– III –

Occupation. The entirety of existence revolves around the sun and sum of occupation. What your profession or vocation or trade is, is the uniform of your character. It is the introduction of yourself to the world. When you are a child the sum of your being is that singular fact. You are assessed on your grades, appraised for your hobbies, devalued for your dreams, and cheapened for your ambitions. As an adult you are your occupation incarnate. If you are introduced as an unpublished poet or a minor philosopher you are given wide berth, no questions asked, no inquires made. Best advice.

International Booker Prize Shortlist 2022

 
Hello Gentle Reader,
 
The shortlist for this years International Booker Prize has been considered as exciting as its longlist, which once embraces new literary perspectives, voices, and writers, while providing hallmark to both established and known writers and bringing to the forefront new and emerging voices in the world literary scene. The shortlist is also dominated by female writers, with the two front runners and favoured to win being: Olga Tokarczuk and Geetanjali Shree.
 
Without further delay, the shortlist is as follows:
 

Olga Tokarczuk – Poland – “The Book of Jacob,”

Geetanjali Shree – India – “Tomb of Sand,”

Bora Chung – (South) Korea – “Cursed Bunny,”

Mieko Kawakami – Japan – “Heaven,”

Jon Fosse – Norway – “A New Name: Septology VI-VII,”  

Claudia Piñeiro – Argentina – “Elena Knows,”

 
Women dominate this year’s shortlist, with Jon Fosse being the only male contender for the award. Despite Olga Tokarczuk and Geetanjali Shree being the frontrunners for this year’s award, the International Booker Prize has a reputation for defying the critical expectations, and awarding another novel which orbited in the periphery, as in the case of 2019 with Jokha Alharthi’s novel “Celestial Bodies.” While last years favoured writer was Maria Stepanova with “Memory of Memory,” who in turn lost to David Diop with his novel “At Night All Blood is Black.”
 
The dark horse with this year’s award could be considered Mieko Kawakami’s novel “Heaven,” a topical novel about bullying in Japan and the strangely masochistic perspective one character takes with regards to the torment she suffers as purifying her. It is a novel that is socially engaged and has been praised for graceful and eloquent, but also being viewed as a junior novel, written relatively early in Kawakami’s literary career, and despite its raw sincerity, the writer often entered the realm of exaggeration or torture pornography to make their point regarding the torment and bullying been served the students. While on the contrary, the English did enjoy “The Lord of Flies,” and may view “Heaven,” as a similarly critical parable of youthful social Darwinism, power struggles, and societal demand for conformity within the Japanese context.
 
In all this years International Booker Prize has shaped up to being an exciting affair with a mix of both new and established writers.
 
 
Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

– II –

All perfume commercials attempt to be art films. They are self-delusional creative concepts attempting to run from the fact that they are advertisements. After all advertisements is the lowest form of creativity. Just as marketing is the popular choice of business degrees. These commercials are just baffling. In canyons, to secret springs, deserts, and gold lotus like flowers, are meant to symbolize a deity of an alien world; or there’s the blue Mediterranean seascape with its models in white revealing swimwear, with an Italian soundtrack of sensuality; or a man in revealing swimwear surfacing from the monochrome depths of the sea. Then of course there is Greek mythic tropes, sculpted men on the verge of nudity; the zenith of legendary elegance of Versailles; the LED lit urban landscape; the sparkling romantic city of Paris. The tropes go on, I assure you. What I don’t understand is: why? Perhaps its because scent is abstract, escaping the linguistically tangible, which forces us to enact archetypes that are mythic, sensual, and sexually abstract in their visualizations. Affirming realizations of what we don’t have. Luxuries, elegance, fame or fortune. Yet with a specific perfume or cologne, you smell as if you have. Fashion is the illusion of depth for the superficial. The carapace of grandeur concealing delusions.

The International Booker Prize Longlist, 2022

 
Hello Gentle Reader,
 
The International Booker Prize has recently announced their longlist for 2022. Thirteen titles from across the geographical and the linguistic world. Since its inception (post-2015), the International Booker Prize has made a conscious effort to promote translated literature within the English language. Previous winners are:
 

Han Kang – 2016 – “The Vegetarian,”

David Grossman – 2017 – “A Horse Walks into a Bar,”

Olga Tokarczuk – 2018 – “Flights,”

Jokha Alharthi – 2019 – “Celestial Bodies,”

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld – 2020 – “The Discomfort of Evening,”

David Diop – 2021 – “At Night All Blood is Black,”

 
Han Kang was the first winner in its new format, with her gracefully penetrating violent psychological novel “The Vegetarian,” which has since sealed her fate as one of the most important literary writers of South Korea, whose graceful and emotionally impact novels are renowned for their subtle lyricism and elegance. In the case of 2018, Olga Tokarczuk had quite the year, her reputation sone of Poland’s most innovative and important writers of the late 20^th Century and early 21^st Century had finally secured its foothold in the English language. The following year, Tokarczuk was named the retroactive Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2018.
 
The International Booker Prize is not without controversy. Personally for 2019 and 2020, there appeared to be far more deserving candidates for the prize on the shortlist. The favourite writer to receive the prize in 2019 was Annie Ernaux with her masterpiece of social cartography and memoir, “The Years,” a true masterpiece of autofiction, showing the forms ability to move beyond the personal recollection and reflection, and in turn, become an encompassing social critique through the personal perspective, as one moves through the ages. “The Years,” was a time capsule of melding memories, thoughts, perspectives, and noted changes within society between the 1940’s and late 2000’s.
 
