My trivial thinking

  I’ve been very busy since the middle of August. I have to get up early in the morning, and I often end up staying late at the office. Because of that, I haven’t been able to go anywhere except for business trips, and I haven’t had time to read books or write any posts for this blog. My younger daughter, who lives in London, seems to be busy as well. The other day, she took a few days off and went to Germany to enjoy the Christmas markets in Bremen and Hamburg.  

An Artist of the Floating World , Kazuo Ishiguro’s second novel, was published in 1986 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His following novel went on to win the prize in 1989. Like A Pale View of Hills , this book again portrays a Japanese protagonist living in the aftermath of the war. Masuji Ono is a retired painter, and the story takes place around 1948 in postwar Japan. He gradually comes to realize that the failure of his younger daughter Noriko’s marriage negotiations stems from his own past. His elder daughter, Setsuko, hints at the same thing. As Ono reflects on his youth, his training, his teachers, colleagues, and pupils, the reader begins to sense that his recollections do not entirely match the memories of others. What exactly is Ono’s past? It becomes clear that he had supported Japan’s wartime ideology as an artist involved in propaganda. Ishiguro, of course, never states this directly, but allows it to emerge subtly through implication. During Noriko’s marriage m...

A Pale View of Hills is Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel, published in 1982. I had never read his first two books before, so it was interesting to discover that he began his career by writing about Japanese people and postwar Japan. The story is set in Nagasaki around 1950, when people were still living with the wounds of the war and the atomic bombing, yet also sensing the coming changes of a new era. It is, in fact, the period when I was born. Etsuko, now living in England, has recently lost her elder daughter to suicide. In the wake of this tragedy, she looks back on her life in Nagasaki thirty years earlier, especially on her memories of her friend Sachiko and Sachiko’s daughter, Mariko. At that time, Etsuko was a virtuous, pregnant housewife, and her husband Jiro was a capable office worker. Jiro’s father, Ogata‑san, had come from Fukuoka to stay with them. Nearby lived Sachiko and Mariko in a small, run‑down house. Mariko, a quiet and withdrawn girl, often sees disturbing phantoms—...

Waterland is Graham Swift’s third novel, published in 1983. Although his Last Orders won the 1996 Booker Prize, many readers consider Waterland to be his finest work. The narrator, Tom Crick, is a fifty‑two‑year‑old history teacher whose wife has been arrested for abducting a baby. Living in Greenwich — the place where world time begins — he is being quietly pushed into retirement. He turns to his students and begins, “Children…,” launching a strange and unsettling series of history lessons. Tom speaks about the history of the Fens where he was born and raised, the story of his mother’s family, his youthful sexual experiences with Mary, his intellectually disabled brother Dick, the death of Freddie Parr, the French Revolution, the life cycle of eels, incest, abortion, madness, ghosts… Through this fragmented narrative, Swift explores the question of what history is , using a distinctly postmodern approach. The Fens of East Anglia were once a vast waterland. It was the Atkinson fami...

I usually go jogging in the morning, and sometimes in the late afternoon on weekends, because I have to work on weekdays. As a result, I’ve gained a little weight recently due to lack of exercise. Last week, I started jogging at night every day. I can go out anytime between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. This turned out to be a good idea for me, since I have solar photosensitivity and I’m busy on weekdays. It’s also nice that I can take a bath right after jogging. Of course, I have to watch out for traffic and for obstacles on the street that could make me twist my ankle. A few days ago, even though it was raining, I went jogging at night. According to the High‑resolution Precipitation Nowcasts from the Japan Meteorological Agency, the rain was supposed to stop for a while. But as soon as I started running, it began to rain harder. I ended up getting completely soaked that night.  

