(2025年1月2日-1月8日) Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, translated by Basil Creighton (updated by Joseph Mileck + Horst Frenz)
1月8日
From 87 to the end today. I definitely liked the second half of the book the most. And I think it was beautiful. While reading, I thought more and more that love is the answer. Is that the theme of the book? I don't know. But I'm understanding more, after reading this, what that blog entry I read meant about how people should be less serious. I don't get it fully, yet, but maybe I will one day. Other thoughts: in the part where Hermine was talking about animals and how they're never embarrassed, I remembered that there have been quite a few times over the past month or so when I've pet our cat and thought about how she's never embarrassed about wanting that affection. Also, this book addressed a lot of struggles I've been having recently, and I thought again about fate: everything comes at the right time. Like the Steppenwolf's comment at the beginning of the book, unfortunately I cannot (bring myself to) believe in fate, but…. Anyway, what else? Like I said already, it was beautiful. I found it really hard to get into the rhythm, and I still read rather slowly (by my standards) once I did, but it definitely became more enjoyable after the meeting with the professor. I liked Hermine. And I see now from the end of the book that all of Harry Haller's philosophizing and judgment was set up to be deconstructed later. I won't put quotes this time because I kept too many and it would be hard to choose between them. I'm glad I finally read this. I was going to read it back in the summer, June or July or so, but the epub was acting up on my e-reader so I switched to something else. I think it's good that I didn't read it then, because I might not have appreciated it as fully. As I said: fate…1月6日
83-87. I'm adding this the day after.Ah, look where I might and think what I might…
Ah, look where I might and think what I might, there was no cause for rejoicing and nothing beckoned me. There was nothing to charm me or tempt me. Everything was old, withered, grey, limp and spent, and stank of staleness and decay. Dear God, how was it possible? How had I, with the wings of youth and poetry, come to this? Art and travel and the glow of ideals—and now this! How had this paralysis crept over me so slowly and furtively, this hatred against myself and everybody, this deep-seated anger and obstruction of all feelings, this filthy hell of emptiness and despair.And while I, Harry Haller, stood there in the street…
And while I, Harry Haller, stood there in the street, flattered and surprised and studiously polite and smiling into the good fellow's kindly, short-sighted face, there stood the other Harry, too, at my elbow and grinned likewise. He stood there and grinned as he thought what a funny, crazy, dishonest fellow I was to show my teeth in rage and curse the whole world one moment and, the next, to be falling all over myself in the eagerness of my response to the first amiable greeting of the first good honest fellow who came my way, to be wallowing like a suckling-pig in the luxury of a little pleasant feeling and friendly esteem.1月5日
62 to 83 today. It went on about the bourgeois for a really long time; I found it hard to focus. I thought the part about the soul being made up of thousands of different selves, and no human having just one single self, was interesting. Reading this makes me want to read Tomioka Taeko, because I remember reading about how she wanted to write about the average person who survives from day to day. This book loves its tortured geniuses.The heroes of the epics of India are not individuals…
The heroes of the epics of India are not individuals, but whole reels of individualities in a series of incarnations. And in modern times there are poems, in which, behind the veil of a concern with individuality and character that is scarcely, indeed, in the author's mind, the motive is to present a manifold activity of soul. Whoever wishes to recognize this must resolve once and for all not to regard the characters of such a poem as separate beings, but as the various facets and aspects of a higher unity, in my opinion, of the poet's soul. If "Faust" is treated in this way, Faust, Mephistopheles, Wagner and the rest form a unity and a supreme individuality; and it is in this higher unity alone, not in the several characters, that something of the true nature of the soul is revealed. When Faust, in a line immortalized among schoolmasters and greeted with a shudder of astonishment by the Philistine, says: "Two souls, alas, do dwell within my breast!" he has forgotten Mephisto and a whole crowd of other souls that he has in his breast likewise.1月3日
47 to 62. Noting this the day after; I forgot to write it yesterday.Thus it was then with the Steppenwolf…
Thus it was then with the Steppenwolf, and one may well imagine that Harry did not have an exactly pleasant and happy life of it. This does not mean, however, that he was unhappy in any extraordinary degree (although it may have seemed so to himself all the same, inasmuch as every man takes the sufferings that fall to his share as the greatest). That cannot be said of any man.Even he who has no wolf in him, may be none the happier for that. And even the unhappiest life has its sunny moments and its little flowers of happiness between sand and stone. So it was, then, with the Steppenwolf too. It cannot be denied that he was generally very unhappy; and he could make others unhappy also, that is, when he loved them or they him. For all who got to love him, saw always only the one side in him. Many loved him as a refined and clever and interesting man, and were horrified and disappointed when they had come upon the wolf in him. And they had to because Harry wished, as every sentient being does, to be loved as a whole and therefore it was just with those whose love he most valued that he could least of all conceal and belie the wolf. There were those, however, who loved precisely the wolf in him, the free, the savage, the untamable, the dangerous and strong, and these found it peculiarly disappointing and deplorable when suddenly the wild and wicked wolf was also a man, and had hankerings after goodness and refinement, and wanted to hear Mozart, to read poetry and to cherish human ideals. Usually these were the most disappointed and angry of all; and so it was that the Steppenwolf brought his own dual and divided nature into the destinies of others besides himself whenever he came into contact with them.1月2日