In 2020, the debut novel of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld won the International Booker Prize, which was followed by jovial praise, though stalked with a muted reception and disinterest. One can see how Rijneveld’s novel “The Discomfort of Evening,” could be considered a striking contender for the prize, yet it seemed to still show the hallmark of growing pains and a writer still coming into their own. Personally, I thought Yoko Ogawa’s recently translated (and long waited for) novel: “The Memory Place,” was by far the more deserving the book. I suspected as the COVID-19 pandemic had only just begun, and the novel was a dystopian parable of memory and absence as they impact reality, became to be seen as a topical treatise on the amendments of perceived normal structures of reality, as the pandemic raged on. In this sense, the novel may have been considered too topical, too immediate; even though it was written more than two decades prior and was inspired more by Anne Frank’s experience then any societal changes caused by a public health crisis.
 
 
In short, the International Booker Prize doesn’t always get it right; but the goal to spotlight and highlight translated literature into English is admirable and should not be dismissed on the grounds of conflicting literary taste.
 
This years International Booker Prize includes 13 titles from across the linguistic world, it includes both returning writers and winners, as well as welcomes new first-time nominees. This year’s longlist consists of the following writers:
 

Olga Tokarczuk – Poland – “The Book of Jacob,”

David Grossman – Israel – “More Than I Love My Life,”

Mieko Kawakami – Japan – “Heaven,”

Jonas Eika – Denmark – “After the Sun,”

Bora Chung – (South) Korea – “Cursed Bunny,”

Jon Fosse – Norway – “A New Name: Septology VI-VII,”

Geetanjali Shree – India (Hindi Language) – “Tomb of Sand,”

Paulo Scott – Brazil – “Phenotypes,”

Violaine Huisman – France – “The Book of Mother,”

Sang Young Park – (South Korea) – “Love in the Big City,”

Claudia Piñeiro – Argentinian – “Elena Knows,”

Norman Erikson Pasaribu – Indonesia – “Happy Stories, Mostly,”

Fernanda Melchor – Mexico – “Paradis,”

 
It not a Booker Prize if Previous winners are not included on the longlist and more then likely inducted onto the shortlist, as in the case of both Olga Tokarczuk and David Grossman. In the case of Olga Tokarczuk, “The Book of Jacob,” has been called her crowning achievement, her magnum opus in her bibliography. “The Book of Jacob,” is massive as it is ambitious, an encyclopedic novel as it traces the life and discourse of Jacob Frank, in a fashion that is all Tokarczuk, the novel is a kaleidoscope of constellations, fragmentations, and perspectives. David Grossman in turn finds himself nominated for his novel: “More Than I Love My Life,” recalls three generations (told through the perspective of three different women) who must account and disclose the personal within the context of the political. Its unfortunate to state, but Israeli writers are inevitably thrust within a political context when writing, and their work is always framed within this context. David Grossman embraces this context and skillfully melds both the political and the personal with ease, providing a panoramic perspective of the Israeli condition and the complications this experience has on the individual. “More Than I Love My Life,” is a Matryoshka doll, where secrets within secrets are unfolded, unpacked, and pulled back. Its an onion marriage of personal tragedy within the nuptials of the political. David Grossman embraces and understands the situation of being a Israeli writer, where political allegiances or statements are expected to be declared or made, and ironically even in avoiding such affairs becomes in itself a political decision. Grossman’s ability to embrace and work within this context is admirable and respectable. “More Than I Love My Life,” appears to be praised as expected of any Grossman novel.
 
Geetanjali Shree has been singled out on the longlist for being the first Hindi language writers to be included on an International Booker Prize nomination list. Her novel “Tomb of Sand,” has been described as a marvelous treatise on changing course and confronting the past, both personal, historical, and of course political. Through sly humour and gentle wordplay, Geetanjali Shree brings to life the colourful land of India and brings to light the trauma of partition but also the reconciliation undertaken in a post-partition political landscape. Mieko Kawakami has also made it onto this year’s longlist. Mieko Kawakami has long been established as a literary star and darling in Japan and has only recently begun making waves int the English-speaking world, along with Sayaka Murata, and the newly rediscovered Hiromi Kawakami. I suspect the attention presented towards Mieko Kawakami is English language publishers are intensely looking for a Haruki Murakami successor. Another Japanese language writer who can speak to their youthful dissatisfaction on the modern world and its existential dilemmas, while parading oneself as being approachable and literary in sensibilities. Further interest I am sure was presented to Mieko Kawakami, when Haruki Murakami endorsed as one of his favourite younger writers. To see Kawakami nominated with her novel “Heaven,” which recounts a unique freedom inducing treatise on the idea of bullying. I have not read Mieko Kawakami, though an overview of her literary themes and preoccupations does state that she seems increasingly interested in societal and social themes, where Murakami was more introverted or adverse to providing any commentary on social conditions or societal expectations. In the larger context, Meiko Kawakami appears to be lumped into a group of other female writers who share similar thematic preoccupations or perspectives: Sayaka Murata, Natsuko Imamura, and Hiroko Oyamada; these writers are of similar age and have taken a more critical view of Japanese society, often through a female perspective, where they critique social norms and expectations, often within surreal or deamesque landscapes, be it imagined or uncertainly real (at least in the case of Hiroko Oyamada); while in the case of Sayaka Murata and Natsuko Imamura, the protagonists have rich interior lives that influence their relationship with the external world.
 
Sang Young Park and his novel, “Love in the Big City,” would be aptly described as a Korean chimera of Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood,” and the dissatisfaction and casual nihilism of Michel Houellebecq. Between casual sex, alcohol, cigarettes, and aimlessness the narrator of the novel confronts the directionless trajectory of his life, the hedonism he employees as escapism, and the all-consuming nihilism of urban realities. I am sure its one of those novels, that young people and professional will gravitate towards, and in the pages find elements of their own experience within it. Another young writer on this year’s longlist is the Danish writer, Jonas Eika, whose short story collection explores how reality can be more surreal then even our most vivid and twisted thoughts. “After the Sun,” explores the engrossingly surreal world of our globalized world and its transactional cruelties and pleasures, its indiscriminate pointlessness, Eika provides an orgiastic thrill of new and exciting, as well as bizarre stories reminiscent of the literary tycoons of American postmodernism.
 
