Dust and Spores

The Breast / Philip Roth
New York : Vintage International, 1994
Originally published: 1972
89 p.

Like a latter-day Gregor Samsa, Professor David Kepesh wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed. But where Kafka's protagonist turned into a giant beetle, the narrator of Philip Roth's richly conceived fantasy has become a 155-pound female breast. What follows is a deliriously funny yet touching exploration of the full implications of Kepesh's metamorphosis—a daring, heretical book that brings us face to face with the intrinsic strangeness of sex and subjectivity.

Ok, so truthfully, I bought this book because I'm 5. But I've wanted to read Philip Roth for a while, and I thought it'd be a fun thing to read in an afternoon. Turns out it was!

I read and reviewed The Metamorphosis this morning, and this book is open about its similarity. The main character is an English professor who turns into a giant breast. But unlike Kafka's protagonist, who deals with his family's various reactions, David Kepesh winds up in a hospital with a sympathetic doctor, and a father and girlfriend who visit regularly. This novella is instead about his own mental state: dealing with insatiable sexual arousal, convincing himself that he is insane rather than actually a breast, and then seeing it as the ultimate art piece, all the while maintaining his sense of identity.

The book is amusing and clever, but not life-changing. I do enjoy Roth's style, though, (not to mention the fact that these Vintage International editions are rather attractive) so I'm definitely pumped to start exploring him soon, beginning with The Human Stain.

Spring Snow / Yukio Mishima
Haru no yuki. English
New York : Vintage International, 1990
Translated by Michael Gallagher
The Sea of Fertility, bk. 1
Originally published: 1968
389 p.

Spring Snow is set in Tokyo in 1912, when the hermetic world of the ancient aristocracy is being breached for the first time by outsiders -- rich provincial families unburdened by tradition, whose money and vitality make them formidable contenders for social and political power.

I read this in November on a plane in about 3 hours. Generally three hours on a plane is a forgotten blip in the grand scheme of a person's life (barring thunderstorm or underwear bomb), but Spring Snow is one of those books that makes the time you spend reading it incredibly memorable.

This is the first book in the Sea of Fertility tetrology, and each one features a character so passionately driven by one thing that it ends up killing him. In Spring Snow, this character is Kiyoaki, and he is driven to death by his love for his childhood companion Satoko. This isn't, however, a gushing love story. It's told with Mishima's characteristic elegance and delicately pieced together with themes of dreams, reincarnation, Buddhism, and family.

The books in this set also paint a portrait of Japan over the first half of the 20th Century, when the country underwent major changes. The first novel takes place around 1912 at the end of the Meiji period. The nobility that holds power through rank and tradition is facing an unpredictable future, and this plays a role in the events of the story.

I'm not loving how this review is turning out, so I'm going to wrap it up... but I really do love this book. I should say that a little bit of knowledge of novels contemporary to this one or a sense of the major points of modern Japanese history is really helpful in enjoying this book, but if you're a fan of the art and history of modern Japan, this is definitely something you need to read.

Norwegian Wood / Haruki Murakami
Noruwei no mori. English
New York : Vintage International, 2000
Originally published: 1987
Translated by Jay Rubin
296 p.

I was thirty-seven then, strepped in my seat as the huge 747 plunged through dense cloud cover on approach to the Hamburg airport. Cold November rains drenched the earth and lent everything the gloomy air of a Flemish landscape: the ground crew in rain gear, a flag atop a squat airport building, a BMW billboard. So -- Germany again.

This is the story of a boy, Toru, and a girl, Naoko, who share a love colored by the tragedy of death. Kizuki, Naoko's boyfriend and Toru's best friend committed suicide at 17, an event from which Naoko never fully recovered.

As Naoko regresses more and more into her mind at a mental health facility, Toru becomes involved with the outgoing and liberated Midori. Norwegian Wood is the story of his relationships with the two young women told from Toru's perspective as a man in his 30's reminiscing about his college years.

