranteed HEA.
I read Beauty and the Beast, the 1740 original tale by Madame de Villeneuve. The story was consistent with the children version I’d read before. The Disney movie and the film by Cocteau are based on a later version of the story, written by Madame Leprince de Beaumont.
Compared to this well-known version, the original has an additional part in which Madame de Villeneuve describes the war between the fairies and explains how the prince fell under a magic spell and why Beauty ended up with her father’s family. Interesting and relaxing.
Now my reading has come back to its usual mix of easy, challenging and entertaining books, like Richard Russo, Michael Connelly and Balzac.
What kind of books do you turn to after a challenging or emotional read?
The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa – Let’s play a game with book covers
The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa (2008) French title: Le restaurant de l’amour retrouvé. Translated from the Japanese by Myriam Dartois-Ako.
The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa is a celebration of food and its healing powers. Rinko works as a cook in the city and when she comes home, she is shocked to discover that her boyfriend has cleaned up their apartment and left. The flat is totally empty and with no home and no boyfriend, Rinko decides to go back to her native village, a place she left behind ten years ago, when she was barely fifteen.
The shock is such that Rinko is speechless. Literally. She can’t speak anymore and has to communicate through notes. Her village is in the country and Rinko has a complicated relationship with her mother, Ruriko. Rinko is an illegitimate child and she doesn’t know who her father is. Her mother runs the local bar, financed by Neocon, a rich man who paid for the bar and covers Ruriko with presents. Rinko dislikes her mother and Neocon.
Ruriko accepts to lend money to Rinko, so that she can launch her own restaurant in the village. She calls it The Snail. It becomes a very special place, where Rinko only serves one table at a time, creating a special menu for the guests. Soon, her restaurant has the reputation to foster love and bring a happy-ever-after to the guests. Her success is immediate.
Said that way, it sounds cheesy but it’s not, at least for the first part of the book, the one I enjoyed the most. I immersed myself in Rinko’s world, made of an indifferent mother, a strange pet pig named Hermes after the luxury brand and that she has to look after, a gentle janitor, Kuma, who helps her clean and install the restaurant. I liked Rinko’s resilience and the feeling that it was a tale out-of-time and out-of-space.
I liked the pages about selecting the right produce and preparing food. I enjoyed reading about Rinko’s soul-searching venture through her restaurant. Cooking for her guests is a gift, a way for her to spread her love to others. Rinko nurses her broken heart in the kitchen, bringing happiness to her guests. Cooking is an act of love, her way to connect to others and belong to the world.
As long as I was reading about the restaurant, I was fine and invested in the story. I started to get bored when Ruriko’s story came into the mix. I won’t tell much because it’d spoil the story for other readers but I thought it was too much. Improbable family secrets are revealed and Rinko’s world is once again turned upside down.
I rarely do that, because I don’t think books should come with warning stickers, but the last part is not for vegan and vegetarian readers, and that’s all I’ll say.
For another opinion, here’s Vishy’s review. And Bookmaniac’s.
As always, I looked for the English language cover of the book. As usual, I found it lacking and went looking for covers in other languages. Let’s play a game. You’ve seen the French cover and here are six other covers from other languages, including the original Japanese.
I’ve read the book and I can tell you that the Asian covers are the best to represent the atmosphere of Rinko’s tale. Naïve drawing showing her in her village in the mountains, connecting to nature and the locals.
The French cover is OK, it’s faithful to the text, it shows the delicate beauty of the book. It’s different from the other Western covers, with its blue tone.
The Western covers are all the same deep red tones, not a color I associate with Japan but more with China. The Italian one is good as it represents Rinko cooking and it’s a major aspect of the book. The Spanish one is cheesy with the rice heart and the worst one is the American one. I truly wonder where it comes from and who had the idea of such an odd picture considering the book.
And what about you? Which covers would lead you to pick up The Restaurant of Love Regained from a display table in a bookstore?
Strangers by Yamada – Japanese Literature Challenge
Strangers by Yamada (1987) French title: Présences d’un été. Translated by Annick Laurent
I read Strangers by Yamada in January for Japanese Literature Challenge. I’m lucky that Meredith extended the reading time up to March. My late billet is still in. Phew!
Strangers is set in Tokyo, during a summer in the 1980s. Harada, a rather famous TV scriptwriter, is forty-seven, recently divorced and has moved into an apartment in an office complex. The building empties at night and he thinks he’s the only one actually living in this tower. He’s estranged from his grownup son, his parents are dead and he doesn’t have many friends. In other words, he’s lonely.