Two years ago, Fernanda Melchor was nominated for the International Booker Prize with her novel: “Hurricane Season,” she now returns with her novel: “Paradise.” Fernanda Melchor has formed a literary reputation completely contrary from the Latin American Boom. There is no magical realism or fantastic flights of fantasy to be found. Melchor does not seek to exoticize the painful realities of Mexico, instead, with steely strength and iron certainty she provides an overview of the Mexican reality of the people. “Paradise,” is no different, recounting the dissatisfaction the people of the county feel towards their situation, however privileged or grueling it is. I do find it interesting that this year’s judges included Jon Fosse and his novel: “A New Name: Septology VI-VII,” is part of a series of novels following the lives of Asle and Asleik and is written in the signature hypnotic prose Fosse is renowned for, creating a bewildering dream like narrative which ebbs and flows within the shifting tides of the languages steady rhythm washing ashore and receding back. Still, it is odd to think the judges who single this work out on its own. Literary series, usually require some context and precedence in order to be understood via each installation. Even when Jon Fosse won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, it was for his complete Trilogy (“Wakefulness,” “Olav’s Dreams,” and “Weariness,”). There is no denying that Jon Fosse is a great writer and is considered one of the modern masters of the drama, who has equal command of the prose form. I do find it odd, however, that this part of the series would be nominated or be considered more worthy then the other two components.
 
And so is this years International Booker Prize Longlist, a mixture of both past winners and nominated writers and new writers.
 
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

Shirley Hughes, Dies Aged 94

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
The hallmark of a great children’s writer is their ability to treat their subject and their intended reader with maturity and a certain seriousness that defies patronizing or demeaning and belittling attitudes and overcomes them with a sense of grace. This describes Shirley Hughes, who is renowned as an illustrator and children’s writer of picture books from young children, who many young and emerging readers may fondly remember, who in turn may find her books in their own children’s rooms. Shirley Hughes’s illustrations were elegant as they were graceful. Full of realistic detail and life, capturing the full spectrum of emotions and body language children have. This most likely comes from her detailed observations and keen eye for subtle (and at times capricious) changes these young beings could make. Yet her illustrations encapsulated the beauty of the world, the truly spectacular and imaginative world that exists around us and is continually new and intriguing. Her works were realistic and took place within familiar and family related settings, situations, and conflicts which will be reminiscent and understandable and relatable for children, such as losing their favourite toy or locking their parents out of the house. These are the characteristics of Hughes’s work: the reality of life, encapsulated in lithographic beauty. The neighbourhoods are warm and safe, parents are present and involved, the streets are multicultural and diverse. It’s a reflection of the world. A reflection of reality for young children to read over and seek to comprehend further, or perhaps in other situations, bring comfort and dreams of what they yearned for. the fact that Shirley Hughes took childhood and children’s emotions, and experiences seriously is what makes her such a iconic and genuine writer, who is believed, endeared, and enduring, to the point her work has insured her immortality. Her readers do not encounter her work for didactic messages or moralistic certainties, but rather to enjoy the wonders of life in a wholesome manner on the page, as well as marvel at Hughes’s magnificent illustrative talent that is both artistic as it is technical and precise. Shirley Hughes’s character in turn is equal legend, warm, elegant, graceful, compassionate, and overflowing with generous kindness that was extended to all, these traits certainly make their way into her work, the power of love and kindness cannot be overturned or rejected so easily, as they are woven into the world around us, and in turn we are the recipients of it. If there is any message Shirley Hughes were to present to her young and adoring readers, it was that love and kindness are not just ideals, but realities, the true currencies of the human experience and should be exchanged not on a transactional basis, but with the spirit of altruistic generosity. It is sad to think that Shirley Hughes is no longer apart of this world, having passed on February 25^th, but her workbooks and her illustrations will continue, and they will delight and be adored by a new generation of readers to come, and from there new lifelong reading careers begin.
 
Rest in Peace Shirley Hughes, truly a remarkable writer and illustrator.
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

– I –

I don’t like the word care or caring. A deceitful word. To care or care for, is in an exercise of self-indulgence under the guise of charity. It’s a word marinated in mothering and patronizing sentiments. People who care or care for—or those semantically clever: tend to—always do so with the thought of self-service before social service. These are the people who lecture about how they know what’s best for you. Manage you. Mother you. And before you know it smother you. Such saccharine egotism. Care is simply the saintly answer to narcissism.

Regarding Prescriptive Reading

 
Hello Gentle Reader,
 
In a world raging over the myopia of personal pedantic problems and perspectives, with a credulous public willing to engage in this indulgence, if only to have an excusable reason to orchestrate yet another lynching of some public figure, be they an academic or writer; I find it continually disheartening to see the cornerstone and pillars of literature being undermined and attacked, not just from external militants, but internal insurrections and mutinous peers. The flames of tyranny are always fanned by the winds of revolution. As the adage goes: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Recently, Naomi Kanakia wrote an essay in the Los Angles Review of Books, inquiring about the perceived detrimental effects of reading the classics. Specifically, the ire and chagrin young readers leverage with rage against the prescriptive literary medicine of old stuffy white books, which have zero relevance to contemporary issues or times. I recall reading Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and Jack London in my younger years and remember finding their works to be pleasant company. Then again, I am now one of those old stuffy white things, an absolute antiquarian who could be sold at a discounted price (based on natural ware of course) at your local antique shop, if it weren’t tantamount to geriatric prostitution. Thankfully, my initial judgements and concerns of Naomi Kanakia’s essays were unfounded. Where others of a more idealistic mentality and a talent for evangelical demagoguery and populistic polemic propagation, would use the form to induce a berserker like fury; Kanakia, wrote a measured, rational, and reasonable approach to the issue of prescriptive reading and provides holistic and salient points.
 