This is a departure from Murakami's usual surrealist style, and many judge it as an exercise or experiment, but I think that promotes a reading that misplaces the strength of the work. It's a lovely and moving book, but I think some of the praise it garners is for the wrong things, taking the focus away from the books true beauty.

The story is framed as a reminiscence, and looking to the past with varying degrees of lucidity is a theme throughout, but I don't get the sense that this is really being narrated by an older man looking back with a supposedly hazy memory. After the beginning of the book, grown-up Toru seems forgotten, and the amount of detail in the novel is typical. Entire conversations and meals are recalled like any other novel not from any particular perspective.

There also seems to be some significance placed on the novel's setting in the 1960's, but this seems to be accomplished more through popular culture name-dropping than a truly atmospheric immersion. The story could easily be taking place in the present. I couldn't help but compare it to Ryu Murakami's novel 69, which paints a much clearer picture of 1960's Japan.

Though presented as a love story, Norwegian Wood is much more a coming-of-age novel. The feelings Toru has for Naoko and Midori are conflicting and move him to ultimately discover himself rather than ultimate happiness. The back of the book calls his love for Naoko "heroic" but I find it the opposite. Toru is lonely and even desperate at times, and though he cares very much for Naoko, it lacks the unique selflessness that I associate with "heroic" love.

What I found most fascinating about the character was his tendency to get wrapped up in the world of whoever he was with. Alone, he is weak and makes nearly no decisions of his own. He gets sucked up in his friend Nagasawa's world of sexual conquest, Midori pulls him along at her whim, and when he's dealing with Naoko, he becomes introspective and trapped in his mind like she is. When he is alone, he is empty, and that is why I believe his character feels so lonely even when surrounded by people who love him.

It is here that the strength and poignancy of the novel lie. The perspective, the time period, and the setting all are secondary to the intense struggle of youth to make connections, find themselves psychologically and sexually through the lens of their relationships, and to ultimately take what they find in themselves and share it. It's not unique to any time, but is a story that's universal.

Thousand Cranes / Yasunari Kawabata
Sembazuru. English
New York : Vintage International, 1996
Originally published: 1952
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker
vi, 147 p.

With a restraint that barely conceals the ferocity of his characters' passions, one of Japan's great postwar novelists tells a luminous story of desire, regret, and the almost sensual nostalgia that binds the living to the dead.

Like Kawabata's other novels, Thousand Cranes is a simple story delicately told through highly self-examining characters. Kikuji, after losing his father, attends a tea ceremony hosted by his father's former mistress, Chikako. She intends to set him up with a young girl with a handkerchief with a thousand cranes on it, but he instead becomes involved with Mrs. Ota, his father's mistress for whom he left Chikako. Their affair brings her shame, for which she commits suicide, and he comes to transfer his feelings to Fumiko, Mrs. Ota's daughter.

I just checked Wikipedia, and my summary is almost identical to theirs, but I swear I didn't copy it. It's just... that's all there is to say about the plot.

It's a lovely, quiet novel, though I'm fairly certain I didn't completely grasp it. Lots of it resonated, especially the themes of loss, grief, and regret. My favorite aspect of the novel was how Kawabata uses objects as vessels for memory with tea bowls and utensils carrying an ownership history that comes alive through interaction with the object, especially the difference between interaction in a tea ritual vs. using the object for non-traditional purposes. The objects and their treatment speak louder than the people often do.

And yet, there was something in the novel that didn't exactly strike me properly. It is most likely the cultural divide, but I didn't always understand the rationale behind some of the characters' behavior. Chikako was the most clear-cut with her leftover bitterness at being dismissed in favor of Mrs. Ota. She is outspoken, gossipy, and openly-conniving. I believe on a personal level, I was so divorced from the experiences of the other characters because I've never experienced anything like they have.

Nonetheless, even without forming a profound personal connection as I did with The Master of Go, the rich artistry of this novel makes it stand out against its contemporaries and distinguishes Kawabata as a master of his craft.