The Shadow of the Wind is a novel by the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón, originally published in Spanish in 2001. It has since been translated into more than forty languages, published in over fifty countries, and, according to the author’s website, has sold more than twelve million copies worldwide. I read the English edition. In 1945, in post–Civil War Barcelona under Franco’s regime, ten‑year‑old Daniel Sempere is taken by his father to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books. There, Daniel is drawn to a novel titled The Shadow of the Wind and becomes fascinated by its mysterious author, Julián Carax. He reads the book quickly and is deeply moved. Daniel soon meets Clara, a beautiful twenty‑one‑year‑old blind woman who knows Carax’s works well, and he develops a romantic interest in her. One night, he encounters a faceless figure in the dark—Lain Coubert, the devil in Carax’s novel. The stranger offers Daniel a large sum of money for his copy of The Shadow of the Wind , intendin...

As I was listening to Emi Fujita’s songs on YouTube, I came across Eva Cassidy. Eva Cassidy is hardly known in Japan, and almost all of her CDs available here are imports. I had never heard her songs—or even her name—before. But her beautiful voice and remarkable musical sensitivity have the power to captivate listeners instantly. Eva Cassidy was born in Washington, D.C. in 1963 and grew up in Maryland. She had an interest in both art and music from childhood. When she was nine, her father began teaching her to play the guitar. At eleven, she joined a local band as a singer. In 1992, at the age of twenty‑nine, she released her first album, a duet album. Still, her name was known only in the Washington, D.C. area. In 1994, she was diagnosed with skin cancer. In 1996, Eva Cassidy passed away at the age of just thirty‑three. In 2000, the BBC broadcast her performance of Over the Rainbow , and it caused a sensation across Europe and eventually around the world. She became known as a legen...

Snow Falling on Cedars is the bestselling novel David Guterson published in 1994, and it won the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The story was later adapted into a film of the same title. Because the defendant’s wife, Hatsue, was played by Yuki Kudoh, the movie attracted considerable attention in Japan. The novel was translated into Japanese in 1996, but the Japanese title, 殺人容疑 (“Suspicion of Murder”), felt disappointingly bland, and many Japanese readers were let down by it. The story takes place in December 1954 on a small island in northern Puget Sound, Washington State. Kabuo Miyamoto, a second‑generation Japanese‑American fisherman, is arrested on suspicion of murdering Carl Heine, another fisherman from the same community. A local journalist, Ishmael, watches the trial with complicated feelings. He once loved Hatsue when they were young. Their innocent relationship was torn apart after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when anti‑Japanese sentiment and racial prejudice overwhe...

I happened to come across this song and was captivated by its melody and the singer’s voice. The singer is Emi Fujita , and the song is “Wide Awake.” It was my first time hearing it.     Although it was only a few days ago, I don’t remember why I found this song on YouTube. WIDE AWAKE   ･ ･ ･ ･ ･ ･ ･ ･ ･ You were the rolling tidal wave That swept my barren shores If you will let me share your day My life's forever yours I will never understand the reason why We fail to learn from our mistakes I will wait for you as the days go by With my dream - though I am wide awake I don’t think many Japanese people know who Emi Fujita is. I looked her up online and found that she was the vocalist of Le Couple .      Le Couple is famous for their song “Hidamari no Uta,” which was part of the soundtrack for the 1997 TV drama Under One Roof 2 . The CD single sold over 1.8 million copies. After the band suspended its activities, Emi Fujita began her solo ...

Ohara is a rustic, tranquil village surrounded by mountains in the northern part of Kyoto City. It takes about 35 minutes by bus from Demachi‑yanagi Station. I visited Ohara with my wife yesterday. The weather was cloudy and a little cool. We got off the bus at Hanajiri‑bashi, the southern end of Ohara, and we were the only passengers to get off there. Our plan was to enjoy the cherry blossoms along the Takano River and hike through the village. We didn’t see any other hikers until we reached the approach to Sanzen‑in Temple. Contrary to our expectations, Ohara was rather quiet except around Sanzen‑in Temple. along the Takano River Sanzen‑in Temple is the most famous and largest temple in Ohara. It stands on the eastern side of the village, partway up the mountainside. There were many foreign tourists there.    Sanzen-in The approach to Sanzen-in in front of the main gate Main gate Warabe Jizou Warabe Jizou the app...

