“Toward Winter,” by Yasunari Kawabata Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-sixty eight – From “Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.”
Currently at the moment, I am reading “The Sound of the Mountain,” by Yasunari Kawabata, the chapters and the layout of the novel itself, often feels like his “Palm-of the-Hand Stories.” Each chapter has an interesting title: “A Dream of Islands,” or “The Bell in Spring,” “A Blaze of Clouds.” Each title of the chapter sounds like some poetic revelation of a story within the novel itself. And yet each chapter feels like a story, which revolves around the larger plot of the novel. Each one adding a new perspective and depth to the novel as a whole.
Yasunari Kawabata’s talents are shown in complete force and grand scale with all of his novels, and his shorts stories. His ability to completely miniaturize but not understate, is one of his greatest talents. Another great talent of his writing is his wonderful ability to write and show subconscious world, in the world around his characters.
The Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize to Yasunari Kawabata back in nineteen-sixty eight one of the reasons for his win was his ability to express the essence of the Japanese mind. M. Zotterman of the Royal Veterinary College, had made an introduction to Yasunari Kawabata when the Nobel Laureate had stepped up to make his Nobel Banquet speech – his remarks, are no longer revelations as they are accepted facts about Yasunari Kawabata and his writing:
“We admire the exquisite artistry and sensibility which you have displayed in your deep analysis of the Japanese character.” (You can find that quote at the Nobel Prize website, under Literature, in nineteen-sixty eight, Yasunari Kawabata’s banquet speech at the bottom)
Yasunari Kawabata chose to probe the human mind and the human condition – however he specialized in the Japanese mind and their very character(istics). With “Toward Winter,” Yasunari Kawabata writes about a man playing a game of Go with a priest. The man often muses about fate. He himself is rather fatalistic himself, and feels or rather is stuck in a place that he neither cares for nor does he belong, with a woman, who is equally trapped in the hopeless and rather dire situation.
The priest of the temple, tells the man of this story, a fable or tale about the samurai who had founded the temple way back the Tokugawa period (also known as the Edo period – taking place between the years 1603 - 1867). The priest reveals the story of how the samurai had an imbecile child, the chief retainer of the clan, had ridiculed the child. The samurai had killed both the chief retainer and the child. From there on out the samurai who had fled the estate, had been having prophetic dreams of his own death, and a waterfall. Yet the samurai decides that he will fight back – and change the course of his fate. He will not die so easily by the hand of the retainer’s son. The samurai however successfully changed his fate. But it proved to the man and the priest that the outcome of the game of Go could always change – and to call each other “fools,” was always delightful. However throughout this ambiguous and yet long for a “Palm-of-the-Hand story,” there is something compelling about all the same. Maybe just the traditional feeling of hopelessness with the character trapped in a hot spring village with a woman; and whom his feeling of such melancholy has taken hold of even her as well. It is to the point where neither one has the feeling or energy to even bother to get underneath the quilt. Their fatalistic tendency to accept their situation as nothing more then what it is, and makes no attempt at fixing it, in the least bit is rather annoying to read. Especially when it’s pitted against the samurai and his ability to change his own fate, from seeing it in his prophetic dreams. Perhaps that is what the priest wanted to share with the man. Never accept a situation purely or solely for what it is. Always work at changing it.
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“The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two – From “Leaf Storm: and Other Stories.”
Reading a new story by the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two, is always a new and enjoyable experience. The prose are more lucid in how they are told. There is the sense of religious mystery. With the surreal mixing in with the religious mystery, and the characters experiencing the human drama, the stories become such great tales.
This story is particularly interesting. There is no paragraph break – however what makes that interesting is that I did not even notice such a thought until the very end of the story. Scanning it now, there is no period. The entire story is just one long beautiful lucid and lush monologue that quickly changes perspective that it becomes difficult to notice. But what is most interesting is that even though its one large paragraph and one run on sentence – the kind of sentence your teacher in grad school, told you not to write with in school – it is all hardly noticeable. What becomes even more interesting is that throughout reading this story, it does not feel like a gush of words coming out all at once. In fact it just feels like, a person’s monologue going through their head. With that monologue the reader automatically locates and adds pauses in to the speech. That is some kind of writing. This is one of those rare books that allows the reader to actually interact into the story without really noticing it at first. This special stream of consciousness writing that does not come across as overtly poetic or too clever for its own good. It comes off as just like anyone else just sitting there on the beach thinking in their head. Telling a story to them self. This kind of writing that allows the story succeed. It’s complicated, yet is written with a sense of ease to it. Other authors would fail miserably at this kind of writing. But Gabriel García Márquez has really done something special with this story.
