My trivial thinking

Once Chelsea was outside of London. There was a big residence of Thomas More in Chelsea. The place might be where Chelsea Old Church stands now, I guess. In the movie, 'A Man for All Seasons', Thomas More comes and goes to Westminster by small boat. Chelsea Old Church Thomas More's Statue Battersea Bridge if you cross the Battersea Bridge, near Chelsea Old Church, to the south shore of the Thames, and turn right soon, the street is Battersea Church Road. The twin sister and brother, Eliza and Sammy, who were orphans, were living in a tiny room, little more than a closet, dark and damp above the Swindells' bottle shop. The twin had to work servilely . One day they played the Jack the Ripper game. When Eliza went close to the Thames and turned around, Sammy was not there. (The forgotten Garden by Kate Morton) Now this Battersea Church Road is a quiet residential area and there is nothing left of the story. Battersea Church Road The Thames fr...

Memories of a Geisha published in 1997 is a story of a geisha who was born in a poor fishing village in northern Kyoto around the end of Taisyo Period. The author is Arthur Golden who had studied Japanese art history. That's why this book was researched much and depicted well about Japanese life and Japanese culture. I was able to read this without any feeling of strangeness. A couple of years ago, I've been asked about a geisha from a foreign young woman. Since she frequently told me "geisha, geisha...", I said to her coldly, "I'm not interested in a geisha and maybe most Japanese haven't met or talked with any geisha. It's something in the past." At that time, I haven't read this book yet. So I misunderstood that she mentioned an old book or something that was written by a foreigner in Meiji Period. When I read this book, I fully understood that the book she mentioned was this "Memories of a Geisha". I guess she has also wa...

'An Artist of the Floating World' is Kazuo Ishiguro's second novel published in 1986, was short listed for the Man Booker Prize. But his next novel was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 1989. In this book he depicted a Japanese of postwar Japan again as well as 'A Pale View of Hills'. Masuji Ono is a retired Japanese painter. The situation is somewhere in postwar Japan around 1948. He knows the reason of the failures of the marriage negotiation of Noriko, his younger daughter, is caused by his past. Setsuko, his elder daughter, also points out the same thing to him. He looks back his young and training life, about his old teachers and colleagues, his own pupils. We readers begin to realize that his recollection is slightly different from others view. What is Ono's past? It seems that Ono was the follower of the war as one of the artists of the war propaganda. Ishiguro, of cause, doesn't mention of Ono's past so much. Ono confesses his past and apol...

'A Pale View of Hills' is Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel, published in 1982. I've never read his first two novels. It was interesting for me that he wrote about Japanese people in his first two novels. The situation is in postwar Nagasaki around 1950. People were living with wounds of war and the atomic bomb and feeling changes of the times for the future. And also it was the period when I was born. Etsuko who is living in England now lost her elder daughter by suicide recently, and Etsuko recalls things in Nagasaki of 30 years ago. Etsuko recalls, especially, her friend Sachiko and the daughter Mariko. Etsuko is a virtuous and pregnant housewife now and her husband Jiro is a capable office-worker. Ogata-san, her father-in-law living in Fukuoka, is staying at their home. She gets to know Sachiko and Mariko who are living at a small house nearby. Mariko is a taciturn girl and often sees creepy phantom because of a grim experience in postwar mess in Tokyo. And also ...

‘Waterland’ is the third novel of Graham Swift, published in 1983. His 'Last Order' won the 1996 Booker Prize, but it is often said that his best novel is ‘Waterland’. Fifty-two-year-old Tom Crick whose wife arrested for snatching a baby is a history master, living in Greenwich where world time begins, and being asked to bow out. He speaks to his students, "Children ..." and starts his strange history class. He speaks about the history of Fens where he was born and brought up, the history of his maternal ancestor, the sex with his wife Mary in their young days, his intellectually disabled brother Dick, the murder of Freddie Parr, French Revolution, the eel life, incest, abortion, madness, ghost... The author quests for "what history is" through the postmodern way. Fens, in East Anglia, was a waterland since ancient times. It was the Atkinsons that converted this region into the farmland for barley by dainages. The end of the 18th century, Tomas Atkin...