Page 9 to 46 today. I read up to 9 a few days before the year began, but I didn't write anything down. I like this a lot so far. I would have liked for there to have not been the racist remarks about jazz. What else is there to say? I spent the last five to seven hours redoing my website, and I read these pages before that, so now that I've finished the upheaval my mind is quite empty of any thought.I finished copying down the quotes and thought of the part where the Steppenwolf writes about how maybe the ages past that people long for and romanticise were never really real in the first place. And I thought about how a blog I was reading a week or two ago said that they think people are too serious in writing. I've been thinking about that a lot. I was a lot more free, before, with what I was writing in this reading log, but now I don't know if I should write the personal things I want to write about and keep it strictly about the book. Who cares what I do? I'm writing it for me, and to practise being more thoughtful about what I read, instead of swallowing it whole and moving right on without really digesting it. But also, I'm tired and don't really want to write anymore.
At the very first sight of him…
At the very first sight of him, when he came into my aunt's home, craning his head like a bird and praising the smell of the house, I was at once astonished by something curious about him; and my first natural reaction was repugnance. I suspected (and my aunt, who unlike me is the very reverse of an intellectual, suspected very much the same thing)—I suspected that the man was ailing, ailing in the spirit in some way, or in his temperament or character, and I shrank from him with the instinct of the healthy. This shrinking was in course of time replaced by a sympathy inspired by pity for one who had suffered so long and deeply, and whose loneliness and inward death I witnessed.He read the label on my bottle…
He read the label on my bottle and asked whether I would not drink some wine. When I declined his offer and said that I never drank it, the old helpless expression came over his face."You're quite right there," he said. "I have practised abstinence myself for years, and had my time of fasting, too, but now I find myself once more beneath the sign of Aquarius, a dark and humid constellation."
And then, when I playfully took up his allusion and remarked how unlikely it seemed to me that he really believed in astrology, he promptly resumed the too polite tone which often hurt me and said: "You are right. Unfortunately, I cannot believe in that science either."
I didn't really care whether all this was odd or not.
I didn't really care whether all this was odd or not. It was good, it helped, it raised my spirits. As I thought again of that newspaper article and its jumble of words, a refreshing laughter rose in me, and suddenly the forgotten melody of those notes of the piano came back to me again. It soared aloft like a soap bubble, reflecting the whole world in miniature on its rainbow surface, and then softly burst. Could I be altogether lost when that heavenly little melody had been secretly rooted within me and now put forth its lovely bloom with all its tender hues? I might be a beast astray, with no sense of its environment, yet there was some meaning in my foolish life, something in me gave an answer and was the receiver of those distant calls from worlds far above. In my brain were stored a thousand pictures:Giotto's flock of angels from the blue vaulting of a little church in Padua, and near them walked Hamlet and the garlanded Ophelia, fair similitudes of all sadness and misunderstanding in the world, and there stood Gianozzo, the aeronaut, in his burning balloon and blew a blast on his horn, Attila carrying his new headgear in his hand, and the Borobudur reared its soaring sculpture in the air. And though all these figures lived in a thousand other hearts as well, there were ten thousand more unknown pictures and tunes there which had no dwelling place but in me, no eyes to see, no ears to hear them but mine. The old hospital wall with its grey-green weathering, its cracks and stains in which a thousand frescoes could be fancied, who responded to it, who looked into its soul, who loved it, who found the charm of its colors ever delicately dying away? The old books of the monks, softly illumined with their miniatures, and the books of the German poets of two hundred and a hundred years ago whom their own folk have forgotten, all the thumbed and damp-stained volumes, and the works in print and manuscripts of the old composers, the stout and yellowing music sheets dreaming their music through a winter sleep—who heard their spirited, their roguish and yearning tones, who carried through a world estranged from them a heart full of their spirit and their charm? Who still remembered that slender cypress on a hill over Gubbio, that though split and riven by a fall of stone yet held fast to life and put forth with its last resources a new sparse tuft at top? Who read by night above the Rhine the cloudscript of the drifting mists? It was the Steppenwolf. And who over the ruins of his life pursued its fleeting, fluttering significance, while he suffered its seeming meaninglessness and lived its seeming madness, and who hoped in secret at the last turn of the labyrinth of Chaos for revelation and God's presence?
