A Work in Progress

The Flower Arranger by JJ Ellis

The right book at the right time, don't you like it when you have a reading experience like that?  I sometimes feel a little jaded when it comes to mysteries and crime novels.  There is so much to choose from yet it often feels like there is nothing new to add variety and spice to  my reading.  I often lament the sameness of thrillers.  One really successful story seems to spawn so many readalikes.  And while this is not necessarily a bad thing if you enjoy a story and want it to continue or want something in a similar vein, it's also nice to find something a little off the beaten track.  A story with unusual characters or a storyteller trying to do something different within the genre is always welcome. 

So I was pleasantly surprised not only to come across a debut novel with a Japanese setting, The Flower Arranger by British author JJ Ellis, but to discover that two more stories featuring the same characters are planned.  Since I have been reading Japan this summer it was serendipitous to find a new-to-me author/mystery series with this setting.  The characters are engaging and really quite interesting not only for their personalities, but what I particularly enjoyed was how the story was steeped in Japanese culture without the details being over the top and becoming a distraction from the storytelling.  

The crime.  The story opens with the death of a young woman, a Swedish tourist whose body is found among the refuse in an incinerator plant.  Caught in the jaws of a grab bucket a worker was using to move the detritus to the incinerator, the body was partially lolling over the side.  Her pale face and striking blond hair caught the man's eye and Inspector Tetsu Tanaka of the Gaikoku-jin Unit is brought in.  Tanaka heads this special unit of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department that deals with foreigners and in this case, one teenager is dead while another French girl has gone missing.  Is this a strange accident or the result of something far more sinister?

The culprit.  A little backtracking first.  Interleaved in the threads of the story, which is told by a few different narrators is the voice of the murderer.  There are hints along the way of, if not who he is, of what he is.  How he has come to do the things he does.  He is quickly labeled the Otaku Killer, which signifies someone who is so immersed in pop culture, computers and social media that they are lacking in regular social skills.  Does that set a tone?  When the body of the young woman is carefully maneuvered off the crane, a delicate floral blossom falls from her ear.  And so the stage is set.

The investigation.  What makes this such an interesting story for me are the two main characters involved in the investigation.  Tanaka is our detective, but he is joined by a young journalist looking for her first big break.  Holly Blain works for a small Tokyo newspaper covering the entertainment beat.  It's only meant to be a stepping stone to get into crime reporting, which is where her sights are set and the Otaku Killer just might offer her an "in" to this upper echelon of journalists.  It doesn't hurt that her expertise in the popular culture she is meant to be writing about also happens to be where the killer is looking for his victims.  Young women who dress in the Kawaii fashion.

What sets the story apart from others are all the little details that create such an intriguing picture of a culture that feels so foreign that for me verges on the exotic, yet has all the marks of a good mystery.  There is tension and suspense, the sorting of clues and piecing together of a puzzle that will come together masterfully in the end.  Although the pairing of a detective and journalist is not a new trope, I like how the two personalities played off each other.  Theirs is a relationship that works for each beneficially yet is not without its antagonistic moments.  Over the course of the story the relationship builds setting the stage for further adventures yet ends quite satisfyingly. 

Not to give all the best bits away, but only as a little teaser since I do like a story that is as much character- as action-driven, but Tanaka is the son of a Japanese mother and American GI father and Holly Blain a British woman, tomboyish in appearance with just a hint of what might pass as Japanese features and can speak Japanese almost as good as a native.  If the mystery kept me reading, the characters hooked me from the first page.  The Flower Arranger has just the right mix of elements to transport a reader to another place and engage the mental puzzle solving faculties all the while tagging along after Tanaka and Blain through cherry blossom season in Japan.  Bring on the next installment please!

Many thanks to Agora Books for yet another great read!

And a New Arrival: The Flower Arranger

Since I am going to write about this properly on a blog tour when the book is released, I will just give a little visual teaser now.  Agora Books is a small London-based independent publisher who I have been fortunate enough to have discovered last year.  When they asked if I would like to read The Flower Arranger by JJ Ellis, I could not pass up the opportunity as it works perfectly with my Reading Japan project that I have been enjoying so much.  

I have just started the novel, which came in the mail yesterday (note the very cool packaging--I love that they send out their books with a little added fanfare!).  This is a thriller set in Tokyo and featuring a British journalist trying to break into serious news, Holly Blain, and a detective, Tetsu Tanaka, who are going to cross paths and become involved in a series of murders.  I am not far into the story but I am already hooked.  This is apparently the first of a planned trilogy, so if I like this as much as I am anticipating I will have more to look forward to.

I am nearing the end of Yasunari Kawabata's The Old Capital, which is one of the books that helped the author win the Nobel Prize in 1968.  The story is lovely and very evocative.  I want to Google all the temples and festivals and places that are mentioned in the text as they are so lovingly described.  The story is almost secondary to the imagery.  The book has been adapted to film twice, but I don't think I can get my hands on either film, sadly.  The Ellis crime novel will be a decided change and I am always happy to switch gears to something new (especially as I let  the Kawabata sink in and percolate a little).  Is it too soon to look forward to the long upcoming weekend?  My reading is all set out and ready to go.

