A blog on Japanese books, mostly untranslated, that deserve a wider audience outside of Japan

Category: Giniro, Natsuo

Comfort Reading in Japanese

I was in the middle of reading 「熱源」, which won the most recent Naoki Prize, when the coronavirus began spreading, and suddenly reading a book in which the main character watches his community die of the smallpox was beyond me. But although I might reach for a different type of book, I still have to go on reading. Although I wish the circumstances were different, the closure of libraries and bookstores surely makes all of us who have piles of unread books (the very meaning of tsundoku) feel justified. My mother, looking for blankets one day, discovered that my linen closets are used instead as bookshelves, and told me in all seriousness that I needed to see a professional about this “obsession.” But these shelves have certainly preserved my calm over the past few weeks, and in the hope that books might help all of you, I thought I would list the books that I have been reading.

The books we turn to for comfort are different for everyone—some people turn to history, others are re-reading old favorites—and I find that books artificially assigned to this category can be too cloyingly sweet. I want a little bite to my books, even if there is a happy ending. The linked short stories in 「彼女のこんだて帖」(The Women’s Recipe Book) by 角田光代 (Mitsuyo Kakuta) were a little close to this line, but their short length is perfect when your attention is scattered. The stories, which are all accompanied by a recipe, are about people facing difficulties and making things a little better by cooking. A woman who breaks up with her boyfriend recovers her interest in life by learning to cook for one with special ingredients, a widowed man goes to cooking classes to learn how to recreate a dish his wife had made him, a young man learns to make pizza to entice his anorexic sister. The recipes are wide-ranging, from Thai omelets and steamed kabocha to pizza and meatball and tomato stew.

「生きるぼくら」(We are alive) by 原田マハ (Maha Harada) was too far along the Hallmark movie end of the scale for my taste—the kind of book that introduces seemingly insurmountable difficulties one after the other, only for each to be overcome thanks to hard work and the community coming together. Twenty-four year-old Jinsei Akira has been a hiki-komori (shut-in) for four years when his mother suddenly disappears, leaving nothing but a little cash and a bundle of new year’s cards. He finds his grandmother’s card among these and decides to visit her for the first time since he was small. Somehow he is able to not only go outside for the first time in four years, but ask for directions and take a long train ride from Tokyo to his grandmother’s home in the country. Thanks to the kindness of strangers and a few coincidences, he arrives in Tateshina, only to find that his grandmother is suffering from dementia. Jinsei and a newfound half-sister rally around and resolve to take care of their grandmother and her rice fields. I’m glad I read this book if only for the descriptions of her biodynamic method of farming and the slow life they lead, with all the hard work that entails, but serious problems were resolved so quickly and easily that I was left feeling unsatisfied.

「天国はまだ遠く」, a short novel by 瀬尾まいこ (Maiko Seo) was more satisfying and complex. With both work and personal relationships going badly, Chizuru decides to commit suicide, and sets off to find an inn in a remote coastal town where she can overdose on sleeping pills. She ends up at an inn that has not had guests in about two years, but the young man who runs it welcomes her anyway. The sleeping pills do no more than knock her out for 36 hours, but the sleep clears her head and Chizuru begins to find an interest in life again. There are no life-changing revelations here, no sudden romances, no easy comfort. The young innkeeper takes her out on a boat and she suffers seasickness; he encourages her to help with the chickens and she is overwhelmed by the terrible smell; she tries to draw the scenery and realizes she has no talent. This more realistic story, complete with prickly characters, felt more satisfying than a novel that tries to wrap everything up with a neat bow.

The novel was made into a film starring Rosa Kato and Yoshimi Tokui.

Being stuck at home without any of the daily interactions that give life variety made me want to experience other people’s lives more, and 「スーパーマーケットでは人生を考えさせられる」 (The supermarket makes me think about life) by 銀色夏生 (Natsuo Giniro) and 「そして私は一人になった」(And then I was alone) by 山本文緒 (Fumio Yamamoto) gave me that. Giniro writes about her nearly daily trips to the supermarket and food stalls in the basement of a nearby department store, describing the dogs tied up outside, the attitudes of the staff and what she cooks and eats. There is nothing profound enough here to merit the title, but it was entertaining in small amounts.