First and foremost, the prescribed readings provided by educational institutions as mandated by curriculum are not renowned for being the most enjoyable. They are selected through a rigorous process overseen and designed by experts and bureaucrats, who are so far removed from implementation and teaching the curriculum that they are shielded from all repercussions or consequences of its shortsighted failures. A recent example of this can be seen in one Canadian province’s political rebranding of its educational curriculum, which not only patronizes students and children, but completely discredits their ability to comprehend, understand, and contextualize information accordingly. Despite the best intentions, the desire for schools to inspire a lifelong love of reading is ultimately thwarted by its authoritarian delivery, making reading more an assignment or a chore, rather than an act of leisure or enjoyment. From grade school into secondary school, all the way into post-secondary studies, students are provided required reading. None of which—that I can recall—at any rate, being remotely interesting. A recent survey and review brought up the usual suspects as required reading in school classes:
 

“The Lord of the Flies,” – William Golding

“The Grapes of Wrath,” – John Steinbeck

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” – Ernest Hemingway

“Of Mice and Men,” – John Steinbeck

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” – Mark Twain

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” – Harper Lee

“Great Expectations,” – Charles Dickens

“The Great Gatsby,” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

 
The novels listed above, are but a mere sample of the books I found listed as approved required novel studies for English courses. A quick review shows polarizing thought. “The Lord of the Flies,” is a dreadful book, as are “The Grapes of Wrath,” and “Of Mice and Men.” Hemmingway has never been my cup of tea of a writer personally, I find his work lacking lyrical luster and is unimaginatively lacquered. I do nod at the inclusion of “The Great Gatsby,” though, a telling novel of the materialistic excess of the Jazz Age of the 1920’s, which runs parallel to the current times. Other novels of equal mention I saw included was Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night,” and because these are Canadian schools, “Windflower,” by Gabrielle Roy.
 
If students take issue with the lack of perceivable relevance some of these works have on providing commentary on matters concerning the contemporary world, then their judgement is impaired by their shortsighted misgivings. For example, Elie Wiesel’s testimonial memoir “Night,” remains paramount in its relevance, chronicling the experiences of his father and himself in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The horrors of the holocaust should not be casually dismissed or forgotten. “Night,” provided an intimate voice and first-person memories to the horrors of the Holocaust. Its relevance is its stalwart reminder of what evil looks like, how it starts, and where it ends. Its humanistic vision is timeless and eternal. In the case of Gabrielle Roy, its difficult to imagine a writer whose work excavated the quiet dignities of the otherwise common and downtrodden. “Windflower,” is one such novel, tracing the alienation and conflicting feelings an Inuit woman feels when she returns to her community with her blonde hair and blue-eyed son, whose father chooses not to acknowledge. The novel traces the conflicting cultures of white expectations and traditional Inuit life. With reconciliatory measures being implemented in the Canadian perspective, and further working being made to enlighten public attitudes regarding indigenous relations and history. Any attempt at arguing that “Windflower,” is irrelevant is inadequate. Contrarily, not all of these required readings are as relevant or as interesting in the contemporary frame of mind. “The Lord of the Flies,” is a boring dissertation on the inherent evil and basic barbarianism of human nature. While I can argue that “Jane Eyre,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Oliver Twist,” and “Great Expectations,” may be considerably more difficult in the contemporary context. Yet, what makes these works so enduring at the same time, regardless of the time in which they were written, is they still provide illuminating commentary on the nature and experience of the human condition.
 
The most frightening aspect of the opposition students or advocates have towards these classics of literature, is an argument reduced to censorship excused because it’s founded on the basis of progressive ideals. At this point, the arguments lose their merit. Especially when the arguers continue to push against the writer because they are white. The insistent fixation on a writer’s skin pigmentation or heritage is in itself a racist perspective. To decry a writer because they are white, is not a rationale argument. Now, once again, for the sake of argument, schools are now places full of diversity, and it is fair for students of colour or other racial minorities, to feel alienated with the prescribed reading available when they do not see their own experiences represented. Students should be able to read both the ‘classics,’ in the conventional sense, as well as the contemporary classics, which contain more diversity in themes and perceptions in relation to the contemporary world. Other advocates state the writers of the classics may hold and promote the prejudices of the time. Charles Dicken’s antisemitic attitudes riddling the depiction of Fagan in “Oliver Twist,” remains the most paramount example. Advocates believe such depictions being considered the gold standard of literature and therefore required reading in school, allows for antisemitism to continue and thrive within the current world. The same can be said regarding the racial and imperialist attitudes found in Joseph Conrad’s: “Heart of Darkness.” This once again overly simplifies students’ ability to contextualize and rationalize, but also question and critically assess the historically approved attitudes of the time from the now inappropriate. These works should be read within the context of their time, and discussions can be held from there regarding these attitudes and why they are wrong. Censoring literature and information from students is and always will be inappropriate, regardless of the good and wholesome intentions provided. Students should be provided some credibility of knowing their own minds and the ability to comprehend outdated and slanderous social perspectives.
 
