Lit in the Time of War: Kawabata

Hello, and happy August! I have reviewed one book this week that I have been eager to read for a while. I have also provided a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support Ukrainians in need.

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata,
Translated by Lane Dunlop and J. Martin Holman

“Even if she was laughed at for her exaggerated carefulness—taking those 10 days to buy something that cost a mere forty sen—Yoshiko would not have been satisfied unless she had done so. She had never occasion to regret having bought something on the spur of the moment. It was not that the seventeen-year-old Yoshiko possessed such meticulous discrimination that she spent several days thinking about and looking at something before arriving at a decision. It was just that she had a vague dread of spending carelessly the silver fifty-sen pieces, which had sunk into her mind as an important treasure.”

This is a book of very short stories—they could actually be called flash fiction—written before flash fiction was even a thing. They’re called “Palm-of-the-Hand” stories because they’re so short they can fit onto your palm. An example of this kind of story by Kawabata is this story that I reviewed earlier (but which is unfortunately not included in this collection).

A lot of these stories had great insights into humanity. Each one felt like a little world. Some of them even encompassed entire generations in two or three pages (such as the two-paged “Faces”), and others felt like epics condensed into super-short forms (“Earth”).

Kawabata wrote these stories throughout his life, so you get to see his artistic development. His development didn’t seem like some authors’ developments, like Chekhov, Hemingway, or London, who started out writing awkward/sometimes-really-bad stories and then gradually got better as they continued writing.

Yes, some of Kawabata’s stories felt too subtle to understand, and a few others felt overly-crafted—they were so meticulously made that Kawabata’s intentional repetition of phrases actually drew attention to the artificialness of the story in question. Even so, there weren’t many like this. Kawabata must have already gotten all of his badly-written stories out before going on to publish his palm-of-the-hand stories.

So, instead of seeing how Kawabata developed from a not-good writer to a great writer, I was able to see how he returned to write new pieces about certain themes, ideas, and characters (he loved writing about old men walking alongside young girls, for instance).

One of the most fascinating stories of the collection was “Gleanings From Snow Country.” Kawabata worked on this story throughout his life and only published it right before he died. “Gleanings” is basically a 10-page version of Kawabata’s novel, Snow Country. Having read that book before this one, I was able to find aspects of the same plot, while also noticing how the two differed in their development. In “Gleanings,” Kawabata couldn’t fit in all the detail of his novel, and so some parts of the plot felt vaguely sketch-like. He still hit all the high-points of his novel (while only hinting at the end). Unfortunately though, while “Snow Country” had one of the best sentences I’ve ever read, “Gleanings” didn’t have room for it.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you have never read anything by Kawabata and want to get a taste of him before reading some of his other works. I would also recommend this collection if you are a fan of flash fiction, and if you’re a fan of terrific fiction in general.

Have you read any of Kawabata’s work? Let me know in the comments below!

Now, as promised, here is a list of organizations you can donate to in order to support people in Ukraine:

Global Giving—Provides basic necessities (food, shelter), psychosocial and health support, and economic assistance to Ukrainian refugees. Donate here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/ukraine-crisis-relief-fund/

Insight—Provides food, permanent shelter, and medicine/hormones to LGBTQI+ Ukrainian refugees. Donate here: https://www.insight-ukraine.org/en/join-donate/

Revived Soldiers Ukraine: Provides medical support to soldiers and civilians. Donate here: https://www.rsukraine.org/

Razom For Ukraine: Provides medical relief for soldiers and doctors on the front line. Donate here: https://razomforukraine.org/

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Lit in the Time of War: Sepetys, Miri, Grossman

Hello. I hope you are as well as can be hoped for. As the war in Ukraine continues, I’ve read three more books (one of them being the third and final part of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate). I’ve reviewed them here, as well as providing a list of ways you can support Ukraine at the end of this post.

Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys

She curled her finger toward me, beckoning me closer. ‘Want to know a big secret?’ she asked. ‘What’s that?’ She leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘Mama says the NKVD [Stalinist secret police] are going to Hell.’ She leaned back. ‘But you can’t tell anyone. It’s a secret, okay?’”