「そして私は一人になった」is novelist Fumio Yamamoto’s diary about living alone for the first time in her life, after going through a divorce. So much has changed since it was published in 1997 that her daily life seems familiar and nostalgic but also inaccessibly distant. She writes about the novelty of a service that allows her to buy a book with just one phone call, about having a “word processor” but being too intimidated to get a modem, and coming home to find paper three meters in length trailing from the fax machine. Yamamoto is the type of person who merely laughs when she gets a phone call in the middle of the night from a young man randomly calling numbers because he once got lucky and got to have “telephone sex” (she does not oblige). And she is very likable—she returns piles of library books to reduce the clutter in her apartment, only to check out just as many all over again, and she wryly notes that, even though she is a writer, she spends far more time reading every day than she does writing. I really enjoyed spending time in her company.

And a little dose of the Moomintrolls, either in Japanese or English, before bed always helps. Tove Jansson began writing the Moomintroll books during WWII “when I was feeling depressed and scared of the bombing and wanted to get away from my gloomy thoughts to something else entirely,” so this seems like the right time to read them. They face dangers and go on adventures, but Moominmamma is always there with comfort, baking a cake even as a comet comes barreling toward Moominvalley.

 

 

 

Notes in Idleness

管の穂をゆらす: つれづれノート26

銀色夏生

角川, 2014

Swaying spikes of grass: Notes in Idleness 26

Natsuo Giniro

Kadokawa, 2014

[No English translation available]

 

Natsuo Giniro is a poet, artist, photographer and author with a huge backlog of books, many with her characteristic illustrations. She has been publishing her journals for decades now, and this is her 26th volume. They are perfect bedtime reading as they are bite-sized. Giniro writes with great humor about her 14 year-old son Sako, who is ostensibly studying for his high school entrance exams, and her 22 year-old daughter Kaka, who attends vocational school and has her own apartment but finds her mother’s house much more comfortable. The entries are sometimes funny, sometimes more meditative and sometimes just a catalogue of what she ate that day, but always entertaining.

I have translated a few excerpts from January and February 2014 below because I found myself wanting to read bits aloud, and when you find yourself reading aloud to your dog (who doesn’t understand much English, much less Japanese), you know you need to find a better audience.

 

January 7, 2014

Afternoon. Kaka is sleeping, as usual. Sako is playing video games. I watched a TV show about how to make a fish tank, and then did various tasks.

I went out and got some takoyaki [fried octopus balls], which the three of us ate together.

Reading a book at the kotatsu,* I said to Kaka, “I always used to think that something good was suddenly going to happen, but I don’t think that way anymore. Now I know good things don’t happen in that way. Lying about like this is my definition of happiness.”

Kaka (completely uninterested): “Hmmm.”

 

January 16, 2014

I’d like to travel again. When my time is my own again, I’ll travel all over. I can’t travel now since I have Sako to take care of, but once he graduates from high school I’ll have time. In fact, I could probably travel when he’s in high school a bit. Something to look forward to. But when I remember that now is the only time I have to take care of Sako, I realize I’d better just enjoy it.

Now that I think of it, it’s very strange that my cute baby turned into this clumsy Kaka. I asked Kaka, “Where did that baby go?” Children are really just a limited-time phenomenon. Actually not just children, all people are temporary. Too temporary. It’s a waste to just let time slide by without noticing it. Good times, bad times, they’re all precious.

 

February 14, 2014

It’s snowing today. It looks cold. The weather forecast says it will keep snowing.

Sako says he doesn’t want to go to school and he’ll just study at home instead.

I’m not sure what to do, but I figure he’ll study more at home so I tell the school he has a cold and let him stay home.

Sako: X from my class has been absent from school for, like, ever to study for the [entrance] exams.

Me: Since when?
Sako: Just forever.

Now he’s studying at the kotatsu. Sometimes he looks at videos and plays around with his guitar for a change of pace. When I tell him that he seems quite suited to studying at home at his own pace, he readily agrees.

Studying at the kotatsu: iIlustration by Natsuo Giniro

Studying at the kotatsu: iIlustration by Natsuo Giniro

*A kotatsu is a low table with a heavy blanket draped over the frame and the table top laid on top of that. A heater is attached to the underside of the table so that when you sit at the kotatsu, with your legs underneath the blanket, you stay warm. Kotatsu just might be Japan’s most clever invention.

My kotatsu

My kotatsu

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