Throughout her essay, Naomi Kanakia defends the classics and promotes their consumption. Denying and ignoring the classics as irrelevant, outdated, obsolete, or antiquated is a disservice any reader can do to themselves. The classics are provided this distinction for their eternal cultural importance and relevance long after the writers themselves have deceased. These works have inspired creative movements and literary imitations. Changed perspectives, challenged social conventions, and questioned ideals. They have expanded the novel further. Provided necessary commentary and contemplation of the human condition. The classics should not be dismissed or casually disregarded, as Naomi Kanakia argues, they remain important and required for a reason and the lessons they impart are valuable not just for inspiring writers but have benefits for readers. Yet unfortunately due to their prescriptive nature in which they are administered to readers in school, they are begrudgingly consumed with neither enjoyment nor pleasure. By enforcing students to subscribe to required reading the enjoyment of the classics is lost. The heavy-handed autocratic authority of the didactic academic narratives frames a tarnished experience of the reader when provided the mandated text. Reading is a lengthy investment of personal time, concentration, and devotion. Assigning the dimension of academic chore to the context of the experience of reading, will inevitably only sour any readers engagement with the work.
 
In the ongoing debate regarding the classics and their relevance and impact on students and readers, it is important to reflect on the words of John Donne:
 
“No man is and island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
 
The quote from a work of literature from 400 years ago, remains relevant today as it was then. No one in this world is an island, but individuals may choose to be shipwrecked, depriving themselves of the vastness of the human experience and condition as it has been recorded. This includes the classics. They have weathered the corrosive battery of time and achieved an eternal status. This is feat that cannot be so easily passed over. Students have my sympathies with the resentment at being forced to read, but I encourage and implore them to continue. But if I may impart any wisdom, read all the books you are interested in, and try not to be so dismissive of the classics. The only books that harm are the ones we are told not to read or denied access too. All works of literature should be consumed with earnest enjoyment, freed from the shackles and shadows of censorship.
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

P.S.

Naomi Kanakia’s article with the Los Angles Review of Books:

Naomi Kanakia: Are “The Classics” Bad for You? 

Lion Cross Point

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
There is no secret or question that Japanese Literature for the past two decades has been dominated by Haruki Murakami, who has become a global literary sensation in the same fashion as J.K Rowling and her Harry Potter Series of novels. Of course, as with everything, when one gains a certain level of success, there is less focus or interest on the literary output and production and more marketable interest in defining and establishing a brand and then producing further content, such as notebooks and a digressive nonsense dissertation on t-shirts. It should come as no surprise that Japan (and perhaps the great literary and reading world) would like to have a writer who could be considered as a new turning point or a new change for Japanese literature, one that moves away from Haruki Murakami’s shadow and influence, especially for the English-speaking world. France has already found further interest and appreciation in Yoko Ogawa (a writer significantly different then Haruki Murakami, but of the same generation), and Mieko Kawakami is gaining further appreciation outside of Japan, and has begun to establish an interested readership in the English language. This inevitability signifies that the world is showing a great interest behind the inflated ego and reputation of Haruki Murakami, whose literary output and talents are now eclipsed by marking ventures in persona. Yet, the writer who is often called the first or foremost post-Murakami writer of contemporary Japanese literature is Masatsugu Ono, who was described by Jeffrey Angles as one of the most important writers of the post-Murakami generation. What this entails is not entirely clear, as Masatsugu Ono is not a firebrand critic of Murakami. Furthermore, there is no denying that Murkami changed the direction of Japanese literature from the previously defined conventions of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Yasunari Kawabata, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, Yukio Mishima, Osamu Dazi, and to a later extent Kenzaburō Ōe, whose styles were strictly noted for their seriousness, somber appeal, high literary influence, and later postmodern introspection; whereas in turn, Haruki Murakami wrote novels and stories that were riddled with humour, whimsical fantasy, while expressing commentary on the nature of human relationships and loneliness in contemporary Japanese society. Yet, overtime Murakami became a caricature of himself, no longer supporting any serious literary ideal or merit. Yet a new group of younger writers are beginning to tackle the challenges of Japan in the new world, where globalization is now a prevalent fact of life, but also the unique sensibilities of Japanese culture and identity, which can be reviewed in the continually interconnected world at large. “Lion Cross Point,” is the second novel by Masatsugu Ono to be translated into English, with further translations forthcoming. In “Lion Cross Point,” the present and the past meld and become synthesized in the imaginative understanding of the ten-year-old boy Takeru, whose agency and ability to comprehend the world are extraordinarily limited.
 
“Lion Cross Point,” proves that Masatsugu Ono is capable of gracefully tracing the novel with a dancer’s lightness, skipping across the lily pads of Takeru’s perspective, memory, and understanding of his situation, without falling into the depths and pitfalls of divulging to much information. Critical information is provided when necessary, and only then these understated sketches provide context and an emotional resonance to the present, without digressing into sensationalism. This tight narrative control does not come across as being particularly forced or constrained, but rather a magnificent display of context and negative space. The lacking information ensures that the reader must accept certain facts as they are, without reason or previous knowledge. There is no readily available explanation as to why Takeru ends up in the care of the spritely yet elderly Mitsuko, but the change of secenary to his mother’s home village from Tokyo appears to be appreciated, despite the harsh commentary of his mother’s memory echoing in his mind:
 

“I hated it. Detested it. I just wanted to get away as soon as I could,”

 
Before fading into the husks of a swathed October field, harvested and hollow. It is here, Takeru is provided limited guidance and spectral empathetic connection with an ancient relative, Bunji, whose ghostly persona haunts the fishing village landscape. Bunji surfaces when Takeru is at his most fragile, when his world is on the verge of emotional collapse, though he is unable to understand why. He has his coping mechanisms of course, such as pulling the brim of his cap down over his eyes, which ensures he melts out of view, or not looking anyone directly in the eye. Despite their otherwise one-sided interactions, Bunji proves to be a reassuring presence for Takeru, whose directions and guidance are accepted. The fishing village, with its rural sensibilities and its blaring heat come to be the new home for Takeru. His friend Saki becomes companion; while the locals show keen interest in Takeru, who in turn shies away from their interloping invasion of his personal life, memory, and willingness to discuss his mother, as if they know her better then he.
 