Now that it’s April, the cherry blossom season has arrived. We rarely get snow in Osaka, even in winter. But it was cold last weekend, and the mountains in Osaka were covered with snow.   Mt. Kongo,  1125m Mt. Iwawaki,  897m

The Sea , written by the Irish novelist John Banville, won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was among the shortlisted works that year. Banville is often praised as a master of language, yet this novel is extremely challenging for English learners. I read it twice a few years ago, and although the plot is simple and the action minimal, I still found it difficult on this third reading. The narrator, Max Morden, is a retired art historian whose wife has recently died of cancer. He returns with his daughter Claire to a seaside resort village. The dilapidated guest house where he stays was once called the Cedars. Fifty years earlier, the Grace family had rented it as a summer villa. The current housekeeper, Ms. Vavasour, now runs the place. …… And my life is changed forever. …… Half a century earlier, Max’s family spent their summers in the same village, renting a shabby cottage. One day, young Max encounters the Graces, a wealthy family also vacationing ther...

When I went jogging at a nearby park last Saturday, I thought the cherry blossoms were just beginning to bloom and that they would reach full bloom in about a week. But yesterday, the cherry trees in my neighborhood were already in full bloom. So this morning, I walked to the park near my office to see the cherry blossoms there.  

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry , published in 2012 and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize that same year, is the debut novel of Rachel Joyce, who had spent twenty years writing plays for BBC Radio 4. Harold Fry, sixty‑five, is a retired brewery salesman living on his pension with his wife, Maureen. His childhood was unhappy, and his naturally introverted character has kept him at a distance from other people. His marriage to Maureen has long since grown cold. One morning, Harold receives a letter from Queenie Hennessy, a former colleague he has not seen in twenty years. She writes to tell him that she is dying of cancer in a hospice in Berwick‑upon‑Tweed. Harold writes a reply, but immediately feels that a letter cannot possibly express what he wants to say. He leaves the house intending to post it, but hesitates—and keeps walking to the next postbox, and then the next. At a petrol station, he stops for something to eat and tells a young waitress about Queenie. She mentions h...

  Too Much Happiness is a collection of ten short stories published in 2009 by Alice Munro, the Canadian writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. I hadn’t known her name before she received the prize, but when I later found her books at a local library, I felt compelled to read her work. I’ve read Raymond Carver before, but I’m not sure I truly enjoy short stories. They often provide only minimal description and convey so much with so few words that they can feel more difficult than novels. Still, several stories in this collection offer deep reflections on life over long stretches of time.   Dimensions Doree, a chambermaid, has endured a devastating tragedy: her three young children were murdered by her mentally unstable husband. She occasionally takes the bus to visit him in prison. One day, while she is on her way there, an unexpected accident occurs…   Fiction Jon and Joyce, both highly intelligent, drop out of college and start new lives. Jon learns wo...

Of Human Bondage , published in 1915, is one of W. Somerset Maugham’s most celebrated novels. Often described as autobiographical, it is a coming‑of‑age story about a young orphan burdened by a physical deformity and a deep sense of insecurity. Philip Carey is born with a clubfoot and loses both parents at an early age. Raised by his uncle and aunt, he grows up painfully aware of his deformity. At the divinity school he becomes the target of mockery, and the experience causes him to lose his religious faith. He studies in Germany for a time, then works as an apprentice accountant, but abandons the job after a year and moves to Paris to study art. Eventually he realizes he lacks real artistic talent and returns to London, deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a doctor. One day he meets Mildred, a café waitress, and falls hopelessly in love with her. Mildred is calculating and self‑interested; she uses Philip whenever it suits her. His love for her is unrequited and ul...

written by my wife                                                 Delight of the New Year!