Japanese Magical Realism I: Souseki

As I am currently writing a paper on magical realism in Japanese literature, I thought it might be prudent to make a series of it.

Magical realism, under my definition at least, is a work that fundamentally displays a struggle between reality and unreality. It is inexplicable, but rather than having its roots in the psychology of the characters as surrealism might, the unreal attached to it has a greater meaning, and often an even greater number of interpretations.

The first author, and work, that I want to tackle are both relatively iconic. Indeed, there are few more recognizable Japanese authors than Natsume Souseki of Botchan, Kokoro, and I am a Cat fame. Yet perhaps one of his most unsung pieces of a series of quite simply excellent fantastical vignettes entitled Ten Nights of Dreams.

Ten Nights of Dreams is really a staggering piece of art, although only a couple of the ten stories can truly be considered magical realism. Ranging from poetic to satirical, each bit of the 45-odd pages that the book occupies remains thoroughly impressive. Especially excellent is the first dream, in which a woman dies and her lover waits 100 years for her, only to find a more fitting meeting in the end.

In short, it's simply more of Souseki's mastery at work. I recommend it to all who can appreciate the art in literature, rather than just the escapism.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

I have a great respect for Murakami Haruki as a writer. His style may frequently be somewhat less-than-literary, but his novels, almost without fail, are always entertaining, and a few of them, particularly After Dark and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. If nothing else, a unique style and atmosphere permeates all of his writing, and despite being nonfiction, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running manages to capture the same aura. Part memoir, part exercise journal, part creative musing, Murakami gives a series of insights into his creative process through his attraction to running and small speeches about his life. He may be beginning to age (I believe he turns 60 this year), but he seems to be holding together quite well, and his writing shows that nothing so simple will end up as his bane.

If nothing else, the book comes across as a bit egotistical- he is, after all, assuming that his thoughts are relevant- but with Murakami perhaps such a thing is well-earned. In any case, the book is fundamentally interesting, but to one who doesn't appreciate his writing I daresay that reading it would be a terrible choice.

SCORE: 58/100

Youth, Memory, and Loss; Ghosts by Kita Morio

Ghosts, originally 幽霊 (yuurei) in Japanese, is the story of a young man coming to terms with his past in the wake of the end of World War II. Plagued by deaths, frailty, and the struggles of ordinary adolescence, the protagonist loses himself in his memories, seemingly desperate to find something to cling to, to discover the meaning and worth in his past.

The story itself is nearly plotless, allowing Kita to instead focus on isolating incidents with the utmost detail, with prose so meticulous that the images are brought to life as paintings of the fullest color. Many of these events are remarkably mundane- eating a pickled plum in rice porridge while sick, the exploits of an ameteur magician uncle- but they each bring out an important aspect of the protagonist's personality, developing his character with a clear and distinct voice, and distorting the world into his own fictionalized bias. In this sense, Kita is very much a genius. He perfectly captures not only the memories themselves, but their small significances, without ever allowing a single word to be wasted.

The negative aspects of the work stem from Kita's premise as a whole. Ultimately, the book is more of a work of art than it is a story. Enjoyable, yes, meaningful, yes, but hardly a substantial tale. I personally find this style very compelling, but in the end it forces a lot of thought and inference onto the reader, which is a somewhat ameteurish style to write in. A good writer draws the reader in, rather than leaving the reader to initially immerse themselves in the world. Still, if you can take that initial step, Ghosts is never a book you will have been sorry to pick up.

SCORE: 83/100