I held my hand over my glass when the landlady wanted to fill it once more, and got up. I needed no more wine. The golden trail was blazed and I was reminded of the eternal, and of Mozart, and the stars. For an hour I could breathe once more and live and face existence, without the need to suffer torment, fear, or shame.
(?-2024年12月24日) See You Soon: Poems of Taeko Tomioka, translated by Hiroaki Sato
I read this a few other days of the month but never wrote it down. I think today I started somewhere around page 70 and read to the end. I didn't really understand any of the poetry here, but it was still good to read. I'd like to read her poetry in the original Japanese eventually.FINE DAY
On fine days tears come outSo I put on sunglasses
But tears don't stop
From under the sunglasses tears are flowing down
Brushing off the tears I buy a ticket at a station
Sniffing up the tears I drink milk at a station sales booth
Swallowing the tears I am walking in a city crowd
Wiping the tears I eat a hamburger
Beyond the tears it's swaying
With tears I shop
With tears I go home
Metzler's expensive sunglasses
Are messed up with tears
(2024年11月29日) Dying to Tell: Sexuality and Suicide in Imperial Japan by Jennifer Robertson
“The several Anglophone works that deal analytically with Japanese suicide avoid mention of homosexual double suicide even though this particular category figures, quite prominently in some cases, in the Japanese social scientific literature on suicide. Likewise, whereas the long history in Japan of same-sex sexual relations between males (specifically Buddhist priests, samurai, and Kabuki actors) is well accounted for, if largely descriptively (e.g., Leupp 1995), until very recently, sexual relations between females in general have remained largely unrecognized, unacknowledged, invisible, and inaccessible in the postwar scholarly literature in and on Japan.”(2024年11月29日) A Woman of Pleasure by Murata Kiyoko, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
11月29日
I read all of this book today, in some 3 hours according to the books program. It was interesting. Nothing stood out to me much; it's hard to say it was plot-driven, but regardless it had a different sort of tempo than the usual kind of books and stories I generally prefer. I didn't really care much for the narration style, but it's up in the air whether or not that's due to the translator's style or not. I don't want to delve all that much into criticism, but I felt like most of the characters had little personality, some things were repetitive (Tetsuko's anecdote about her friend that went to Germany was mentioned at least 3 times and I don't think a new perspective was highlighted in any of the repeats), and the ending felt kind of rushed. In any case, the contents were educational in a sense (despite the ample references to them in other Japanese novels and stories I've read, I had little understanding of what brothels were like. I still couldn't say I know much about them but it's definitely more than before), and I'm curious about the real-life event that inspired the book. I'm also curious about the author's other works, since Carpenter in her translator's note said that she is a "master of the art of fiction", but this is the only book from Murata that has been translated into English, it seems. It's terrible thinking about the array of Japanese literature that I can't read because I'm not good enough at the language! (It's my fault for not studying as dedicatedly as I should, but still….)I appreciated from this book the lack of concern about sexuality (in the modern sense: homosexuality, et cetera), but at the same time I think it would have been nice to see some sort of discussion in that area, though it would certainly have been different from any conversation that might take place on it today. There were no concerns from anyone about the closeness between Shinonome and Murasaki or similar things, but there was also no acknowledgement of women who didn't want to end up with a man at all. Women who wanted to be with other women existed even in 1903…
This is less important, but I liked seeing the author, through Tetsuko, bash on Fukuzawa Yukichi and his hypocrisy in saying "Heaven does not create one person above another" and then ignoring his own words to act as if it does. I shouldn't feel relieved when I read a book where women are treated as people, not some sort of alien race or objects or lesser species: misogyny shouldn't be the norm, and I shouldn't have to be grateful when it's deviated from.
