Saiunkoku translations/summaries

Continuation of previous post. You should consider both of them one big post that just spoils the heck out of the entire novel, as I discuss some things that aren’t revealed till the end in the beginning of the first post.

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Well, I finally finished this book. Now onto Gaiden 2. This book struck me as a bit overly long, and some of the points about Eigetsu were a bit hammered in. And although I like Ryuuren and like his character development here, the current significance of his inclusion here escapes me; the main events of the plot wouldn’t have changed if he hadn’t been here. Like previous Saiunkoku novels, somewhat irritatingly, what actually goes down seems to be less important to the overall plot than what is revealed, again raising the question of where the storyline is going. (much is revealed about the mystical/supernatural overplot here). Also, caveats: I don’t have perfect knowledge of Japanese, I may have misunderstood some things, and also I’m biased and write the most about the parts that interest me. (more…)

It’s always odd to read a book or watch a movie about a sport or game I have no idea how to play. Somehow I managed to watch twenty-six episodes of Akagi while only having the slightest inkling of how to play mahjong. Perhaps it is also shameful to confess that I also don’t really even understand the basic idea behind cricket. Anyway, this is the third novel by Kawabata that I’ve read, the others being Snow Country and A Thousand Cranes, but the others I read for a class; perhaps what is intimidating about Kawabata is that despite, or because of the apparent simplicity of his style and diction, the ‘clean, transparent feeling’ (as one character says of the Go in this novel) is somewhat enigmatic. Like many writers of the 20th century Kawabata focuses on aesthetics and the distinction between the traditional and modern. (Sort of like Mishima, whom I’m trying to read in the Japanese now, of course, the focus on this kind of purity is perhaps exactly the opposite of the shocking and visceral within Mishima’s works.)

The novel is partially based off of real events. Kawabata covered a match between a Master of Go (in the novel, Shusai), and a representative of the younger forces (in the novel, Otake). The Master’s career has spanned three Imperial reigns; he is written as having simultaneously a vague and focused character, representing the artistic and traditionalistic form of Go. Throughout the marathon match, his health is failing, and there is at one point a months-long recess during which he convalesces. The opponent, Otake, while seeming at some points to be insensitive and taking advantage of the rules, is also likeably portrayed as the representative of the modern methods (characterized by the rigidity of the rules and contracts, and practice of sealed play.) The narrator also plays an important role in the plot, at one point giving a long speech to Otake in which he insists the match must continue because of its historical importance. Even, like me, if you do not understand the subtleties of Go, the descriptions of the surroundings, the drama surrounding the play, and above all, the atmosphere make this worth reading. (Also, FWIW, it’s much more straightforward than A Thousand Cranes or Snow Country.)

1. BTW, posted reviews of Kappa and The Tokyo Zodiac Murders to my blog.

2. Have also as a result of Tari’s post gotten a goodreads account.

The jpg is supposed to dynamically update. So far I have only those two books.

3. I was considering joining library thing, but although someone I know (Meril) is an early adopter on that service (people there seem somewhat odd. Several people asked her to review… the Tale of Genji? I just don’t understand why people would clamor for that to be reviewed, because it’s not as if there’s a lack of opinions on the work), I wanted to be able to store an unlimited number of books for free. If I can break two hundred, my decision will be rational. XD In any event, I don’t really need to be recommended new books by a search engine. I have lots of people who are willing to rec to me.

Picked this up on a whim in the library; I had never heard of the author. It’s interesting that this genre novel was translated, because in many respects, it’s not an especially innovative detective novel (in retrospect, I should have foreseen the big twist, because this exact trick was used in a detective manga:  so therefore I find it bizarre in a forty-year old case which was the center of so much obsession, no one ), and it is openly written as a puzzle plot, complete with ‘and now can you solve the crime, dear reader?’ letters from the author, and the amateur detective and his would-be Watson (a detective story addict), while amusing, don’t really fascinate as characters because we don’t get that much background on them. (Although there is a hilarious part where the detective (who is BTW a fortune-teller) rips on Holmes, but says that he loves him because he showed us what a human was.) In any case, I never read detective stories as puzzle plots. I don’t bother reading them strictly in materialist views, as a puzzle, because the author is always trying to fool us, and therefore the narrator is not playing entirely fair. So I made no serious attempts to solve the crime, although I did have many suspicions.

