Reading

An eclectic mix: I was after literature written by Japanese authors, that would give me a sense of Japan.

The first book I read was ‘The Star on the Grave’, based on a true story and written by an Australian author whose family were Jewish refugees in 1940 fleeing from Poland. The refugees were assisted by a Japanese diplomat serving in Lithuania at the time who bravely defied his government and issued their transit visas allowing them to escape via Japan. Sugihara saved 6000 lives. I had no idea about this story. Fascinating - and grim!

Kazuo Ishiguro's 'An Artist of the Floating World'. Actually it is Sir Kazuo Ishiguro and he is more British than Japanese as he arrived in the UK aged 5. He won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature so he's worth reading in any event but I was after something that reflected a more Japanese flavour and this one of his books seemed to offer that: it is set in post-World War II Japan and is narrated by Masuji Ono, an ageing painter, who looks back on his life.

'More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop' - chosen because it is set in the famous literary Jinbōchō district of Tokyo.

Takako is the niece of the shop’s owner and the story centres around her relationships with Uncle Satoru and his wife and her boyfriend. It's a quiet, unchallenging read; sad in parts. 

I tried 'Snow Country' by Yasunari Kawabata. The novel is considered a classic work of Japanese literature but I found the translation somewhat clunky. Kawabata won the Nobel Prize for Literature - in 1968. Shimamura travels to the hot springs in the snow country and seeks out Komoko who he had met on a previous visit. However, this time - 4 years later - she has become a geisha; she is mercurial and spiky and their relationship reflects this and is quite irritating. I haven't finished the book yet.

Another hard-to-get-into (and unfinished as yet) book is called 'In Praise of Shadows' written in 1933 by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It is an essay on aesthetics exploring the subtle interplay of shade and light in several important aspects of Japanese life like architecture, jade and food. Too subtle for me thus far.

This one has more potential but is still unfinished: 'Water, Food and Wild Things' is written (not a Japanese author in this case) by Hannah Kirshner, an American based in Brooklyn who takes on a saké   apprenticeship in a misty Japanese mountain village called Yamanaka and her time spent here is quite interesting as she immerses herself in the community and learns the craft.

And for a bit of nonsense, I read 'Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Japan' by Keisuke Matsoka. Turning up in Japan to 'disappear' from England after he's implicated in Professor Moriarty's fall to his death over a waterfall, Sherlock Holmes joins forces with the first Prime Minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito, to solve an international mystery.

It is now September - a month to go. Have just finished reading 'Cold Enough for Snow’ by Jessica Au. It won the 2023 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction. A quick, easy, gentle read about a young woman who meets up with her Hong Kong-born mother in Japan so they can holiday together and (the daughter hopes) reconnect: a lot of things unsaid and in some ways unresolved but a reflective piece nonetheless.