There is not a sense or a hint of any self-doubt while reading this story. I can only imagine that Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two sitting at his desk, slightly tired, and yet having that urge – that sudden feeling and desire wishing to writing; a craving that will not be suppressed; already the story takes it shape in his head, with pen in hand he begins to grasp the first line and only line in the story and begins writing. Non-stop for eight pages, he writes the wonderful story that becomes “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.”
There is just that feeling of strength and confidence in this writing. That sense that he knows what he is doing and that he is a good writer, and that he can write worth a damn, and that he does not care if anyone likes it or not. It was just a great story. The style itself, even though it looks similar to Thomas Bernhard’s, it doesn’t have that manic frantic feeling to write everything and get it off, out now, like a character giving a long speech, or a monologue or a person on their death bed screaming, yelling, and whispering whatever is on their mind. That desire that need to tell that final story to tell their own story and to make everyone or anyone listen to their final testament. It might as well be the last word or story they have yet to say. Gabriel García Márquez’s does not come off like that, at all. It’s peaceful and it runs at a leisurely pace. There is no feeling of frantic desire to get it all out before the last breath is drawn; it takes its time in reciting its story.
It’s a peaceful story at times, and yet at other times, there is the sense of something barbaric. That of course speaking there is the characteristic of living in a small town. When the young man made a lot of noise to wake up the town, and show proof of the ghost ship, and they beat him for his insolence, and disrespect there is no doubt that it does come off as barbaric, however small towns have a sense of collective punishment to them as well. Disturb one you disturb them all – much like a bee’s nest or wasp nest. There is just the sense that it takes a village to raise a child – and with a small town or village that mentality can be true. Yet the description of the ghost ship and that beautiful feeling that it brings back the thoughts of some of the great moments of childhood. The thought of seeking something – both horrifying and yet new. Like the time a cousin and I went walking out in a field when I was very young and we came across the bones of a cow or something. Of course we thought they were human – children are selfish creatures; and we thought was discovered a murder, and we told each other never to tell anyone what we had found or saw. For years the guilt or pseudo-guilt of that “dead person,” had lived inside me but now the realization that it was a cow most likely killed by coyote’s or by a winter snow storm, I can simply laugh at that very scary experience of my childhood.
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“Little Misunderstands of no Importance,” by Antiono Tabucchi – From “Little Misunderstandings of No Importance,” by Antiono Tabucchi.
There are little misunderstandings that have no importance, everywhere, all the time. When one accidentally buys brown eggs, rather than white eggs. What about when you accidentally grab the wrong coffee and someone grabs yours. These are all misunderstandings. But none of them have any real importance to them. They are all superficial. These misunderstandings have no importance, because they are not balancing acts that are juggled between someone’s life and another person’s life, or the outbreak of complete civil war. These misunderstandings are more or less just simple inconvenience. An individual asks for cream and sugar in their coffee, and instead end up getting a hot steamy black coffee.
These little misunderstandings of no importance are what are important for Antonio Tabucchi’s short story that shares the same name as the title of this collection of stories “Little Misunderstandings of No Importance.” The very atmosphere of this short reminds me of a warm Italy day. The cirrus clouds up in the pale blue sky. The grass on the ground, lush and green swaying in the slight breeze blowing off from the Mediterranean Sea. The sounds of the low hums of scooters, in the distance are reminiscent of the call of cicadas. There are people walking about. Fashionable sun dresses. Beautifully tanned. Designer sunglasses and polo shirts. The sound of expensive pumps, click on the pavement. The lazy and arrogant laugh of young men. The flirtatious giggles of women. All around there are those little misunderstandings of no importance. From a misunderstanding of price. To the misunderstanding of someone who cut someone off, on the road. The misinterpretation of a painting by a master. Life buzzes with the misunderstandings, like it buzzes with the sound of the bee, pollinating the flower. In the distance song birds chirp. Mourning the loss of their comrades, stuck in cages, who sing for the pleasure of their prison guards. It is a day like any other. A lazy quiet afternoon, much like any other one. People everywhere go out on their own business. The young men show themselves off, in their designer clothes. There white or pale yellow or pastel green polo shirt. There faded khaki pants, their designer shoes. Their hair carefully immaculately placed. Every strand carefully sculpted with great attention and detail. Their eyes, arrogant and cocky hidden behind their sunglasses. Then there are women, dressed in sundresses open toed high heels, showing off their legs, and giggling and flirting with the men. Knowing full well that later that night, in the cooling off in the day, as the sun sets, and the evening reigns in, they will all meet at the club or bar.