Overall I'll say it didn't leave much of an impression, but it's meaningful for what it is.
My pa came without a word
November 16 Rain Aoi IchiMy pa came without a word
and left without a word.
Just like the wind.
As if he were formless.
If my pa is formless
why shouldnt I erase him?
Let my parents disappear!
The sky is vast
and swimming with clouds.
Having no parents
means nothing to me.
“Tetsuzo,” said Shinonome in a quiet tone…
“Tetsuzo,” said Shinonome in a quiet tone, “we all must die one day and be held to account for how we lived. Tonight you have a chance to do something good.”(2024年11月27日-11月29日) Stories of Osaka Life by Oda Sakunosuke, translated by Burton Watson
11月29日
I'm writing this at 2am, so maybe this could count as the 28th, but I read all of it within the past hour, so…. Well, anyway, I read from 147 to 188: the end of The State of the Times and thus the end of the book. I liked it! It felt in a way like a culmination of the other stories before, so the translator chose well. I thought two things while reading this: when he described happening across the owner of that restaurant Tentatsu, and then the owner leading him to the underground bar that was owned by the former proprietress of Dice, I thought that every event leads into one another, in fact sort of like how he said that he thinks life is an endless cycle of tumbling and turning. I actually can't remember the second thing that I thought other than that I thought it and wanted to write it down after I finished. Maybe it was what I was saying about the story seeming like a culmination of the ones before. I was disappointed with the remarks from Oda and other people in the story about women, but at this point, I shouldn't expect any better. What else is there to say? I'm tired and can't really think of anything. I liked this book.Ganjirō Alley—the whole area was destroyed…
Ganjirō Alley—the whole area was destoyed in the air raids, so there's not a trace of it left. And for that reason I recall it with even greater nostalgia and want more than ever to describe it in detail.As I watched him, a wave of compassion swept over me.
As I watched him, a wave of compassion swept over me. But when I continued to stare, the glow gradually gave way to a feeling of cool, almost cruel detachment. The thought had occured to me that I could make a story out of Yokobori's experiences as a vagrant. For a moment the idea of exploiting my pitiful old friend in this way struck me as revoltingly cynical. But as I listened to his halting account of everything that had happened to him, I began almost instinctively arranging the material in my head and shaping it into a story.11月27日
Today I read i-xx and 1-147. I finished the first three stories in the book, Hurray for Marriage, or Sweet Beans for Two!, Six White Venus, and City of Trees, and I got to section 3 of The State of the Times.I don't think I have any particular feelings on any of them. I thought the first two stories were very lively. For Six White Venus, I remember not really liking the characters that much at first, but Narao eventually somehow grew on me (like mould) and I was kind of fond of him by the end of the story. That one in particular was rather gripping for me—I was going to just listen to a video while I made dinner like I usually do but I suddenly had no patience for it and just wanted to read the story instead. For City of Trees, I remember that while reading it, I started thinking again about how, when I read stories like that, I feel more and more like I'm not living at all. I'm thinking about it with The State of the Times too. When you have a fully functional phone and computer, live alone, and have few friends, it's very easy to not go outside and live life, but just stare at a screen mindlessly and find yourself suddenly another month into the future instead. But Oda lived a life. What these stories make me think about is how life feels unreal, like an illusion of some sort, and how connections with others feel so shallow. This isn't a blanket statement about everyone, but specifically for me: hearing the experiences of other people around me so too do I wonder where my life is gone and what on earth I'm doing with myself and my time.
