Hello
Gentle Reader
Contempt—as
I was recently informed—is the most useless human emotional response or
reaction, on the spectrum of emotions. Of the vast scale of the human
experience, depicted through the various tints and lenses of emotional
responses and reactions, it is surprising to think that contempt, is the only
emotional response which has no valuable input. When presented with other
emotions and their apparent lack of value; the informer of this information
simply responded: hatred provides the ability to come to terms with the
situation and accept it, before finally forgiveness is offered; anger is
natural, it’s an instinctual reaction, which human beings are offered as a
defense mechanisms; fear is primal in its makeup—and the list goes on.
Contempt, however, completely lacks the ability to evolve and polish into a
transcending experience or awareness. Contempt is chain and cinderblock; it’s
wrapped around ones ankles and drags them down into the deepest darkest aspects
of the human soul. It restricts and restrains any movement upwards or forwards.
Contempt keeps one chained and stationery and in this grounded position, the
individual lacks any room for growth or transcendental experience. Contempt
infects an individual with apathy, the striking human ability to throw ambition
to the side, enthusiasm left stranded, and a complete disregard for concern or
attempt at changing the situation, which has reduced the individual to a level
of malcontent. Contempt; be it: contempt for a situation; contempt for a job;
contempt for a relationship; contempt for a person—the list is endless, but
contempt in itself, is the most inactive and useless emotion human beings and
individuals have as a emotional response or reaction, at their disposal.
Contempt may be an involuntary retort to a situation, individual, job, or
relationship; but it is a voluntary choice to maintain it, past realization. If
one is incapable of making a appropriate decision with regards to the source of
their contempt—be it they find a new job, or call off the relationship, or
honestly come to terms with their contempt towards another individual, or
change the situation or remove themselves from it; they then convict
themselves, and sentence themselves to remain chained to the bottom, incapable
and unwilling to progress or move in a positive or at least different
direction. Contempt is being encased in cement; it encompasses apathy and
ignorance, a willful desire to be blind and to be stationery; it leaves little
to the imagination, and there is no room for hope. In the end, contempt is
simply put, an emotional boa constrictor, which ensnares, constricts,
strangles, and finally sinks the captive to the endless depths of pessimism,
apathy, ignorance, and a wash of other byproducts of the human experience.
There one is lost by their volition; their decision made their conviction
concrete. It is only with time, age and wisdom that one finally decides to
ascend the squander of their bloated arrogance and contemptuous perspective,
and then move forward, progress farther.
The
biography sketches of Teru Miyamoto are all the same: Miyamoto was born March
6, 1947; he graduated from the private Otemon Gakuin University, where he
graduated with a degree in Literature (referred to as a degree in ‘letters,’)
and worked a copy writer before starting his literary career. Other sources
state a little further detail, stating Teru Miyamoto was born and raised in
Kobe, of the Hyōgo Prefecture. His father was a businessman who dealt with
automobile parts, but his business failed. Beyond that, there is little detail
to offer a complete portrait of the author. Teru Miyamoto’s early career took
off, when he won to Osamu Dazi Prize, for “Muddy River,” and the Akutagawa
Prize, for “River of Fireflies.” Since his initial publications, many of Teru
Miyamoto’s work have been turned into films, as well as translated into Korean,
Russian, French, English and Chinese. Throughout Asia, Teru Miyamoto has risen
in popularity amongst readers, who enjoy his masterful narratives about the
everyday person, their tribulations, their romances, their heartbreak, and
their redemptions and acts of forgiveness. His work prose is clear and plain,
which depicts with matter of fact clarity the experiences of the characters as
they go through the motions of life, seeking understanding, meaning, and
purpose; while fending of mundane concerns such as bills, debts, love and
loneliness.
“Kinshu:
Autumn Brocade,” is the first Teru Miyamoto novel to be translated and
published in English language, to my knowledge. Contemporary Japanese
literature has shifted and changed from its roots, both ancient, classical,
medieval (for lack of better term), all the way to its early-modern and modern
periods (which includes the Meiji Period, Taisho Period, and early Showa
Period). The contemporary work of Japanese literature today is often referred
to as a byproduct of globalization, taking the form of literature from the
globalized suburbia of Japan. Gone are the tatami mats, the Japanese style
houses, the calls of samurai, nodes and nods to its long illustrious history. Few
remarks are offered on traditional Japanese culture as well; such as samurai
codes, or tea ceremonies, or remarks on Shinto religion or temples, or ikebana
(flower arrangement), or traditional clothing (such as kimonos), or cuisine. In
fact, all elements of Japanese identity beyond names, are completely bleached,
starched and ironed, to the point where, what remains is nothing more than
shapeless white linen flapping in the wind, with no identity or eluded
heritage, even hinted at. This consensual desire to toss ones cultural heritage
into the depths of oblivion, is frightening and disappointing. Ones heritage
and cultural lineage, is not something to be ashamed of. Centuries of history
and development should not and cannot be denied or redacted; they should be celebrated,
promoted, propagated, and showcased; and not a novelty, but as a desire to
showcase the maintenance of the cultural identity of the nation, and its
people. The contemporary Japanese literature, translated and published today,
is bleached and peroxided, to the point the scenarios and situations are
commonplace; despite the fact (the reader presumes) they are taking place in
Japan, they may as well take place in the United States of America, or the
United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, or France. The most famous target for this
is of course: Haruki Murakami. His plots and stories are noted for their
surreal premises; such as a woman gets sucked through a television; or leeches
rain from the sky; or a man eats cat hearts; or a woman goes missing; or a
woman who teaches a fitness class by day, and is an assassin at night, enters
another dimeson; and so on and so forth. Fans, readers, and lovers of Murakami,
would argue, my criticism is too vague and general, failing to elucidate
further; but I have neither desire nor need to extrapolate further. There is no
peculiar sense of Japanese about Murakami; his characters listen to jazz music,
they eat spaghetti or instant ramen noodles; they drive muscle cars, sit on
chairs, and sleep in beds. All of this leads one to have the landscape blends
into their own surroundings; with the only hint of Japan being the names. Haruki
Murakami and followers of his style (Banana Yoshimoto) are gold mines for
publishers then: they carry a sense of exoticism, while writing in such a
simple and plain style; it will not alienate English language readers. They
will recognize instant ramen noodles, or spaghetti; the characters suffer from
urban and youthful existentialism, doubt, isolation, and a need to overcome
obstacles, as well as their own apathy to find some sense of self-worth. In all,
reading most contemporary Japanese literature is like traveling abroad, with
the familiar comforts of home, the Starbucks in the Louvre, or a franchise
burger joint outside of the Uffizi. It’s foreign enough to call oneself
cultured, but familiar enough to be acceptable.