“The Shadow of the Wind” is a novel by a Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The original version was written in Spanish. This book was published in 2001, and has been translated into more than forty languages, has been published in more than fifty countries and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide (by the author's website). I read the English version of this book. In 1945, in Barcelona under the Franco regime remaining wounds of the Spanish Civil War, a ten-year-old Daniel Sempere was taken to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books by his father. At the place Daniel was interested in a book, “The Shadow of the Wind”, and the author Julian Carax. He read soon the book and was impressed strongly. Daniel meets Clara who is blind and twenty-one-year-old beautiful woman and know the works of Julian very much, takes a romantic interest in her. One evening, he meets a faceless man, Lain Courbert, in the dark who is a devil in “The Shadow of the Wind”. The strange man asks Danie...

Snow Falling on Cedars is the bestselling novel written by David Guterson in 1994, and won 1995's PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. This novel was made into a movie, 'Snow Falling on Cedars'. Since the defendant's wife Hatsue was played by Yuki Kudoh, this movie became popular in Japan. This novel was also translated into Japanese in 1996, but the Japanese title "殺人容疑" was too mediocre and many Japanese were disappointed. (殺人容疑 satsujin yougi means suspicion of murder.) December in 1954, the incident happened in a small island in northern Puget Sound, the state of Washington. the second generation Japanese-American fisherman Kabuo Miyamoto was arrested on suspicion of murder. The victim was Carl Heine, a fisherman in the same village. A local journalist was watching this trial with mixed feeling. He is Ishmael and he loved Kabuo's wife Hatsue when they were young. They loved each other, but after the Japanese attacking on Pearl Harbor, their inno...

The Sea is written by Irish writer John Banville, and won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro was on the shortlist in this year. John Banville is known as the artist in words, but this book is very difficult to understand for English learners. I read this book twice a few years ago. The plot is not complicated and has little action. This was the third time to read for me, but difficult after all. Max Morden, a retired art historian, whose wife has just died of cancer, goes to a resort village by the sea with his daughter Claire. The dilapidated guest house he stays at was once called the Cedars.  In the summer 50 years ago, the Graces were staying there as a rented villa. Now the house-maid of this house is Ms Vavasour. ...... And my life is changed forever. ...... About 50 years ago, in the resort village, Max's family visits there every summer and rents a cheap cottage. One day in the summer, Max gets to know the Graces who are rich...

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was published in 2012, and on the longlist for the 2012 Man Booker Prize in the U.K. The author is Rachel Joyce, a playwright for BBC Radio 4 for 20 years, and this book is her first novel. Harold Fry, sixty five, retired from his job for a local brewery, lives off a pension with his wife Maureen. He had an unfortunate childhood, and away from society because of his introverted nature. The relationship with Maureen has cooled off long before. One day, he receives a letter from Queenie Hennessy who was his colleague of twenty years ago. She says in the letter that she is dying of a cancer and lives in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Harold writes a letter to her but knows it's not enough to express his heart. He leaves the house to post the letter, but he hesitates to do and goes on to the next post... He stops a petrol station to get something to eat, and tells a waitress Queenie's story. The girl talks about her aunt who had a c...

Too Much Happiness is a collection of ten short stories, published in 2009, and the author is Alice Munro, a Canadian writer. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2013. I didn't know her name until she won the Nobel Prize, but I wanted to read her works when I found her books at a local library. I've read the works of Raymond Carver before. But I don't think I like short stories very much because they often have little description of the situation, and depict many things with few words. Short stories are often more difficult than novels. Some stories in this book give readers some thoughts about  life through long time. Dimensions Doree who is a chambermaid had bitter experience. Her young three children were murdered by her insane husband. She sometimes visits her ex-husband in jail by bus. One day when she is on the bus to visit him, an accident happens... Fiction Jon and Joyce who have high IQ score drop out of college and go away. Jon learned woodwor...

