Book review: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

On one level this is a love story but on others it provokes thoughts about the differences between city and country, rich and poor, guest and servant.

When Shimamura travels from Tokyo to the snow country there i a sense he has moved to not just a different part of Japan but a place where he can act differently. His relationship with Komako, is the most obvious manifestation of that change in behaviour, with a secret life being led away from his wife and children. 

But this is a different area geographically, it enjoys deep snows and feels cut off from his other existence. When he leaves after one stay in the hot springs resort he travels back by train and moves from one zone to another via a mountain tunnel. That shift sees the weather change, the landscape shift and his mental position also move.

But the focus of this story is the hot springs resort and the relationship between Shimamura and Komako,. her story unfolds over the course of a couple of trips Shimamura makes to the town. She has become a geisha to pay medical bills for her lover, forced into a life of pleasuring guests and is stuck in a trap. He on the other hand is financially secure, wastes his time on academic exercises that lead nowhere and is removed from the life of hardship those in the hot springs resort live.

The relationship is doomed and as she slides deeper into the geisha trap and isolation he appears to be less able to save her.

If you read to escape then this takes you to a land of deep snow, hot springs and Japanese customs that will take you into a different realm. Despite being a short novel it leaves you with questions around the main characters, the life the inhabitants of snow country lead and the limits of love and desire to deliver change.

Book review: How Do you Live? By Genzaburo Yoshino

 

After enjoying the Boy and the Heron there was an appetite to dive deeper and How Do You Live? was described as the inspiration for the film. It was one of the film's director Hayao Miyazaki's favourite books and was percolating his thoughts as he pulled the story together for the Boy and the Heron.

That word 'inspiration' is an important one because unlike some of the other Studio Ghibli films, Howl's Moving Castle springs to mind, this is not based directly on an existing story. There is no Heron in How Do You Live? and the relationship with the Copper and his uncle is a healthier one than Mahito and his Grand Uncle.

Rather its taking the themes of coming of age, dealing with the loss of a parent and navigating what type of person you want to be in life. Will you be empathetic? show compassion? be arrogant or cowardly? These are all things the main character Copper has to wrestle with.

As he goes through experiences he shares them with his uncle and afterwards the uncle shares his advice in a notebook. It creates for the majority of the book a pattern of Copper's story then directly followed by the Uncle's observations.

Copper is not perfect, makes mistakes and learns from them. But he is likeable and his experiences drive the story. He is coping with the loss of his father and navigating starting senior school, with the threats of bullying and coping with friendships that are evolving with maturity. The reader is encouraged to look at Copper and ask themselves what they would have done and what type of life they want to lead.

This book was written for children but there is more going on here. Understanding the context around the books is important because it was penned at a time when totalitarianism had gripped Japan and to question authority out you in prison and under deep censorship.

Yoshino was imprisoned, fell foul of the thought police but still wanted to counter the aggressive state. That makes this a brave book and a moving one. When Copper's uncle is urging him to think for himself and question authority, he is risking more than just losing the reader's interest.

This is a book that has a power to provoke and move and on that basis alone is worth recommending. But when you add the context and understand the risks that Yoshino and his publisher were running by producing this and it is much more heroic.

Ultimately at a time when populism is on the rise we all need to ask ourselves the question of how we want to live.

Book review: Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto

 

My eldest son has consumed a large amount of Japanese literature in the last year and recommended I followed his example. After enjoying The Boy and The Heron that led me to How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino, which was apparently some of the inspiration for the mood of the film.

But things got going with Tokyo Express which caught the eye due to the beautiful cover illustration and the positive blurb. Having enjoyed plenty of detective stories in the past the chance to get to grips with a Japanese story was too much temptation.

If you consider reading detective stories is a chance to escape from your own life, either by being taken into an unknown world of crime or to a distant location, then this manages to do both. Simenon does it brilliantly with Paris and Matsumoto takes you on a trip here to various locations in Japan. One of the first pages there is a map of Japan with a couple of key locations marked and it is that sense of traversing the country that forms a large part of the story.

Trains form a central part of the plot and that adds to the sense of taking the reader on a journey. It's clever, an insight into the character of both the provincial and Tokyo police and operates around a central story that underlines concepts of honour and integrity.

The idea that appearances can be deceptive is not just limited to the victims of the crime but extends across all aspects of the case. Hidden behind established roles – the restaurant waitress, the rich businessman, his ill wife and the government figure – there are other things going on if someone is prepared to look for them.

No spoilers here but I can say the story is clever, the determination of the detectives central to its conclusion and the descriptions of people and place delivered with depth in just a few lines.

Matsumoto takes you over the shoulder of the detectives, sharing the contents of their notebooks and revealing their innermost thoughts. There are moments when letters are used as a device to jump through time and summarise developments but that never disrupts the flow and the book remains gripping until its conclusion.

If you read at the most basic level to escape and travel to other worlds then this book skilfully takes you to a post-war Japan, with stops at a Southern coastal town, one of the Northern islands and Tokyo. This is a time when corruption is circulating the government, technology is changing but it’s still detective hunches that stop a crime from going undiscovered.

There are a couple more books by Matsumoto in English translation and I'm starting Inspector Imanishi Investigates at some point so more of his works will appear on the blog.