Oh wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. So what is the crime anyway? In Tokyo, in 1936, a painter, Heikichi Umezawa, was murdered in his studio. A note was found at the crime scene, in which the painter outlined a deranged occult plan to create Azoth, the perfect woman from the body parts of the six young women, his daughters, step-daughters and nieces, who lived with him. The plans included many complex astrological calculations, geomancy, bizarre references to the alchemical correspondences of the planets and the elements, as well as attempts to link the idea of Azoth to the legend of the shamanist-empress Himiko of Yamatai. In any event, after Heikichi’s death, his eldest stepdaughter, who was divorced and lived outside of the house, and was not mentioned in the note, is raped and murdered, and more shockingly, the six young women disappear, and later their dismembered corpses, each missing the part which the note specified would be taken to summon Azoth, are found in mines corresponding to the element of the missing part. For forty years afterwards, this crime becomes an obsession, but the motives and the identity of the killer remain obscure. That is, until the daughter of a police officer brings some shocking evidence to the heroes in 1979.

 Anyway, if you really really want to know what went down, you can read the wikipedia entry, which thoroughly spoils the case. I did feel the appearance of a certain minor character was suspicious, as was the note itself and the disposition of the money. What kept me reading the book until the wee hours of the morning was the atmosphere of occult dread, the psychotic specifications of the creation of Azoth, the maddened attempts of later sleuths to calculate her birthplace. The seemingly meaningless obscenity of the crimes (although in the end a mystification:  which is what is interesting, how geniunely creepy and unnerving even the red herrings in the case are, the asides about obsessions with mannequins and dolls) is more redolent of the thriller genre than the classical fair-play mystery it structurally is.

I wish I hadn’t read the introduction before reading this book, because knowing of Akutagawa’s mental problems and morbid preoccupations inevitably colors one’s interpretations of the text. The absurdist bleakness of the land of the Kappas, while being an obvious parody of Meiji Japan, seems to be at times more of a projection of the author’s own psyche, and thus one feels a bit constrained in interpretation. So while I thought this was going to be in the ‘literary fable’ genre, the actual experience of the book edges more into an enigmatic psychological horror, especially because life among the Kappas seems to be rather wretched (well, all those declarations that ‘a Kappa’s life is an evil thing.’) Not much relieves the nihilistic tone, other than perhaps art, although the bohemian world is also satirized here; I enjoyed it, but I think I’d recommend the short work Hell Screen if you are interested in an introduction to the writing of Akutagawa.

A post argues that in the U.S., Chinese language courses overly emphasize hanzi. I found someone linking to this post saying that he thought the anecdote rather proved the opposite, that maybe the problem was that rather than too much hanzi, there was too little. In any event, I have to say that after three years of college Japanese, I think I did know more than 500 characters, and that you probably need to know much more to reach an equivalent level in Chinese, but this was because I studied outside of the classroom. Also, for students in a third year course to be moderately fluent for speaking and functional for literacy, when dealing with a language like Chinese, seems to be normal.  It only appears strange in this instance because these students had experience in Chinese before beginning the university courses.

IMHO there just are limitations to how much speaking/listening improvement can occur in a classroom setting, because improvements in this area seem to be mostly dependent on time spent speaking and listening. Personally, I think if a student wants to live or study in a foreign country, literacy is important, because otherwise they’ll be unable to read signs or fill out forms. They’ll be unable to read newspapers or books. It will be difficult for them to build vocabulary, because they are cut off from this method of learning new words.

Note that I’m not talking about events in the order in which they appear in the book. The book jumps back and forth in time and between various in a rather irritating way, if you’re trying to blog it, and I don’t include all the details, just the ones that interest me.
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This novel covers the part where Shuurei and Tei Yuushun, along with Sai Rin and Sa Kokujun go to Kiyou for New Year’s. So, read on ONLY if you want to be spoiled for both current events in the anime. ^_^ (Actually, it covers quite a bit of the stuff from the ending part of last season: IMHO, there actually are quite a bit of changes, although probably they don’t make that much of a difference, in terms of the general plot)

Something I was wondering: do the seven great families predate the founding of the nation?

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This novel is the second part of the Sa arc. Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the anime series, because it’s the climax of the second half of the series.
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