Marshlands by Otohiko Kaga
Japanese fiction
Original title – 『湿原』朝日新聞社
Translator -Albert Novich
Source – Personal copy
I think when I said I want to review 200 books this year, I may have put a number, not an idea, to this year. 200 would be great, but one of the aims for this year is to read several longer books. I think in yesterday’s post I spoke about my attention getting less. Another way I have seen this is not reading epic books anymore, even though I buy a lot. This had been on my radar for a long time, when it was mentioned on a podcast. I think it was one of the last, if not the last, books that John O’Brien signed off for Dalkey Archive. The writer Otohiko was both a writer and a psychologist. A number of the books he wrote were set in France, where he studied and worked in the late fifties. This book was published in 1985. He won a number of big book prizes in his time. He also continued visiting some of his patients well into his 80s, long after he had retired. This is the second book from a writer who has written many books and is well respected in Japan!
“And now how do you feel?” asked Atsuo, leaning back a bit to avoid Yu-kichis fists, which he had begun brandishing to punctuate his recitation. “Do you feel like smashing something right now?
“Yeah, I do, he said, slamming the table hard enough to raise the proprietor’s eyebrows and elicit a restraining “Hey!” from him.
“What on earth do you want to smash?”
“Dunno.”
“Listen to me, said Atsuo. “There’s nothing you need to smash now.”
“If there isn’t anything, then I’ll fnd something” Yukichi said with an exag gerated wave of his arm, clearly drunk, his voice unnecessarily loud.
“Uncle, theres no fun in just breaking things. It’s no good if you don’t have an explosion. See? If you want to get an explosion, there’s got to be some kind of strong resistance. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what they’re up to,” he said, pointing to the television. “First they get the riot police mad, see? Set up the resistance for the big bang!”
talking about making a bomb early on in the. book will come back later
This book is an epic book. It slices into the heart of post-war Japan, and I love the use of the main character, Atuso Yukimori, who at the start of the book seems a simple mechanic who works near the university. It is because of this that he starts a romance with a girl from the university, Wakako, who is about half his age. The book is pivoted on the events of the summer of 1968, when the world burned in student protests.(When I saw he had been in France, this is the time of the French riots as well!) SO when a bomb goes off, the police home in on these two. The book serves as part prison journey, part look at one man’s post-war journey in Atuso. He was in a special unit during the war and after the war he feel on very hard times and into a world of crime. But his life is on the straight and narrow, even if his lack of knowledge of how the newer car works tickles his colleagues. He shows what a great mechanic he is with old engines. The book focuses on the investigation into the crime, the time spent in prison, looking back on the past, and even on his childhood in the marshlands. It descends into a drama of who is innocent, but also how the past affects the present, and whether we can ever escape what we have done.
She opened a wooden door. It was a little bar, consisting of a single counter that was filled to capacity with customers. “Well, well, come right in!” The bar’s proprietress gave them a professionally effusive greeting. “Unfortunately, she continued with a gesture at the full counter, “all I can offer is a place in the back.”
“That’s fine,” said Wakako. “This is Mr. Yukimori. He was one of my teachers in high school.” The bar’s “mama” gave a reverential bow.”Welcome, Mr. Yuki-mori. Very glad to have you.”
The space in the back was a tiny tatami alcove whose three walls were occupied by shelves of dishes. They each pulled up a zabuton, barely managing to squeeze in on either side of the foot-high table.
“TIl bring you something in a jify, Mr. Yukimori. Wakako sprang up and busied herself behind the counter. She helped Mama serve customers – whom she seemed to know — with a practiced hand. Finally, she returned with a bottle of whiskey, water, and dishes of meat-and-potatoes, oden, and cuttlefish. They had a toast with whiskey and water.
“Come here often?”
As the couple start heading out he is much older than her
I had waited ages to get to this, and I wish I had read it the day it dropped through the door. It is one of those epic novels that captures the fallout of a moment, the bomb, but not just what happened after, what led up to that point. The class of pre-war and post-war Japan, the speed at which life moved forward in the sixties. One mans past and how do we escpae it was almost div=ckensian at times when they talked about the marshlands I thought all we need it a chained Atsuo running across it for it to echo Magwich. But there is also a nod to Kafka in the way the trial and case unfold, and the two get caught up in it all. I recently saw a YouTube essay about how art exists around the world and why, in Japan, it is seen as a whole. At times, those epic scenes, like the noise of a Japanese web screen full of information, are viewed as a whole. This book is like that, viewing the whole post-war years and the effect of the war, but also the huge changes of the period. The late sixties led to the tension, the bombing, and the violence as two generations rage against one another. This book does so on an epic scale, following two people caught up in the events and the bombing. It is also about the past, and can we escape our past? Again, a nod maybe to time in France, Atsuo is modern Jean Valjean, parallels are there, younger women in his life, a police officer who becomes obsessed with him, and never quite being able to escape one’s past? Do you have a favourite epic Japanese book?