Reading Japan: Update

I have a few chunskter size crime novels by Japanese authors that I have wanted to dig into, but their near door stop size does make me hesitate.  With a really good read, the longer the better.  But the hesitation on my part is more a matter of carrying the book about.  Since most of my reading time doesn't take place at home, one hefty book can make my tote bag and daily walk something of a slog (the solution is to only carry that book with me . . .  not three . . .  what a thought!).  The Japanese crime novels I have been reading have been especially satisfying of late and I think at least one or maybe even two might make my best read of the year list.

Miyuki Miyabe is one of my great finds this year (as is Seicho Matsumoto who I wrote about not long ago).  All She Was Worth (Kasha in Japanese and translated into English by Alfred Birnbaum) is a crime novel that was a best novel of the year in Japan when it was published in 1999.  It is not only entertaining and interesting but quite timely, too, as it deals with identity theft and consumerism and the banking crisis.  I know that might sound a little boring as mysteries go, and there are a few places in the story where there might be more explication of how the financial world operates than some readers might like, but I found it all fascinating.

Perhaps it was the exotic nature of reading about how it all works in Japan.  Similarities to here but how the mystery pans out and how the stealing of identities was done was very foreign and particular to the place.  The story opens with a request to find a missing person.  Honma is a Tokyo detective on leave due an accident that has him limping and recuperating.  He is a single parent (his wife died) with a young son, Makoto.  Isaka is an older friend who does the cooking and helps take care of Makoto.  I must admit that part of the enjoyment of this mystery was the likable qualities of these characters.  They seem such a tight family unit.  Makoto worries about his dad and how he should be resting and not walking without his cane. 

A nephew of Honma's deceased wife shows up asking him to look into the disappearance of his fiancé.  Things were going along just fine until they decided to marry and he discovers she had declared bankruptcy and was in all sorts of financial difficulties.  Looking into the disappearance is no easy matter when Honma discovers that the girlfriend was living under an assumed name.  She took the identity of another woman close to her in age and appearance.  Now both women are not to be found and it becomes quite a twisty turny investigation.  One of the things I found fascinating was the use of a family register, which in the story anyway, appears to be a standard practice in Japan.  A family has a register of births and deaths and residences and the woman's name would be removed and added to her husband's when she marries.  In the case of the missing woman she had established a brand new one when she took on a new identity.  In every respect this was a wholly satisfying read and I wish the author would write more stories featuring Honma.

I found Banana Yoshimoto's Moshi Moshi (Moshi Moshi Shimokitazawa in Japanese and translated into English by Asa Yoneda) much more satisfying by story's end than I was expecting.  I was enjoying it with some reservations, but it all came together in the end.  The full Japanese title actually makes more sense now that I have finished the book than the English title, but I didn't know the reference to Shimokitazawa until I was reading the story.

This is a coming of age story of sorts.  Yoshie's father has died in a weird accident.  He was part of a lover's suicide pact, only he was not a willing victim, which makes it all the more strange.  The woman drugged him and then took him with her into death.  He had been having an affair with her and on the night of his death he left his cell phone at home.  That phone will make an appearance later in the story in the dream's Yoshie has.  She dreams her father is calling her on the phone.  Her mother is having similar dreams.  I am finding that it is not unusual for their to be ghostly appearances in Japanese stories (at least in the handful of books I have read).  I think there is something very different culturally with family and ancestor respect and the idea of the spirit or soul not necessarily being at rest at death.  

In order to make a clean start Yoshie moves to the neighborhood of Shimokitazawa, which is (or was--maybe now it has gone somewhat touristy or lost some of its bohemian flair?) where she begins working in a restaurant (another theme I am coming across--food and cooking) and trying to regain her equilibrium as she was quite close to her father.  Her mother soon follows her and moves into her small apartment, which Yoshie initially resents.  But this is a story about coming to terms with grief and finding this new environment--filled with good friends, good food and potential new loves both healing and life affirming.  

I have a nice healthy stack of books set in Japan and by Japanese or Japanese-American authors at my fingertips.  I think I have read about seven or eight now and hope to at least get to ten before I think about 'finishing' this project.  Or maybe I will just keep pulling books from the stack as I am finding Japanese culture and literature and film so very fascinating.  I am now trying to decide on a new read and am contemplating either something by Gail Tsukiyama (an American author of Chinese-Japanese heritage) or Nobel Prize winner The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata.  The choice is, of course, so hard as they all sound so good.

August Prompt: Something Borrowed

It's been kind of a crazy week and I have fallen behind in all my mental plans, so today something easy and next week time to catch up on other things.  Other things include July's Stillmeadow ramblings, finishing my "beach" book, telling you about the latest class I took earlier this week and just generally catching up on regular bookchat.  I can't seem to get back on to a normal blogging routine.  I admit my at home time has been very lazy and I don't much like the laptop I own so am often reluctant to pull it out and work on creating a blog post.  