Teru
Miyamoto is an exception. “Kinshu: Autumn Brocade,” is contemporary as much as
it is traditional. The plot could ramble on much like any novel written in
English or French, concerning the same subject matter; but there is something strikingly
Japanese about it; cultural motifs make their appearances, such as love hotels,
lover’s suicides, traditional mountain resorts, communal bath houses, tatami
mats also make an appearance, and even a slightly eluded reference to arranged
marriages, as well as Japanese gangsters. What a breath of fresh air, Miyamoto
turned out to be; here is a writer who appears to straddle the bridge between
the great twentieth century writers of Japan like: Yasunari Kawabata, Ryūnosuke
Akutagawa, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, and Yukio Mishima; and the more popular writers
being translated and published today, like: Haruki Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto,
and Ryu Murakami. Miyamoto writes with understated but plain prose; but his
scope of introspection rivals Kawabata and the domestic dramas of Tanizaki
(though he lacks Kawabata’s lyricism), and a penchant for the melancholic hero,
much like Mishima (though without the exaggeration and solipsistic self-absorption).
“Kinshu:
Autumn Brocade,” is a simple story line. It’s an epistolary novel (which originally,
gave me great hesitation) which recounts the end of a marriage between former
wife and husband: Aki Katsunuma and Yasuaki; who have divorced ten years prior,
only to meet at a chance meeting on a mountain gondola, where they exchange
social graces and pleasantries but nothing more. Yet, Aki Katsunuma feels
compelled to write to her former husband; in order to clear the air and find
closure to the events which caused their divorce. It turns out, ten years prior;
Yasuaki was on the verge of death, due to a failed lover’s suicide, with a high
end call girl/hostess or waitress. Inevitably the marriage was dissolved, as
Aki’s father was the founder and president of a construction company and was
grooming the young Yasuaki to take over upon his retirement. The future was
looking forward and bright for both Aki and Yasuaki, but it fell to pieces,
over the affair, and the failed suicide attempt. The correspondence initially begins
with Aki writing to find closure and answers to the event which changed the
course of her life. She seek to understand who the mysterious woman was, and
her own importance; Aki also reveals her son, is eight years old and suffers
from cerebral palsy, which she initially blamed Yasuaki, believing his actions
tainted her karma, and her sons disability was due to the personal shock of the
infidelity of her then husband, but also his shameful act. It should also be
mentioned, Aki did remarry eventually; but the marriage is not a happy one, her
husband is not featured often in her letters, as their marriage is lifeless,
cold, and deprived of intimacy—it should come to no surprise he is also having
an extramarital affair. Yasuaki, attempts to answer the questions of Aki’s, but
also skirts the issue. The women he was seeing, was someone he had known from
his childhood, who even then, had a reputation for being ‘flirtatious,’ (and I
am being kind) with other boys; and their chance encounter rekindled the spark
he had felt when he was a boy on the cusp of growing into adulthood. The narratives
change focus from the past, to the present, to the emotional, to the unusual
(such as discussion on Mozart; which was actually rather compelling).
The
novel maybe epistolary format, but it reads like to monologues, circling each
other in a disconnected waltz, seeking to find common ground. Neither lives of
Aki or Yasuaki amounted to what the expectations were; both failed, tumbled,
and fell. Yasuaki perhaps the worst for wear of the two; but rather then fall
into the melancholic and nihilistic pitfalls, Teru Miyamoto brings them full
circle, they find closure, acceptance, redemption, and even forgiveness. Just shy
of a year, their correspondence finally sutures old wounds, closes the caskets
of their shared life, and in this they are able to rejoice and their new found
freedom, unburdened, and unshackled from the past, and its contempt. Autumn and
winter never ended brighter; in a blazing glory of fiery red, and a burning
dusk signaling the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one.
In
“Kinshu: Autumn Brocade,” Teru Miyamoto discusses, life and death, as well as forgiveness,
karma, love and redemption. The story was suspenseful as it was enjoyable; its introspection
was not self-absorbed or forced. The characters were richly unique; though it
did suffer from moments of melodramatics. It was still a change of pace of the
current contemporary literature being translated and published.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
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