Anyway, thinking about City of Trees again I'm remembering how it opens with Oda describing all of the trees he remembered from his childhood, arguing against the common saying that Osaka is a city without trees. I'm remembering now that today, while on the light rail, I was looking out of the window and thinking about how everywhere has ugly (by my standards) scenery and I need to stop acting like the U.S. is the ugliest place in the world. Even the town I'm from, which I often disparage as a concrete jungle, has trees and grass and other greenery. I also am now remembering that while reading that story, I noticed how fondly he spoke of Osaka and thought about how I have nowhere I could speak of like that. How I have nowhere I consider 'home', and in fact avoid whenever possible using that word to refer to my family's house or the dorm room I'm living in now. I wonder what inspires love like that in people for the towns or cities they live in.
One day a postcard arrived from the music store…
One day a postcard arrived from the music store informing me that a record I had been searching for was now available and I could pick it up any time I wished to stop by. Judging from the handwriting, the card had been written by the daughter.The record in question was an old recording by Charles Panzera of Henri DuParc's setting of Baudelaire's "L'Invitation au voyage." I had had a copy of the record when I was living as a student in Kyoto, but a girl who used to come to my room from time to time accidentally broke it. Perhaps because she felt upset about what she had done, she never came to see me again. She was stockily built and terribly nearsightered. About two years ago I ran into her younger sister, who for some reason knew that we were acquainted, and she told me that the girl had died. The news brought back memories of days that could now never be relived. So this particular record had very special associations for me.
The trees along Kuchinawa Slope were bleak and bare…
The trees along Kuchinawa Slope were bleak and bare and a chill winter wind raced through them. As I descended the stone steps it occurred to me that I probably would not be going up and down them again for some time to come. The pleasant recollections of my youthful years had come to an end, it seemed, and some quite new reality had now swung around into position to confront me. The wind rattled sharply in the tops of the trees.We walked across the bridge at Yotsubashi…
We walked across the bridge at Yotsubashi and on as far as the entrance to the Puppet Theater. She had been silent up to this point, but now she spoke rapidly in a shrill voice. "Next time you come to my place we'll spend the night together, shall we?" There was no trace of embarassment in her expression as she gave my shoulder a playful shove.We went as far as Shinsaibashi before parting, and as I watched her threading her way efficiently through the crowds, the midsummer sun beating down fiercely on the plump flesh exposed by the open back of her dress, I told myself I had better be on my guard the next time I went to Dice. Just at that moment she abruptly turned and looked in my direction and I could see that her face, with its bizarre pair of dark glasses, had taken on a sudden expression of weariness and desolation. Something of the same desolation came over me as well.
(2024年10月16日) Bungou Stray Dogs: BEAST by Asagiri Kafka
10月16日
I read all of this today, apparently in about 2 hours according to the book app. I liked it. The battles were as nonsense as usual, but I liked the themes of this story a lot. I found Akutagawa's relentless anger relatable—not to the same extent, naturally, but I too find myself angry at so much, all the time, wishing I could destroy the world with my anger.quote: "All I felt was hate."
All I felt was hate. Pure hatred. Hatred for not the enemy but the world itself. But it was hatred that motivated me to kill my enemies, and it was hatred that took my sister away. How did it come to this? Who stole my sister from me?“Come find me once you figure out what makes you so weak. We'll have a rematch. I'll be holding on to your sister until then.”
It didn't make sense. I couldn't comprehend it.
Where should I direct this burning resentment, this feeling beyond despair? Who should I curse if I do not even believe in a god?
“Do not pursue the beast within you,” another voice told me.
I didn't understand. It didn't make any sense, so all I could do was act.
Atsushi too, with his guilt… just as in the main series, desperately trying to make himself feel like he's allowed to be alive; wishing for someone to tell him it's okay to be alive. Ah! I don't interact with the fandom due to my social media problems, but I follow fan artists and a few other people that post about it, so I do see what people talk about, and I think a huge disservice is done to this book by much of this fandom: a certain very large portion of the fandom reduces it all to a singular scene that lasts probably less than 2 minutes and doesn't even take up a page, and makes the entire book about that singular scene. But after finally reading this, I feel like it's probably one of my favorite light novels that I've read from this series. I really do appreciate what it wanted to say and how it went about it in the short space that was allotted to the author to do so. Anyway, I don't really want to get that much into the "book review" and "complaining about other people" territory, so I will leave off of all that.