The subtle part of all the relationships, the sensitive strings that tie the families and friends together and the misunderstandings that happen between them – these ambiguities and the uncertainties of the relationships, the failed dreams and the treacherous memories – especially shown here in this first story; are of great interest to Antonio Tabucchi. The interest can clearly be shown as well in this story. How the long lost friends, have seen how time has passed, and now once again face each other – under very unfortunate circumstances.
Leo is on trial, and his judge is his old friend Ferderico. The narrator is also an old friend, and now a reporter, watching the trial, with a heavy heart, and melancholic eyes. He watches the court procession; all the while remembering their times, that each of them had shared at youth with each other. That sense of freedom, that they had all shared. Now Leo is locked in the cage like some wild animal and common criminal. Ferderico is forced, to past the sentence that will surely fall on his once beloved friends head. The narrator is forced to watch a sense of hopelessness, and can only remember their time spent together. It all could have been avoided if only because a misunderstanding of no importance.
If one ever reads this story that is something that they will learn about. There is a great feeling of ambiguity to this story. What move the story is the present and the memories of the past, and their place in the present. There is the feeling of chance. But also the sense that, the story is light and soft like a cloud, but moves around like a dream. As if nothing is quite what it seems.
In all a story that shows, Antonio Tabucchi’s strengths in the short story form, which often leads to the novella form – a particular enjoying literary form in my opinion, because of its closeness to the novel, but its constraint that needs to be placed on it. It often feels more like an atmospheric tale, then that of something that is moving towards, anything else of telling a tale or moving in telling a story or morally engages the reader. It’s just a brooding tale, focusing on the memories and the present of the characters.
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“(Spring) The Wasp Treatment,” by Italo Calvino – From “Marcovaldo or The Seasons in The City” by Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino is a lot different than Antonio Tabucchi. Both authors from Italian heritage, and even though both have a dream like quality to their work, both authors however write on two different extremes of two different spectrums. Where Italo Calvino’s writing is light hearted, and even ironic, and playful with the form of his writing. While Antonio Tabucchi takes on more political stances, and uses dreams and atmosphere to run his stories and novella’s. Italo Calvino’s use more of a sense of mystery and magic in his, with an almost light hearted stinging irony his stories, which cause a bit of laughter. Yet his light enjoyable fables are much different than the ambiguities then that of Antonio Tabucchi.
There have always been those folk medicines around. The thought or belief that if one did something with an herb or a vegetable or even with the venom of an animal can cure illness, joint and muscle pain, and other ailments. I remember once being stung by a bumble bee when I was rather young. My grandmother had informed that it was good for me though. The sting is a healthy cure for sickness and pains. She said the bumble bee gave its life for me. Of course, I was still quite miffed over the fact that the bumble bee felt it necessary to sting me. If the venom was supposed to numb pain, it certainly wasn’t numbing the pain that was left behind from the bee’s sting itself.
This is where, Italo Calvino’s “(Spring) The Wasp Treatment,” comes from. Once again Marcovaldo the poor general labourer, whose admiration of nature and his constant desire to harvest nature as well – for his own means, often lead for him to be taught a rather painful lesson. “(Spring) Mushrooms in the City,” taught Marcovaldo to be careful of the mushrooms that grew on the ground. They turned out to be poisonous. “(Autumn) The Municipal Pigeon,” Marcovaldo learned not to put glue trappings on the roof of his apartment building. His very desire, to harvest the very beauty and power of nature, back fires on him constantly. Yet even though his schemes fail, even though his life does not change, Marcovaldo still finds himself attuned to the very nature around him.