For now, though, here we are in a new month, which I am pleased about.  I love turning the calendar from July to August.  I am always hopeful that the worst of the summer heat is over and there is the idea of fresh starts and a new school year to look forward to.  Fall is my favorite season and it seems well within my grasp suddenly.  I am not ready for cold weather, but I am ready for mildness.  I won't complain, however.  After a difficult week of over 100F days and nasty humidity, things have settled into nice normal (maybe even slightly below average) summer temperatures.  Nothing that I can't deal with, or at least feel strongly about complaining about.  

With a new month comes a new prompt and an easy one that I don't need to think too hard about (I am never unhappy about thinking hard about books of course).  "Something Borrowed" is this month's theme.  Unless someone quickly presses a book into my hands with the idea of me reading it and returning it, I get to sort through my current library book pile and here we go.  Instant selections.  I have a little variety here to choose from.

Desert Heat, J.A. Jance -- I think I was looking at her books at the bookstore.  I mean, you can never have enough mystery series to follow, right?  And this is the first Joanna Brady mystery.  "A cop lies dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun—a local lawman who may well have become the next sheriff of Cochise County. The police brass claim that Andy Brady was dirty, and that his shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna Brady, his devoted wife and mother of their nine-year-old daughter, knows a cover-up when she hears one . . . and murder when she sees it. But her determined efforts to hunt down an assassin and clear her husband's name are placing Joanna and her surviving family in harm's way—because in the desert, the one thing more lethal than a rattler's bite . . . is the truth." 

The Saturday Night Ghost Club, Craig Davidson -- . . . this one because I have started watching and am addicted to the first season of Stranger Things!  "Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined. With the alternating warmth and sadness of the best coming-of-age stories, The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a note-perfect novel that poignantly examines the haunting mutability of memory and storytelling."

Territory of Light, Yuko Tsushima -- I would like to read this for my Reading Japan project.  It looks really good!  "It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become."

Feast Your Eyes, Myla Goldberg -- I love the premise of this story and the way she tells it.  "Feast Your Eyes, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of Lillian Preston: “America’s Worst Mother, America’s Bravest Mother, America’s Worst Photographer, or America’s Greatest Photographer, depending on who was talking.” After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school’s photo club, Lillian rejects her parents’ expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter’s sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives and especially Lillian’s career as she continues a life-long quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition."

Costalegre, Courtney Maum -- "It is 1937, and Europe is on the brink of war. In the haute-bohemian circles of Austria, Germany, and Paris, Hitler is circulating a most-wanted list of “cultural degenerates”―artists, writers, and thinkers whose work is deemed antithetical to the new regime. To prevent the destruction of her favorite art (and artists), the impetuous American heiress and modern art collector, Leonora Calaway, begins chartering boats and planes for an elite group of surrealists to Costalegre, a mysterious resort in the Mexican jungle, where she has a home."

Terrible, Horrible Edie, E.C. Spykman -- "EVEN IF she has lived ten terrible years, terrible, horrible Edie really isn’t terrible and horrible at all, but rather one of the most charming and engaging and gutsy children in American children’s fiction. It’s true of course that Edie does get into—and not always without it being at least a little bit her fault—some pretty terrible and horrible scrapes, and that sometimes she will sulk, but these are the kinds of things that happen to the kid sister of two snooty boys and one fancy-pants girl, not to mention having to deal with the distraction of two half sisters who are no better than babies. Edie’s father and stepmother have headed to Europe for the summer, and though the rest of the family can look forward to good times at a beloved summer house on the sea, Edie still has to fight to hold her own. Adventures on a sailboat and on an island, and the advent of a major hurricane and what Edie takes to be a military coup, all come to a climax when Edie solves the mystery of who stole the neighbor’s jewels and saves, at least for one day, the day."

The last book on the list sounds like a perfect summer read--the kind you squeeze in before vacation ends and you have to go back to school.

Now, though, the problem is how to choose as I want to read them All.

Points and Lines, Seicho Matsumoto

Seicho Matsumoto was a prolific Japanese writer of not just crime novels but short stories and history books.  He won numerous awards and had a number of his novels adapted to film (I watched one over the long weekend, but unfortunately the book was never translated into English).  His famous crime novel, Points and Lines (Ten to Sen translated from the Japanese by Makiko Yamamoto and Paul C. Blum) is only my first foray into his world of Japanese crime novels.  Alas, I better take my time with his books since there are so few available in English.

I think it is the case with many contemporary crime novels that the mystery, in a really good story, is informed by the ills of a society.  It might all come down to greed or lust or passion, but a story likely reflects the injustices in a society.  I always think that to get good insight into any culture, it is always a good idea to read some crime stories.  In the case of Matsumoto, his work from what I have read about him, deals with the dark undercurrents that occur in politics and business and he does not shy away from showing corruption in any segment of society including the police.  