Like Akutagawa, I too want to stop dwelling (I did think about saying 'revolving my life around', but decided I'm not quite at that level) so much on my anger, my regrets. Like the real Akutagawa wrote: "Doppo said he was in love with love. I am trying to hate hatred. I am trying to hate my hatred for poverty, for falsehood, for everything."
(2024年10月9日-10月30日) In the Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life of Higuchi Ichiyō, With Nine of Her Best Stories by Robert Lyons Danly
10月30日
288-295, the last story in the book: Separate Ways (Wakare-michi). Everything after this is just the translator's notes, which I read alongside the main content, and then the bibliography, so I'm done with the book now. Not many words for Wakare-michi, I don't think. It was good. "Take your hands off me, Okyou." A very strong ending. I flipped past that line a few times before I actually got to read the story, and it's still impactful. Fate, again….I really enjoyed this book overall. I'm glad I got through it. I hope to one day read Ichiyou's stories in Japanese. Yesterday, I was talking to S*Y-sensei about this book, and she showed me that she had a simplified version of Takekurabe in her office. I'm reading the 風の又三郎 Miyazawa Kenji collection in Japanese for class right now (very, very slowly, only understanding the broad strokes of what's happening), but maybe whenever I finally get through it (I have a very long way to go) I'll look at the Takekurabe she has. I want to read more Japanese women writers! I still wish very much that I knew people who are into this stuff, too, so I could talk about it with them… despite being a Japanese major in the highest level of Japanese my university offers (which, to be fair, is technically 4th year Japanese but equates more to lower-intermediate Japanese in the real world), I don't meet many people who are into the same things that I am, whether Japanese literature or history. In general, my classmates aren't really as obsessed with it all (it all being the language) as I am. Professor D*M said that if I go to graduate school, I'll probably meet people who are as interested as I am. But there's a few years until then. Anyway, our library has… technically a rather small Japanese section, but it still has a number of interesting books (I checked out this book from there), so I'll need to read more of them. What else is there to say? I don't know.
Typing out the first quote, I thought of something: I appreciate the disconnect between Kichizou and Okyou. Even though Okyou doesn't have the best job, either, her life is still rather fundamentally different from Kichizou, and she can't understand his perspective or what she's doing by leaving him alone, just like everyone else.
"You shouldn't joke like that, Kichizō. (…)"
"You shouldn't joke like that, Kichizō. I don't know what kind of people your parents were, but it makes no difference to me. These silly things you're saying—you're not yourself tonight. If I were you, I wouldn't let it bother me. Even if I were the child of an outcast. I'd make something of myself, whether I had any parents or not, no matter who my brothers were. Why are you whining around so?""I don't know," he said, staring at the floor. "There's something wrong with me. I don't seem to have any get-up-and-go."
They were bold words, and yet it didn't sound as if she herself fully comprehended them.
They were bold words, and yet it didn't sound as if she herself fully comprehended them. "Anyway," she laughed, "come home with me. Hurry up now.""What! I'm too disgusted. You go ahead," he said, but his long, sad shadow followed after her.
Soon they came to their street. Okyō stopped beneath the window where Kichizō always tapped for her. "Every night you come and knock at this window. After tomorrow night," she sighed, "I won't be able to hear your voice calling any more. How terrible the world is."
"It's not the world. It's you."
10月29日
241-287, The Thirteenth Night (Juusanya) and Child's Play (Takekurabe), today. Not many thoughts on Juusanya. But I enjoyed Takekurabe a lot. I liked the changing of all the personalities of the children, Shouta and Nobu and Midori, at the end. It makes me wonder what my father thinks when he thinks of me as a child compared to how I am now—but I don't want to know. I wonder if there was any moment where I suddenly felt like I had to grow up. Lately, I always feel so young and inexperienced in comparison to everyone else, wishing I was more mature, but then I think of a life of work after I graduate university, the ostensible true coming into maturity of every human being nowadays, and feel dread. Thinking of Midori suddenly wearing the young woman's hairstyle, becoming embarrassed by everything, realising what future she had in store for herself. There's no mentions of what her sister Oomaki thought of her work, nor a single interaction with her, but I wonder if she was as resigned to it. She seemed nothing but untouchable. Also thinking of the interaction between Nobu and Midori at the end, when Nobu's strap broke. I don't know, my thoughts on this aren't really words. Growing up indeed. An unavoidable fate. I wrote in my letter to R. on Sunday that I've been starting to believe in fate lately. I used to say I didn't believe in it because every choice we make changes the future. But maybe we're all being guided along a certain path, even if we can make small choices of our own while walking it. I think of fate when I think of my friends and how my study abroad plans have turned out. And after reading this, I think of it when I think of the future of every child that becomes an adult. I do see why this story was so effusively praised in the biography section. I'm curious what the next and last story will be like."Nobu, what's the matter? Break your strap? What a sight you are!"