This book is about a Lithuanian girl named Lina who gets deported with her family to Siberia. It reminded me of Zuleikha, which I reviewed in the past, only this book was better.

Unlike that book, this book didn’t have contrived characters. Also, “Gray’s” characters were more compassionately portrayed. The author did a very good job of humanizing everyone, which added a lot of power to this book.

One thing I will say is that its beginning is a bit slow. Not in terms of action—the action gets started right away, but in terms of development (though this is likely just a subjective comment—it was still a wonderful book).

I’d recommend.

Tokyo Ueno Station, by Yu Miri, Translated by Morgan Giles

“If I can’t exist I can’t disappear either.”

This book is about a dead, grief-stricken man in Japan who reflects on the tragedies in his life, and how societal inequity caused him to become a ghost.

History and the present-day coexist in this book, from the American firebombing of Tokyo during WWII to the Fukushima nuclear disaster to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

I found this book important to read—it talks about a lot of significant events and displaced populations—but I didn’t find it to be that interesting. The protagonist just meandered around the whole time. Also, it reminded me a lot of Chingiz Aitmatov’s much-better The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, and I found myself wanting to re-read Aitmatov’s book instead of reading this one.

That’s not to say Yu Miri isn’t a good writer—she definitely is, and I think I’m going to wind up recommending her other books (I’m currently reading her Gold Rush and am enjoying it a lot!) It’s just that Tokyo Ueno Station didn’t do it for me personally.

Doesn’t mean the same will be true for you.

Life and Fate, Part Three, by Vasily Grossman,
Translated by Robert Chandler

“Somehow you could sense spring more vividly in this cool forest than on the sunlit plain. And there was a deeper sadness in this silence than in the silence of autumn. In it you could hear both a lament for the dead and the furious joy of life itself. It was still cold and dark, but soon the doors and shutters would be flung open. Soon the house would be filled with the tears and laughter of children, with the hurried steps of a loved woman and the measured gait of the master of the house. They stood there, holding their bags, in silence.”

(Part One, Part Two)

Here we are. The final part of Grossman’s epic 900-pager.

It was very good.

A physicist struggles to maintain his integrity in the face of Soviet terror, the battle of Stalingrad draws to a close, and some other guy randomly gets arrested for no reason he knows of.

Another name for this section of the book could have been “All the World’s a Prison,” because in it, we see that even those who are free are technically prisoners of the Stalinist state.

Something else: we previously saw Grossman going from being super-sexist to being more feminist. Now, we see him return to a middle position. One female character who had previously seemed to be very developed turns out just to have been developed that way for the sake of becoming a last-minute love-interest. Oh yeah, and did I mention the love-triangles? Yes, love-triangles. There are two of them in this section, which resolve rather boringly.

Two of the more interesting scenes in this section focused on Stalin and Hitler. They didn’t seem that realistic, though. Grossman apparently thought these dictators were, in their moments of weakness, capable of longing for their mothers (Hitler) and feeling overwhelming bouts of love for their daughters (Stalin).

Even so, Grossman was great at getting at his (other) characters’ psychologies. Rationalizations abound. So do subverted expectations and betrayals. Through it all, though, Grossman never loses compassion for the people he portrays, which is impressive.

Overall, this behemoth of a book was worth it. It made me think a lot about prisons, love-triangles, and the human condition.

As promised, here are some Ukrainian aid organizations you can donate to. Please do, especially in light of the news of the horrible massacre in Bucha:

Mercy Corps: Provides humanitarian aid and emergency cash assistance to refugees in Ukraine, Poland, and Romania. Donate here: https://www.mercycorps.org/

Direct Relief: Works with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to provide medical aid like emergency response packs and critical care medicine. Donate here: https://www.directrelief.org/place/ukraine/

International Relief Teams: Works to provide food, water, and shelter to refugees in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, and Poland. Donate here: https://www.irteams.org/

Human Rights Watch: Works to defend human rights in Ukraine. Donate here: https://donate.hrw.org/page/100202/donate/1

Lit in the Time of War: Radnóti, Aramaki, Grossman

Hello! I hope you are as well as can be expected. I’ve reviewed three more books, and have provided a list of more charities you can donate to in order to help Ukrainians in need.