He spends his lunch break sitting on a park bench. Devouring it. Watching the new leaves bud in, on the trees. Signor Rizieri a beggar of an old man is his only companion and friend who sits on the park bench with Marcovaldo. As Marcovaldo’s lunch is packed and wrapped in a news paper, he often passes it along to Signor Rizieri to read. This is where; the entire thought and treatment of using wasp venom come into play, to cure the rheumatic arthritis aches. However as Marcovaldo should learn – but does not; such power or such attempts at using such methods for money and wealth – fame or fortune; never turn out well. Though after a while it certainly did its own good. However in time it all backfired. Only with the usual Italo Calvino ironic humour.
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“The Occasional Garden,” by Saki (H.H. Munro) – From “The Complete Saki,” by Saki – Section: “Toys of Peace.”
I had reminisced about Saki, when I had reviewed “The Strangers Child,” by Alan Hollinghurst – at least that is to say in the beginning of reading “The Strangers Child,” when, Hollinghurst, used the period England to discuss the golden afternoon, and show just how easy life was or felt like back then. The garden parties, the general feeling of peace. Something that the world hasn’t known since World War II, had ended. Since the end of both World Wars, the legacies of war, and fighting and conflicts have continued on and on, throughout the twentieth century and even now into the twenty first century war and conflict continues. From the Korean War to the Gulf War. From the gulf war, to this “War on Terror,” to the Arab Spring revolutions, that have continued on and the uprising that is going to continue from there until a happy medium is going to be matched. The author Saki (H.H. Munro) had died in the First World War. He did not live to see the collapse of the colonial world, and the English Empire that he decided to join the army and fight for. Saki himself was born in Akyab, Burma – part of the English empire. His later stories, show his experiences in the trenches of the Great War.
The settings and scenes of most of Saki’s stories are lush and serene. Like some pastoral scene where one would expect to find some Sheppard’s sitting on the grass, a bit of straw hanging out of their mouth discussing some matter – but take away those sheep and Sheppard’s and replace them with the high society and upper middle class people. Take away the straw and place in the hands of these lavishly dressed people martini’s and other beverages. These people are stuck up and are only interested in few things other than themselves, and those that they can compare themselves too, and be better then.
Saki’s protagonists – if you could call them that; are not all that better, they are dandy’s and idlers. They are young, self-absorbed, and usually have a finely sharpened keen sense of observation. They make notes and comments past their years. But that does not change the fact of their life, and they themselves, are selfish creatures. Their comments and observations however are venomous to the extreme. There is no happy medium. The puritan, the Jew, the Quaker, the candlestick maker, the woman, the man – no one is safe from their eyes and their vicious words. Saki’s characters, are his little bits of himself, personally coming through and showing his own distaste and disgust with the middle class life, and its self-absorption, but realizes that his characters themselves are self-absorbed making themselves the same as the people they mock and have such high distaste for.
“The Occasional Garden,” is just such a tale by Saki. How does one have a wonderful garden to impress their neighbours or the people of the street, at some garden party. How does one keep their garden better then everyone else’s, when the damn thing refuses? Such is the problem with his story. A household has a garden, or might be better to put a lawn – or a lot a vacant lot as a garden behind their house. Of course how are they to impress their neighbours – and by impress, that means make them feel inferior. Walk with one’s head held up, and smile at everyone and explain that yes those are row’s of all colours of tulips. Oh you did notice my tea rose? It’s called a ‘Peace,’ rose. However in Germany it was called ‘Glory to God,’ and in France ‘Madame A. Meilland,’ while in Italy it was called ‘Joy.’ It is all rather fascinating really isn’t it? Oh Jonathan, how are you, yes she did just have kittens, and when they are read you will have the first pick.
This is what a garden party is all about. It’s about showing off, it’s about making that, that impression. It also about making sure that no one can upstage you at such an event. At least that is the kind of world that Saki provides. In other matters, it kind of looks like a place that one gets drunk at, and yet still holds a respectable air about them. In the end though Saki was called “Reactionary,” but his stories were rather funny, and certainly knew how to disturb the status quo. All in good fun and with his razor sharp and piercing observations.
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“Breathing Jesus,” by Amy Hempel – From “The Collected Stories,” by Amy Hempel – Section: “Reasons To Live.”