Understanding the events of the present comes from examining the past. Intermittent flashbacks produce a fragmented recollection of Takeru’s life in Tokyo with his mute challenged brother and absent mother. The relation between Bunji the ghostly specter who comes forth to help Takeru adjust to his new home, and the fading memory of his older brother forgotten in Tokyo becomes poignantly clear. Mitsuko informs Takeru of Bunji being a cognitively challenged child during his time, meaning he was neglected and overlooked by society, which becomes the foreshadowing to the mistreatment that has befallen Takeru’s brother, who is mistakenly viewed as the younger of the two, which places Takeru into a custoridan and guardianship role, as he cares for his older brother, protects him, leads him, and monitors his wellbeing in public and private spaces. Through past and present Bunji and his older brother begin to merge as perhaps one being. An entity soliciting both sympathy and pity. The responsibility of ensuring his brothers wellbeing is the focal point of Takeru’s narrative in Tokyo, along with his impressionistic and naïve observations of the incomprehensible adult world; his mothers’ frequent absences noted, along with the shadows of danger that trail her when she is present, be it a man who think himself a gangster, and delights in the abuse he exercise on her, while also extending his cruel appetites to Takeru; or the ever present thought his mother may not return.
 
The juxtaposition of landscape is staunch in contrast. Tokyo is depicted as a cold, abandoned, dirty, concrete monstrosity, almost deprived of any human virtues of kindness, but shimmering sparks of hope come into being from unexpected places. The rural world by contrast is illuminated in the bleaching blinding light of summer swaddling the village that Takeru’s mother detested so much, but is riddled with welcoming warmth and genuine connections, which carry no suspicions or threats of underlying violence.
 
“Lion Cross Point,” is a masterful novel. Masatsugu Ono shows himself as a master of restraint and control, by illuminating and providing necessary details when required, while exploiting the use of negative space to ensure subtext motivates the narrative of the novel. The language of the novel is deceptively clear and simple, with some critical assessments going so far as to state its minimalist in delivery. Styling the novel as minimalist fails to describe the mastery of Masatsugu Ono in manipulating the negative space of literature, to trace the peripheral of information saturation and in lieu provide enough inclination for readers to grasp and form their own speculative conclusions without being explicitly informed. This lack of information is perhaps how the young protagonist Takeru is presented to the world. Completely unaware or left out of any conversation regarding his own fate and life. His mother’s absence provides no maternal nourishment but leaves behind the necessary resources to provide the required necessities to survive. Other’s (adults for example) provide acknowledgement that they are aware of his situation, and provide moments of relief and grace, but have no commitment or authority to resolve the situation, which may steam from the fact that they do not fully know the extent. The greatest accomplishment of “Lion Cross Point,” is Masatsugo Ono creates an authentic understanding of a ten-year-old boy. Takeru’s precise incomprehensible recollecitons of his life in Tokyo, are rendered with believable disorientation and a misunderstanding of facts. The kindness and generosity of others are accepted, often with confusion or without understanding the subtext of the situation, or the rationale behind them. Personal rituals become talismanic activities to cope with the world. All these features and limited processing abilities make Takeru believable and endearing.
 
“Lions Cross Point,” is excellently executed. Masatsugo Ono’s style carries a lightness of touch sketching out the quality of writing which gracefully glides across the surface, providing inclination to depths and shadows lurking beneath the written and confirmed text. This highly controlled style of access and denial is not a deterrent; through measured control Masatsugo Ono maintains engagement and apprehension, whereas a less skilled writer would have clouded the narrative with authoritarian control. Rather Ono, creates a believable narrative of a neglected and abandoned child, the contrast of the past in correlation with the present provides both understanding and relief. If this is the start (if not conformation) of the post-Murakami generation of Japan’s literary sensibilities, then may we rejoice to a long awaited an exhaustive sigh of relief ushering in a breeze of starch winter air to scatter the cobwebs of the whimsical and fantastically detached and isolated individuals of Haruki Murakami’s work and overarching influence, and begin to herald a new generation of writers with a contemporary gaze, an international influence and understanding, a well-read perspective, and an interest in providing cultural and social commentary.  
 