Camp Notebook, by Miklós Radnóti,
Translated by Francis Jones

“I tumbled beside him, his body twisted and then,

like a snapped string, up it sprang again.

Neck shot. ‘This is how you’ll be going too,’

I whispered to myself, ‘just lie easy now.’

Patience is blossoming into death.

‘Der springt noch auf,’ rang out above me. Mud

Dried on my ear, mingled with blood.”

This book is really good. It contains poems written by Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti as he went about life in a Nazi death camp. The poem quoted above was the last one he ever wrote before being shot.

This is some of the best poetry I’ve read in a while.

I don’t know what else to say about this book. Basically that it’s very short, very profound, and that you should definitely read it.

The Sacred Era, by Yoshio Aramaki,
Translated by Baryon Tensor Posadas

“Finally, K understands everything. Human consciousness is akin to the surface of a mirror. The surface does not in itself exist. All the mirror can do, all that defines a mirror, is its capacity to reflect back the object before it [….] Is this what we call God? Is God this cosmic consciousness this totality, this pure consciousness of all the cosmos? If God is the surface of a cosmic mirror, then insofar as God is pure, there can be no awareness of himself as God.”

This book is interesting. It’s about a guy named K (no, not the same K from Kafka’s The Trial). He takes a test called the Sacred Examination, passes it, and is assigned to work on secret research on the planet Bosch (yes, named after Hieronymus).

Interdimensional hijinks ensue. There’s a renegade named Darko Dachilko who’s supposedly been executed hundreds of years ago, but whose ghost (and dismembered limbs) still lurk around, ready to kill unsuspecting people. There’s also intergalactic travel. There’s basically everything.

The only thing that weakens this book is its underdeveloped female characters. Considering that the book basically revolves around the male characters reuniting with female characters, it’s a wasted opportunity for character development when female characters are given no substance other than the fact that they’re there to make out with the male characters.

In any case I would recommend this book.

Life and Fate, Part 2, by Vasily Grossman,
Translated by Robert Chandler

“His train of thought was quite simple, though not so easy for an outsider to follow. Several things had come together: memories of his past; the fate of Tolya and Anna Semyonovna; the war; the fact that, however rich and famous a man may be, he will still grow old, die, and yield his place to the young; that perhaps nothing matters except to live one’s life honestly.”

(See Part 1 Here).

In Part 2 of Life and Fate, Viktor Pavlovich has made a huge scientific breakthrough that makes him eligible for the Stalin Prize, but his rivals don’t like him and they want to win the Stalin Prize themselves, so they start a smear campaign against him. Will he stand up for himself? Or will he give way to lies to preserve his reputation? Read this section to find out.

A lot of other things happen in this section, including better-developed female characters. Granted they still all revolve around men, but at least now they also get to have some philosophical insights, which is more realistic.

One thing that Grossman is really good at is making these surprising, but honest and logical observations about people. He’s like Tolstoy in that way (Character A feels happy to survive XYZ but then feels guilty about feeling happy, or feels angry at himself for being happy, etc.)

Considering the fact that if you read 300 pages of this book a week (a section per week), you can get through it in about three weeks (it’s 900 pages). Considering what you get for your troubles (and considering the increasingly-well developed female characters), I would recommend.

As promised, here’s a list of charities supporting Ukrainians. Please donate if you can.