"Nobu, what's the matter? Break your strap? What a sight you are!"Nobu turned around to see who owned the unexpected voice. It was obnoxious Chōkichi, decked out like a young gallant. He had on his best-dress kimono, and he wore his orange sash profligately low on his hips. His new jacket had a fancy black collar, and the umbrella he carried was festooned with the trademark of one of the houses in the quarter. His high clogs were sporting lacquered rain covers—this was something new. What pride there was in the young man's swagger.
"The strap broke, and I was wondering what to do," Nobu answered helplessly. "I'm not very good at these things."
"No, you wouldn't be. It's all right, wear mine. The straps won't give out."
"But what will you do?"
"Don't worry. I'm used to it. I'll just go like this," he said, tucking up the bottom of his kimono. "Feels much better than wearing sandals, anyway." He kicked off his rain clogs.
"You're going to go barefoot? That won't be fair."
"I don't mind. I'm used to going barefoot. Someone like you has soft feet. You could never walk barefoot on gravel. Come on, wear these," he urged, arranging his sandals obligingly.
10月28日
205-240 today, On the Last Day of the Year (Ootsugomori) and Troubled Waters (Nigorie). Read them while doing laundry. They were both good, but I particularly enjoyed Troubled Waters. I liked Oriki a lot. I've become so used to reading Japanese literature by misogynistic men that it's a relief to read something where women are actual people. When Oriki told Yuuki that she's a human being, too… I liked the mentions of living to work, and how surely humans weren't born to live like this. When I read the one from Genshichi (see the "Oh, that's right" quote), I thought about sending it to my father.On both of these, particularly Troubled Waters, the endings felt kind of sudden to me. But I remember what the biography section said about how Saikaku's works were kind of like that, so…. Regardless, I do wish we had been able to see the murder-suicide scene… I am really curious about what happened! But I'm glad it ended with it at all. I can't help but wonder how Ohatsu fared with Takichi after she left Genshichi. When reading the scene where Ohatsu started asking Takichi if she liked her or Genshichi better, I experienced vivid flashbacks of when the same thing happened to me when I was young, and wondered if Takichi would have grown up to remember it like I do. I like Ichiyou's characters because they make me feel curious about them and their fates outside of the confines of the story. Or maybe it's just something going on in my mind, but what does it matter?
The moon shone cool in the cloudless night.
The moon shone cool in the cloudless night. In the street below echoed the footfall of passersby, their shadows wavering here and there along the road."Yūki."
"What?" He came over and stood next to her.
"Sit down," she said, taking his hand. "See the child buying peaches at the fruit stand? The cute little one, about four? He's the son of the man who was here tonight. I must be hateful to him. He calls me a demon when he sees me. Do I look that evil?"
Oriki gazed up at the sky and took a deep breath.
"Oh, that's right," Genshichi said, as if coming to his senses.
"Oh, that's right," Genshichi said, as if coming to his senses. As he untied his waistband and walked over to the tub, he felt memories of his old self suddenly come back to him. He had never dreamed the day would come when he would have to bathe in the kitchen of a nine-by-twelve house, let alone that he would wind up as an assistant to a crew of construction workers, pulling a cart around all day. Surely his parents had not brought him into the world for this."My love is like a bridge of logs across the Hosotani River," she went on.
"My love is like a bridge of logs across the Hosotani River," she went on. "I'm afraid to cross to the other side; I'm afraid to stay where I am." But suddenly, as if the song had reminded her of something, she fell silent. "Excuse me. I'm sorry." She put her samisen aside and left the room."Where are you going?" they all began to shout. "You can't run out on us!"
"Teru, Otaka, cover for me, will you? I'll be right back." She hurried through the hallway and slipped into her shoes. Without looking back, she ran out into the street and down the alley on the other side.