Amy Hempel is an interesting author, not just because of how she can say so much, with so little. Her short stories are barely stories. For example “Memoir,” is just in short one sentence. Not like “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two, at all. It just literally is just one conventional sentence. That’s it that’s all. There is nothing to it. In many ways I look at that “story,” or rather sentence that just happens to have a title and is called a story – a play about nothing – or rather just an empty black screen, which the audience can stare at for thirty seconds. Something which the minimalist writer and grand playwright of the twentieth century had done with his short play – “Breath,” where there was no character, and no dialogue. Just trash scattered about the stage, dim lighting and a person who inhales and exhales, and that’s it. “Memoir,” by Amy Hempel comes across as. Just a minimalist piece of work no importance whatsoever. It’s hard to say if it’s just something that is just trying to clever or is just put there to irritate one. Personally both Beckett’s play and Amy Hempel’s sentence story “Memoir,” irritate me in the sense of some “artistic selfishness,” that comes across the work of both authors. But this is not about either “Breathe,” by Samuel Beckett, nor is it about “Memoir,” by Amy Hempel.
Amy Hempel’s style feels more stream of consciousness than anything else. But instead of the likes of stream of consciousness writing like Virginia Woolf, where the writing becomes poetic and shifts with such uncertainty that it feels like, its going nowhere, yet it must head somewhere. Though how you got to that somewhere as a reader can be somewhat confusing. Hempel’s however is the same way – minus the poetic fluffiness, and fat around the edges. Hempel’s stories are lean ground beef. They are written in chunks or episodes so to speak. The entire story is just one large fragment written of many different fragments, down the basic fragments of the entire story. Hempel focuses on feeling, the day to day life – and the ever constant dealings with grief and sadness, that encompass day to day mundane life. There are those disappointments, which everyone must deal with. Secretly a person wanted macaroni and cheese for dinner, and ended up having pork chops with pea’s instead for supper. These subtle and mundane disappointments become the conflicts of the stories. There’s that date that no one wants to go on. Yet that one person, that really good hearted person agrees to go on in your place – however they become self-conscious of their hair, or that pimple on their forehead. They have ‘nothing,’ to wear, and all these small little conflicts start to add up. Then the door bell rings. Their hasn’t grown in the last ten minutes. The pimple looks more like a bulbous balloon then just a red dot on their forehead; and they are still dressed in their towel from when they had a shower. They just know they are not going to have a good date tonight. But it’s a favour. They owe to their friend. So they do it regardless.
What becomes Amy Hempel’s strength is also her weakness. Her minimalism and desire to leave out certain points can become difficult to comprehend the stories, themselves, based on how the sentences might be wrote, and how they work in. Minimalism can be great, but it can also fail. Its word games, and bit of cleverness and fun, can also be its downfall – like it has been proven with both Amy Hempel’s story “Memoir,” and Samuel Beckett’s play “Breathe.” Sometimes I think that Hempel’s writing can use a bit of fat pumping in around the edges. At other times, I think maybe she should stop writing stories, and move towards writing plays and movie scripts or maybe even poetry. She has the great sense of minimalism down pat. She knows how to say so much with such little words; perhaps she should try her hand at poetry and work from that, or movies and that. Yet at the same time Amy Hempel’s stories, become unique in their own right. Though like any short story collection they hit and miss. They rise up to such a grandeur and they also risk failing miserably as well.
“Breathing Jesus,” by Amy Hempel could use some fat around the edges – it has the well written sentences that all of Hempel’s work contains, but it does not feel like a true story. It’s missing something. It always feels like it is missing something. There is something not right. There are those moments, but those quotable moments (like from pool night about girls saving his chewing gum) are not there. They just don’t creep up on you. Perhaps a four-hundred and thirty-two page of her stories is a bit much. I think that Hempel would be the kind author – and is the kind of writer; whose work is best approached without much notice. There the kind of stories, which should be read in magazines. Like at the doctors or dentists office, and as you listen to the old eighties songs over your head, and the coughs around you or the drills in the distance (along with the sucking sound) you might need something to take your mind off the fact that you are surrounded by other people. So you pick up a magazine flip through and there is this story “Pool Night,” or “Breathing Jesus,” or “Three Popes Walk into a Bar,” or something along those lines. You read the quick story, your name is called, and yet you are haunted by the story that you just read. Mauling it over in your head. Churning it. Swishing it around in your mouth like fine wine. You can hear it in your ears. The sounds of the story just whispering in the caves and honeycombs of the crevices of your ears. It helps pass the time as you wait a bit longer, as you think about it. Those are the stories that Amy Hempel writes, and those are the stories that she should continue to write – and hopefully such little treasures find their way into your lap, Gentle Reader.