Of Human Bondage is a famous novel written by W. Somerset Maugham, published in 1915. This novel is a coming-of-age story of a young man who is an orphan with deformity. It is said this book is autobiographical. Philip Carey is born with a clubfoot and loses his parents soon. He grows up as an orphan and is brought up by his uncle and the wife. He struggles with his deformity through his life. In the divinity school, he is treated with a gibe by the classmates and lose his religious faith. He goes to Germany to study, then works as an apprentice for an accountant. But he quits the job only for a year and goes to Paris to study art. He finds a lack of talent for art after all, and returns to London. He decides to study to become a doctor like his father. One day, he meets Mildred who is a waitress for a cafe, and loves her. Mildred is a calculating woman and only uses him to advantage. His love for her is unrequired and self-destructive. People who have corporal defect strugg...

The Sense of an Ending is a novel written by Julian Barnes and was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2011. Tony, Colin and Alex are good friends in their high school. A new classmate comes to the high school and they become good friends soon. He is Adrian who is smart and philosophical. In history class they challenge to answer their teacher, Old Joe Hunt, when the teacher asks what the history is. One of the themes of this novel is what the history is. When they finished school, they promised lifelong friendship, and went their separate way. Adrian won a scholarship to Cambridge. Tony read history at Bristol and goes out with mysterious girl Veronica. Tony introduces Veronica to his friends in London. But he is somehow hesitant about Veronica, and breaks up with her. Soon after that, Tony gets a letter from Adrian that he wants to get Tony's permission to go out with Veronica. Tony hurts them with a spiteful letter. Some time after that, Adrian commits suicide leaving a phi...

Mrs Dalloway is one of Virginia Woolf's masterpieces and her first novel published in 1925. Some people would say this is one of the best novels through twentieth century. This novel is a depiction of a day for the party of Clarissa Dalloway on a day in June, 1923, in London. Woolf depicted stream of consciousness of Clarissa and some characters with contiguous sentences such as flowing water. Therefore, it is very difficult for English learners to understand. I managed to read this with using the Japanese version together. This novel begins with "Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." The visit of Peter Walsh who is her old friend and has returned from India leads them to their youth. Once Walsh loved her and there was another friend, Sally. Clarissa learned sex and society from Sally who was her old girlfriend with homosexual feeling. Clarissa eventually refused Walsh's love and married the reliable Richard. Walsh despaired and went to India. ...

Aki visits Zao to show the starlit sky to her handicapped son, and she unexpectedly runs into her ex-husband on the gondola. She is surprised at his weary and haggard looking appearance. She is upset and they exchange only a few word briefly. Aki managed to find his address and writes a letter to him two months later. Their correspondence begins. Aki was the sole daughter of the father who is the owner of a big construction company. Aki and Yasuaki were classmates in college, and after graduation they married. Yasuaki was regarded as the successor of her father. A year later, Yasuaki got involved with the double suicide that a woman attempted at an inn in Kyoto. The woman died and he survived. The woman is Yukako who was his classmate in junior high school. After the incident, he was regarded as an unqualified successor and they divorced with little conversation with each other. Aki got married again but not happy. Her son was born with physical and mental handicap and her new ...

A couple months ago, I happened to watch a movie on TV. It was a very interesting movie, and I found out that the movie was "Iris". "Iris" was Iris Murdoch's biographical film, especially after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, based on the memoir by John Bayley, her husband. Iris Murdoch (1919-1990) is a novelist and philosopher, from Ireland. This novel, Under the Net , is Iris Murdock's first novel. The protagonist Jake is a novelist, but he hardly has his original works and is translating French novels for a living. He and his friend Finn who is like Jake's shadow are thrown out of his girlfriend's house when she becomes to get married. He is poor and becomes homeless. Since then he wanders about over London in search of a place to live. He visits his old friends, but it doesn't work well. Once Jake published "The Silencer" that was the philosophical dialogue with Hugo before without telling Hugo before and so Jake guilt...

Saturday is Ian McEwan's masterpiece published in 2005. On one Saturday, February, 2003, the protagonist Henry Perowne, an excellent neurosurgeon, wakes up uneasily at 4:00 in the morning and finds an airplane breathing fire, approaching Heathrow. This prologue is implying the eerie day. The huge anti-Iraq war demonstration is taking place on the day. Trying to avoid the crowds, Perowne has a minor accident with three blackguards. He notices that Baxter who is the leader of the blackguards contracted Huntington's disease and takes advantage of that in order to get through his danger. He hurt Baxter's pride. After playing squash with his colleague and visiting his demented mother, he goes shopping for dinner, and goes home. Daisy, his daughter, fights over Iraq war with her father. She is against the Iraq war and he is against the Saddam regime. His father-in-law comes to the family reunion. After that his son and his wife come home.  At that exact moment, Baxter ...

The author of this book is Bernhard Schlink and the original version was written in German. I read the English version. One day in post-war Germany, Michael, a fifteen-year-old boy, gets sick and on his way home he feels bad and is helped by a beautiful woman named Hanna. She is thirty five years old and is living alone. When he recovers from his hepatitis, he visits Hanna's apartment to thank her. After that they become lovers. His reading aloud to Hanna strangely becomes their routine after their love affair. One day she suddenly disappears. A few years later, he sees Hanna by chance. He is now a law student and goes to observe the court for the Nazi's war crime. Hanna is one of the defendants. She was attached to the Waffen SS and worked as a guard of the concentration camps. In the trial, she is considered as the responsible guard of a bloody incident, and she reluctantly accepts it. Because she wants to hide her secret. The sentence for her is a life in prison. I...

I'm getting old, so I'm at the age of being curious about the next world. I think that I won't live a long time anymore. I may need to prepare myself mentally and spiritually. But no one knows what goes on in Heaven. Mitch Albom, the author of this book, published some heartwarming books. The most famous book is " Tuesdays With Morrie ". Eddie is an 83-year-old maintenance man in an amusement park. He thinks he had a worthless life, nothing to be proud of. This story begins at the end. The author says, "But all endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time." On Eddie's 83rd birthday, an accident happens and Eddie dies trying to save a lonely eight-year-old girl. Eddie goes to the Heaven and soon meets five people one after another. The five people does not necessarily mean that they are all his family or good friends. There are some people whom he doesn't want to remember or doesn't remember, or doesn't know....

It doesn't mean that Akira Yoshimura's novels are popular in the USA, but I've heard that his 'Shipwrecks' and 'On Parole' are relatively known there. The author doesn't mention the time and setting of 'Shipwrecks', but I guess this story took place in a small, poor fishing village during the Edo era(17th-19th century) in northern Japan, probably Tohoku district. The village is isolated. The villagers have to go over the mountains, taking two days to go to neighboring villages. The small cultivated land is full of stones and they can only gather in a little millet. The women and children pick seaweed and gather shellfish from the reef. The men fish saury, sardines and octopus in small boats. To avoid starvation, they have to sell their daughters and wives, even heads of households into bondage. Isaku, a nine-year-old boy, takes over as head household to live with his mother, younger brother and sister after his father sold himself for thr...

In 1913, a four-year-old girl from London was sitting alone on a wharf in Maryborough, Australia. She had only a shiny white suitcase containing a fairy-tales book. Hugh, a port master, took her to his home and brought up with his wife, Lil, as their child. In 1975, Nell, the little girl, goes back to England to seek her real name and who she was. In 2005, after Nell died, Cassandra who is Nell's granddaughter inherits a decrepit little cottage at Cornwall in England. Cassandra takes over Nell's search and goes to England with some clues, the Authoress , fairy-tales, cliff cottage and Nell's notebook. The mystery is over three generations. This story frequently goes back and forth, in 1913, 1975, 2005 with suggestive fairy-tales, and the author tactfully lead you into the story. The author successfully depicted Eliza as a brilliant woman. On the other hand, all male characters are less impressive. In addition, Mountrachet family's story made me feel gloomy. Ho...