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

Dora Bruder

 
Hello Gentle Reader,
 
Without a doubt there is an elegiac tenderness to the works of Patrick Modiano. Wistful and melancholic gazes review the past with apprehension rather then nostalgia. There is an attempt at scrying the past to gain insight into the present and foretell the future. The past is always in flux. It’s merely a collection of testaments, witness statements, recollections, questionable records, adulterated documents, revisionist perspective and glory, and the set standard of what is deemed acceptable of the historical account. In short: history is a layered state, one where the idea of truth exists to maintain a collective understanding of the events. Therefore, history is broad, a wide sweeping gesture that summarizes the events with both glory and sacrifice. There are no personal details within these narratives. They are lost, buried, denied, or considered contrary to the acceptable record of events. Therefore, they are unpublished and left neglected, tucked away on shelves in banker boxes between yellowed folders. Yet, records are produced everywhere, and are not exclusive to a singular format or housed within the institutional archives or libraries of authority. They can be transient and wayward, providing elusive information that echo into ellipses. Dead ends and nowhere that is where they lead. Despite this, they are enticing. Elusive and noteworthy, even if they are not substantial. Yet their cryptic overtones provide enough material to springboard off into the world of speculation and senseless searches. To the uninitiated this may appear self-indulgent, yet for Patrick Modiano it has been a career of exploration and exhumation of the personal and the national, as demands are made to acknowledge and reconcile the realities of then, contrary to the collective memory and imaginings that are steadfast to be believed in. In this, Modiano has made a career out of plunging into the depths of the black hole that is known as the Occupation. This amnesiac abyss of modern memory remains unacknowledged or deliberately left unexplored, as it holds national shame, regret, and misery of an otherwise dark time. The word collaborator becomes the highest grade of insult. In the wake of liberation and defeat there was an administrative reckoning. Purges and trails become shows of justice in the post-War wake. Afterwards the point in history became a redacted blind spot. Neither reviewed nor revered; mentioned only in passing of praise for the French Resistance. Yet for Modiano, the Occupation and the severance of acknowledge of this time became a symbol of the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the failure of the governing to institutions to declare themselves authorities of justice. It is here in the shifting soft shadows of the historical blind spot Modiano’s narratives, characters, and novels spring forth as they ruminate on an era destinated for oblivion or obfuscation, while posing further questions regarding the nature and art of memory, the test of authenticity, and the corrosive touch of revisionism as erasure in the collective memory bank.  
 
The mature works of Patrick Modiano’s literary bibliography are noted for their languid legato style circumventing and waltzing with simple elegance, all the while moving with indirection, cloaked with cobwebs, gossamer, and fermented melancholy. Memory is crucial, yet answers and solutions are in finite supply, and always cause further apprehension then clarification. To read Modiano is to be enveloped in atmosphere: the sodium orange haze of streetlights glowing ominously down darkened streets, the sky low suffocating with light pollution, the forecast threatens rain, but only a breeze stirs in the air. The shops locked up, the windows dark and absent. There’s a search for someone, who is all but unknown. An enigma if we will, a passing thought or memory, which even then is brought into further doubt. Paris, the home turf of the majority of these novels becomes a mercurial no-mans-land, a place of shifting shadows, darker alleys, and backroom deals; where in other circumstances the times have caught up and progress is in full swing, expediting the process of expunging the past. An architectural gesture to literary wipe the slate clean. Leaving neither relic, sanctuary, or evidence of the darkest days of the republic, which makes any investigation all that more difficult to find trace evidence of the individuals who lived, conspired, and suffered during these times. Such is the real case of Dora Bruder, the 15-year-old Jewish girl whose story calls out specifically to Patrick Modiano from one of those dispossessed records, forgotten and circulating throughout Paris, providing a silhouette, a figment of a neglected era ringing out an otherwise mundane plea now aged with cryptic mystery. The announcement provides the introductory information regarding Dora Bruder and the circumstances to how the narrator (Modiano himself) came to research her:  
 

“Missing, a young girl, Dora Bruder, age 15, height 1 m 55, oval shaped-face, gray-brown eyes, gray sports jacket, maroon pullover, navy blue skirt and hat, brown gym shoes. Address all information to M. and Mme. Bruder, 41 Boulevard Ornano, Paris.”

 
The above passage was published in the now defunct newspaper Paris Soir, which ceased to be published as it became known as a collaborationist newspaper during the Occupation. There is a twisted irony that Ernest Bruder, Dora’s father would seek the public assistance with a newspaper sympathetic to the Vichy Regime, considering that they were Jews and considered persona no grata by the occupying forces and by extension the collaborating government and law enforcement. Yet in times of desperation there few options.
 
Throughout the autobiography/memoriam, Patrick Modiano does his best to scrape together a narrative regarding the life and circumstances of Dora Bruder and her family. As if he were one of his own characters, be a detective, investigator, journalist, or sleuth, Modiano combs through records and registries, providing commentary on what may be alleged as the systematic erasure of these records for existence, to further perpetuate a redaction of history, to sever the years from memory, especially that of an otherwise incriminating nature. Yet, as Modiano comments: traces still exist. Even when the eraser all but obliterates the scribblings, traces and phantoms persist.
 

“It takes time for what has been erased to resurface. Traces survive in registers, and nobody knows where these registers are hidden, and who has custody of them, and whether or not these custodians are willing to let you see them. Or perhaps they have quite simply forgotten that these registers exist.”

 
Through time, patience, and persistence Modiano pulls together enough information regarding the Bruders. There is little that can be remarked on in the essence of character or personality. Photos reveal the Bruders to be normal and average people. Ernest Bruder (Dora’s father) was an Austrian Jew, who worked as a general labour. His features are hawkish and handsome. Cecile Bruder is less angular than her husbands, her features are softer, refined with a hint of regality of the era, though she appears exhausted. Dora herself lacks her fathers sharp and handsome features but also the refined character of her mother. Her features are fuller, her eyes sharp, and a mischievous look crossing her face, with an air of being headstrong and determined. It’s a pity to contemplate the end they each met.
 
As for Patrick Modiano, he is able to sketch an idea of the timeline of events that led to the disappearance of Dora Bruder, and the fate of the entire Bruder family during the Occupation. What can be deduced is Ernest and Cecile sent Dora to a catholic boarding school within Paris, which can be assumed to avoid detection by the authorities and discriminated against for being a Jew. Dora inevitably ran away from the catholic boarding school, hence the notice by her parents’ seeking information regarding their daughter’s whereabouts. These two events become the undoing of Dora. Modiano is able to learn that both Ernest and Cecile have left her as unregistered in the Nazis and Vichy Government’s Jewish Registry system. When Dora Bruder ran away from the boarding school and her parents reported her missing, they were also forced to concede that she herself was Jewish and enter her into the Registry system. Ernest was deported to Drancy; while Dora was found and arrested in April of 1942, where she would also end up in Drancy. On September 18^th, 1942, with Transport 34, Dora Bruder would be sent to Auschwitz/Birkenau, where she would (presumably) be accounted amongst the others who fell victim to the genocide driven machine of the Holocaust.
 