World Food Program: Gives cash and food to 3 million+ Ukrainians. Donate here: https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/ukraine-emergency

Lifesong for Orphans: Works with Ukrainian orphanages to empower children, encourages adoption efforts. Donate here: https://lifesong.org/ukraine-relief/

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee: Gives food packages, online support to Ukrainians sheltering in place, and transport/accommodation assistance to refugees. Donate here: https://www.jdc.org/

Heart to Heart International: Distributes medical supplies to Ukrainians in need. Donate here: https://www.hearttoheart.org/

Americares: Gives medical and food aid to Ukrainian families in Poland and Romania. Donate here: https://www.americares.org/

Lit in the Time of Coronavirus: Smith, Abe, and Lukyanenko

Hello! I hope you are healthy and safe. I’ve read three more books this week:

Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith, Read by Henry Strozier

“Arkady [a prisoner of Pribluda] got to his feet and stretched. ‘Want to get back to your seeds, Major?’ […] ‘you know I do.’ ‘Say you’re human.’ ‘What?’ ‘We’ll go back,’ Arkady said. ‘All you have to do is say you’re human.’ ‘I don’t have to do anything. What kind of game is this? You’re so crazy Renko it makes me sick.’ ‘It shouldn’t be so hard to say you’re human.’ Pribluda walked in a tight circle as if screwing himself into the ground. ‘You know I am.’ ‘Say it.’ ‘I’ll kill you for this! For this alone,’ Pribluda promised. ‘To get it over with,’ his voice fell to a monotone. ‘I’m human.’ ‘Very good. Now we can go.’ Arkady started toward the house.”

Gorky Park is about Moscow’s Chief Inspector, a guy named Arkady Renko. He’s called in to investigate the death of three people in a Moscow park. Along the way, he gets embroiled in international intrigue, falls in love, and almost dies. Will he actually survive? Will he sell himself out to corruption?  Read the book and find out.

This book was very entertaining. Arkady Renko was a very astute inspector who always came up with these precise theories. I was always left wondering how he figured them out. Not that it was illogical, just that it was impressive. There was good action, there was good adventure, there was good (slow-burning) romance, and there were a lot of twists that sometimes felt like they came out of nowhere (How did Arkady figure them out again?)

What was also impressive was that Arkady became a three-dimensional character. He started out very two-dimensional (“Gotta solve the mystery! Oh no, my wife’s cheating on me! But gotta solve the mystery!”) He spent about half the book being two-dimensional, but then in the second half he developed.

The narrator was also very good (though he kept mispronouncing Arkady’s name which, as a Russian learner, was hilarious). Still, he brought a lot of emotion and life to this story, so kudos to him.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you were looking for something entertaining to read. It doesn’t really have philosophical depth, but it’s interesting anyway.

The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe,
Translated by E. Dale Saunders

“Someday he would tell her the story of the guard who protected the imaginary castle. There was a castle. No. It wasn’t necessarily a castle, it could be anything: a factory, a bank, a gambling house [….] Now the guard, always prepared for the enemy attack, never failed in his vigilance. One day the long-expected enemy finally came. This was the moment, and he rang the alarm signal. Strangely enough, however, there was no response from the troops. Needless to say, the enemy easily overpowered the guard in one fell swoop [….] No, it was the castle, not the enemy, that was really like the wind. The single guard, like a withered tree in the wilderness, had stud guarding an illusion.”

In this book, a man goes missing. He basically gets captured and put into a hole where he has to dig sand with a woman, because for some reason if he and the woman stop digging sand, the village above them will get crushed by the sand. That makes absolutely no sense, but let’s just pretend it does.

Moving on, we get a philosophical exploration of sand, water, escape, imprisonment, meaning, and delusion.

It’s entertaining and I’m sure it will provoke thought. However, I found it wasn’t really that interesting–I felt like I knew what was going to happen at the end before it actually did happen, so when the end came, it wasn’t as surprising as the author seemed to want it to be. Maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of books. Maybe it’s because it felt like the author was just trying to manipulate his characters to achieve this outcome without it organically coming from the characters themselves. Maybe it’s just me.

This book is one of the most celebrated books in Japan, so I’d still recommend reading it. I’m just not sure if it’ll be the best book you will ever read (though I could be wrong, since lit is very subjective!)

Night Watch, by Sergei Lukyanenko,
Translated by Andrew Bromfield

“I’ve seen all of you. Road sweepers and presidents, robbers and cops. Seen mothers killing their children [….] Seen sons throwing their mothers out of the house and daughters putting arsenic in their fathers’ food. Seen a husband smiling as he sees the guest out and closes the door, then punches his pregnant wife in the face. Seen a smiling wife send her drunken husband out for another bottle and turn to his best friend for a passionate embrace. It’s very simple to see all this. All you have to do is look. That’s why they teach us not to look before they teach us to look through the Twilight. But we still look anyway.”

This book is about a guy named Anton Gorodetsky. He’s a member of the Night Watch, a group of people assigned to preserve good in the world. Fortunately it’s more complicated than that. Night Watch members can’t go around doing good indiscriminately, because they have a treaty with the Day Watch (the powers of evil), that if they start doing good, the Day Watch can start doing evil back. This treaty leads to morally-questionable acts by Night Watch members in the name of good. Are you actually good just because you call yourself good? Do the ends justify the means? Do the means justify the ends?

And here we have Anton, who is questioning the ethics of the Night Watch while trying to avoid getting killed, while trying to find out about a powerful woman who could save them all. It makes for good reading.

The back cover describes it as being, “Like Tolkien getting mugged in a Moscow back alley by John Le Carré,” but I’d describe it as, “like Tolkien getting mugged in a Moscow back alley by John Le Carré and Dostoyevsky’s ghost.”

Because, unlike Gorky Park, Night Watch incorporated philosophy. It was also well-paced philosophy (unlike Dostoyevsky). And unlike in The Woman in the Dunes, the philosophy and the story felt fresh.

So if you’re looking for something that is both entertaining and philosophical, I’d recommend Night Watch.

Until next week!

Lit in the Time of Coronavirus: Chekhov, Nye, and Kawabata

Hello! Happy August. I hope you’re well. I’ve read three books (again). One’s of short stories, one’s of poems, and one’s a novel…

Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, by Anton Chekov,
Translated by Constance Garnett

“The town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that was really annoying.”

So here we are with more Chekhov. This book had a lot of stories I already read, and a few new ones.

In reading the new stories (including “Rothschild’s Fiddle,” “The Grasshopper,” “Easter Eve,” “The Dependents”, and “In the Ravine”), it was interesting to see their varying quality. “Easter Eve” felt like a better story than “The Grasshopper,” for instance, even though “The Grasshopper” was written much later.

The (super-subjective) reason: in some of his stories Chekhov came to rely too much on theme for an effect at the expense of his characters. “Easter Eve” was just a story about a man grieving his friend’s death. “The Grasshopper” was trying to get across a moral about women who have affairs. That made the characters less realistic, which somehow made the story less enjoyable.

With this in mind, it’s interesting to contrast “Ward No. 6” with “The Lady With The Dog.” In “Ward,” Chekhov prioritized his theme. “Lady” had more of a focus on characters. While both stories were obviously very good, “Ward” felt to me like a less well-written version of “Lady.” There was the sense that “Ward’s” characters were thinking and acting like they did because Chekhov needed for them to act that way to illustrate his theme, and not because that was how they actually would have reacted given their circumstances. Meanwhile “Lady” had a theme, but the characters didn’t act contrivedly–when they thought about the theme, they were doing so in reaction to something that could have logically made them react that way.

In any case, Chekhov’s still a great writer. Anything I say about him is going to be subjective, and I’d still definitely recommend this book.

Voices in the Wind: Poems for Listeners, by Naomi Shihab Nye

“If this is the best you can do, citizens of the world,
I resolve to become summer shadow,
turtle adrift in a pool.”

This is a book of poems written in 2018. They were interesting to read, especially after having read a lot of books from the 1800s and 1900s. It also showed how even references to 2018-era events could become dated or unintentionally ironic in the face of 2021-era events.

The poems themselves were good, though. I have a feeling they’d be even better on audiobook. They were humorous and sometimes poignant. I liked how Nye told stories in some of her poems. They felt like anecdotes in poem-form, which meant they usually left me with something to think about.

Even so, sometimes it would feel like one of the poems was gearing up to leave the reader with a very interesting idea to contemplate, only to end with a line about how the poem was talking about something in a museum. I haven’t read as much poetry as I have read prose, but this seemed to me like it limited the poem’s scope.

In any case, I still enjoyed this collection, and if you’re looking for something to think about, you might enjoy it as well.

Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata,
Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker

“As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar.”

The book is about an affair between a man named Shimamura and a geisha named Komako. Also, out of the two best sentences I’ve ever read, this book has one of them (included above for your enjoyment. If you’re curious about the second sentence, see here).

Anyway. Snow Country‘s plot was nonexistent, and early on I almost gave up reading it because it felt boring. Thankfully, the second half of the book was much more interesting (even if it didn’t really have a plot, either).

I’ll explain by contrasting this book with Jhumpa Lahiri’s Whereabouts. Both were plotless, but while the clichés and shallow-seeming characters in Lahiri’s book didn’t make up for that (in my subjective opinion), Snow Country had a lot of interesting language (see that great sentence) and characterization.

Here’s what I mean about characterization: early on, I wasn’t sure exactly why Character X kept acting a certain way. As the book went on, Kawabata was able to gradually convey the reason. Not only did this make the character very interesting, it also made the book feel more engaging, since the character’s behavior gave new significance to the overall story.

So, if you’re someone who likes poetic language, interesting characterization, and a book where nothing happens (but is actually not boring to read), this is for you.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think? Comment below!

Lit in the Time of Coronavirus: Chekhov and Kawabata

Hi! I hope you’re all healthy and safe, and are getting vaccinated if you are able. I’ve been writing papers and studying for finals, so I haven’t had much time to read, but I did have time for one entertaining story and one beautiful one:

“Kashtanka,” by Anton Chekhov

“When it got quite dark, Kashtanka was overcome by despair and horror. She huddled up in an entrance and began whining piteously. The long day’s journeying with Luka Alexandritch had exhausted her, her ears and her paws were freezing, and, what was more, she was terribly hungry. Only twice in the whole day had she tasted a morsel: she had eaten a little paste at the bookbinder’s, and in one of the taverns she had found a sausage skin on the floor, near the counter — that was all. If she had been a human being she would have certainly thought: ‘No, it is impossible to live like this! I must shoot myself!’ [….] But she thought of nothing, she simply whined.”

This story is about a dog named Kashtanka who gets separated from her master and wanders around the streets. She eventually gets taken in by a mysterious stranger who turns out to be a circus-master. Thus begins her career in the circus.

The story was fun to read. It has around 10 chapters, but each chapter was rather short. Their titles were funny, too.

It was also interesting to see Chekhov think that dogs could see in color (even though they’re color-blind), so I kept being put off by that small detail. The end (not spoiling anything here) also felt a bit too convenient, like there wasn’t enough of a struggle to deserve it.

Even so, if you’re sort of stressed from writing papers and studying for final exams, this would be a terrific story to read on your break!

“The Pomegranate,” by Kawabata Yasunari

“‘Kimiko, Kimiko!’ her mother called. ‘Keikichi is here.’ Kimiko had let her needle come unthreaded. She pushed it back into the pincushion. ‘Kimiko had been saying how she wanted to see you again before you leave.’ Keikichi was going to war. ‘But we could hardly go and see you without an invitation, and you didn’t come. It was good of you to come today.’ She asked him to stay for lunch, but he was in a hurry. ‘Well, do at least have a pomegranate. We grew it ourselves.’ She called up to Kimiko again. He greeted her with his eyes, as if it were more than he could do to wait for her to come down. She stopped on the stairs. Something warm seemed to come into his eyes, and the pomegranate fell from his hand.”

“The Pomegranate” is about a girl named Kimiko who picks a pomegranate. There’s a lot more to the story than that (as you can kind of see from the excerpt) but telling you any more will spoil things.

Just read it instead. It literally takes less than a minute and will be super-worth it. Kawabata also won the Nobel Prize, if that helps convince you.

Moral of the story: Just go and read it already 🙂