Two things happen during that summer. First, he meets Kei, an accountant who lives in the building too. He thought he was alone there after working hours but he’s not, he has a neighbor. They soon get acquainted and start an affair.
Then, feeling a bit off-kilter after his divorce, struggling a little to adapt to his newfound singlehood, Harada decides to go back to Asakusa, the Tokyo neighborhood he grew up in. He wants to see his childhood house again. When he arrives there, he meets with the new tenants, who look a lot like his long dead parents and welcome him into their home.
How will Harada’s relationship with Kei evolve? Who are the people who live in his childhood home? Harada is a middle-aged man who has to reassess his life after his divorce. His career is successful but not totally fulfilling. His marriage fell apart and he has no contact with his son. He feels adrift and tries to go back to his roots and to find comfort in Kei. I enjoyed the novel’s nostalgic tone and the blanket of melancholy that settles on Harada’s shoulders. He wants to go back to a happy place and looks for it in his childhood memories. But how destructive is it?
Telling more would spoil the novel for potential readers, so I won’t go further in its description. I’ll just say that the ending was a surprise and that it’s not the kind of books I usually read but I liked it anyway. Yamada describes Tokyo with fondness and the city becomes an important part of this atmospheric story. Harada’s visits to Asakusa, the descriptions of the area, its shops and restaurants give a good vision of the neighborhood, a foot in the past, and a foot in the present. And the story progresses towards a strange ending.
Highly recommended.
The Weight of Secrets by Aki Shimazaki – Lovely
The Weight of Secrets by Aki Shimazaki (1999-2004) Original French title: Le poids des secrets.
Aki Shimazaki was born in 1961 in Japan. She emigrated to Canada in 1981, first living in Vancouver and Toronto before moving to Montreal in 1991. In 1995, she started to learn French and in 1999, she published her first novella. In French, her third language. I’m in awe.
The Weight of Secrets is her debut series and the original title is Le poids des secrets. It is a five-petal flower book. Each novella is a petal and the reader is like a little bee, going from one petal to the other, seeing part of the flower from a character’s point of view at different periods in time. After visiting the five petals, the reader has a global view of the history of two families who seem to live parallel lives but actually have open and hidden interconnections. It is the shared destinies of a woman, Yukiko and Yukio, born in Tokyo in the early 1930s and both living in Nagasaki in 1945 and survivors of the atomic bombing.
Each volume has a Japanese title, a name of flower or of an animal symbolic of this specific view on the story.
The first book is Tsubaki, (camélias/camellias), a flower symbolic of happy times for Yukio and Yukiko.
The second book is Hamaguri, a shellfish with a shell in two halves. It is a children’s game to have a bag of shells and try to find the exact other half to one shell. It is a symbol of a key person missing in the characters’ lives.
The third book is Tsubame (hirondelle/swallow). It is the nickname of a Catholic priest who plays a capital part in the story. He’s a swallow as he’s always dressed in a black-and-white cloth. In French we say that one swallow doesn’t bring back Spring but this man does, he brings life and hope after hard times.
The fourth book is Wasurenagusa (myosotis/forget-me-not). It belongs to Yukio’s father who was in Manchuria during WWII and separated from his family.
The fifth book is Hotaru (lucioles/fireflies), a way to symbolize dangerous attractions.
I’m aware that you still have no clue about the story. The truth is, I don’t want to give details about the characters. All you need to know is that it’s set in Japan, that it involves characters crushed by historical events like the 1923 earthquake in Tokyo and the subsequent massacre of Korean immigrants or the 1945 atomic bombing in Nagasaki. It is about racism against the Korean community and about the Japanese definition of what is proper or not. It tells the impact of customs on individual lives when they cannot meet society’s expectations. It’s the story of two beings who had a special bond, one they didn’t get to explore because their parents kept too many secrets and how they missed out. It’s the stories of two adults who healed each other and had a good life together, despite their own secrets and failures.
We go back and forth in time, we change of narrators and we unravel each character’s reasons to keep something or some part of themselves hidden. We only see people who do as best they can given the circumstances they are in. From one book to the other, we get a clearer picture of the characters’ lives and how some of the secrets get revealed to the next generation and how some die with the person. Each character has something they don’t know about their origins.
It’s written in a simple and lovely language and I wanted to know more after each volume. My favorite volumes were Tsubame and Wasurenagusa. I absolutely loved this series and I highly recommend it. If you pick it up, do not read the blurbs of the books, there are way too many spoilers in them and you want to keep the magic intact.
I don’t know if it’s a Japanese or a Canadian book. I’ve seen it in the Japanese section of my bookstore. I certainly thought it was Japanese until I wondered who was the translator, discovered there was none and started to research Aki Shimazaki. It’s difficult to qualify it. Its language is French but certainly not the French from Québec. Shimazaki’s native language probably left some marks in her way to think and write in French. It’s a Japanese book for its setting, its characters, its themes and its background culture. So, I don’t know, I’ll let you make your own mind about it but I feel privileged. I got to read a Japanese book in my native language.
Now the sad news and the ranting part. Sadly, it’s a Translation Tragedy. It’s published in Québec, it was a great success in the francophone world and it’s easy to read. And yet, it’s not available in English. Is there not an anglophone Canadian publisher to translate it into English? Like for Bonheur d’occasion by Gabrielle Roy, I really don’t understand how it’s possible that such books are not available in the country’s two official languages.
Good thing for readers who speak French, it’s a perfect way to practice reading in French. The books are short, the style is simple (short sentences, no very complicated words) and the story gripping.
I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki
I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki (1905) French title: Je suis un chat. Translated by Jean Cholley.
Disclaimer: I read I Am a Cat in French and will use the French transcription of Japanese names. It may be different from the one in English translation. I translated the quotes from the French and let the original French for readers who can read it and enjoy the professional translation from the Japanese.
| L’étude des humains ne peut progresser si on ne choisit pas un moment où ils ont des ennuis. A l’ordinaire, les hommes sont justes des hommes : ils présentent un spectacle banal et sans intérêt. Mais quand ils ont des ennuis, toute cette banalité fermente et se soulève par la grâce de quelque fonction mystérieuse, et on voit alors se produire soudainement un peu partout des événements étranges, bizarres, insolites, inimaginables, en un mot des choses qui sont d’un grand intérêt pour nous, les chats. | The study of human nature cannot progress if one doesn’t choose moments where men are in trouble. Usually, men are just men. They play a trite and uninteresting show. But when they’re in trouble, all this triteness ferments and lifts itself by some sort of mysterious feature. One can suddenly witness all kinds of strange, bizarre and unbelievable things. And these things are of great interest for us, cats. |
Natsume Sōseki (1867-1916) is a Japanese writer. He spent three years in England, spoke English very well and had a good knowledge of British literature. He was a teacher of English literature in Tokyo. He lived during the Meiji era (1868-1912). At the time, Japan stopped being an isolated country and opened to the world. It resulted in a lot of changes in politics, in economy, in mores and touched the whole society. It was a major change and it is important to have it in mind while reading Natsume Sōseki.
In I Am a Cat, the narrator is an unnamed feline and it is a first-person narration. This device reminded me of Lettres persanes by Montesquieu who used Persans characters to question the French society. They wrote letters to each other and could wonder at customs, point out ridicules and inconsistences without being offensive. They had the right to be puzzled, they were foreigners. The same thing happens here with the cat. He portrays his master and his family and friends and relates the life in this house in a neighborhood in Tokyo. Natsume Sōseki gives a vivid description of a cat’s mind. Our furry narrator explains how he shows affection to his master to be fed and how he enjoys walks in the garden, naps in the sun. He relates the sensitive politics between the cat population of the quartier. There’s a hilarious passage where he retells his first attempt at catching mice. As a reader, you really feel like you’re looking at life through cat’s eyes. He has a smart mouth and doesn’t refrain from using it to mock humans like here:
| Un miroir est un alambic à vanité et en même temps un stérilisateur d’orgueil. Aucun objet n’excite plus un imbécile qui se tient devant lui avec la tête pleine de suffisance. Les deux bons tiers des malheurs qui restent dans l’histoire, malheurs soufferts par des orgueilleux qui se sont trop vite crus supérieurs, et malheurs infligés à leurs victimes, sont dus aux miroirs. | A mirror is a vanity still and at the same time a pride sterilizer. No other object gets an imbecile as worked up just by standing in front of it, their head full of self-importance. A solid two-thirds of the tragedies that remained in history are due to mirrors, both the tragedies suffered by proud people who thought themselves as superior and the tragedies inflicted to their victims. |
There are a lot of other examples. In addition to ironic thoughts about humans, the cat-narrator tends to think out of the box, as you can see here:
| On peut croire qu’il y a une grande différence entre tomber et descendre mais elle n’est pas aussi importante qu’on le pense. Descendre, c’est ralentir une chute, et tomber, c’est accélérer une descente, voilà tout. | One may think there is a big difference between falling and going down but it’s not as obvious as one thinks. Going down is slowing down a fall and falling down is accelerating a go down, that’s all. |
That was for the atmosphere. Time to describe a bit more the household that took on this kitten.
Our little friend lives in Professor Kushami’s house. He’s married and has three daughters, all under 10 years old. His house is where his friends Meitei and Kagetsu gather. They talk about all and nothing. According to the cat, Kushami is rather ridiculous. He’s not a very good husband and he doesn’t care much about his daughters. He’s surrounded with books and seems to be barely average as a teacher. I Am a Cat is a comedy of manners, it could be a theatre play because everything is centered in the house. Kushami probably shares traits with Natsume Sōseki. Like Kushami, he was an English teacher and had chronic stomach aches—he died of stomach ulcer. It is true that there are a lot of laughable things about Kushami. But he’s also someone who doesn’t gamble, cheat on his wife or bends to the will of others. He’s not interested in money and would rather cling to his principles and his dignity than give in to powerful and wealthy neighbors. I loved reading about the decoration of the house, the display of the rooms, the kitchen, the dishes, politeness and all kinds of details about life in Japan at the time. My edition included useful but noninvasive footnotes.
Kushami’s woes with his wife, neighbors or friends are described in such a funny tone that I laughed a lot. Marriage is a target in I Am a Cat. The author and Kushami are not too fond of the institution which is more a necessary burden than a love match. And our cat observes:
| Ce couple a abandonné le caractère fastidieux des bonnes manières avant sa première année de mariage ; c’est un couple super-marié. | This couple has abandoned all fussy good manners before their first year of marriage ended. They’re a super-married couple. |
Not exactly a glowing advertising for the institution. Natsume Sōseki uses comedy to amuse the reader but he still reflects on human nature. The cat-narrator compares humans and cats.
| Le monde est plein de gens qui agissent mal tout en se croyant dans leur bon droit. Ils sont convaincus de leur innocence, ce qui part d’une candeur plaisante mais la candeur n’a jamais supprimé une réalité gênante. | The world is full of people who behave badly while believing they’re in their good right. They are convinced of their innocence, which stems from a pleasant candidness but candidness has never made an embarrassing reality vanish. |
Natsume Sōseki was born with the Meiji era and he observes the transformations of the Japanese society. I Am a Cat includes lots of thoughts about the rapid changes in the society. It impacts every area of life: relationships between men and women become less formal, Western ways of doing business become the norm. New hobbies appear. I knew that baseball was a popular sport in Japan and I thought it dated back to WWII and the occupation of Japan by American troops. Actually, Japanese people started to play baseball during the Meiji era. All things Western were fashionable and the prerequisite was “West is the best” and this bothered Natsume Sōseki. Even if he’s open to Western culture, he criticizes the blind acceptance of Western ways.
| La civilisation occidentale est peut-être progressive, agressive, mais en fin de compte, c’est une civilisation faite par des gens qui passent leur vie dans l’insatisfaction. La civilisation japonaise ne cherche pas la satisfaction en changeant autre chose que l’homme lui-même. Là où elle diffère profondément de l’occidentale, c’est en ce qu’elle s’est développée sur la grande assertion qu’il ne faut pas changer fondamentalement les conditions de l’environnement. Si les relations entre parents et enfants ne sont pas les meilleures, notre civilisation ne tente pas de retrouver l’harmonie en changeant ces relations, comme le font les Européens. Elle tient que ces relations ne peuvent pas être altérées, et elle recherche un moyen pour restaurer la sérénité à l’intérieur de ces relations. Il en va de même entre mari et femme, maître et serviteur, guerrier et marchand, et également dans la nature. Si une montagne empêche d’aller dans le pays voisin, au lieu de raser cette montagne, on s’arrange pour ne pas avoir à aller dans ce pays. On cultive un sentiment qui puisse donner satisfaction de ne pas franchir la montagne. Et c’est pourquoi les adeptes du zen et du confucianisme sont certainement ceux qui comprennent le mieux cette question dans le fond. On peut être tout-puissant sans que le monde tourne comme on veut, on ne peut ni empêcher le soleil de se coucher, ni renverser le cours de la rivière Kamo. On n’a de pouvoir que sur son esprit. | Western civilization may be progressive and aggressive but in the end, it’s a civilization built by people who spend their life dissatisfied. Japanese civilization does not seek satisfaction other than by changing men themselves. The biggest difference with the Western civilization is that the Japanese civilization grew on the assertion that the environment cannot be changed. If the relationships between parents and children are not ideal, our civilization does not look for harmony in changing the relationships like Europeans do. It considers that these relationships cannot be altered and it searches for a way to restore serenity inside these relations. It is the same for relations between men and women, master and servant, warrior and merchant and even in nature. If a mountain prevents you from walking to the neighboring country, the Japanese will arrange not to have to go to this country. They will cultivate a state of mind that finds satisfaction in not getting over the mountain. This is why the adepts of Zen and Confucianism are probably the ones who understand this matter the best. One can be the most powerful person on Earth but the world still won’t bend to their wishes. One cannot prevent the sun from setting, change the course of the River Kamo. One has only power over their own mind. |
This quote is fascinating when you think it dates back to 1905. Not all the flaws of our Western civilization come from the landslide of consumer society. The roots were there before mass consumption and globalization. The part about the mountain reminded me of our visit to Bluff, Utah. The Mormons who founded this community used dynamite to carve their way through the mountain and arrive there. It’s called the Hole in the Rock trail. It baffled Native Americans that humans could destroy nature like this. It would have baffled their Japanese contemporaries as well.