Oriki ran from the house as fast as she could. If only it were possible, she would keep on going, to China, to India. How she hated her life! She never wanted to hear another human voice, or any sound at all. She needed a quiet place, where her mind could relax, where there were no worries. How long would she be stuck in this hopeless situation, where everything was absurd and worthless and cruel? Was this what life was supposed to be? She hated it! She hated it! She felt almost delirious and leaned against a tree at the side of the road. "I'm afraid to cross to the other side; I'm afraid to stay where I am." It was her song and her voice, but where was it coming from?
"I have no choice," she whispered. "I will have to cross the bridge by myself. My father fell treading it. They say my grandfather stumbled, too. I was born with the curse of many generations, and there are things I have to undergo before I die. No one's going to feel sorry for me, that much I know. If I complain about how sad I am, 'What's wrong?' people say, 'Don't you like your work?' Oh, it doesn't matter any more what happens—I haven't the slightest idea what will become of me. I might as well go on as Oriki of the Kikunoi. Sometimes I wonder if I've lost all sense of kindness and decency. No, I mustn't think such things. It won't do me any good. With my station in life and my calling and my fate, I'm not an ordinary person any more. It's a mistake to think I am. It only adds to my suffering. It's all so hopeless and discouraging. What am I doing standing here? Why did I come here? Stupid! Crazy! I don't even know myself," she sighed. "I'd better get back."
Oriki left the darkness of the alley and walked along a street lined with shops. They were all doing a lively business. If only some of the gaiety would rub off, she mused. As she trudged along, the faces of passersby seemed tiny to her. Even those of people who walked directly in front of her seemed somehow very distant. She felt as if she were hovering ten feet above the ground. She could hear the din of voices, but it sounded more like the echo of someone falling to the bottom of a well. She was lost in her own thoughts and paid no heed to the voices about her. Nothing distracted her. She passed a crowd gathered round a husband and wife who were arguing, but this, too, failed to interest her. It was as if she were walking in a great, open field laid bare by winter. There was nothing to capture her attention. She felt unsure of her step, as if she might faint. She wondered if she was losing her mind.
10月24日
Today was 182-204, Encounters on a Dark Night (Yamiyo). I liked this one better than the first three stories: it still had many of the usual aspects I don't like, but I rather liked the ending. I really love characters that are full of hatred for the world. I think Naojirou failing to kill Namizaki was the perfect ending. My circumstances are different from Naojirou's, but regardless I found his bullheadedness relatable, and his hatred as well. I love hatred. I don't know that I have much more than that to say today. I'm tired. Quotes I liked:The morning glory by the fence blooms…
The morning glory by the fence blooms in splendor for a single day, and this is all it lives for. Why should he who knows the limits of his fate tremble over things that might have been?You don't think I'd joke about it, do you?
You don't think I'd joke about it, do you? I keep thinking about what you told me in the garden that day. About your father drowning in the pond. You said it was the only quiet place, away from the world. Well, I'm someone who's never had any peace of mind, any quiet. Ever since I was born I've been unhappy and unlucky. I'm tired of it. What's the point? I can't hope to repay you. You've been so kind to me, Oran, for months now. I owe you everything, the way you've taken care of me. It's been wonderful for me. It's the first time I've really been a part of the world—and the last. I feel as if I've seen enlightenment, all of a sudden, and I can't take this world any longer. You're the only one I'll miss.If by some chance I'm wrong…
If by some chance I'm wrong—I mean, if there's no connection between the man who hit me and the man who sent the letter tonight—it doesn't really make any difference. It only shows how depraved I am. My suspicions come from bad thoughts. I could do terrible things, Oran. Even if I hide how I feel, in my heart I follow you everywhere. The shame of it! I'll go to hell, and that soft voice of yours will be there with the flames to torture me. I'm alone . . . When I think of all the changes that have come over me, I feel like a different person. I don't know myself what awful things I might do.10月21日
174-177: A Snowy Day (Yuki no Hi). As with Yamizakura I didn't care much for it, but the imagery was rather beautiful.178-181: The Sound of the Koto (Koto no Ne). The same feelings as with the previous story. I was sympathetic towards the boy… being demonized by people that know nothing of you solely due to your circumstances or what they've heard.