In Points and Lines, though, while there is plenty of deceit, our detectives are after the truth, and it is all set against a backdrop of what to me seems quite exotic 1950s Japanese culture.  This is a carefully constructed and craftily thought out murder mystery of what at first glance appears to be simply a case of a love-suicide pact without a hint of any wrongdoing.  One tiny slip up that only by chance was caught--a dinner ticket on a train for one when, had this really been a suicide and not a murder should have been for two--results in a set of deaths that look suspicious.

It takes some very meticulous investigating and piecing together of clues to solve this crime.  Literally many, many careful hours are spent sorting through detailed lists and timetables from train journeys and lots of simple hitting the pavement and following in the footsteps of the man they suspect of the crime to come up with any tangible evidence.  Suspect him, they may, but none of their leads seem to pan out and offer any reliable proof, so utterly careful has the murderer been to cover his tracks.  This is more of a slow burn detective story rather than racy thriller, but it is a satisfying mystery and peek into the worlds of a Japanese salaryman and corrupt government officials.

So the premise--the story opens with a businessman having dinner with two colleagues in a traditional style Tokyo restaurant that he often frequents.  He is a regular client and knows his waitress who often takes care of the parties he brings.  His business finished, he will return home the following day.  He talks two waitresses from the restaurant into meeting him and accompanying him to the train station the next day with the offer of a free dinner, so he won't have to wait alone. 

Curiously as they are waiting on the train platform they spot his waitress boarding the train with a man they have never seen.  She has what appears to be a lover?  Of course this causes much surprise and no little amount of gossip.  She had never been known to have a boyfriend, they must get closer to get a better look.  Trains come, they depart, their view is blocked save for a few moments in between departures.  Indeed she is their coworker.  Soon their curious surprise and gossip will turn to mortification when they discover their friend and this man have committed suicide on a lonely beach far from Tokyo.  Unexpected it may be, but everyone has secrets and apparently she did as well.

It will come down to those few moments between train departures and that strange single meal ticket that don't add up.  Sounds almost implausible, doesn't it?  Such small things, tiny details when everything else points to a sad but not criminal case of suicide.  This was such an interesting peek into Japanese society as well as a classic crime/detective story.  There was a lot of detail on how the detective sussed it all out and the solution all tied into the dirty dealings of the business world.  I will be reading the other books by Seicho Matsumoto that I can get my hands on.  

I am now reading another, this time contemporary (rather it is set in the late 1980s) crime novel by Miyuki Miyabe called All She Was Worth, which was a Japanese bestseller, and has been hailed by the Christian Science Monitor as a "suspenseful tour of the 'new' Japan.  However, as this is about identity theft and possibly murder (so far no body but only two missing women--the real Shoko Sekine and her impersonator), maybe all that corruption is not so new.  She goes into some detail about the credit industry, so once again this is a novel of social consciousness.  The detective, Honma, who I really like, is a widowed father of a young son.  He is on leave from his police department due to a leg injury and agrees to look into the disappearance of the girlfriend of his nephew.  I am at that point of no return with the story and can't wait to finish.  I plan on reading more by Miyabe, as I love her storytelling.  It looks like she has a handful of books translated into English.  My next reading Japan choice, however, will be a regular novel--either historical or contemporary fiction.  I already have a few books set aside to choose from!

Reading Japan: Update

Ito Ogawa's The Restaurant of Love Regained is a curious and unusual read.  A story that subverted my expectations and wandered into the realm of the sensual and fantastical.  It reminds me of novels by South American writers who dabble in magical realism.  The premise made me think of a cozy story of love lost and found (or if not love found at least a sense of contentment)  and the delights of food as way to heal emotional wounds.  There was something of all that, but, too, there was more than a touch of the foreign and exotic that bumped up against my western sensibilities and 'fear' of the 'trying the unknown' (and here I mean--Japanese cuisine).

Rinko has been unceremoniously dumped by her Indian boyfriend.  She returns home to find her apartment emptied of everything she held dear to her life save a vase (she had tucked away in a closet) of rice bran (fermented vegetables) she used in her cooking.  There is nothing left but to return to her home village and her mother, a place she left as a schoolgirl.  She finds she has been replaced by her mother with a pig named Hermes, but her mother offers her a space where she can do the one thing she is good at--cook. 

Rinko has lost her voice, but not her talent to prepare meals as special as they are restorative to their diners.  With the help of an old friend who had worked at her school, she sets about transforming a shed of her mother's into a special place, The Snail, where she will prepare just one meal a night tailored to the person or couple who have booked the table.  And it is a magical experience, one that, mostly anyway, makes dreams come true--restores life and love and gives happiness.  

It's a lovely story, bittersweet in some ways, and for me anyway, quite different from the stories I am used to.  Of course, I am indeed virtually traveling here by way of stories, and Japan is a culture that is still quite foreign to me.  So where my experience of western culture butted up against eastern culture, I do admit, there were some meals that did not appeal to my own sensibilities.  I can't fault the author for that however, it just gives me a glimpse of the unknown.  The universal appeal, though, is the redemption she finds by returning home and reconnecting with her mother.

While I might forego a few of the meals she prepared, I will say I wouldn't mind a version of the fruit sandwich she makes for one of her customers.  She bakes a perfect raisin bread, on which she spreads a thin layer of melted milk chocolate then perfectly whipped cream and topped with pears at just the perfect moment of ripeness.  

If you are looking for something a little bit different, a story that will be both familiar and yet foreign you might try Ito Ogawa's story.

I am ready to pick up another novel but I am first concentrating on two mysteries.  I am mostly spending time with All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe, published in 1992 and named a best novel and best mystery of the year in Japan.  I really like the detective in the story, Shunsuke Honma, who is off work recuperating from an accident.  He is a single father of a young son who has agreed to look into the disappearance of a woman.  She is the fiance of his deceased wife's cousin.  It turns out to be like dropping down the rabbit hole as it is a case of stolen identity.  The mystery is to find out who the two women are and which or maybe whether both women are dead.  I am really enjoying this as it is a puzzle with, again, the slant of being both familiar yet foreign.  There is a lot about Japanese culture in the story and I hope to write more about it when I finish.

On temporary hold is Seicho Matsumoto's most acclaimed novel, Points and Lines which was written in 1958.  Another puzzle of the Agatha Christie class.  This is an unusual mystery--a couple is found on a beach, dead.  It appears they have committed a love pact suicide.  But something is not quite right. The pair were spotted on a train together yet the woman got off and only much later met back up with the man and shortly thereafter they were found posed and dead.  It might come down to a four minute window of opportunity when their express train was waiting to pull out of the station--just moments before and after the departure and arrival of two other trains.  Sound tricky?  I know all the facts are there but I have not sussed things out yet.  I can't wait to get back to it.  Now I want to read more of Matsumoto's books, and he was quite a prolific writer, but I think there are only a small handful translated into English and easily available.  Also, some of his books have been filmed, about which I will share more later.

Slowish progress in my Japanese reading, but all quite satisfying and I have a stack more (bought and borrowed) to explore.  Since it is going to be far too hot to be outside for the coming week, I plan on armchair traveling to Japan!

Masks by Fumiko Enchi

There are some books that are meant to be read slowly and deliberately and sometimes meant to be read multiple times.  In the case of Fumiko Enchi's Masks, both are true, but I will add that in this case there are other works to read and study alongside the text that will only enhance the enjoyment and meaning. 

Enchi is really a remarkable writer and I am not sure I would have picked this book up had I not set out to read Japanese literature in particular this summer.  In the past I've not really been drawn to that part of the world as either a real or bookish destination.  Not one that I searched out anyway rather than simply by chance.  Maybe it has always felt so foreign (and not just in the literal sense).  The language feels a little bit impenetrable to me and the culture unlike anything else I have ever encountered. 

I am finding that the more I read and look and watch (I have been watching quite a few films by Yasujiro Ozu as well--and he is amazing) that the more fascinated by it I am.  Watching Japanese films alongside my reading has given me a visual reference that has been really helpful.  The Ozu films have covered the years of the first half of the twentieth century in Japan, so I hope to expand and watch more contemporary films, too.  

So I have read the novel and have set it aside to let it percolate and hope that as I read other books that I can return to it later with a better understanding of the culture and history and literature to make a second reading (I hope sometime later this year) better.  Just a few things now, however, to tidy up my experience (and to come back to later).

Fumiko Enchi is, according to the Dictionary of Literary Biography I referenced, one of those most renowned in Japan.  She won more postwar prizes than any other woman writer.  She wrote not only novels, but plays, essays and translations of Japanese classics into the modern language. 

"She associates sexuality-and, in her later works, the problems of aging-with self-identity and self-expression, and she thus exposes the hidden world of women who have been taught to suppress such feelings and needs."

Her father was a Japanese linguist and professor at Tokyo University.  She was the youngest child and apparently "at the center of her father's affection", which meant she spent much time with him in his study surrounded by literature and scholarly works.  Her grandmother on her father's side told her bedtime stories from the Edo (1600-1867) period, and interestingly both exposed her to Kabuki plays.  Her mother wanted her to have more ladylike hobbies and must have shook her head at such a bookish daughter.  Enchi also read Japanese classics like The Tale of Genji and the works of Junichiro Tanizaki (both are on my reading wishlists).

Considering her background and early literary influences it is not surprising then, that Masks, such a slim story is quite rich in Japanese culture and literature in the telling.  The novel is split into three sections, each title references the masks used in Noh dramas.  The story is essentially a revenge tale at its most basic.  it is about a wife wronged by her husband and seeks retribution via her own daughter.  Sounds complicated and a little messy?  It is, but interwoven are references to The Tale of Genji and the meanings behind those Noh archetypes.  It is not impossible to read the novel and understand it without prior knowledge of the literary references, yet an inquisitive reader will be drawn to learning about those deeper meanings.  I don't feel equipped to tackle a reading of all these things, but I do want to share those masks with you.

The first section is "Ryo No Onna" which means "spirit woman".  This is represents the spirit of "an older woman tormented beyond the grave by unrequited love". 

The second section is "Musagami" which means "that of a young woman in a state of frenzy".

The third section is "Fukai" which means "deep well" or "deep woman".  The mask is meant to show a middle age/mature woman who understands the inevitability of death.

Spoilers here.  So, it all follows.  Mieko, a writer, the mother/mother-in-law has been wronged by her husband.  Her son has died in a mountain climbing accident, but her daughter-in-law, Yasuko, still lives with her.  Also, Mieko's daugher, Harume (a twin of Yasuko's deceased husband), who was born with intellectual disabilities, is cared for at home.  Yasuko is a love interest of not one man but two who happen to be friends--one a psychologist and the other a university professor.  I won't try and go into details or try and describe some of the nuances of the story, but Mieko and Yasuko sets up one of the men to unknowingly sleep with her daughter Harume.  The intent is to carry on the bloodline of her lover over her husband who had been unfaithful but at a very tragic cost.  The set up of the man is dreamlike and otherworldly and he does not realize he has slept with someone other than Yasuko, so you can see (though I am not explaining it well) the use of the Noh masks in describing the arc of the story.  

I borrowed a couple of books about Noh Masks that were very helpful in discussing Noh Theater and the meaning of the masks (which are used in the plays but seem to be somewhat interchangeable depending on who is staging the play) as well as offering lots of great visuals: The Secrets of Noh Masks by Michishige Udaka and a wonderful two-volume set, Heaven Has a Face, So Does hell: The Art of the Noh Mask by Stephen E. Marvin.

I want to try one of Fumiko Enchi's other works, but I will be choosing carefully as I suspect another book will only branch off in many other directions.  What I most loved about this reading experience is getting a feel, though barely dipping in a toe, of what classic Japanese literature and culture is like.

June 11: What I'm Reading Notes

What do you do when you have a most compelling stack of in-progress books, almost any of which you could pick up and happily lose yourself in?  I mean, how do you determine which to read when they are all really good?  In my case it is a massive reading dilemma choosing which goes into my bookbag each morning.  I find myself starting with just a few that I know I can rotate and dip into over the course of the day, but then I start second guessing myself and what I will be in the mood for and end up tucking in just one (okay sometimes two) more books. 

I curse myself at the end of the work day as I lug that bookbag home.  I know I should just pick the two books that I am closest to finishing and work on them and simply work my way through the pile until I am finished.  Of course on the horizon are the books I have been thinking about--the books I plan on starting as soon as I finish X.  I have been meaning to catch up on my reading here, so here goes.  (with an occasional musing over which book might come next).

Let me start with the mysteries/thrillers that seem to be sprouting.  I am nearly finished with the second Ruth Galloway mystery, The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths.  I like Ruth.  I like how she doesn't fret over her looks and enjoys good food and hanging with her cat yet still has a number of men who flock to her side when she ends up in the hospital.  One is a former lover, one a friend and the other a potential love interest.  Spoiler here--the cliffhanger in the first novel is that at the end of the story she discovers a one night stand has ended up with her in a rather sensitive condition.  She has been pulled into another murder investigation when a skeleton--that of a child whose head is missing--turns up on a construction site.  Since she is a head forensic archaeologist the police turn to her for help.  I love the setting, which is on the northern English saltmarshes, which she loves, too.  It seems quiet and a little lonely but beautiful and perfect for a little murder investigation.

I wanted something a little thrillerish and a booklist I recently came across noted Clare Mackintosh's twisty-turny I Let You Go as being particularly effective.  A story with a surprise you don't see coming, which sounds just the ticket at the moment.  A young mother and her son are walking home from school.  Nearly there, she lets go of his hand for a blink of an eye and he is hit by a car, the driver not stopping, but worse speeding up to get away.  She is devastated and filled with guilt.  She, quite unexpectedly, packs a bag and leaves town.  The story is told in parallel by the detective team investigating and Jenna, the mother.  Questions I am asking myself--knowing there is going to be a twist--why did she run.  All the way to the Welsh coast with practically nothing and she pitches her cell phone on the way.  She has secrets.  Did the driver mean to kill them both?  Only her, or only the boy?  What is she hiding--what did she see or do?  Hmm.  

I have one more mystery to share.  I know--pure gluttony on my part and normally I have one lone mystery on the go at a time, but it's summer and anyway, who's counting?  Somewhere or other I came across an article about the Japanese crime writer Seicho Matsumoto, who sounds an awful like Georges Simenon.  Matsumoto was hugely popular in the 60s-70s and wrote literally hundred of books.  Only a few seem to be available in print and translated into English,but one that appears to be a classic is Points and Lines written in the late 1950s.  It involves two lovers who are found dead on a beach, apparently by a suicide pact.  There are train journeys and women in kimonos.  When I read about it, it sounded so perfect for my summer reading project I had to get it, so I requested it via interlibrary loan.  Library books always get to jump the queue.  Since it has to go back to a library (that is not my own) I had to start it as soon as I got it.  So far, I like it very much and I especially like all the little details that give a hint of Japanese culture or geography.

As I already have an array of crime novels/thriller and mysteries in progress I really should not be thinking about what is next.  Kinsey Millhone is next, but it's okay to have a few other ideas in mind.  And summer, for me, means beach books--not really books to read at the beach but stories with a beach setting, so how convenient to come across this list!  Or maybe it is time to return to the Marseille trilogy by Claude Izzo.  I read a couple of his books years ago and should really get back to the next Marseille book.  Or maybe the Philippe Georget novel that I keep picking up and putting down.

I'm having a mini foodie reading fest at the moment, too.  I am thoroughly enjoying Ruth Reichl's memoir Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.  Complementing it is Ito Ogawa's magical The Restaurant of Love Regained.  Another perfect book for my summer reading.  It really does have a magical feel to it--it reminds me of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.  Food as a restorative--both for body and spirit after the break up of a boyfriend.  Rinko returns home from Tokyo to the mountain village of her mother where she opens a special restaurant where only one meal is prepared each evening.  The narrator also has lost her voice and must communicate through notes and cards she carries with her.  I have a stack of other books by Japanese authors or set in Japan that I have been eyeing for my next reading choice, but I have not yet narrowed them down.  Maybe Julie Otsuka or Yasunari Kawabata.  

I'll mention just one more since this post is getting a little unwieldy.  (I did say I have a Stack of books I am reading).  I have been happily ensconced in the pages of Lettice Cooper's The New House.  I know many of you may have read this and I ask myself why I waited so long to get around to it.  The story takes place over the course of just one day as a family moves from a large middle class home to something much smaller.  You get a sense of a changing England and the world getting smaller for one mother and daughter (though there are actually three siblings and spouses and fiances).  The world, particular for that one daughter, feels as if it is closing in--now so wedged is she at home to take care of her mother as her brother and sister are part of the larger world and expect her to remain at home.  Maddening but so very real.  I think when I finish I will pick up another Persephone or Virago.  Maybe a Daphne du Maurier.  Or maybe something else entirely.  Or maybe a WWI novel by Anna Hope, or maybe Jane Gardam or Mary Wesley--something British--you know the sort of book I mean, I think.  

So, good reading in progress and more good reading on the horizon--anticipation of more to come.  (And then there are library books that I have been neglecting--maybe I should share those as well?).  What good book are you lost in at the moment?

Just So Happens by Fumio Obata

Lately I seem to be very hit or miss when it comes to graphic novels and especially with comics.  I see something that looks potentially really good, but when I start reading it just does not click with me.  I started out strong with the Saga series, but it got a little too weird for me, and as much as I was liking the Papergirls story my enjoyment just waned.  Maybe I will get back to them later, but for now I think I like a story that is more reality based.  Something I can relate to more than it being so fantastical and pure escapism.

So, many thanks to Ms. Smithereens for suggesting this one, Just So Happens by Fumio Obata.  It fits in so nicely with my other reading at the moment, Fumiko Enchi's Masks as well as Monica Sone's Nisei Daughter.  Obata was born in Japan and now lives and works in England.  He is an animator and comic book artist, though this seems to be his only graphic novel.  I want to explore his work--the Guardian called the illustrations in this book "elegant"  and the publisher notes their "delicacy" and I wholeheartedly concur.  I made myself read only a few pages at a time in order to linger over the story and illustrations, but I think now, I need to sit and read it in one slow sitting to take it in as a whole. 

It is beautifully illustrated and indeed elegantly told--very understated.  The prose is quite spare but fittingly so.  This is the story of a young woman who has been living in London where she feels contented and happy--fitting in with this new lifestyle and a true cosmopolitan Londoner.  She is called home to Japan, however, on the death of her father.  It is perhaps reverse culture shock.  She has adapted to her new home and lifestyle but is dropped again into the world of her youth, so different from her life now.  The story is steeped in the culture and traditions of what seems to me a very formal Japan.  

I am only now learning about Japanese culture.  Fumiko Enchi's novel relied heavily on classic Japanese literature and culture and there were many references to the masks used in Noh Theater, which also makes an appearance here.  It is not wholly foreign to me, but I think I don't quite appreciate the references and sentiments behind the visuals.  I have been watching films of Yasujiro Ozu, which are absolutely gorgeous and very evocative.  So, slowly I am taking in aspects of Japanese culture and find I quite like it and feel very comfortable there.

I'll share a few illustrations here as they are so elegant and will give you a small taste of the story.

This is one I will be revisiting and can warmly recommend!

Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone

I wish Monica Sone had written more books, as I would happily read more about her life and experiences.  Her memoir, Nisei Daughter, published in 1953 is easily going to make it onto my favorite books of the year list.  It is one of the best memoirs I have ever read.  If I could, I would press a copy into your hands right now and suggest you read it too.  If you are a fan of memoirs, curious about Asian-American culture, life in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest around the period of WWII or just like good writing and storytelling, I can warmly recommend it.  It is still in print and I imagine very likely will be in many library collections as it is really a classic of the era and Japanese-American culture as well as the immigrant experience.

Nisei is the Japanese word for a first generation Japanese-American.  Sone's parents emigrated from Japan in the early 1900s.  Her father worked as a cook for a while on a ship that traveled between Washington and Alaska.  Her mother came to the U.S.  when she was only 17 and notes that she was still a girl, too young to have had a mature Japanese culture/outlook impressed on her (yet still very firmly Issei--which is the term for those born in Japan but immigrants to America).  She was still a young woman filled with energy and curiosity.  Sone's father had started studying in Japan and wanted to become a lawyer, so was more of an intellectual, though ultimately he become a hotel proprietor in Seattle before the war where the Sone family was raised (monica had three siblings).

The memoir follows Monica (born Kazuko Itoi) from her early girlhood through the end of WWII and her years at a Midwestern college.  There is a happy sense of nostalgia yet the memories are also peppered with the reality of life for an immigrant from Japan at a time in U.S. history where Asian immigrants were very decidedly not welcome (does that sound familiar still?).  In the 1920s there was a law which prohibited Japanese from emigrating to the U.S., so almost a whole generation was barred from entry.  In the introduction to my edition it was noted that there was a gap between Japanese of Monica's parents and that of Monica herself.  So she very much felt an outsider to both cultures.  She was not fully Japanese, nor was she fully accepted as an American either.  As a matter of fact she didn't even understand the concept of being Japanese and any different than anyone else until her parents made her go to a Japanese school where she could learn the Japanese language at the age of 7 or so.  

She shares many happy and often humorous memories, but there are many that while 'funny' are not funny at all.  Prejudice against Japanese was rampant (all Asians I am sure, but more so Japanese during the war years) to the point that they were not allowed to rent rooms or apartments or were not welcome in jobs.  Of course it only was made worse by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  All Japanese on the West Coast (I'm not sure ho far inland this stretched), even those born in the U.S. were required to move to internment camps.  Sone and her family were moved to the Minidoka Camp in Idaho, where the camp was essentially run in almost every aspect by the Japanese internees.  Before the end of the war some, and this included Monica and her siblings, were able to leave the camp and move east if they could claim either a job or a spot in a college or university.  

I was gushing about the book to an acquaintance and fellow reader and she asked to read the book, so I have passed it on to her, but all my notes went with the book.  I have a library copy, but it was hard to remember which passages that struck me and I had wanted to share, but I have a few excerpts that might grab your interest.  I tend to be attracted to food mentions as that is always a fun way to experience an unknown culture.

"From a corner near the kitchen window, a peculiar, pungent odor emanated from a five-gallon crock which mother kept filled with cucumbers, nappa (Chinese cabbage), daikon (large Japanese radishes), immersed in a pickling mixture of nuka, consisting of rice polishings, salt, rice and raisins.  The fermented products were sublimely refreshing, delicious, raw vegetables, a perfect side dish to a rice and tea mixture at the end of a meal."

"Among the usual pots and pans stood a dark red stone mixing bowl inside of which were cut rows and rows of minute grooves as n a record disc.  The bowl was used to grind poppy seeds and miso (soybeans) into a soft paste for soups and for flavoring Japanese dishes.  I spent many hours bent over this bowl, grinding the beans into a smooth, fine paste with a heavy wooden club.  For all the work that went into making miso shiru, soybean soup, I thought it tasted like sawdust boiled in sea brine.  Mother told nothing could be more nutritious, but I could never take more than a few shuddering sips of it."

Sone's mother cooked both Asian and Western dishes, however, so she had steaks and potatoes, ham and eggs and even apple and pumpkin pies.

When you think of the U.S. you tend to think of it being a place of opportunities, but it was really difficult for Asian immigrants.  Monica was hoping to get into a vocational school and then find a job, but this was not an easy thing to do at the time.  As most businesses were not likely to hire a young Japanese woman, in order to even get a spot in a school they had to show proof that they had a job to go to when they finished their studies.  It was a catch-22, as the only places hiring Japanese workers were those run by Japanese and the community could only offer so many positions.

"I did (understand the school's policy), and I was gateful to Miss Thompson for her straightforward approach.  She left no trail of embarrassed excuses, nothing but clean-cut wounds.  I knew that the Nisei girls competed fiercely among themselves for white-collar jobs in the Mitsui and Mitsubishi branch firms downtown, local newspaper establishments, Japanese banks, shipping offices and small export and import firms.  Opportunities were limited.  If a girl did not go to business school, the only other occupation open to her was as a domestic in a home.  More fortunate girls went on to college, and so postponed their job hunting for four years."

I'm not sure if I can find another memoir like this, but I would love to read more and will be on the lookout.  Surely there must be other books about this era and the world of Asian immigrants in the Northwest.  A perfect read for my summer reading project, which has been off to a very good start.