I Am a Cat is an excellent read because it is multilayered. It’s funny, with an unusual narrator and under the lightness, there’s a real purpose to decipher a rapidly changing society. I Am a Cat is the perfect example of why we should read translations. I know that the Japanese language is far from the French and a lot of wordplays were probably lost in translation. But I don’t mind. It’s good enough in French and style is not everything. I Am a Cat allowed me to learn about Japan and its culture. Reading familiar things about human nature reminds us that whatever the culture we have things in common.
Highly recommended.
Natsume Sōseki died on December 9th, 1916. It is a coincidence but this billet will be my way to celebrate the centenary of his death. Jacqui recently reviewed The Gate. The atmosphere seems different, more melancholic. Her excellent review is here. Many thanks to Tony who recommended this in the first place.
PS: A word for French readers. I have the paper edition of Je suis un chat and it’s printed in a very small font. It’s available in e-book so I would recommend that version.
Coffee and arsenic
Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino (2008) French title: Un café maison.
I don’t remember where I’ve discovered Keigo Higashino although I’m sure it’s through a book blog. Anyway. This is my contribution to Tony’s January in Japan and guess what, there’s an article about Higashino just here.
Salvation of a Saint is a crime fiction novel set in Tokyo. It opens on a repudiation scene between Ayane and her husband Yoshitaka. They’ve been married for a year and since Avaye isn’t pregnant yet, Yoshitaka is leaving her. He had told her beforehand that he would leave her if a baby wasn’t on its way during the first year of their marriage. I guess it’s a new way to envision the proverbial biological clock. Now he’s found someone else, and that someone else is already pregnant. The chapter ends with Ayane thinking “I love you very deeply. What you just told me broke my heart. Now I want you to die too.”
This happens just before they expect guests for diner. Classy guy, this Yoshitaka. They invited the Mashibas and Hiromi Wakayama, Ayane’s employee. This diner is a subtle form of torture for Ayane since the Mashibas recently had a baby.
The morning after diner, Ayane leaves Tokyo for a few days to visit her family in Sapporo. This trip wasn’t scheduled but it’s understandable given the circumstances. Yoshitaka stays behind, sees his mistress and she’ll be the one to find him dead in his apartment. He was poisoned by arsenic-laced coffee.
The police arrive on the scene and the inspector Kusanagi is in charge of the investigation. He’s drawn to Ayane and in the eye of his young colleague Kaoru Utsumi, he’s too quick to write her off from the list of suspects. She thinks he’s blinded by his attraction to Ayane. To keep the investigation on track, she seeks the help of a scientist, Yukawa. He has already helped the police before and he’s friend with Kusagani. Kaoru wants to figure out how the arsenic arrived in Yoshitaka’s coffee and if Ayane could have poisoned her husband at distance.
That’s all I’ll say about the plot. Salvation of a Saint is well-crafted. I wanted to know if and how Ayane had killed her husband. The police dig into Yoshitaka’s life and past relationships attempting to get to know the victim. The picture is not pretty. He looks down on women. They’re either a means to sexual fun or a living oven for baking his future babies. It’s hard to feel sorry for the guy’s death, especially when you’re a woman. In this book, Higashino doesn’t give a good image of the Japanese society when it comes to women. Here they are wombs or obedient wives. Kaoru has a hard time working with Kusanagi who tends to dismiss her suggestions and analysis. It’s hard to be female in this police department.
The plot has several twists and turns and the relationships between the characters are muddy sometimes. Yoshitaka is certainly not a saint but Ayane seemed quite creepy to me as well. Her reactions to events are off. She never reacts the way the reader expects and she appears to be cold. She’s not really likeable either. I also rejoiced in Yukawa’s participation to the investigation. It brought fresh air and a bit of craziness in the novel. The dynamics in the investigation team was interesting to follow just as it was fun to read about his scientific experiments to find out if and how Ayane could have scheduled the poisoning.
Salvation of a Saint is a classic crime fiction novel with strong plot and intriguing characters. I liked it a lot and had a great time reading it. The English title must reflect the original since I’ve seen the same one in other languages. I can understand why the French title is different: Le salut d’un saint isn’t a good title from a marketing point of view. It’s confusing since salut means hello and salvation. And I suspect that such a title with religious connotation would be a put off for French readers except if it’s on a book by a pulp fiction writer or by San Antonio.
Great reading time.
You’ll be on probation your entire life
On Parole by Akira Yoshimura 1988. French title: Liberté conditionnelle. Translated from the Japanese by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle.
I intended to read On Parole for Tony’s January in Japan but I didn’t finish it on time and February flew by and the billet is still to write. Oh, well, c’est la vie!
On Parole is my second book by Akira Yoshimura. I’ve already read La Jeune Fille suppliciée sur une étagère / Le Sourire de pierre which left me perplexed but certain to have met with a great writer, which On Parole confirms.
Shiro Kikutani has been in prison for fifteen years when he’s released on parole. The novel starts with Kukutani’s departure from prison. Kikutani has been released because of his good conduct but also thanks to Akiyama who is willing to hire him when he goes out. So, it is all set for Kikutani: he will work at Akiyama’s chicken farm. During the first months, Kikytani is under the responsibility of Kiyoura, who runs a free home for ex-convicts. Kiyoura takes Kikutani under his wing to help him readapt to life outside of prison. They go shopping, they take the bus and the train and later he assists him with his search for an apartment. After Kikutani has left the ex-convict home for his own apartment, he’s transferred from Kiyoura’s care to Takebayashi’s. Takebayashi is doing pro bono work as an ex-convict counsellor and Kikutani must visit him regularly at home. In French on parole is liberté conditionnelle or conditional freedom. We also use liberté surveillée for probation. Literally, it means freedom under surveillance. I think it reflects well Kikutani’s position in life. His freedom is conditional: he must respect the rules of probation.
We are in Kikutani’s mind and we discover what brought him to prison in the first place. He walked into his wife sleeping with someone else and he killed her on the spot, wounded her lover and killed the lover’s mother by setting the house on fire. We follow Kikutani through his journey back to normal life. Except his life isn’t normal. He’s on parole for life as he has been sentenced to life imprisonment. He has to visit Takebayashi, can’t leave Tokyo without his consent and must report regularly to the authorities. Kiyoura explains to him that since the longest sentence possible is twenty years of imprisonment, if he behaves properly for ten years, he can ask for grace and be totally free again. Although Kikutani is grateful to be out of prison, he also resents that his freedom is not full.
In the beginning, his everyday life is a struggle. Yoshimura describes well how even the smallest tasks are a challenge. For example, Kiyoura recommends that he chooses a low cost hairdresser because they work quicker and are less likely to engage him into small talk. And small talk and banal questions put Kikutani in a spot. Work at the chicken farm is tough but Kikutani holds on and get used to his new schedule and new environment. His body has to readapt to softer conditions: there is no central heating in prison and he’s used to marching instead of walking. Life has changed outside and he’s a bit frightened by crowds everywhere.
Kikutani is lonely. His brother avoids him, his parents are dead and he has lost his former friends. He can’t go back to his home town. He used to be a teacher there and the scandal was too big for him to move back there. He stays alone with his thoughts and doesn’t share anything too personal with Takebayashi either. We realise that he’s been released but he hasn’t atoned for his actions and he still doesn’t regret killing his wife. He’s sorry for the lover’s mother but not for his reaction upon finding his wife in her lover’s arms.
| Les longs mois qu’il avait passés en prison à lutter contre l’horrible souvenir et ruminer l’idée que son acte était inévitable avaient exacerbé ses sentiments. Le juge qui avait prononcé la sentence devait compter sur son incarcération pour qu’il regrette son geste, mais il ne regrettait rien, bien au contraire. Cependant, le temps avait adouci ses souvenirs en les estompant, de sorte qu’il ne s’énervait pratiquement plus jamais. C’était le seul soulagement qu’il lui était donné de ressentir, et il ne voulait pas remuer tout cela maintenant. | The long months he has spent in prison, fighting against horrible memories and brooding over the idea that his deed had been inevitable had sharpened his feelings. The judge who had sentenced him probably expected that his being in prison would make him regret his bad actions, but he didn’t regret anything, quite the opposite. However, time had soothed his memories by blurring them and now he hardly ever got angry anymore. It was the only relief he could experience and he didn’t want to stir all this now.My translation from the French.Please don’t judge Yoshimura’s style upon this. |
From society’s point of view, it’s a bit chilling. The system has him under surveillance but he never gets real counselling. He’s on the loose and he’s not reformed. Although I acknowledged his struggle, I never really empathised with him. There’s something cold in this man and I felt apprehensive, wondering what kind of drama he was heading to. Through Kikutani’s individual story, I also had the feeling that Yoshimura was criticising a system which seems to coach ex-convicts very well but doesn’t in the end because it doesn’t take their mental state of mind into consideration. They take practicalities into account and the fact that they are estranged from society but they assume that calm and hardworking means well-balanced.
Yoshimura’s style is precise, not much adorned and leaves us with a good vision of Kikutani’s routine and state-of-mind. The construction of the novel is excellent, from one chapter to the other, we discover Kikutani’s past, his thoughts and the net of surveillance set by the Japanese State. We also see the tempest of emotions brewing under his calm composure and I was looking forward to know the ending. On Parole shows that the border between Noir and literary fiction is a thin one, at least for me. We have the same ingredients as in a Noir novel: a murder, a man in a struggling position, fighting against his past and trying to start anew. His wife proved to be his femme fatale. There’s also a feeling of doom.
On Parole is a multi-facetted book and I can only recommend it.
My Father’s Journal by Jirô Taniguchi
Le journal de mon père by Jirô Taniguchi. 1995 Not available in English, I think.
After reading Max’s entry about a graphic novel, Richard Stark’s Parker by Darwyn Cooke, I remembered that the Japanese graphic novel Le Journal de mon père had been sitting on my shelf for a few years. I decided to read it for January in Japan and let’s say it right away, this is the Japanese book I enjoyed the most, apart from South of the Border, West of the Sun.
Yochan lives in Tokyo when his sister calls to tell him that their father is dead. She’s still living in their home town Tottori. Yochan hasn’t been back for 15 years and, pushed by his wife, he decides to attend the wake which takes place the night before the funeral. The whole family is there and he gets reacquainted with them. It’s the opportunity for him to remember his childhood.
The family’s life was changed after the great fire which destroyed half of Tottori in 1952. Two-third of the city had been touched by the fire, which made more than 21000 casualties. Yochan’s father was a hairdresser and he lost his shop during the catastrophe. His wife’s parents lend him money to start again but he doesn’t like accepting a loan from them as they suspected that he married their daughter for her money. As a consequence, he starts working like a maniac to pay them back as soon as possible and this attitude will cost him his marriage. His wife meets someone else, follows her lover and leaves her children behind. For Yochan, this is the moment when he disconnected himself from his family. He resented his father for not keeping his wife, for separating him from his mom and he grew up with the idea of leaving his hometown. That’s what he did. He left to study in Tôkyô and only came back once.
Taniguchi relates how Yochan slowly starts to understand his father and realizes that he never knew him, that he probably misjudged him and that he was beloved in his community. He also recreates the life in a Japanese town in the 1950s: the small shops and factories, the American soldiers and their food, the family businesses.
I really had a great time reading this graphic novel. It’s 270 pages long. The pictures are all black and white and beautiful. Each chapter starts with a one page image and then the story is told in a succession of images with dialogues or descriptions like a voice over. The characters don’t look Japanese, especially since they have Western eyes, like in mangas. The graphic form was a good medium to access Japanese culture. Things that are common and probably not described or explained in a novel are “given to see” in a manga. I looked at the clothes, the houses, the funeral, the city streets with interest. (Call me naïve if you want, but that’s what I did) I found the clothes interesting: some characters wear traditional Japanese clothes when others like Yochan and his wife wear Western clothes. His sister is more traditional: pictures of her marriage, she’s in traditional Japanese wedding gown. Picture of Yochan’s wedding, his bride is in a Western dress.
Taniguchi conveys a lot of emotions in his drawings and the accompanying narration. He shows us Yochan’s childhood memories, his feelings as an adult who hears things about his father that he never imagined.
This story is partly autobiographical. Taniguchi comes from Tottori and has also spent many years away from his hometowns, his family and friends before coming back after a childhood friend had contacted him. For me, this is totally incredible. The idea of living in the same country as my family, only distant by one hour by plane and not visiting for more than a decade is unimaginable. I would never never do that and my parents would never accept it. They would play the guilt card until I give in and come to visit, or send a plane ticket or I’d see them coming to me, unannounced to see how I am or where I live. Different culture, I suppose.
It’s difficult to review a graphic novel, I hope I encouraged you to discover Taniguchi. As odd coincidences tend to multiply, there is an article about France and mangas in this week’s Courrier International. (A weekly paper that publishes articles from foreign newspapers in a French translation) Originally published in The Asahi Shimbum, this article explains how mangas are widespread in France and how it became fashionable in the 1980s thanks to cartoons on TV. I don’t know how it was in other countries but we watched A LOT of Japanese cartoons in France when I was little. It’s true you have shelves of mangas in bookstores. I’ve never tried any, simply because I didn’t know where to start but the article mentions several of them and I’m tempted to try. Unfortunately, I’m on a book buying ban. Sigh. This is so frustrating.
Murakamish
N*P by Banana Yoshimoto. 1990
I bought this book after reading a review about The Lake by Yoshimoto book at Tony’s blog. N*P‘s blurb seemed appealing and I was trying to explore Japanese literature, so I thought, “Why not?”
| Ce que je savais de Tarao Sakase, cet auteur assez quelconque installé aux Etats-Unis, c’est qu’il avait, au cours d’une vie tout aussi quelconque, écrit un grand nombre de nouvelles.Qu’il s’était suicidé à l’âge de quarante-huit ans.Qu’il avait eu deux enfants avec une femme sont il s’était ensuite séparé.
Que ses nouvelles, réunies en un recueil, avaient connu un bref succès aux Etats-Unis. Le titre de ce livre ? N*P L’ouvrage se composait de quatre-vingt-dix-sept nouvelles. |
What I knew about Tarao Takase, this average writer settled in the USA, it’s that he had, during his average life, written a lot of short-stories.That he committed suicide at 48.That he had two children with a woman whom he later divorced.
That his short-stories, gathered in a collection, had had a brief success in the USA. The title of this collection? N*P The book included ninety-seven short-stories. (My akuyaku. It’s Japanese lit, I have the right to use it) |
Kazami is our narrator in this novel. When she was in high-school, she was in a relationship with Shôji, an older man and the translator of Sakase’s ninety-eighth short-story. Shôji never completed the translation as he committed suicide. Kazami was at a party with Shôji when she first saw Otohiko and Saki, Sakase’s children. She didn’t speak to them, though.
Five years later, Kazami stumbles upon Otohiko in a Tôkyô street and they start a conversation. He remembers her and one thing leading to another, she befriends with him and his sister as well. Later she will meet Sui, Otohiko’s lover and also step-sister. They have the same father and discovered it after they started their relationship. The plot gravitates around these three young people, Otohiko, Sui and Saki and their unbreakable linked created by their father and his 98th short-story. It’s hard to describe this novel without giving too much away.
Kazami is like a means to make the story move forward and also a convenient narrator. She’s involved too, in a way, through her love story with Shôji. The story is original but the abundance of weird coincidences is a bit too much for a contemporary novel. I enjoyed the description of Tôkyô in the summer, the way the atmosphere, the light, the weather penetrate the characters and influence their actions and their moods. They seem to be attuned to the outside world. Like in a Murakami novel, there’s a bridge between Japan and the Western world: Takase used to live in the USA, Otohiko, Saki and Sui are just back from Boston, Kazami is a translator from English to Japanese, just like her mother and her former lover. The story is also a bit marked by Fate like a Greek tragedy, or perhaps it is only this fortuitous incest that reminded me of Oedipus. (Although here, it’s between siblings)
I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago and I struggle to remember it. Not good. Yoshimoto’s style is erratic. Sometimes she’s really good and sometimes, it’s a bit laboured. I don’t have quotes, which isn’t a good sign for me. I liked it but not more.
So far I have a limited experience with Japanese literature and to be honest, I’m still waiting for the book that will make me swoon and want to run to the closest book store to buy it to all my friends. OK, I loved South Of the Border, West Of the Sun by Haruki Murakami but it’s so westernised that it doesn’t count. I enjoyed Kafka on the Shore, couldn’t finish The Wind-up Bird Chronicles and didn’t like Norwegian Wood. I remember nothing of the Kawataba I’ve read and I was horrified by the Fumio Niwa. I thought that Yoshimura was good but I missed too much of it because I don’t know enough about Japanese culture. And as there are no introductions of any kind in French books, I don’t make any progress in that field. So it’s becoming quite frustrating. Truly I enjoyed the descriptions of nature and the quality of the style. They’re all gifted writers but still, nothing got me past the clinical appraisal of the style. My emotions weren’t involved. So now, after this mild encounter with Banana Yoshimoto, I’m thinking about reading the books I have on the shelf (I Am a Cat by Soseki, On Parole by Yoshimura and Strangers by Yamada.) and then giving up on Japanese literature.
This one is my first contribution to Tony’s January in Japan.
Book Around the Corner 