As a work of literature or fiction (a term in this instance that should be used very lightly with discrete distance) “Dora Bruder,” is best described as an anti-novel of sorts. Its not a work of fiction; refuses to be called reportage or New Journalism; though it has components of Modiano’s own ruminations, wanderings, and reflections on the Parisian landscape, one in in which both he and Dora both inhabited:
 

“In another part of Paris, when I was twenty, I remember having the same sensation of emptiness as I had had when confronted by the Tourelles wall, and without really knowing the reason why.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Once again, I had sense of emptiness. And I understood why. After the war, most buildings in the district had been pulled down, methodically, in accordance with a government plan.”

 

 
Despite the real events that frame “Dora Bruder,” and the namesake individual and subject of the book, it falls flat. The details surrounding Dora Bruder are thin scaffolding, which have been henpecked and bleached. One can’t help but praise Patrick Modiano for his consistency in presenting the facts that he unearthed regarding Dora Bruder and her family without embellishment or speculation, ensures that the book is founded on the grounds of authenticity and recorded tangibility. Yet, it fails to encapsulate the poignancy of the times; the paranoia that hung over the city with an arrogant and oppressive prominence, the very same shadow that would turn Pétain from hero cum traitor.
 
In reading the presentation speech, Jesper Svenbro remarked on the evolution of Patrick Modiano’s writing style and singled out “Dora Bruder,” as a significant piece in his bibliography, going so far as call it a masterpiece within his oeuvre. Personally, I would hesitate to call “Dora Bruder,” (also known as: “The Search Warrant,”) as a masterpiece of Modiano’s literary canon. Patrick Modiano has shown his strength resides within his novels and their repetitive qualities providing ghostly inclinations regarding their intertextual relationships, but truly cementing his place as a writer concerned with place both geographically and historically, no different then James Joyce’s Dublin, or the Southwestern Ontario landscape of Alice Munro’s short stories, or the South of William Faulkner. As a book “Dora Bruder,” occupies a strange place refuting any literary classification, especially in Patrick Modiano’s literary oeuvre that is built on short novels, with the exception of his screen writing credits, and three (loosely defined) memoirs: “Pedigree,” “Such Fine Boys,” and “Family Record.” “Dora Bruder,” as memoriam fits in with this trilogy of outsiders, but also remains distant and elusive. The book itself maintains the motifs and characteristics of Modiano’s style that elusive waltz, languid and limpid maintaining the same tepid tone and temperament through the duration of the book, and yet provides real details and evidence of Dora Bruder as an individual, but it does not provide any testimony regarding who she was, or what her personality was like. In turn the book does not provide the same atmosphere of the times, beyond mentioning curfews, rations, and police patrons, one in which Dora herself would be caught up in. In all, “Dora Bruder,” is best described as a thin book. The details provided are henpecked, basic, and bleached. The notice provided by Ernest Bruder to Paris Soir soliciting information regarding his daughter’s whereabouts is as unique as the details get. In this Dora Bruder becomes a shadowy reminder of one of those individuals who were lost in the tides of time, unjustly persecuted by warped and twisted ideology as well as blatant antisemitism. The poignancy and tenderness of the book comes from the reminder that Dora Bruder was a real person who inevitably was caught up in the horrors of the Holocaust, and whose life is accounted for amongst all the others who found themselves exterminated in the concentration camps.
 

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary
 
 
 

F. Sionil Jose, Dies Aged 97

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
The national treasure and writer of the Philippines, F. Sionil Jose has died at the age of 97. F. Sinoil Jose, was one of the most widely read Filipino writers on the international stage, which maybe partially due to the writer’s literary language being English. Jose’s work was renowned for its depiction of class divisions underpinning Filipino society and the lasting detrimental affects of colonialism, which supports and encourages these social divisions. His novels and short stories were almost exclusively set in urban environments, espousing social change by detailing and criticizing the social inequalities of the Philippines. His well-known novel: “The Pretenders,” recounts the story of a man alienated in society due to his poor background, which is then contrasted to his wife’s family and their affluent exuberance in wealth. “The Pretenders,” is also part of F. Sinoil Jose’s renowned pentalogy, “The Rosales Saga.” The historical series of novels recounts generations of two families, the poor farming Samons and the wealthy Asperri, through both the Spanish and American Colonialism before ending during the Philippines Independence. “The Rosales Saga,” is an epicist account of the Philippines modern history, and is a classical chronicle of the times, like Naguib Mahfouz’s depiction of modern Egypt in his “Cairo Trilogy,” or Honoré de Balzac’s chronicle of the Post-Napoleonic France in “La Comédie humaine,” or Emile Zola’s cartography of the Second Empire, or Charles Dickens study of the Victorian England, or John Galsworthy’s cycle of novel recounting the Edwardian Era. Throughout his decades long writing career, which includes extensive essays, columns, and journalistic pieces in addition to his novels, short stories, children’s book, and poetry, F. Sionil Jose became the most recognized and read Filipino writer, whose work had been translated into 28 different languages including: Korean, Czech, Russian, Dutch, Spanish, and Indonesian. As a writer, F. Sionil Jose combined both social and political preoccupations with historical accounts in his novels, in order to provide a detailed understanding of the social, historical, and political understanding of the island nation. Linguistically speaking, F. Sionil Jose exercised complete authenticity in writing in Filipino English.
 
Rest in Peace F. Sionil Jose, your contributions to Filipino Literature and culture will endure for generations to come.
 
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary