Those of you of a certain age and, probably, British, may remember a song by the Vapors called Turning Japanese, with the chorus I’m turning Japanese I think I’m turning Japanese I really think so. After having read twenty Japanese novels in a row, eaten several meals of sushi, drunk loads of miso soup and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Risa Wataya‘s 勝手にふるえてろ [Tremble All You Want]. This is the first-person story of the twenty-six year old Yoshika Etô, virgin, loner, and deeply in love with a young man she knew in high school but whom she has not seen for several years. Kirishima Ni, one of her … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Kaori Ekuni‘s きらきらひかる (Twinkle Twinkle). This is another quirky novel about a quirky relationship. In this case Shoko, an emotionally unstable woman, who is a borderline alcoholic, is married to Mutsuki, a homosexual. Both are aware of the other’s situation. However, Shoko had been advised to get married … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Hiromi Kawakami‘s 先生の鞄 (US: The Briefcase; UK: Strange Weather in Tokyo)/ This is the quirky tale of the relationship between a thirty-seven year old woman, Tsukiko, and her high school Japanese teacher, some thirty years her senior, whom she addresses as Sensei, the honorific term used by the … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fumio Niwa‘s 菩提樹 (The Buddha Tree). This is a long novel, set in a Buddhist temple, with a detailed description of the temple and its rituals (Niwa descended from a long line of priests and trained as a priest before abandoning the profession to become a writer). However, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Saiichi Maruya‘s 笹まくら (Grass for My Pillow). This is an excellent novel about a somewhat taboo subject in Japan: draft desertion. Shokichi Hamada is currently the assistant chief clerk in the registry office of a university. However, during the war, he decided not to serve and travelled around … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Yōko Ogawa‘s 博士の愛した数式 (The Housekeeper and the Professor). This is a delightful novel about a single mother, uneducated housekeeper, who goes to work for a professor of mathematics, who lost his memory in a car crash, so that he can only remember events before 1975 (seventeen years previously) … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Naoya Shiga‘s 暗夜行路 (A Dark Night’s Passing). This novel, written in the I-novel style, is a semi-autobiographical/confessional novel about Kensaku Tokito, a would-be novelist, who struggles to settle down, to find his place and to come to terms with his life and the world round him. His mother … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Fumiko Enchi‘s 女面 (Masks). This is a beautifully written book about masks (both real and figurative ones) as well as about various other topics but, in particular, love and betrayal and death. Mieko Toganō is a widow and a poet. She lives with her daughter-in-law, Yasuko, whose husband, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Shūsaku Endō‘s 沈黙 (Silence). This novel is set in the early seventeenth century, when Japan had forcibly clamped down on Christianity. The religion was forbidden and all practitioners, be they Japanese worshippers or European priests, had to apostatise or face brutal torture and death. The story tells of … Read more