Navigating a Labyrinth

Is this reality, is this a dream, is this an hallucination? That's what I kept asking myself as I read Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. The protagonist/narrator Toru Okada, a mild-mannered underachiever living in a Tokyo suburb, somehow becomes involved in a series of a bizarre adventures. It begins with a missing cat, then a missing wife, then Okada is spending time at the bottom of a well or in a mysterious hotel room with a mysterious woman. There's a healer named Cinnamon with a mute son named Nutmeg, and a politician brother-in-law who may or may not be involved in the disappearance of Okada's wife.

Make sense? No, it really doesn't. But there was something compelling that kept me reading. Part of it was that my problem-solving self hoped that in the end all the pieces of this strange jigsaw puzzle would fit together. Spoiler alert – they don't. But part of it was that Murakami is a talented storyteller. Some of the best stories are told by characters who have little to do with the main plot – they arrive in Okada's life, tell their stories and leave. Some deal frankly with Japanese war crimes. Did I miss their connection to the narrative or was it just not there?

One disturbing fact that I learned after I had finished the book was that the English version of the novel was shortened by two chapters in order to meet the publisher's length requirements. It's yet another reminder that reading a translation always has its drawbacks. But reading a writer as talented as Haruki Murakami also has its rewards.

My Vote for the Man Booker Prize

The description of Cloud Atlas from fellow book group member Randy was so off-putting that I really hesitated; but the reviews of David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet were so favorable – and uniformly emphasized that it was a “traditional narrative” (my words) – that I decided to give Thousand Autumns a try. And I am so glad that I did. It is a fascinating book.

The location is exotic: a tiny man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki called Dejima. I wasn’t even sure that it was a real place but Wikipedia now informs me that it is. The events of the novel take place between 1799 and 1817 when Dejima, occupied by the Dutch, was the sole point of trade between Japan and the outside world. How little we know even now of the hidden Oriental world of that period. Jacob de Zoet is a Dutch clerk who has come to Dejima to make his fortune so that he can return to Holland to wed his beloved Anna. He is our eyes and ears in this place.

There are other memorable characters as well. Orito Aibagawa is a samurai midwife whose forced residence for a time in a Shinto convent shows us a life and belief system that strain credulity. Ogawa Uzaemonis is a translator who introduces us to the hierarchies of rank and jealousies among translators and the difficulties of navigating between these two languages. The island physician, Dr. Marinus, has brought his harpsichord to the island and wishes nothing more than to publish his taxonomy of Japanese flora; but meanwhile he serves up the rudimentary treatments available for gall stones, appendicitis and other maladies in the best way that Western medicine in this remote outpost has to offer.

The language is breath-taking. I wish I had the space to reproduce some of Mitchell’s better descriptions. One of the very best takes a page and a half (pgs 451-452) to describe "gulls wheeling through spokes of sunlight." It is eloquent testimony that “This world…contains just one masterpiece, and that is itself.” But this book is also a masterpiece.

To read an interview with David Mitchell, click here; and for profiles of Mitchell, click here and here.

No Memories

Yoko Ogawa is a Japanese author of more than 20 novels and works of non-fiction. Her second novel to be translated in English is “The Housekeeper and the Professor”, translated by Stephen Snyder. This is one of those special novels that is original in its plot and written with understated prose that can mesmerize the reader.

A single mother of a ten year old boy who works as a housekeeper is sent by her employer to work for a disabled professor of Mathematics. The professor had suffered a brain injury in a car accident that left him with only 80 minutes of short term memory and he can not remember anything that happened after 1975. He spends his days doing intricate math formulas which he enters into contests. He pins notes to the suit he wears everyday to remind him of what he needs to remember from day to day.

The story, narrated by the housekeeper, revolves around the poignant relationship that develops between the housekeeper, her son and the professor. The professor insists that the boy come to his house everyday after school and nick names him “Root“ because the boy’s head reminded him of the square root sign. But the housekeeper and her son must reintroduce themselves each day to the professor. Despite his memory problems the professor has retained his overwhelming love for numbers and elegant equations. He draws the housekeeper and her son into his beloved world of mathematics by teaching them how to solve equations. And the three discover their common love of baseball. The professor loves the averages and statistics that define the sport and both Root and the Professor love the national team, the “Tigers”.

This unique story is about memory, mathematics, baseball and love. There is an underlying theme throughout the novel asking whether one can truly love without memory. Yoko Ogawa is a writer who knows how to engage a reader with humor and clear, straight forward prose that calms and lures the reader into her world. Whether you are a lover of math or baseball doesn’t matter, Yoko Ogawa has woven these subjects into a beautifully touching story.